Cops - A True Story

The Cops thud through an alleyway, huffing like fleshy locomotives, bearing down on the bad boy. He ducks under a trashcan, but is revealed with a flourish, the lid of the can whisked aside by the fat maitre d’ in blue uniform. When the bad boy is taken away, the lid comes down in slow motion. It clangs upon the asphalt and spins into dissolve.

I am upstairs, in my bedroom. It’s hot. I’m stoned. I’m in a stupor. I don’t hear the front door opening.

Preening for the camera, the Cop mimes brushing off the petty crumbs of triumph, but his gut is littered with doughnut droppings. His partner punches him in the arm. They drive away from the alley. Fast-food neon signs recede in the rear-view. Carlos or Lashawn or whoever thumps his head repeatedly against the back window of the cop car.

I don’t hear steps in the hall.

Back at the station, the bad boy is hustled off screen. A woman’s tinny, magnetized voice carries over the cluttered desks of the Cops, through the locker room and down into the parking lot. The voice dispatches one car, two cars, three. They squeal and peel, flying away into the streets. A dog begins to bark.

It barks all the way through a shrieking soap commercial.

It’s my dog.

A man is telling my dog, “Good boy, nice doggy”. I jump up from the haze and make for the stairs. This is not a man I know. Halfway down, I see him, frozen in place in my living room, my dog circling, bristling and taut. My dog doesn’t like him.

“Nice doggy”, the man says weakly. He is black, thin and filthy. His hair gives off puffs of dust. His ropey arm fends off my dog. I can see his problem. A bruise in the crook of his arm, dried red-black.

“Get the fuck out of my house,” I tell him from mid-stair. He starts. He can’t see me.

“Good boy,” he tells my dog, as he looks up and around. Then he finds me on the stair, and brightens. “You know me!” he cries, “I live here!”

“You don’t live here, man. Go on, get out.” My dog is mohawked and stock-still, maybe four feet away from his throat.

“But I’m a cop!” says the man, uncertainly. “My daddy’s a cop.”

My dog’s patience with this man suddenly expires. She lunges at his chest as he scrambles backward. I call her off, yanking her away by the collar. The man waves his ropey arms, pushing away from nothing. He backs out the screen door.

“Watch out for the step,” I tell him as the screen swings closed.

“I’m a cop," I hear him mutter as he trudges down and away. “I live here. This is my goddamn house.”

My dog watches the street as I check things over. Nothing is missing; I lock my door.

Upstairs, the Cops thunder through an empty schoolyard. One of them clears a chain link fence, landing heavily atop the bad boy, plowing him to the ground. Somebody hoots, a victory cheer.