Who Polices the Police?

TW: violence and swearing.

No one wants to read the word ‘HELP’ in a text message. Especially from their wife, the mother of their baby.

            It could be anything. I’ve gone up against a lot of scary people. Most of them were militant white supremacists with a bent for murder. There were a load of perverts recently but destroying the lives of neo-Nazi’s was my bread and butter for years.

            I race back from work drenched in a cold sweat, not that I’d managed a day at work without being soaked in sweat anyway. Somehow lifting frozen bread in and out of a freezer all day is good exercise.

            I see a police car parked across the road from my apartment as I run down the street towards my home. It stops me dead in my tracks. I have a message. I hit play, shaking hands holding my shit phone to my ear.

            “Who are you?” asks my wife, Billie. Her voice is trembling.

            “Vengeance. Bitch. Get inside.” 

            “My daughter is here. What do you want?”

            “I said, get inside.” I realise I should be recording this. What I don’t think is that it’s already recorded, technically. Things like that can slip your mind when someone is threatening your loved ones.

            “I’ll call the police,” says my wife as the recording continues.

            “We are the police,” says a second man.

            I hear Tina crying. My baby girl is in our home with two armed men. I can’t call police because they are police. The car out front shows me the second man wasn’t lying.

            “Find it.”

            “You leave her alone,” Billie’s voice is fury, all dear forgotten. I hear a sound all too familiar as the impact of an open hand on flesh. My wife wails as the police officer who hit her starts calling her names bigots have for Asian women.

            I growl. I want to charge up the stairs and beat the two men to death. I slow my breathing and try to calm myself. They’re already inside my home. They’re police, which means they both carry guns and train with them.

            The more I hear them talk, the more obvious it is that they’re racist scum who’ve been investigating me for the police. They call me a race-traitor.

            My power could wipe them both clean. I could steal every memory they have. I’m not bullet proof. Maybe I could get one to touch me, but the second would suspect something.

            I stop recording the message from Billie. I send the recording to former police detective Nunez. Despite being the reason he was fired; he still talks to me. Thirty seconds after he’s seen my message he calls.

            “What the fuck is going on, Xander?”

            “I don’t know. They’re in my house. They have Billie and Tina. I don’t know what to do. They’re police. Who do you call when the police invade your house?”

            “I’ve met these guys. They’re part of a fascist group within the police. Their cell likes to recruit emergency services and military types. You’ve gotta be really careful.”

            “No shit. What do I do?”

            “Is it just two?”

            “I think so. That’s the usual number of officers in a patrol vehicle, isn’t it?”

            “Yeah. I’m heading over. I can be there in twenty minutes.”

            “Twenty minutes? I’m not leaving Billie and Tina with them for that long.”

            “They’re safe until you get home. This whole thing is about you.”

            “They’ve already hit Billie. If they touch Tina-”

            “Then I’ll help you dig the graves. Wait for me, Xander. Twenty minutes. I’m on my way.”

            I hover in the street. Blinking back tears of rage I look at the light of my apartment. The fire escape outside my building would be a very loud way to announce my ascent up the building, worse than just taking the stairs.

            Maybe if I climb the fire escape of the building next door. I run back down the street and round the corner. The alley behind the apartments is pitch black. Puddles splash beneath my worn-out sneakers. Graffiti tells me this is a contested neighbourhood between gangs.

            A kid is spraying a new tag over an old one.

            “Want some money?” I ask him. I have an idea.

            “Get lost, perve.”

            “I just want you to kick a car. For money. You can’t do that?” I pull out my wallet. I open it up and pull out all the cash. Eleven dollars.

            “What car?” Says the kid. His brown eyes are focussed on the money.

            “The police car that’s round the front. All you have to do is wait for three minutes, kick the car and run. I just need the alarm to go off. You want eleven dollars?”

            He waves his hand towards himself then holds it out for the notes.

            “Three minutes. Got it?”

            “I got it. Weirdo.”

            I can be a weirdo. As long as it helps Billie and Tina.

            I jump and grab the ladder for the fire escape. It should slide down but instead I have to pull up the rust covered iron. It rubs off on my powder blue hoodie as I climb. I start to run up the stairs. They rattle. The whole thing shakes under my weight. In the event of a real emergency, with multiple people coming down these stairs, this whole thing would probably collapse.

