I didn't argue the price. In the odd way of the world, the shooting in Philadelphia had left me with both damage and opportunity.

For ten days after my shooting on Chestnut Street I'd been silent, unable to get words through my swollen throat. Then I faked my inability to speak for another week.

The media stir that buzzed with the deaths of two boys quickly moved on to the next video disaster they could spin up onto the six o'clock news. Officers I worked with or had been friendly with called me to see how I was and to say that the shooting was clean. Once the crime scene and shoot team guys had documented that the first kid's gun had been fired, and Casamir's recollection of the events didn't waver, they quickly closed the investigation.

I still had to sit through the playing of the inside surveillance tape and watch as the second kid leaped out of the store and disappeared from the camera frame. Only I had seen him catch my bullet. Everyone else only looked at the aftermath and called it a justified use of force, a clean shooting. But it was my shooting.

After seeing the obligatory shrinks and counselors and department managers, the most valuable appointment I had was with the human resources wonk who recited my options, which included a large lump sum disability payment if I should decide to quit.

My uncle Keith, a cop along with my father for more than twenty-five years, blew a slow whistling breath through his teeth at the number of zeros in the payout.

I took the check and tried to wash out the memory. In the mornings I ran for hours along the uneven concrete of Front Street in the river breeze off the Delaware. In the afternoons I shot baskets alone at Jefferson Square playground or hung at Frankie O'Hara's gym and took my turns getting pummeled by local fighters. At night I walked, streetlight to streetlight, sometimes looking up to find I'd gone miles without realizing it, having to concentrate on a corner street sign for several seconds to determine where I'd wandered to.