I remember very well, the whole pathetic scenario.
The cops had me cuffed, sitting in the interrogation room. I was giving as much attitude as I got. From the moment I was bulldozed into the station, the whole set-up reeked of a bad cop show-some chick-cop set each of my fingers over an ink pad then rolled them, one at a time, onto a page with boxes that labeled each print with a name and corresponding digit. She said the ink would wash right off, but my finger tips and palms were covered in inky blotches for days after.
Then, I was strapped into a hard plastic chair and left alone for hours inside a little room as they attempted to bore me to death.
When the two idiot cops that arrested me finally came in, saying stupid things like, "play time is over," all I could do was laugh in their faces. I mean, who they fuck did they think they were? They didn't know me.
I sat there as the two cops hammered me with question after question. They were too worked up to bother hearing anything I said, so I dropped my head, trying to reach my cuffed, discolored fingers with my mouth. I wanted to lick them, to see if the ink would bleed.
". . . You wouldn't know anything about that would you?" The younger cop, Gutierrez his badge said, preached at me, still pretending to want answers.
I took the opening-it was too easy. "Know that you're a tool? No one had to tell me. It's obvious."
Leland was the other guy. He looked older and was dressed in street clothes with a badge hanging around his neck. He raised a hand at the younger cop, Gutierrez. My guess was to keep him from hitting me.
"The old neighbor lady . . . Mrs. Smith, she says you stole her car keys right off her kitchen table. A vehicle registered, to her, was found parked in the motel lot and your prints are all over it. Got any idea how that happened?" Leland asked.
Watching my black-tipped fingers resting against the metal chair, they looked strange, like they weren't mine. They were just sitting there, like rude guests ignoring my commands to find a way out. Limp noodles.
"Look, I'll tell you whatever you want to know. But you have to promise Angel walks. She had nothing to do with any of this." I imagined we were in the middle of a scene on one of those cheesy cop shows. I was trying to sound exactly like a suspect that the cops had in custody, whose instincts told them was guilty, but they couldn't nail for lack of evidence. I thought I did okay.
Just like a cop show, Leland took a pencil from his shirt pocket and smacked it onto the table. "We're not accepting any of your crazy bullshit. Tell the truth." He shoved a notepad beside it and pushed both across the tabletop until they were right in front of me, just within and yet without, my reach.
Next thing I knew, Gutierrez was in my face, ripping the pages from the table. "You're not fooling anybody. We don't need a confession: we got you, your prints, two victims, the motel room, the stolen vehicle, dozens of witnesses that place you at the club, and everywhere else you been for the last ten years! Ward of the state-that's you!" His hot, rancid breath made my stomach roll. I wished I had to burp or puke. I wanted to make him sick right back.
He still smoothed the paper back on the table and unlocked my right cuff.
"I'm left-handed." I waited until he put his keys away to say anything.
Gutierrez hesitated. Leland nodded and cursed while his partner did what he was supposed to-like a good little civil servant-and relocked the right cuff around my wrist before releasing my aching left. That skank at the finger-painting station twisted it behind my back.
I started doodling while Gutierrez pulled a small remote from his pocket, pointing it towards a video camera in the corner. I heard the thin buzz of the lens adjusting.
The pencil in my hand was long and thin. The tip was sort of sharp. Brittle. It made me wonder . . . what if . . .
Clutching the new pencil-I didn't even think about it, really. It wasn't something I could think about. I just raised my hand and thrust it down as hard as I could, feeling nothing as the wood and led skewered the flesh of my thigh.
The supposedly fierce Officer Gutierrez paled. That was enough for me; my sweet reward. My smile grew bigger than a crescent moon as Leland jumped from his chair and ran for the door, yelling.
I couldn't bring myself to remove the pencil, but I made a fist at Leland as he passed. It was another beat before both my hands were restrained once more.
Then, there was only pain. The chasm had opened again. It was sucking me in. I was drowning.
+++
When I opened my eyes, the interrogation room was gone. The new room was not white. The walls looked like exposed cinderblock. The only sound was that of metal. Clinking, clanking. Handcuffs thrashing against the metal frame of the bed.
Echoes in an empty room, I mused. How appropriate.
I was as good as dead-drowned inside the bottomless chasm-sinking in the emptiness, groping for a flotation device, wishing to make myself stop breathing. That was the worst part, knowing I could drown in the black feeling but couldn't stop breathing. I tried holding my breath, but that just made me pass-out and start again.
I kept my head on the pillow and waited for whatever shrink I knew was coming to appear and make a decree.
After a while, a small man came through the locked door and folded himself into a single chair against the far wall. His hair was gray like the walls with mismatched dark brown eyebrows.
"Do you know why you are here?" He asked.
Because they want to pin me with bullshit battery and homicide charges!
Because I'm a fucked up nut-case with mommy issues!
Because the world hates me and I hate the world right back!
I turned away and shut my eyes, barely enough energy to inform, "I'm not. Here. At all."