            I climb the ladder to the flat roof. The gap between the building beneath me and my own is about four feet. I take a deep breath. I run. They need me. Throwing myself over the gap, I slip on the tar paper that covers the roof of my building. Looking back seems like a bad idea. If I look down, I’ll vomit.

            A car alarm sounds. I look over the edge of the building and see the kid running away from the police car.

            “Thanks, kid,” I say to myself.

            Lowering myself down my own fire escape, I go down to the window outside my bedroom.

            I peak inside. The lights are off. The window is hooked shut. I know a trick. With a credit card that’s worthless anyway, I nudge the hook of the window away from the catch. Down on the street I see a big man wandering around the police car.

            I ease the window up, but it betrays me with a creak. I freeze.

            “What was that?” says the man who’s got my wife and daughter.

            “We have cats,” says Billie.

            “I should shoot those as well.”

            My muddy trainer leaves a huge print on the pillow I sleep on every night.

            I move as slow as I possibly can. I take off my shoes because they’ll make the floorboards groan. In soaking black socks, I inch towards the door.

            I can see a shadow. He’s holding a gun to her.

            I meow.

            “Your cat like bullets?”

            “Please.”

            I meow, louder.

            “Shut up,” he says.

            Louder. I hiss like a cat that’s pissed.

            Footsteps on the boards come my way.

            I sink into the shadow behind the door.

            “Don’t move, or I kill the girl,” he says. “I fucking hate cats.” He walks into the room with the gun in his hand.

            My foot slams up between his legs with all the force I can give it. He collapses, dropping the gun. My hand closes into a fist, about to punch him. Instead, I grab his face.

            I see his memories. Part of a Klu Klux Klan lodge. Half of them are police from all over the state. They go hunting together. I take every memory he has. Who he is. How to speak, how to stand. I shove one of my socks in his mouth, enough to keep him from making the babyish noises.

            I emerge from the bedroom with a finger held over my mouth.

            Billie lets out half a syllable of joy as I point to the door and hold my finger over my mouth again. She nods and goes to the bathroom with Tina in her arms.

            I go outside my apartment and down to the landing below. I can hear the other cop running up the stairs. I get into the cleaning cupboard which stinks of damp. If I wasn’t worried, I’d be disgusted that my feet are touching the squelchy shit on the floor.

            Footsteps pass me. I throw the door open and wrap a hand around the gun hand of the man. He’s taller. I throw him backwards. Before he can react, I go into his mind. It’s the same story as the other one. He’s another KKK cunt. I take his every memory, essentially his soul. I carry the body up the stairs to my apartment and drop him on the floor.

            “That’s both of them.”

            “Kill them,” says Billie. She spits on Officer Two. “He yelled at Tina.” Our daughter is crying in her arms.

            “That’ll just bring more police and more Nazis. I need a way to deal with them that doesn’t bring more attention to me, to us.”

            “What did you do to them?”

            “I took everything. They’re blank slates now.”

            “Can you leave them like that?”

            The officer’s bloodshot blue eyes roll over the ceiling. He smiles with the innocence of a baby.

            “Then it would be an obvious link to other trash I’ve dealt with. They can’t be linked to the case they were investigating. I need it shut down if we’re ever going to live in peace.”

            “Can we just call other police now that they’re out? I sent you a voicemail of them threatening me.”

            “Which was an amazing idea,” I say. I smile at her. Tina looks at me as she sobs and smiles. I hold out my arms. She shakes, trying to throw herself towards me. Billie hands Tina to me. “Don’t worry, kitten. We’re going to be alright.”

            “What if we got them drunk?” Billie says.

            “Go on.” I bounce Tina in my arms. Our baby starts to fall asleep.

            “We load them up with drink and then crash the police car with them inside. If they’re injured, tough. They get sacked for drunk driving, win, win.”

            “Their friends in the force would probably help them cover it up.” I think and think. Diabolical schemes come and go. It’s got to be perfect.

            “They’re both racist shitbags right?” asks Billie.

            “Yeah.”

