Read Online Cage's Bend by Carter Coleman - Free Book Online Page A

union of souls, and then I come and the climax is a cruel swindle as I fall, down, down, down into blackness, utterly alone. It is the disenchantment that makes a man rush out of a woman’s bedroom as if fleeing the scene of a crime.
    “That was wonderful,” Sylvia says, her eyes open and focused, the ephemeral beauty gone.
    “Yeah, it was great,” I say, rolling onto my back. “I’m hungry.”
    Sylvia pulls the sheet up and closes her eyes. I get up, pull on some clothes, and go downstairs. Outside the front windows, Harper is riding up on his bicycle. I go out on the porch. “Hey, Harpo.”
    “You finally woke up.” He comes through the gate. Halfway across the yard he stops and looks at all the boats, shakes his head. “How do you feel?”
    “Like I could run a marathon.”
    Harper comes to the edge of the porch. “Listen, Cage, I think we ought to go to the police station. That cop said if you went in to talk, you’d get off with a slap on the wrist, but it’d be worse if they came after you.”
    “Why?”
    “Disturbing the peace. Public drunkenness. I don’t know.” Harper seems uncomfortable, like he feels guilty. “The cop called me this afternoon and said that those checks you’ve been bouncing have caught up with you.”
    “I’m not going to any damn police station.” The idea terrifies me. What if they give me a drug test? They might railroad me into a rehab program right off the island and blow all my plans apart. “I’ll cover those checks if I can just keep working.”
    A squad car rolls out of the darkness in front of the yard.
    I walk quickly inside, run up the stairs, and grab my passport—never leave home without it—and a stash of cash in my sock drawer. Sylvia rouses for a few seconds, squints at me, and rolls over. I kiss her on the back of the neck and tell her I love her but she doesn’t stir, so I fly out of the room and down the back stairs four at a time, my feet just barely touching the edges, and run out the back.
    A cop is standing in the yard a few feet from the door in the moonlight.
    “Hi.” I slow down as if I’m just coming out for a stroll. Just beyond his reach I dash to his side. He lunges and tackles me. I hit the ground with a heavy thump that knocks the wind out of me and I see little bursts of color. As the air comes back in my lungs, I try to squirm away from him and he says, “Hold still, asswipe.”
    “Hey, I didn’t do a thing. I’ll have you arrested for assault. Tackling me like I was a criminal.” Rage fills my body at the injustice and I say, “Would you kindly get off me, Officer?”
    He bends my arm around my back until my elbow feels like it’s going to break, and says, “Now let’s walk slowly around to the front.”
    “All right.” I start walking.
    “Hurry up,” he says, pushing my forearm to send a shooting pain through my elbow.
    I kick him in the shin, spin around in the direction of the arm he’s holding and punch him in the face. He staggers back, cupping his chin.
    I run across the yard toward a path that goes to the beach.
    “Freeze, motherfucker!” he yells when I’m halfway to the bushes. No way he’s going to pull the trigger, I think, and keep running when a shot whizzes over my head. I stop and raise my hands. I turn around and see him aiming the gun with both hands. I have to laugh at the serious look on his face. A bad actor playing a cop.
    “Whoa now, son, hold on,” I say.
    Harper and the cop from church come running around the house.
    “First this bastard tackles me.” I point at the cop who is still leveling the gun at me. “Then he shoves me and then he tries to shoot me. Clear-cut police brutality.”
    “The asshole hit me in the face.” The cop holsters the gun.
    “After you nearly broke my elbow,” I say.
    “Cage Rutledge,” says the other cop.
    “Yeah.”
    “I have a warrant for your arrest.” He pulls my arms around my back and tightens the handcuffs until they’re biting into my