Part 4
I was sleeping in my room at the Jackson Marriott when, at 1:17AM, they kicked in the back door. The sound woke me, and ten seconds later, I started recording everything, all cameras, all rooms. The bank of terabyte drives back in Florida would get a work out tonight. At first I thought it was the cops… then I thought it was rippers… then I realized that it was cops in ski masks… two of them. One was tall and fat, and one was about 5'10" and normal shaped, but it’s hard to tell a normal shape with the big black vests on.
A startled Taylor rose from the sofa.
Short Cop: Freeze, police! Move and I’ll blow your fucking brains out!
Fat Cop walks through the house quickly, surveying the rooms, leaving Short Cop to deal with the unexpected occupant.
Fat Cop: Hey, I thought you said it would all be harvested already, bagged up and ready to go?
Short Cop: It should be. The cycle is right for him to have chopped it already. It should be hanging up drying at the very least.
Fat Cop: Well, all I fucking see are rooms full of TREES that are READY to be chopped, but NOTHING bagged and tagged.
Short Cop: Fuck!
Taylor: When did cops start wearing ski masks?
Short Cop: Shut the fuck up, bitch, and get down on the floor.
It’s chaotic and tense. Ripper cops finding their prize unharvested presented an edgy circumstance. Taylor is now on her knees with her hands behind her head. I watch all of this on my phone, flipping from camera to camera to get the best view of what’s happening.
Fat Cop: So what’re we gonna fuckin’ do now, Tom?
Short Cop: You dumb fuck!
Taylor: Yeah, he's not very smart, is he, Don?
Fat Cop: Hey, he has plenty of those thick contractor bags in here. Gag and cuff the skank and come in here… we can still take it; it’ll just take some time.
Short Cop walks over to Taylor and puts his cuffs on her.
Short Cop: Hey, I know you. You’re that girl who got away when I tried to bust you for hooking a month or so ago. Yeah, I remember you. You were sucking off that fat old man between the Dumpsters behind Stein Mart.
Taylor: Yeah, and I lost my $50 when you showed up, asshole.
Short Cop: Well, if you’re good, I will let you gimme $50 worth later.
He grabs his crotch.
Taylor: No, thanks, pig. My daddy's coming and he’ll fix you. He’ll shoot you dead. Just you wait.
Short Cop hits her. Actually, he knocks the fuck out of her, really knocks her. It’s a hard right cross to her left cheek… a big impact punch, his body leans fully into the punch. She goes down hard onto the floor, falling with the unmistakable limpness that indicates she’s unconscious before she hits the floor. I heard a cracking sound when he landed the blow, but couldn’t distinguish if it was the sound of broken teeth or a broken jaw or a broken neck. I dress quickly in dark clothes. Fuck! The 9MM is inside the house, and I won't get five seconds with these two.
Fat Cop: Quit playing with the skank and come help me. You’re the one who fucked this whole thing up, so you’re gonna put in half the effort. Now ain't the time for your kink shit.
Short Cop takes off his ski mask and, after a few seconds, slow Fat Cop has his moment and does the same.
Within fifteen minutes, I’ve parked around the corner and begun to work my way toward the house, moving from hedge to hedge across the street. The car is not a police vehicle, but a personal one, a minivan.
Flipping from camera to camera, I watch for fifty-two minutes as two of Jackson, Mississippi's finest harvest the crop by chopping off the terminal buds and any large lateral buds, of which there were a few. They shove them into the big thick walled plastic bags I use for stalk and root disposal. No precision, just big bud whacking, as if filling a shopping cart in a timed contest. Get the best and fuck the rest. They leave a couple of pounds on the stems. It’s a sad sight. Those once majestic plants are reduced to a bald, near dead stalks, like a cancer victim in the final month.
