Doing Bad - Going Bad

He's tired of the whining, and the strains to get up the slight inclines.
"Come on Gertie, come on baby, just make it to the store!" 
The man is accustomed to the car performing poorly.
He plans to put transmission fluid in the vehicle as soon as he reaches the store.
Shawn is tired of having to add transmission fluid, oil, gas, and air to the old Chrysler, every day. He wants a new car, truck or SUV wants to be confident that his vehicle will make it to the destination, but times are tough.
The 300C squelches as he pulls into the Service station. Remembering when the vehicle turned heads for an entirely different reason, he hops out and pops the hood.
It's not that he cares about their thoughts but he sees the girls in their, "club gear" looking at him and his car.
Moving like newly born calves on their stilettos, the trio of women helicopter whisper about his "Raggedy ass car." and speak knowingly about "broke niggas"
It's humbling.
He knows that if he hadn't been injured the vehicle would be fixed. In fact, it would be fixed if he could just devote some of his hard-earned paychecks to repairs.
Other things like having a roof over his head and food in his belly take precedence. Oh, and all the back child support from his recovery.
The car is a very long way from the sexy and sleek Silver bullet it was in 05. The brand had just been redesigned to look like the Bentley, and Shawn had draped it in chrome and made it resemble the much more expensive brand even more so.
It was a beautiful car. It had been a source of pride, now the opposite is true.
The aftermarket chrome is peeling off faster than he can super glue it back on.
He is embarrassed about driving the car to his job.
He's been told that it can't be parked in the employee lot, the fluid leaks stain the concrete.
The car is not the only broken down thing in Shawn's life, he carries his inoperative Movado in his backpack, his Invicta and Tag Heuer occupy a shelf at his home.

None of them are worth selling, and the repairs would cost money that needs to go into his transportation fund. 

He's tried working online, doing surveys, selling blood, working a second job, nothing seems to make ends meet. 

After he tops of all of the fluids in the car, Shawn completes his drive to work. 

He works at the Towers, three apartment buildings combined, as soon as he arrives he buries himself in the package room not wanting to talk to anyone.

Although he works in the heart of the city, he is never "in" the heart of the city. 

Fear of his vehicle failing combined with shame about its appearance force him straight home each day. 

His co-workers won't let him stay hidden. They want to take their breaks now that he is at work. 

That's how he got the pitch. 

He is at the front desk passing out packages. 

Since he doesn't care enough to know the residents when one tells him their unit number he simply grabs their items and gives them to them.

The first time he handed a resident a fraudulent package from the cable company it was sheer ignorance. 

Shawn didn't know or care that the person asking didn't reside in that unit.   

Of course, the wanna-be con artist decided to take advantage and ask for another package assigned to a different apartment. 

"Say bruh, didn't you just pick up for 1006? Now you want a package for 1208? I was born in the morning my Gee, but it wasn't this morning." 

Shawn delivers the rebuke calmly and without any anger.

He just wants to get the person out of his face and get the day finished. 

The well dressed young man leans in close his horrible smelling breathe directly into Shawn's face. 

"Say Unc I know, you wanna make some real money. I see you, my nigga. I see your style you are a jazzy older dude, you're smart, I hear you speaking foreign languages and shit, I see these young girls and how they look at you."
The young hustler's breath was
disgusting, but Shawn held his breath and listened to him.
"I'll give you $50 right now to bring me that package and another $50 if you tell me which apartments are empty.
Then for each box, I get I will give you another $50. What's good unk? Can I pay you cool Unc?" 

All of the reasons not to do it flashes through Shawn's mind.
Shawn thinks about the fact that his job hasn't given him a raise, that he is afraid to drive himself to work most days, that he really needs the money.  

That it is not a big deal, that no one is going to get hurt, that he can finance the car repairs and maybe even get another one altogether.

The halitosis kid senses, Shawn is on the precipice.  "Let me get that other box here is a dollar."

The man folds a $100 bill into Shawn's hand. 

"I'll be back in 20 minutes and if you have any empty apartment numbers I have another fifty cents for you." 

The younger man's breath took its time following him.

He carries both of the packages to a Maserati.

Shaw pulls up the list of empty apartments and writes down the numbers.

$150 won't change the world, but it might be the start of change for Shawn.

No Retirement From The Street

Standing over another body, it's just part of the job.

 I have been a homicide detective for 18 years. 

