into a state of hot, quick rage that makes it difficult for me to look them in the eye when I have to interact with them. On many occasions, I have been rougher than I have needed to be when cuffing them. I admit this.
But it’s difficult to be levelheaded when one has seen what I’ve seen.
Once I encountered a woman, red-haired, fiftyish, weeping on a stoop with no shoes on. She was not hiding her face: instead she had turned it upward, toward the sun, and her eyes and her mouth wereopen, and she was inconsolably crying. This was when I worked with Truman, and the two of us stopped to check on her. His idea. He was always kind in this way.
When we approached her, however, she put her head down on her arms so we couldn’t see her face, and another voice called out a front door nearby: She don’t wanna talk to you.
—Is she okay? Truman inquired.
—She was jumped, said the voice, female, gravelly. We could not see its owner. The house was dark inside.
This meant different things. Usually it meant she was raped.
—Four of them, said the voice. Guy brought her to a house, three of his buddies were there.
—Shut up, shut up, said the red-haired woman—the first noise she made aside from her sobs.
—Can we make a report? Truman asked her. His voice was gentle. He was good at this, interviewing women. Sometimes, I will acknowledge, better than I am.
But the red-haired woman turned her head back into her arms and said nothing more. She was crying so hard that she could not catch her breath.
I speculated about what had happened to her shoes. Imagined she might have been wearing high heels, might have abandoned them so that she could flee. Her toenails were broken and dirty and painful-looking. There was a little patch of blood on the sidewalk next to her right instep, as if she might have cut it.
—Ma’am, said Truman, I’m going to leave my number right here for you, okay? In case you change your mind.
He handed her his card.
Down the block, another car slowed for another woman.
----
—
From Alonzo’s window, I have watched Kacey make her deals. I have watched her lean down as a slow-rolling car comes to a stop. I havewatched these cars turn down side streets, and I have watched my sister follow them, disappearing around the side of a building heading toward any number of possible outcomes. This is her choice, I tell myself; this is the choice she has made.
Sometimes, looking down at my watch, I find that I have been standing there, unmoving, for ten or fifteen minutes, waiting for her to return.
Alonzo doesn’t object: he leaves me alone, lets me watch, lets me sip quietly from my styrofoam cup. Today he is busy with another customer, and so I assume my regular position in front of the cold window, gazing through it, waiting for Alonzo to be free.
----
—
I’m still lost in my thoughts when the other customer in the store opens the front door and leaves, sounding the three silver bells that Alonzo has hung on it.
Once the store is empty, I approach the counter to pay for my coffee, and it’s then that Alonzo says, Hey. I’m sorry to hear about your sister.
I look at him.
—I beg your pardon? I say.
Alonzo pauses. A look comes over his face: the distinct look of someone afraid he has just revealed too much.
—What did you say? I ask Alonzo now, a second time.
He begins shaking his head.
—I’m not sure, he says, I probably have the wrong information.
—What information is that, exactly? I say.
Alonzo cranes his head to the right, looking around me to where Paula normally stands. Noting her absence there, he continues.
—It’s probably nothing, he says. But Paula was in here the other day telling me Kacey’s gone missing. Told me she’s been gone a month, maybe longer. Nobody knows where she is.
I nod, keeping my mouth straight, my posture upright. I make sure my hands are resting lightly on my duty belt, and that my expression projects an air of calm collectedness.
—I
But it’s difficult to be levelheaded when one has seen what I’ve seen.
Once I encountered a woman, red-haired, fiftyish, weeping on a stoop with no shoes on. She was not hiding her face: instead she had turned it upward, toward the sun, and her eyes and her mouth wereopen, and she was inconsolably crying. This was when I worked with Truman, and the two of us stopped to check on her. His idea. He was always kind in this way.
When we approached her, however, she put her head down on her arms so we couldn’t see her face, and another voice called out a front door nearby: She don’t wanna talk to you.
—Is she okay? Truman inquired.
—She was jumped, said the voice, female, gravelly. We could not see its owner. The house was dark inside.
This meant different things. Usually it meant she was raped.
—Four of them, said the voice. Guy brought her to a house, three of his buddies were there.
—Shut up, shut up, said the red-haired woman—the first noise she made aside from her sobs.
—Can we make a report? Truman asked her. His voice was gentle. He was good at this, interviewing women. Sometimes, I will acknowledge, better than I am.
But the red-haired woman turned her head back into her arms and said nothing more. She was crying so hard that she could not catch her breath.
I speculated about what had happened to her shoes. Imagined she might have been wearing high heels, might have abandoned them so that she could flee. Her toenails were broken and dirty and painful-looking. There was a little patch of blood on the sidewalk next to her right instep, as if she might have cut it.
—Ma’am, said Truman, I’m going to leave my number right here for you, okay? In case you change your mind.
He handed her his card.
Down the block, another car slowed for another woman.
----
—
From Alonzo’s window, I have watched Kacey make her deals. I have watched her lean down as a slow-rolling car comes to a stop. I havewatched these cars turn down side streets, and I have watched my sister follow them, disappearing around the side of a building heading toward any number of possible outcomes. This is her choice, I tell myself; this is the choice she has made.
Sometimes, looking down at my watch, I find that I have been standing there, unmoving, for ten or fifteen minutes, waiting for her to return.
Alonzo doesn’t object: he leaves me alone, lets me watch, lets me sip quietly from my styrofoam cup. Today he is busy with another customer, and so I assume my regular position in front of the cold window, gazing through it, waiting for Alonzo to be free.
----
—
I’m still lost in my thoughts when the other customer in the store opens the front door and leaves, sounding the three silver bells that Alonzo has hung on it.
Once the store is empty, I approach the counter to pay for my coffee, and it’s then that Alonzo says, Hey. I’m sorry to hear about your sister.
I look at him.
—I beg your pardon? I say.
Alonzo pauses. A look comes over his face: the distinct look of someone afraid he has just revealed too much.
—What did you say? I ask Alonzo now, a second time.
He begins shaking his head.
—I’m not sure, he says, I probably have the wrong information.
—What information is that, exactly? I say.
Alonzo cranes his head to the right, looking around me to where Paula normally stands. Noting her absence there, he continues.
—It’s probably nothing, he says. But Paula was in here the other day telling me Kacey’s gone missing. Told me she’s been gone a month, maybe longer. Nobody knows where she is.
I nod, keeping my mouth straight, my posture upright. I make sure my hands are resting lightly on my duty belt, and that my expression projects an air of calm collectedness.
—I
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