Read Online 600 Hours of Edward by Craig Lancaster - Free Book Online Page A

throwing him in jail. She turned him in for all the crimes he didn’t commit only because she wanted him to come back to her.
    Some women have funny ways of saying what they want.
    – • –
    I shut off the TV and videocassette recorder, and then I go to the front window to close the curtain. Another day is almost over. It’sone of the most exhausting I can remember, although I do not keep data on my level of exhaustion each day. In any case, I am happy that it is through.
    Across the street, under the streetlight, I can see Donna Middleton standing behind her car. She is talking to a man. Her arms are moving rapidly. He is leaning in toward her. It looks like he is yelling.
    I step over to the front door and crack it open. I can hear them.
    “You’re supposed to stay away from me, Mike.”
    Mike. Holy shit!
    “I just want to talk,” he yells at her.
    “No!”
    “Yes, goddamn it!”
    This is bad. Up and down my block, lights are coming on.
    “I never want to talk to you again.”
    “Why not?”
    “You know why not.”
    “Because you’re a fucking cunt, that’s why.”
    This is really bad. I go over to the telephone and dial.
    “Nine-one-one emergency.”
    “A man and a woman are arguing on my street. I think she has a restraining order against him.”
    “What’s the address?”
    “Six Twenty-Eight Clark Avenue.”
    “Do you know the woman’s name?”
    “Donna Middleton.”
    “Do you know the man’s name?”
    “Mike. That’s all I know.”
    “Can you see what’s happening now?”
    I go back to the front window. “They’re yelling.”
    “What’s your name, sir?”
    “Edward Stanton.”
    “And where do you live, sir?”
    “Six Thirty-Nine Clark Avenue.”
    “Can you still see them, sir?”
    “Yes.”
    “What are they doing?”
    “Still yelling.”
    It happens so fast that I gasp in shock. Mike strikes Donna Middleton across the cheek with the back of his right hand. Her body jumps at the blow and lands against her car, and then she falls to the ground.
    “He just hit her!”
    “OK, sir. Stay calm. Officers are on the way.”
    Donna Middleton is on her hands and knees, and she’s trying to scramble away. Mike grabs her and flings her backward to the concrete of the driveway, where she lands on her back, and then he pounces down upon her and wraps his hands around her neck.
    “He’s choking her.”
    “Sir, officers are almost there. Stay with me.”
    “I have to help her.”
    “Sir, stay right here on the phone.”
    As if out of nowhere, three police cars converge on Donna Middleton’s house. The officers emerge from the cars, guns drawn. I can hear them yelling at Mike.
    “Hands off her. Stand up. Hands behind your head.”
    After Mike lets go and climbs to his feet, two of the police officers take him hard to the ground and cuff him, while the other attends to Donna Middleton. An ambulance rolls up. My neighborhoodis lit up with red-and-blue strobes. I can see my neighbors standing on their front porches, talking and gawking.
    After Mike is wrestled into a police car and taken away, one of the officers who tackled him crosses the street and walks up to my house. I meet him at the door. I have seen this police officer before.
    “Is she OK?” I ask.
    “She’s shaken. She’ll have some bruises. But she’ll be OK.”
    “She has a restraining order against that man, doesn’t she?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why was he here, then?”
    “Well, it’s a court order. It’s not a jail cell. He’ll be in one of those soon enough.”
    “It’s terrible.”
    “Yes, it is. It could have been a lot worse, Mr. Stanton. Thanks for calling it in.”
    “You’re not going to call my father, are you?”
    The officer chuckles. “No. You did the right thing.”
    Mike:
    You are scum. You are subhuman. You are a horrible, horrible man.
    You have no right to go where you are not wanted, to defy a legal restraining order against you. You have no right to be at Donna Middleton’s house. You have no