This one is tough.

 Normally, gang members don't live to be my age. 

This one had, in fact, he was instrumental in helping others to learn a different way. He was the owner of a couple of businesses and organizations that hired ex-cons and educated people who are and/or were in prison. 

No matter who they were affiliated with all of the gangsters respected "OG."

He wasn't a Bay Area native, his gang-banging had been in the Midwest, Chicago, IL and Saint Louis, MO.

I used to be one of those cops that tell jokes at crime scenes, I think it's a nervous habit.

I am so not in the mood for jokes, especially when it casts my victim as anything other than a victim.

I would be lying if I said that we had been friends or even friendly. We knew our prospective roles in this game, I respected OG, and he respected me.

Kneel by his massive body and examine the bullet wounds, don't understand why this is hard for me. The man and I usually had extremely tense and curt conversations, whenever we were forced to talk.

I have worked other murders in the 5 blocks surrounding this former warehouse.

Murders, I wouldn't have been able to solve if it hadn't been for OG.

The perps in those crimes turned themselves into me and confessed, all of that was Thurston "OG" Allgood's doing.

 He might not have still been 'in the life' but this had undeniably been his neighborhood.

 He was responsible for hundreds of little kids getting their hair done or cut before school started.

 He gave away clothes to the families who needed them. Employed their father's helped with child support and daycare.

It's a bloody scene. 

Whoever killed my Vic, will definitely look worse for wear. 

The blood on the knuckles is a dead give away. Thurston had fought and from the lack of bruises on his face, it would appear as if he had been getting the best of his assailant.  

In this neighborhood, there is always a motive for the murders. Those motives might sound silly, "He disrespected me." "She was fucking the Homie!" Or my favorite. "Homie was looking at me wrong." 

Whatever the motives whatever the reason in this hood there is always a reason. 

Ignore my fellow detectives.

Understand the laughter is a shield.

 Something we use to insulate ourselves from the grim truth of how easily and often death comes into our midst.

Block out all of the conversations in the background.

The shutter of the camera's, the buzz of the uniforms,  discussing Golden States chances in the finals.

 I picture the events as they took place.

 OG's platinum six-point star necklace is missing.

 I saw the man several times over the last 12 years, including one embarrassing moment when he answered the door wearing nothing but that chain and tattoos.

Robbery.

It's one of the top motives for murder in this and every underprivileged area in the world.

The chain was worth a couple of thousands of dollars.

Nah, it doesn't seem plausible.

Even if he hadn't been a major figure as far as the streets were concerned, at 6'7" and 290 lbs. he wasn't the ideal victim for a robbery.

There is a bulge in his pocket, I'd bet my pension its money.

No this wasn't a robbery.

Five entry wounds all in the chest.

All tightly grouped.

 I'm on the Oakland police department sharpshooting team and my groupings aren't that tight.

Perp used a .38, took the casing with them.

I walk away from the body of a man that many saw as a hero. 

I observe the dents in the wall.

Someone was thrown into that wall to make that dent. 

Even after leaving the crime scene I play the events over and over in my head.

No one wants to talk to me. 

I realize that if he were not the victim OG wouldn't have been talking either. 

He would have handled it his way, the street way, and left the pieces for me. 

No cop likes to admit it but we need the criminal element, and I am not just talking about for job security either. 

No, the right criminal can make the streets self-policing and that was what OG did for me. 

I will solve his murder. 

Owe him that much.

The gang unit arrives. 

These clowns again.

 Just to be fair, they have a couple of pretty good cops in the Gang task force, I haven't met them, but I'm sure they are there. 

Most of these 'smucks' are the same kids that the gang members terrorized. 

I work with their team often, and they all have a vendetta against anything that's gang-related.

I use my in charge voice, all of my height, the swagger I got from the Corps, and let them know that it's my case.

 "Gentlemen, this is a homicide. The murdered individual is the large man you see being photographed there. By virtue of the dead, murdered and dare I say homicide having been committed upon individual just behind me this is My Case!" 

Might have roared just a little bit more than the situation called for, but I felt like a Lion, and this is my kill, hyenas.

Detective Ramirez, the budget, Ricky Martin of law enforcement. 

The bastard looks slimy. 

Couldn't force me to shake his hand. 

The rest of the pack of scavengers: Harden, the gym rat, he was the fa, shit can't say that anymore, the overweight kid in high school, and it shows.