            “And you can choose what you give them back?”

            “I guess.”

            “What if that’s all you give them back?” Billie has a vicious gleam in her dark eyes. “We get them wasted, drive them somewhere that they’re going to be saying the wrong thing. You give back only their most racist memories and we let them do the rest. Let nature take its course.” Innocent Grogu stares at me from the T-shirt Billie is wearing.

            “They could kill people.”

            “Send them without their guns?”

            “That works.” I kiss her. “I’ll get the liquor. Nunez is on his way. He should be here soon.”

            “You’re going now?” she asks, taking Tina back from me.

            “We need them out of here as soon as possible.” I run down the stairs and down the street past their car. I buy the cheapest hooch possible and jog back home.

            “That’s your plan?” Nunez asks me. He’s holding Tina, smiling with a practiced fatherly smile.

            “That’s it.” I shrug.

            “I can make everyone think they’re crazy.”

            “How?”

            “I can put their memories back in the wrong heads. Have dickhead thinking he’s douchebag and douchebag thinking he’s dickhead.”

            “That’s just another big, weird marker on you,” he says. “Your first plan was better, but you can’t take the chance that they keep their mouth shut. We both need this problem gone. They don’t like me any more than they like you.” He’s in a cheap coat, not like the nice stuff he had after his promotion to detective. “They must have some tattoos, some obvious stuff?”

            “On their backs.” I think of their proud memories getting those markings, showing them off. “Are we going to undress them before we set them loose?” It sounds like the bit from the third Die Hard movie to me.

            “If we have to.” Nunez nods. “When we go out to the car, we need to approach from the back. They have dashcams now.”

            “Okay.”

            We pour alcohol down the throats of the two home invaders. It spills on the floorboards. Tina watches, fascinated.

            “Can you take her to the bedroom?” I ask. “I don’t want our little girl watching any of this. She’s seen enough today.”

            Billie nods and bounces towards the bedroom.

            Nunez and I carry the two men down the stairs as if they’re the wounded on a battlefield. I use the keys from the big guy’s pocket and dump them in the back seat of their own patrol car. Nunez gives me disposable gloves.

            We drive into the kind of neighbourhood where these two men would normally come to harass the locals. I cut off their jackets and shirts with a knife then give them back their memories. I hold back every memory they have of me. I take every memory that might prompt them to keep their racist opinions to themselves.

            The smaller guy points at Nunez and mumbles something.

            “Yeah, fuck you too,” says the former detective. “Come on, let’s leave them.” I get in next to him and we drive a block away. He turns on the lights and leaves the keys in the ignition. “I give it ten minutes before that’s stolen and halfway across the city.”

            “Think this is gonna work?” I ask.

            “Let’s go and see.”

            The two men we let out are in the middle of a crowd. Kids have their phones out as the topless officers wave their guns about. One pale tattooed drunk gets a young man down on his knees with his service weapon pressed to the boy’s temple. The crowd gasps as the gun clicks. Nothing happens. The crowd boos and closes in. The guns click as the mob starts laying into them.

            “Should we call the police?”

            “They are the police, Xander. They know what they’re doing.” Nunez starts walking away. I glance at the crowd of people kicking the scumbags who held guns on my wife and daughter, and I hurry after him.

            Sirens call from the distance.

            Tina is asleep when I get home. Her tiny hand is closed around the shoulder of Billie’s top.

            “Did you get them?” I’ve never heard that ice in Billie’s voice. I nod. She pats the sofa next to her. I wrap an arm around her and plant a kiss on Tina’s cheek. She smiles in her sleep.

            “I’m sorry you two have to deal with this.”

            “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you, Xander. Neither would Tina if we hadn’t met. You do your best. Don’t apologise for that. Let those scumbags say sorry if anyone must.”

            “I’ll have to go after the others who were working with them, other members of their KKK chapter.”

            “How about we leave that until tomorrow?” Billie rests her head on my shoulder. I stroke her silky black hair, perfectly straight. Eyes closed, Tina raises her head and slams it down into her mother’s chest then turns away from me. The back of her head and neck are adorable to me. I guess that’s fatherhood. I hope those two men are dead. I know that’s fatherhood.