By: Daiyu Tang
A Knock
When Corporal Koh Gausman walked into the Observer office, boots heavy, posture ramrod straight, and that scarred face set in stone, it was clear this wasn’t going to be a soft feature about community policing. You know those kind of features, the ones that make you want to scream ‘Hathian isn’t like that!’. No my dears, this wasn’t someone here to spin fairy tales about coffee with old ladies or saving kittens from trees. Nor did he expect me, as far as I could tell, to pitch his story one way or the other.
“Secrets?” he smirked at me. “I have no interest in sharing secrets. What I offer is an in-depth look into myself. Nothing more.“
And so, Hathian, here it is… The story of a Marine-turned-cop who claims he’s not a good man, maybe not even a welcome one, but insists he’s exactly the kind of monster this city needs.
Profile: Who Is Koh Gausman?
Here’s a few quick facts that Gausman choose to share with me, or that I researched out of my network.
Background: Former U.S. Marine, served in Operation Desert Storm, later a civilian contractor in Iraq.
Arrival in Hathian: Bought a one-way bus ticket after returning stateside; chose the first destination on the list. (Yes, there’s trauma behind that choice that many wouldn’t understand)
HPD Career: Rose through the ranks, now a Corporal. Known for his military bearing, firearms expertise, and bruising street presence. Remember when he threw me from a potential IED? That was a display of all the above at once. Or at least I was certainly bruised… but alive. That bit’s important!
Personal Life: Once married to Lizette Calhern, now remarried to Officer Lilura Gausman. Father to a young son and daughter.
Scars & Survival: Kidnapped and mutilated by the Rejects gang; blinded in one eye. Has survived multiple serious injuries on duty. We’ve covered a few of these in the Observer.
Oh and just to round it off, one of our journalists, Aithne, calls him her personal nemesis!
The Soldier Without A Home
“I realized I had spent much of my adult life overseas,” Koh explained, voice flat but unwavering. “When the contracts dried up, I really had no home to come to. My family disowned me for not following their path into policing back in Savannah. So I just got on a bus. Hathian was the first stop.“
Lucky us right? But that is the point of the article reader. Many of you will go ‘hah. HPD sucks’ and just see what I wrote as sarcasm. But some of you, maybe those this story connects with will go ‘Yeah, yeah we are’.
His worldview hasn’t softened since. “Instead of fighting insurgents, we’re fighting gangs. You remove one crook, another takes their place. Sometimes force is needed. Sometimes they’ve got more firepower than the HPD.”
When I asked if comparing Hathian’s streets to Baghdad was really wise, his response was immediate:
“Us and them? Absolutely. The HPD is like the Marines. You protect your family. Even when one of the family strays.” Comforting thought, knowing I’m one bad hair day away from being insurgent #47…
That’s the heart of Koh’s approach: citizens are suspects until proven otherwise. “Public opinion matters little to a guy like me,” he said. “People cry brutality when it’s the crook getting hurt. But when they’re the victim? They want us there in seconds.“
It’s not pretty. But it’s honest. It’s also very Hathian. We’ve talked about families before. If you’ve not read this piece, by a Gang Member (Rejects no less) than you should. What a similarity in some ways. Is that old motto ‘The Blue Gang’ true? Or is Koh telling the truth, and actually dispelling some of the outsized narrative and exaggerations thrown at all the cops (even if it’s just some of them who are the problem)?
Image Is Everything Including The Scars That Stay
So why step into my office? Why grant an interview at all?
One word: “Image“.
Koh, in my view, wants Hathian to see him for who he is, not just the scarred shadow in the background of news photos. “When I first put on the uniform, I thought it would bring respect. It doesn’t. You have to earn it. So I put in 70 to 80 hours a week, making myself known. I got promoted. I’ve calmed down since, but the dedication remains.“
Then, almost without missing a beat, he added: “For every criminal I take off the streets, another fills the void.” I thought it was a sad reflection of the tragedy of Hathian, facilitated by the Mayor and carved up by the streets. For every good deed goes generally unrewarded and every bad deed grows the reputation of this place such that more come to try their luck. Hathian. Shit. You’re a magnet for all of us taking that bus ride to nowhere. Hell, I even see it in myself dear reader, I just flew in instead. I too stayed…
He pointed to his ruined eye, staring at me through it and blunt as always intoned: “You come to terms or you die. It’s that simple.”
Koh admits PTSD nearly ended his career. “I wasn’t finding the support I needed from fellow officers. Then Calhern stepped up. For a time, that partnership became marriage. Now, it’s a different history, different marriage, but the scars remain, mental as much as physical.”
I attended that wedding, it was lovely, set in Autumn and with a community to it that went without violence, just for a few hours.
“I’m older, wiser. Not the man I was my first day. I’ve gotten my hands dirty, bloodied. But I’m not ashamed. In order to fight the monsters out there, you have to become one.”
Koh
That line hung in the office air. It was the most brutal kind of honesty, and perhaps the most Hathian. Perhaps dear reader, it was also the HPD’s money shot? Hathian’s recruitment slogan writing itself. ‘In order to fight the monsters, you have to become one…’ fuck.
The Rumours & Reputation
I pressed him… Doesn’t he want to clear the record? Doesn’t he want to deny the whispers? Deny the worst things that equate him with the worst of the worst? I know some officers I’d not want to meet in nearly any setting. Koh isn’t among those, but even I hear rumours of him being violent from time to time.
His answer was steel.
“Some will call me a rapist. Some will call me brutal. Most will think I’m a monster unfit for the uniform. Very few will see me as a hero. I don’t care what your readers think. In the end, if they commit a crime and I respond, they’ll see the strong arm of justice. That’s not a threat. That’s a promise.”
The guilty bark the loudest. That’s what he is saying, do you agree?
Mortality Rising
And yet, just before he left, something cracked through the armour.
“One day, I will cease to be. I don’t have to care about opinions to want to be remembered. Despite the city wanting to see me fail, I still have those who care. I may be nothing but a faded memory on some aging paper, but there will at least be something left when I’ve long perished.”
For once, I couldn’t fire back with snark or sass. In a city of contradictions, here was another: the monster who still wants to be remembered as more than fear. The monster who came to me to bare all but actually bore himself well. The ‘monster’ who opened up wounds; his own. The ‘monster‘… man who is just another Hathianite?
Contradictions, Contempt… Conclusion
Hathian breeds contradictions. Koh Gausman embodies them. Marine and monster, husband and scarred survivor, both protector and feared enforcer. He doesn’t care what you think, but he sat down in my office anyway, perhaps because even the hardest men want their story told. I, personally want more than my faded newspaper to remember me by when I’m gone, but perhaps, in the humility of suggesting only that, he’s more man than monster for a fleeting moment.
The question now isn’t whether you like him. It’s whether, when the fire starts or the knives come out, you’d rather he was on your side or theirs?
Daiyu Tang, The Girl Behind the Lens