He's about the size of a Terry Crews but light-skinned with red hair. Man, a husky black ginger kid, I know why he's such a douche Tube. He also has the worst taste in suits, looks as if he went to a pimp's yard sale.

Adolf Gitler, true story, that's this cops name.

I know that it's wrong, but you have to say both names you can't help it, it's like watching a train wreck, you cannot look away from it.

 He's not a Nazi.

He's a "brother."

Yeah, it must have been rough growing up in the hood named Adolf Gitler.

That's not the worst part, he's thin, short,  just had Lasik and still needs glasses which tells me why the others call him "Bottles, " that might be the first time an insulting nickname is better than a given name.

The last and worst, on the scene is Beckworth. 

I honestly despise him.

 He has been demoted so much that in order to get the pension he needs to retire the racist old dick, would have accepted anything to pass his final years. However, he loves working for the gangs, and I think that the department is going to have to force him out.

"Come on, Mohammed!"

 That's me.

"Look at all that ink, can you read all that rank? This dude is the Gold Mine of Chicago Gang Banging come on, brother."

 The new voice is one of the new additions to the task force.

There are two of them.

The worst of the hyenas.

Both are recent transfers to the"Bay."

Both look like they have been fighting a lawnmower.

I have my suspects, I have no doubt in my mind that these two are my killers, I dial the chief. 

"Greg, I want the gang unit and any other cop that is not in homicide off my crime scene. I have a hunch, and I think that you are going to want to listen to me." 

Gregory Gamble, the chief of Police.

 He wants to be Mayor.

 I want him to because I want to be chief of police. 

Greg is a good cop, I trust him, and he feels the same.

The order comes down to the uniforms and I hand pick my team. 

I even dismiss some of the homicide detectives. 

I have one of those guys, my dismissals, take the newest Gee Pee's, that's what the streets call the "Gang Police", to a lunchtime happy hour to bitch about me.

It's my brother's place I can get my hands on the prints and DNA, I mean it's not like the department doesn't have it on file, I just like to have my own. 

I get the CSI techs to take impressions of the holes in the sheet-rock and in a couple of spots the paneling. 

I collect the evidence, it's easy when you know what to look for. 

The drinking lunch is going to plan and it seems both of the new officers, Sanchez and Jefferson, transfers from Chicago, are nursing back and hip injuries.

"Curiouser and curiouser."

Judge Augustine, was hesitant but Issued the warrants.

Two police officers. 

 Their wounds, which the warrant allows us to see, are consistent with being thrown into the wall.

 The gun is never found. 

No ties are ever made to the other members of the gang unit. Although my gut tells me that they knew about the killing.

 It was as if the Chicago streets sent the two of them to collect its debt.

They are convicted of murder in the first such case.

I get justice for a bad man.

It doesn't bring him back.

Suppose I was hoping that Allgood would disprove a theory I have, the streets won't let you retire.

It gets proven every time. 

F**k, Fight, or See Taillights

Have you ever known that someone was a terrible person but it didn't matter?

 Either that person was so attractive or fun or exciting that their less than impressive qualities were smoothed out.

Someone who's essential essence overrode the rot at their core. 

It doesn't have to be a sexual thing at all, no it can be as simple as a tone of voice. 

I'll give you an example: when I was a much younger man, I went to the same night club in New Orleans night after night just to be lied to by this dude with an interesting voice. 

I am vigorously heterosexual, and even if I weren't Arkansas Red was an intensely ugly man.  The only thing was that I enjoyed the sound of the old man's voice. 

So I listened to a life story filled with lies and efforts to make himself seem to be a superhero. We both drank "Soco" and lime, neat, so I would spring for a bottle.  

I plied the old gent with liquor, and he fed this shiftless youth a wealth of stories.

 He told me this story the first time I met him, I knew then that he was worthless.

 He told a good story though, but don't take my word for it, judge for yourself. 

First time I saw her I was done. 

I was still young then, and I was a slave to my dick. 

She was pretty, what we used to call "Paper sack brown" and finer than a rich spider's silk. I eased over to her, I was dressed to impress, you hear me? I used to have a perm my hair was straight down my back. Reckon, back then my freckles, were considered to be charming and I had all of my teeth! I wasn't ever the type to be chosen with his mouth closed, but son when I opened my mouth, I dazzled them. 
Women were different back then, they weren't fast like they are now. If a hundred women were in a room, only about 12 of them, were fucking. They were serious about waiting for marriage. 

