“How’s it goin’ tonight?” Asked the
officer in the passenger side of the vehicle; his tone was half-excitable and
half-patronizing, knowing exactly how my night was going since they pulled up
on the side of me. The cops in this city usually have a lot to contend with
because there is a lot of crime going on, but on the rare slow nights they look
for trouble before it starts. In other words, they harass the general populace
when out of real crime to thwart.
“Have you been drinking this evening,
sir?” The officer’s lips curled into a fake smile as he readied his flashlight
to shine into my retinas. His partner hung back by the car with one hand on the
door and the other at his waist, glaring intently as if to assume the absolute
worst-case scenario was going to occur any moment.
“Yeah, I’ve been drinking. Decided I
should walk it off instead of taking my chances behind the wheel.”
“It’s dangerous out here alone,
especially in a dark alleyway. What are you doing in there anyway?” He readied
his weapon as he neared me, coiling and uncoiling his fingertips next to the
handle of his state-issued pistol like a snake preparing to strike its prey.
“Are you carrying any weapons or illegal drugs?”
“No weapons or illegal drugs. I usually
save those for special occasions.” I inched my hands above my head and
interlocked them, surrendering all rights for a moment of oppressive force in
the hopes to end it quickly. My only intention was to sate the egos of the
overly-authoritative officers.
“Looks like he’s done this before,” His
partner shouted from the police cruiser’s door. They share a chuckle as if they
were making a huge drug bust on a kingpin dealer instead of harassing a drunk.
The cop circled behind my back and gripped my wrists with the force of a vice.
He then leaned into to my ear, his voice dripping with malicious intent as he
hissed into my ear canal.
“You should have resisted. It would have
been more fun that way.” He tore my arms down and nearly out of their sockets
as he ratcheted the handcuffs onto my wrists, the icy steel slicing into my
flesh. He gave me a hard shove, which was enough to send me sprawling onto the
concrete. I apparently lost my footing on some black ice, and my inebriated
state did not help my stability whatsoever. There was a loud thwack when my
face kissed the pavement, and I could feel the warmth of the blood as it
spilled out of my mouth. I was only beginning to recover from the wind being
knocked out of me before the officer that pushed me down gingerly walked over
to my fallen body and kicked me in my ribs. If I was sober, I might have felt
the bone crack inside of my ribcage, but as I was it was just the sensation of
extreme pain throbbing through the right side of my body.
“This is why drunks shouldn’t walk
alone. They can fall down and hurt themselves, isn’t that right, Stanley
Miller?” He yanked me up as if he didn’t just boot me in the abdomen or shove
me face first into the concrete, and pulled me towards the squad car. After all
he had done so far, apparently he hadn’t had enough abuse to satisfy his lust
for violence. He forcefully bounced my head against the fiberglass hood and my
skull bounded back up like a basketball. “Filth like you in my city makes me
sick. I should do the world a favor and blow your head clean off your
shoulders.” His bones crackled and popped at the prospect of murder, as if they
played some sinister tune as his hand slithered down to his gun holster.
Disorientation begins to settle in, and my head start swimming in the alcohol
and the blunt-force trauma. He kicks me down to my knees with minimal effort,
capitalizing on my weakened stake with predatorily precision. As I feel the
metal pressed against the back of my neck, it was surprisingly warm to the
touch. It was not the first time he fired this gun tonight nor would it be the
last it seemed, as the skin on my neck contoured to the shape of the searing
barrel. Around us the snow slowed to a feathery float, while his synapses
flared with lethal intention as his finger slid inside the trigger. I was
almost at the acceptance of my fate, when it interjected and made it intentions
known.