Their conversation consists of Fat Cop whining to Short Cop about everything from his slow harvesting speed to his improper police methods. But mostly he complains about having to harvest a crop that was supposed to be ready to go already, a ten-minute operation tops. Fat Cop also keeps bitching about the girl complicating a simple rip and go operation. Short Cop basically takes whatever is said to him without argument or comment. Fat cop sounds like a nagging wife.
Taylor has remained an unconscious mess on the floor the entire time. Blood is coming from her nose and mouth. Her body lies in a twisted, unnatural pile on the floor.
Short Cop: Bring the van into the garage. I’ll finish up in here while you load the van.
Fat Cop: Fuck you! You move the van and haul the fucking bags. I’ll finish up in here. Remember who fucked this thing up.
My security has always been tight. How the fuck did they know about this? The one thing I know is that they messed up the date, so they must’ve calculated it and made a calendar mistake. Oh fuck! I’ve kept the electricity bill nice and stable… high, but not too high. Nothing was traceable back to me… nothing! Fuck me, how did they find out?
As the van backs into the garage, I noticed the Mississippi plates on the van: Rankin County … outlying area around Jackson. Cheaper real estate prices, generally, except for those rich folks who’ve attempted to recreate the antebellum mansions of the past just outside the city. Yeah, the arrogant fuckers with the black face ceramic lawn jockeys, as if their racism just couldn’t contain itself. You know them. They’re the ones who use terms like “heritage” and “history” with a smile. Assholes. I capture the image of the license plate. I watch from the cameras as they load the van. Fat Cop collapses the third row seat and fills the cargo space with bags of buds.
Fat Cop: We gotta get this vehicle back to the impound before your buddy goes off shift or we’re fucked.
Short Cop: Don't worry. Twenty minutes to the deep freeze, and then fifteen to the impound… we still have a couple of hours.
Fat Cop: Whatchya tell him this time?
Short Cop: He still thinks I am fucking some hot married bitch. I borrow this and we go fuck in it.
Fat Cop: If it ain’t broke…
Short Cop: That's why I always ask for some sort of van, and then squirt a little perfume in it.
Fat Cop: Well done, bro.
Short Cop: I tell him a few juicy details every now and then. He likes to hear about anything kinky, involving pain. So I tell him I pull her hair and slap her while I fuck her in the ass – that sort of shit.
Fat Cop: Really? No shit.
Short Cop: I can see the boner in his eyes whenever I talk about her crying.
Fat Cop: Damn, never figured Barone for a perv.
Short Cop: Don't they do screening to keep sick fucks like us off the force? Guess not. Hahaha.
Fat Cop: Damn straight.
Short Cop: I picked this van off the street this morning. Got a friend in Parking to drop the ticket and clamp it. After the owner finished his mini-drama melt down and stormed off, all pissed off, he towed it for me.
Fat Cop: How did you get him to help?
Short Cop: Told him I was helping out a relative with a divorce.
Fat Cop: Cool.
Short Cop: Do you know this one has a Bose sound system and even an iPod connector? It’ll also play movies in the back seats. Me and my fuck bunny can watch porno together. Hahaha.
Fat Cop: Sure glad Barone likes you.
Short Cop: C'mon, it’s just one cop thinking he’s helping out another. That's what we do, ain’t it? And it’s about pussy. He'd have to be a queer to say no.
Fat Cop pushes the last bag into the cargo space and lowers the rear door. Short Cop walks back into the house with Fat Cop a few steps behind.
Still slumped on the floor, Taylor is now, by my assessment, in need of serious medical treatment. A pool of blood has formed around her head.
Fat Cop: Fuck me! You still got the punch, bro... ain't seen it in a while... but you still got it, though, as good as ever. You fucked up the skank, big time. Well done!
Short Cop: I still got it! Protect and Serve muddafuckers!
He holds up his hand for a high five. He gets it.
Fat Cop: Looks like she’s barely breathing.
Short Cop: Guess she won't be questioning my authority no more. We’ll leave her for Mr. Connolly to deal with.
