November 23, 2006
Fucking with Fiction (After A Long Hiatus)
A little excerpt of something I whipped up earlier today. Don't know where I'm going with it, might pair it up with some other stuff I've written...we'll see.
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"Goddammit."
"What?"
"Here she comes again."
"What in the hell are you going on about?"
"That hooker. The one that always comes by and harasses cops when they're on stake-out in this neighborhood. Stupid bitch is going to blow someone's cover one of these days, and then some coked-out trigger-happy gangbanger's going to lose it and turn this place into the fucking OK Corral. I'd say that we should bust her, but she's come through with some decent leads in the past and a lot of the guys want her left alone."
I set down my lukewarm coffee and turned, peering out the back glass of the crappy old Crown Vic that Rick and I seemed permanently assigned to. The fucking car was like a ball and chain around our ankles, constantly dragging us down to the same shitty neighborhood where we would pursue the same gang of crack-slinging assholes. Occasionally we'd happen across a purse snatcher or an aspiring rapist, but aside from that it was always plain vanilla drug busts. He followed my cue and turned to look out the back of the car as the girl slowly approached, slightly staggering as she walked along.
"Rick."
"What?"
"Is she cute?"
"What the fu-"
"The hooker. Is she cute."
"Yeah. Sure. She's a ten. Are you out of your goddamn mind? Does this look like the kind of neighborhood where you can pay fifty bucks for a piece of ass that looks like it just fell out of the pages of Juggs? Around here, you're lucky if you can scrape the barnacles off of it, slip it the beef, and then not get rolled for your wallet and watch."
The silhouette that was slowly prancing toward us suddenly staggered and fell. Rick and I turned to look at each other. He sighed, rubbed his graying temples, and snarled "Fucking dizzy whores." The driver's side door popped and creaked loudly as he kicked it open. If the whore didn't blow our cover, the car would. I hated that goddamn car. We both took a quick glance around to make sure that there weren't any would-be snipers camped out waiting to take pot-shots at us with a dinged-up hunting rifle and hurried over to where the girl lay sprawled across the wet, oily pavement.
When we got to her, I suddenly wished that I had called in with a hangover that day. Her face was mangled. Part of it looked like shredded raw beef, and the bits where skin remained were reminiscent of boiled ham. My stomach knotted up and a wave of nausea washed over me.
"To be fair, she used to be a lot cuter."
"Jesus Christ, Rick. Would you-"
The girl let out an inhuman wail, and her body started shuddering. If she had any cheeks left, I figured that salty tears would have been washing down them right this minute. Her mousy brown hair wafted about as the wind blew over the remnants of her face. I grimaced, crouched down, and put my hand on her arm. Her flesh was ice-cold, and I had to fight myself to keep from looking away in disgust. It was a fair guess that she had already been through hell, and didn't need my help to feel any more insignificant and useless. Rick pulled his cell from his jacket and started dialing numbers. His footsteps echoed away from us as I heard him giving the dispatcher directions on how to get to this shithole.
"Honey, can you hear us? My partner's calling an ambulance. Everything's going to be okay. They're going to take you to County and get you taken care of."
She wailed again. Rick chuckled as he slapped his cell phone shut and made a crack about how I shouldn't have mentioned County.
What an asshole.
I stayed there until the paramedics arrived, crouched next to her with my hand on her shoulder, telling her how it was all going to be okay. For a minute there, I almost believed my bullshit, and hoped that she was doing the same.
Posted by Jake at November 23, 2006 11:49 PM
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