September Blog #1

Criminal
I watch my foot splash in a puddle as I begin crossing another intersection. The sound of an engine is what I hear as a sorry excuse of a car races by. I slide my hand in to my trench coat pockets and feel the warm material between my fingers, but that warmth quickly disappears. This night seems especially dark…empty. Not surprising in a town like this. A hell hole like this.
The night sky is blanketed with dark clouds as if even God wants nothing to do with this place and chooses to obstruct it from view. Each dragging day manages to be slightly worse than the last in this place. A breeding ground for the corrupt, criminals, and scum of this earth. A bunch of worthless scum is what they are. The reason why I took a job like this.
One of the few innocent people left in this town walks by. Blank expression on his face, doesn’t seem to have much life in him. As if his very soul has been sucked right out of him stripping him away of any hope. People try to live their lives as if their problems can just be forgotten. As if nothing has been lost. Pretending that the society they live in hasn’t been reduced to the decaying failure of human creation that it’s become. But once reality bites them in the ass they come out looking like this man. The decency in this town is lost.
I got off of duty at 9:00 PM and continued patrolling the streets even after I’m no longer on duty as I do every night. These streets can never be left unwatched. No one else on the force can be trusted, they all get paid off by drug dealers and petty criminals to look the other way or even assist them in their crimes. Pathetic.
“Those crooked bastards.” I whisper to myself. Can’t blame them though, corruption is a way of life here. The other is death. I consider myself dead.
I head home. A few gangster parasites are loitering near my apartment building and stare me down trying to intimidate me and show that they own the place. I pull back my coat revealing my handgun placed in a holster and look up at them. Not so tough now. Don’t think they want this in their skull. Not today.
The familiar stench of smoke and urine within the building welcomes me. Walking up the stairs to the 5th floor I attempt to block out the sounds of shouting and shattering glass. I walk through the blood-stained corridor and open the door of my room. It screeches as I open and close it, I toss my badge on the rusted table and hang my coat on the rack. I reach in to the empty pantry and grab a can of expired beans. Dinner.
Don’t do very much in my apartment room, I come here just to eat and sleep. The only decoration is a grandfather clock which is only there in the first place to cover up a couple of holes made from shotgun blasts from when they broke in to my room. Don’t need much else. Got no friends, no family, no nothing. My gun, capturing a thug, and bringing justice and throwing them in jail is the only thing that keeps me from going insane.
I grab extra bullets and reload my .45 handgun, it’s always needed. I head out the door and halfway down the stairs one of the gang members starts to hassle me. I take out my knife and quickly stab him in the shoulder and he lets out a shriek. It suffices.
Stepping back out in to the streets I feel a chilling cold stab in to my skin like thousands of needles. Hell can freeze over. Don’t know what time it is, I never really do. The blares of sirens comb the streets and water begins to trickle down slowly to the floor. I occasionally crave the next opportunity to stop a crime just to know that another scum of a criminal has been put behind bars. Or dead.
I walk in to a dark alleyway where gang activity is constant, graffiti on the brick walls. It smells of death here.
“Shut up!” I hear a man shout, followed by a muffled voice trying to scream out. I’m tying to figure out where it’s coming from. A loud thump comes from the same area and the muffled scream stops. I look up and see that’s it coming from an abandoned tenement, 5th floor perhaps. I know something critical is coming about, possible homicide. I search for the door to the building and press myself against it. I try to listen in to hear if anyone is on the other side. All I hear is the constant clatter of rain drops on the rusted scaffolding and concrete floor as the rain falls faster. I take my gun out of the holster and clutch it in my hand, the other hand on the door. Slowly, I open the door and immediately point my gun closing the door behind me. The corridor is dark and narrow and leads up to a flight of stairs. This place has been abandoned for years the dry wall is peeling off.
I unhurriedly make my way up the stairs. There lying on the stairs was a dead woman’s body, bullet to the head. From the looks of it she’s been decomposing here for about a week or so. Her wrists and ankles are red and marked. I presume she was being held captive, most likely a rival gang member since these kinds of kidnappings often happen. I step over the corpse and walk up to the 5th floor and find more pools of blood by an open door. I hear a man humming a tune. My prey. The cold air reaches in to the tenement building and I can see my breath in front of me telling me that I’m still here. I take cover on the side of the door, the gun in my hands. I feel the grooves of the gun and feel the cold metal muzzle. Rain hammers down on the roof. The only thing separating me and him are these thin falling apart walls.
“Freeze!” I yell. The criminal is holding two children and a man hostage each with a different injury most likely inflicted by this murderer. These damn people probably deserve it.
“Put your hands up!” he has his backed turned to me and has not responded. The hostages look at me with exhausted eyes.
“Put your damn hands up now!” No response. I walk towards him and grab him by his bloodstained collar. He lunges at me and brings me down. He has brass knuckles on and is ruthlessly pounding at my face making my nose gush out with blood. My gun is out of reach and I can’t shoot him. I grab his head and head butt him on the nose and he stumbles back. I get up and punch him in the jaw, I throw another and he ducks and grabs a lead pipe. He thrusts it on to my stomach and leaves me without breath.
“This is what happens when you try to play Mr. Hero in this town. This town is run by us, and there’s nothing you damn cops can do about it!” The murderer tells me.
Is he wrong? He might not be. I writhe in pain on the floor questioning my beliefs. The man is raising the pipe over his head about to execute me. The man staggers to the floor as the kidnapped man tackles the murderer. I crawl to my gun and as the murderer stands up I shoot him in the heart. I struggle to stand up. The kidnapped man helps me up. I thought he was the one that needed my help.
“You’re under arrest you sick bastard.” I take out my handcuffs.
“I know who you are.” The murderer says while spitting out teeth. “You’re that cop that always walks around the streets all day even when you’re not in uniform. One of the ones that puts people in jail.”
“Yeah. That’s the point” I tell him
“Haha nah not in this town it’s not. Us criminals run everything. People live in fear here. There is no order here. Who do you think you are trying to bring justice? You can’t do anything about it this town can’t be saved. The only good people that there are in this dump are all too afraid to do anything!”
I look around to the kidnapped kids and see the fear in their eyes.
“You’re wrong.” I tell him “This town is not beyond saving. There are still decent people here. We will be salvaged. We will rise up. No matter what it takes.”
I look out the window and see the train tracks rumble as the train runs down the tracks. The rain has stopped. The dawn is coming.