PP (Papers Please) gave me up! I gave that nerdy fucker $40K for two complete sets of documents for me and for my wife: Canadian passports, driver’s licenses, national health insurance cards, and residence permits for a European country. May he choke to death on prison cock!
Short Cop grabbs Taylor by her hair, now a blood coated mess, and raises her head.
Short Cop: Fuck, there goes the blowjob. I had my heart set on drowning her sorrows, or at least her vocal chords... hahaha.
He turns loose of her hair, and her head thumps hard on the floor.
Short Cop: Go wait out in the van for a few minutes.
Fat Cop: C'mon, you aren't going to start your sick shit now, are you?
Short Cop: Go wait in the van!
Fat Cop: No! We got a van full of stolen weed and a badly injured skank and you wanna stop to get off? Are you fucking kidding me?
Short Cop: I said, GO WAIT IN THE VAN!
Fat Cop: Remember last time? Homicide’s talking about a fucking serial killer in the area, but it's just your dick gone out of control!
Short Cop explodes in anger.
Short Cop: GO WAIT IN THE FUCKING VAN... DO IT NOW! Remember who made you a fucking multi-millionaire... and you remember that shit right now! Who got you all those safety deposit boxes full of hundreds? You got over five because of me. And who saved your ass when you killed that old nigger man down in the Damp year before last? What about that jeweler when you panicked and shot him in the head when he argued? NOW GO WAIT IN THE FUCKING VAN!
Short Cop places his hand on his service revolver... the final appeal to reason from a madman.
Fat Cop drops his alpha male role instantly, as if his mother has walked in on him with his dick in his hand. He shuffles off to the garage like a naughty child: head down, admonished.
From across the street I watch from my phone.
The twenty minutes that followed were the worst of my life. Some events just can't be told well as language is limited and purposely not designed for the horrible. But rage flowed through me as strong as the sickness powering the animal in that house. With each thrust, I hated him more. With every crude and filthy phrase he spoke, I only wanted to paint red with his blood. Every fiber of me longed to rush in there and beat this fucker to death or die trying.
My brain flashes a neon sign inside my head: You move, YOU DIE! I felt the tears of rage in my eyes, and my fingernails drew blood as I buried them in my hardened fists.
Fucking Coward! You move, YOU DIE!
Fucking Coward! You move, YOU DIE!
He grunts loudly when he makes his final thrust into her body. Afterward, Animal Cop wipes the sweat from his forehead and yells out to Fat Cop: Start the engine... you drive.
Fat Cop ... now Submissive Fat Cop: OK... just hurry up.
Animal Cop pulls up and fastens his pants. He walks over to the sofa and throws two of the cushions onto Taylor's limp, naked, semen filled body.
Animal Cop: Well darlin’... (he clears his throat and begins to sing):
I'm so glad we had this time together Just to have a laugh or sing a song Seems we just get started and before you know it Comes the time we have to say, 'So long’
He chuckles at the end of each line, and, with each chuckle, I long for his death. The acid in my heart pumps is now even more toxic, one hundred percent pure. Before, I had hesitated and couldn’t go through with it, the killing of a child. I’d been proven human. Now I have hatred... a desire for his blood rushes through me like a fucking freight train. I want to cut his fucking animal heart out, throw it on the ground, and stomp it into fucking red jelly. Fuck redemption... I'll gladly go to hell if I can take him with me.
I had never seen an animal in human form before or become one before. In wartime, there’re orders, and there’s a cause. It’s wrong almost every time... but, still, there’s a belief behind it, fucked up as it always is. This had no beliefs at all. It’s primal. The helpless are his supermarket.
Maybe it was my rage, maybe it was the cushions that caused it... but I never heard the gunshots. I saw it, both on the screen and the flash from inside the house. Five seconds later, the garage door opens and in a few more, the van pulls out into the driveway. Animal Cop presses the door controller and runs under it as it’s lowered.
He jumps into the van. He holds up his hand for a high five. Submissive Fat Cop does not respond