I went to Manteo earlier today to pick up a bookcase for my wife. I was going to do it last week, but a hurricane interrupted the plan. Little did I know that slight alteration would change my world forever, but not in the usual way a hurricane would. My friend Richie went along to help me with the heavy lifting. After finishing the job, I dropped Richie off at his house and continued on homeward. As I was pulling out of Collington Harbor I received some very sad news about a family member. Fighting back tears, I took a deep breath and turned up the low-fi. The old Ford may be weather beaten, ugly, and unsafe at any speed, but the sound system is ample, so I cranked up some thunderous dub, King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown, and pulled out.
In need of fuel, I pulled into some the little shit can gas station right around the corner, followed closely by a Kill Devil Hills cop. As I pulled up to the pump and shut her off, he pulled up beside me. “Turn it back up.” he said smiling, which was slightly confusing, so I turned it back on. “What is that?” he asked, “and may I see your license and registration”, still acting somewhat normally. I produced what he asked for, and showed him the cover to the disc, to which he replied “Well Mister Butler, can I have this?” Sort of smiling, I said, “Well sir, I can’t let you have it, but if you have a pen and paper, feel free to write down the title, and I’m sure you can find it pretty cheap on line.” Almost before I got that out, he drew his weapon and smashed my drivers’ side view mirror. Not thinking, I quickly said “what the FUCK man?” as his next move sent the fisted handle of his gun across my jaw with a loud crack. “I don’t give a shit about your jungle music boy” he snarled, “and nobody around here wants to hear you blaring that shit either, don’t you have any respect for people?” he continued, more angrily now. Not knowing what else to do, I just sat there, silent, jaw throbbing, and I could taste blood. I was pissed, but he had a gun. “Cat got your tongue now smartass?” he said smiling. “No sir” I replied, slurring now, swelling. He dropped the cd cover on the asphalt and smashed it with his boot before walking back to his cruiser, looking over his shoulder briefly and finished with “I don’t guess you’ll be around here blaring that shit anymore, will you?” This seemed like a rhetorical question, so I sat, still, and silent. As he began to enter his vehicle, I got out with my phone to take a quick snapshot of his car; surely this asshole was going to pay. He saw me in action and quickly returned. As I slipped the phone back into my jacket pocket he got right up in my face, pressing me against the Ford like a High School senior trying to steal a kiss from a freshman. Almost doubled over backward, I watched his lips move as his teeth gritted. I could smell Marlboro and onions as he said quietly, closely “I thought we had an understanding boy” before doubling me over with a knee to my groin. I slumped back in the Ford, still in shock, and watched him drive away.
In need of medical attention, I started for the hospital. As I got up the road a few miles, approaching the light it dawned on me. I have a picture of his car, fuck him! I could turn right and head to Nags Head and the ER, or I could go left, to the KDH cop shop and report it. I chose left. I pulled in, and walked in the front door. My mouth was slowly filling with blood and I was continually spitting it out. Barely able to talk, I approached the officer on duty at the front desk. Apparently my assailant had already radioed his buddies at the station to brag about the white dread whose ass he’d just kicked. Not knowing this, I fumbled for my phone, as I tried to talk, painfully. I couldn’t move my mouth. Everything was all slurred. The magnitude of the situation became increasingly evident as the pig on the desk said “well, what do we have here? –what’s that you say boy? I can’t understand you, what are you drunk, high? You know this ain’t the soup kitchen boy.” He continued. About that time, another storm trooper appeared from the back, and they began to round the counter which divided us. Hell no, I thought, not again.
Now I am no bad ass by any stretch of the word, but I am clinically insane and sitting on a powder keg of memories of ass kicking’s from many years ago. I have also taken a few self defense courses. As they approached cuffs in hand, I knew what was happening. I slumped to the ground, feigning pain, faintness. One of them started to reach for my collar and I jumped up fast, ramming the top of my head into his chin, sending him down onto the floor. At the same moment, the first one from the desk reached for his weapon as I was reaching for it as well. This man was big, but fat, slower to move than the street boys, and a struggle for the Glock ensued. I managed to get off one shot into his thigh, which put him down. I screamed at him “ROLL OVER ON YOUR GOD DAMNED STOMACH, NOW!” and he did. “NOW, CUFF YOURSELF, HANDS BEHIND, YOU KNOW HOW!” and he did.
Suddenly, my assailant appeared in the doorway, unaware of what had transpired just seconds before. I took aim. He was startled to walk in and see me, bleeding, swollen, and pissed, as two of his boys lay on the marble between us, one unconscious and the other one bleeding and restrained. My tone turned calm now, almost sinister, I was entering a place in my mind I never thought I would be. “Kindly place your weapon on the ground SIR” I taunted, “or join your friends on the floor.” He removed his gun, and kicked it towards me, and began his rationalizing. “You know son, you don’t have to do”. “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” I interrupted, and commanded slowly “and just lay down on the fucking floor, and I will just walk out of here, and then let the chase begin.” I smiled the smile of a crazy man, a man who had forgotten about the soul, and all sense of right or wrong. But he wouldn’t lie down. He took a knee. He tried to reason with me. “Alright now son, I’m trying to save you now, you don’t realize what it is you’re doing” He insisted, his voice now cracking. “LAY DOWN” I shouted once more. I wasn’t going to give up now, end up hanging in a cell, in this post Hurricane goat fuck, and especially not by my own belt, an apparent suicide.
He said more, maybe three words, maybe ten, I can’t remember now. It was all a blur. Ten minutes or an hour may have passed, but it seemed like one or two seconds to me. Suddenly the thought hit me; soon there would be more showing up, and I would have no chance. As he babbled, I took careful aim from three feet away and put one of his buddy’s bullets in his skull, and left the gun on the floor. As I walked out, I noticed several cans of gasoline there outside, extra provision left over from the storm. There were maybe two or three five gallon cans, full. I doused the cruisers and the front office in a fair amount of petrol, and still in pain, mouth swollen shut now, I jammed one of my cigarettes into my mouth, and lit it. For a moment I was terrified, as the reality of the previous hour slowly began to register. The feelings of shock were disappearing. As they lay on the floor before me, two of them moaning, and one gone forever, I took a good, painful drag of the smoke, and exhaling, spit smoke and blood into the fuel on the floor. Turning, I walked out the front door, entered, and started the Ford. I looked over the mess I had left there, and as the sound of sirens became increasingly loud in the distance, threw my smoke out the window, and lit the whole of it on fire. Three men, two cruisers, and a small town vampire cave went up like some scene out of a favorite old movie.
Thinking of the irony, I reached for Cheap Trick. I skipped a few tracks up to “downed”. It was always one of my favorites, since I first heard it on eight track, on the sound track to “Over The Edge.” I turned it up to a speaker cracking decibel. As I pulled out, I listened as those old familiar lyrics filled me with a sense of strange solace, and calm again. I didn’t care what would happen next. I suppose I knew. But nevertheless, I drove away, not fast, as the song began; “I’m gonna live on a mountain, way down under in Australia, it’s either that or suicide, it’s such a strange strain on you.” It sounded as good as it did when I was just ten, jumping around on my bed with a tennis racquet for a guitar and I thought, what a curious line, “it’s such a strange strain on you.” And yes, it is. Such is the nature of a life on the run.
No comments:
Post a Comment