He limps away from the cop cars lined side by side next to each other, headlights blazing at him. He walks across their path as if he were traversing a shooting gallery. He limps at an angle, away from them, slowly wavering.
“Drop the weapon!”
The weapon is a shiny object sticking out of the left sleeve of his jacket. From their positions, the cops can see the pointy tip and shine of whatever it is in the car lights.
It’s a Phillips screwdriver with most of it concealed in his sleeve.
“Drop the weapon!”
Who are they kidding? He’s a dead man walking. He died when they kicked the shit out of him two blocks away; they dressed him for burial when they beat him with clubs and broke some ribs after stopping to question him.
“Routine,” they said. “Just routine.”
He managed to squirm away, and now here he is, walking to his grave. This is not a movie where heroic cops are sharpshooters and do it all by the book. These are pack animals that pounce in a whirlwind of overkill.
In this reality, cops are trigger-happy, chickenshit cowards.
Nothing new, he thought. Something you get used to early on.
Momma said there’d be days like this.
They can’t see his appearance because he’s covered with a hoodie. It’s freezing cold and his arms are well concealed in his coat sleeves.
When he woke up this morning, he knew something wasn’t right. He knew something was waiting for him. Something undefined. Isn’t that the way it is? Can’t shake it.
Wake to a humbug...die to a humbug.
Before this thing is over he would end up with forty bullets in his sad carcass.
It’s just one big hairy humbug.