Man, I wasn't going to get married just to get a shot of ass. 
Anyway, I put my best mack down on this fine motherfucker and I could see the indecision on her face. Her good home training and preacher Daddy were battling for her heart with the boss game I was spitting in her ear. I played with her mind with metaphors and Similes, made adjectives and adverbs dance for a solid month. 

That gal's, legs stayed locked, she let me play "stink finger" if you know what I mean, but she wasn't going to let me in.

 I studied the situation for a while.

 I even had an older man ready to pretend to be a preacher. I am telling you that I was determined to get that big legged heifer. 
She was smart.

 She wouldn't be swayed. 

My phony preacher scam wouldn't work, finally got tired of waiting for it. I got angry with that thick thing tempting and teasing me.

 I was just about to go to the Justice of the peace. 

I told her that I would but I had one more trick up my sleeve I was gonna try. 

I slipped a little something in her tea, told that we were going to take a look at the house I was going to take her too once we were married the next week. 

I had her sitting in my 1958 Cadillac and as soon as she passed out I drove that car like I had stolen it. I guess I could have taken her while she was passed out but where's the fun in that?

By the time she woke up, It was pitch black outside.

 I had no idea where we were but it was the middle of nowhere. I had been driving towards Chicago the entire time, I planned on moving there anyway because I had developed a couple of legal problems down in Amite City, Louisiana. I pulled to the side of that dark ass street, I turned the car off, but left the keys and left the radio playing.

 I told her: "You can fuck, you can fight, or you can see taillights. What's it gonna be?" 

That ignorant young girl must have really thought that I loved her because she started crying, wailing and blubbering. 

We got out of the front seat of that old hog and I was excited, harder than diamonds, I opened the back door and the next thing I know she had kicked me in my stones.

 I was so excited that when she kicked me I must have blacked out. 

The next thing I know her and my car were gone.

 It wound up taking me a while to get to Chicago. 

That gal had turned my pockets inside out.

 Had to pawn my pinkie ring to get bus fare.

 As far as I know, that big bootie girl made it back to Louisiana.

 I never had a mind to check. 

Not all of Red's stories ended up with him getting the short end of things, but I knew this story was true because of that. I can't say the same for all of his tales but as a parent to daughters, son to a mother, lover of a wife and a brother to sisters, I always saw this one as having a happy ending.

Conversations In A Waiting Room For The Newly Deceased

Saw the whole thing.

 I looked over into the car next to me and saw the guy flailing his arms. I figured he was on a hands free device and having a spirited conversation.

I reached down turned up my radio and tried to mind my own business.

There was more movement from his car.  It appeared as if something was stinging or biting the guy.  I could see the sweat on his brow, the look of agony and terror on his face.

I have to assume his foot slipped off the brake, or that in the throes of pain he accidentally hit the accelerator.

The tractor trailer hit its brakes and blew its horn simultaneously. No matter how skilled a driver they couldn’t avoid hitting the guy’s Impala.

The parts sprayed everywhere. The sound of tires screeching, and metal grinding were deafening.

I honestly didn’t feel a thing, I saw the piece of metal flying towards my windshield, even saw it break through.

Somehow it decapitated me and chopped off my right arm.

That’s how I wound up here.

One minute I was yelling at this guy for cutting me off. 

I had gotten so angry.  I followed him to Dollar General and was telling him I had kids in the car.

I should have known something bad was going to happen when he started walking towards me.

Didn’t see the handgun until it was too late and I was feeling the projectiles slam into my chest again and again.

Are you certain my kids survived?

I didn’t know she was married. 

I mean I did notice that the seat was up in the bathroom. 

She was so fine that I guess I just didn’t care enough. 

Once she took off her clothes my thought process stopped working very well.

Felt like I had gotten kicked in the back of my head really hard.

I heard a couple more booms and now I'm here.

   

I was with that guy over there. When my husband came in. He was supposed to still  be in Japan. I never even knew he owned a gun. 

I just was crossing the street.

I don’t remember anything else.

The cup was going to fly off the roof. I had to catch it or my boss would have known I was up there. There would be investigations and my partner would have found out I was up there with someone else and I just wanted to avoid all of that. I didn’t see the little pipe that tripped me but for 24 of those stories I was aware. Don’t remember hitting the ground though.