Read Online Lies You Wanted to Hear by James Whitfield Thomson - Free Book Online Page B

His hands were strong and patient as he worked his way down my back and started on my thighs. I turned my head, one eye scrunched against the sun.
    “You can do that all day,” I said.
    “Maybe I will.”
    I rose up on one elbow. “And night.”
    He kissed me softly and said, “Okay.”
    Walking along a secluded stretch of beach twenty minutes later, we detoured into the dune grass where we groped and fumbled and gasped. When we were done, we looked at each other and laughed with relief. It was far from perfect—sand where sand was never meant to be—but good enough to make me want to try again, soon . If he noticed my tattoo, he didn’t say.

Chapter 8
    Matt
    I knew I was acting silly, but there were moments every day when I’d think about Lucy and get a big smile on my face. She and I saw each other three or four times a week, and I often stayed over at her apartment. Our sex life was better than anything I had ever dreamed of, though it annoyed me that she usually smoked a joint before we made love. She said she was like Annie Hall, marijuana made her relax. She tried to get me to try some, but that was a line I didn’t want to cross. I was too straight, too much a cop. I never asked where she bought the stuff and didn’t want to know. I figured if that was my only complaint, I had none at all.
    Every Sunday without fail, I called my mother, but it wasn’t until after Labor Day that I felt confident enough to mention Lucy.
    “So,” Mom said, “when will I get to meet her?”
    “Sometime soon I hope. We could come to Butler for a long weekend. Better yet, why don’t you come up here? It’s been awhile. Let me buy you a plane ticket for your birthday.” She was turning fifty-four in October.
    She said that sounded wonderful. I liked hearing the excitement in her voice, as I knew she liked hearing it in mine. She wouldn’t come right out and say it, but most of her friends had become grandparents and she was feeling left out.
    One afternoon on the job, I saw a skinny black kid snatch an old woman’s purse and knock her down. Several people on the sidewalk rushed to the woman’s side, and I took off after the kid. I had nearly lost sight of him as he ran through Chinatown when he tripped on a dolly stacked with orange crates and dropped the purse. I yelled for the truck driver pushing the dolly to grab him, but the trucker only managed to tear off the kid’s T-shirt. The kid was limping as he took off again. I thought I was in pretty good shape, but my lungs were heaving and my leg muscles burned. I made one last burst and caught the boy, but he was sweaty and kept slipping out of my grip. I finally got my left arm wrapped around his neck.
    “Hold still,” I said.
    “Get off me, motherfucker!”
    I tightened my grip on his neck. “Just calm down. I’m gonna cuff you.”
    “Stop choking me, you fucking pig.”
    He kept kicking and flailing, and his elbow struck my cheek. I saw stars but didn’t let go. Hooking the fingers of my right hand under the kid’s belt, I lifted him off his feet and slammed him down on the sidewalk. There was a loud crack, and the boy screamed. I stood over him for a second then staggered away a few steps, put my hands on my knees, and vomited. I couldn’t say if I was sick from all the running or the sight of the jagged bone protruding from the boy’s arm.
    The next day, several black community leaders went down to City Hall decrying police brutality, hoping to get their pictures in the newspapers. The department withheld my name from the press. The boy, who was fourteen years old, had been arrested several times before. Two officers from internal investigations interviewed me and told me not to worry. They said there were several witnesses to back up my story, and the old woman had broken her hip when the kid knocked her down. Despite these assurances, the incident shook me up. I remembered throwing the boy to the ground and wanting to hurt him. I knew there was a split