'God's Economy' by Lynne Voyce

It’s a rainy city, so rainy the ground is unstable.  I’ve watched the downpours every April, then the clean up every May. Today is April Fools and even the TV news is blurred with rain.  I recognise the man on screen: Leon Hendry. I taught him in sixth grade. He stands solitary in the Walmart car park, delineated in the headlights, arms outstretched in surrender.   He has nowhere to run. The rainy pavements and dangerously soft soil of the hills are beyond the police cordons.  In the nebulous blue of the police lights, I can see the gleaming barrels of rifles trained on him. Leon drops his gun.  But before the pistol hits the concrete, he’s down. Bang. Dead.  Twenty two – he was only twenty two.

A yellow ribbon scrolls beneath the images: ‘live police stand-off’, ‘fatal shooting’, ‘known felon’.  And now his history is written: he was troubled; he was bad.

Leon was there at the first shooting. ..

Of course, it was raining. That thunder storm was the denouement of a week-long deluge. The only other time the city has been so damaged is during last year’s riots, after which Leon had to go on the run.  But I remember him as an amiable child.  Though, he had a disconcerting habit of hanging around at the end of the day, until I had to tell him to go home. 

That wet Wednesday, fifteen years ago, Leon and the rest of class were cross-legged on the matt when the Headmaster appeared:  “Lock the doors and windows, stay inside!  There has been a zoo escape! “

The wet conditions had caused a landslide to the west, and the hillside zoo - enclosures and all – had been destroyed in minutes.  Many animals perished, but others had made a bid for freedom.

I remember, Leon had stood, while his classmates sat quiescent.  He pointed out of the window, eyes wide, mouth open in wonder.  “It’s beautiful,” Leon had said, running to the window, pressing his hands and face to the glass. By the climbing frame, gleaming tangerine and sable, was a tiger, paws in the puddles, amber eyes fixed on us. 

“No, no,” I’d said, “step back.  Tigers are very dangerous.”

But Leon hadn’t listened, hypnotised by the enchanted beast in the playground, its fur gleaming wet in the rain.

Then I saw them: snipers dotted along the school fence, sights trained on the tiger as it prowled.  It turned, saw its company and began to run, the puddles splashing up, like sea spray.
   
“Wow! Wow!” Leon had shouted, still pinned to the glass.

I heard the unmistakable sound of a gunshot; it would have been too risky to use a slow-acting tranquilizer.  The tiger went down.  Bang.  Dead. 

From the stunned silence of thirty children, rose a single cry.  “No!” Leon wailed in agony, “They didn’t have to kill him!”