Kent righted himself, grabbed at his captive. He heaved Bukowski to sit upright. He gritted his teeth, prayed it would be distinct, different than his normal voice. Something more menacing.
“What am I going to do with you, Mr. Bukowski?”
The man’s mouth opened to cry out on his own behalf and Kent slammed his fist into exposed teeth, breaking three into tiny white puzzle pieces. He recoiled in pain. Kent hid the pain he’d just brought himself. His hand would be an agony tomorrow.
“Do you remember the young Mexican woman you hit, Mr. Bukowski?”
The man’s eyes poured rivers; he moaned in anguish.
“Your real pain hasn’t even begun, Mr. Bukowski. What about the man?”
Kent steadied the back of Duane’s bald head, gripped it tight, and smashed his other fist into the open left eye. Blood squirted out, like a leaky can of Big Red. It hurt so much to punch like that, but Kent took in the pain, let it travel through him. It was worth it.
“Then you won’t remember the others whose lives you’ve fucking destroyed, will you, Mr. Bukowski? The man who lost his wife? The boy who lost his father? All. Because. Of. You.”
Kent hoisted him by the navy blue sweatshirt collar, the man croaking an admixture of whining and choking, choking on shards of his own teeth.
Yellow light hit Kent from the distance. He ducked instinctively. He peered up from behind a headrest as the light swerved, a black Hyundai in the distance making a turn onto Cedar Grove. Gone as fast as it’d come.
But apparently, Bukowski was gone too.
Kent watched in horror as the man finished slithering out of the rear passenger side door, then leapt wildly at the bastard. Caught his left ankle and turned hard. The battered wreck of a man let out a groan and flopped onto his bulbous belly. Kent backed up, worked his way back out the door through which he’d entered and stood up straight, gathering his resolve. He didn’t have to worry. That was the second of Bukowski’s legs he’d damaged now. The now shoeless drunk wasn’t getting anywhere fast.
Kent walked back up to the driver’s door and opened it slowly, his eyes still on the man flopping around on sandy gravel on the other side of the Jaguar. He got back into the driver’s seat and put the car into drive.
Outside, Duane Bukowski’s eyes hopped about in the moonlight, trying to see through all the blood. The drunk still couldn’t fathom what was happening to him. His heart was beating its way through his skin; he could feel it in his left arm. He was sure he was about to die of a heart attack. That or the vicious beating that wouldn’t stop. But he wondered if there was just maybe some hope on the horizon now. He didn’t understand why, but the craze d madman was driving off.
Maybe he just wanted the car?
He prayed he’d be that lucky.
Kent pedaled lightly across the debris and made a slow U-turn as Duane forced himself to stand. Kent watched as the car turned back to face the disgusting sub-human orca tripping around out there in the dark. Duane shook with fear, tears streaming down his face. He turned away from the Jaguar and fought to hobble away. Against the dogged adrenaline, Kent waited. He watched him, the very man who had taken his mother from him, his sister. Not Duane Bukowski anymore. Just a thing. A creature. A useless piece of drunken filth behind a fucking wheel, a murderer with a license.
Duane Bukowski was every drunk driver there ever was, had ever been. He was the reason Kent had signed those papers, put on that shield, waged a war for justice. The bloody, sweaty mess before his eyes, that thing was the reason he no longer had a family. The reason so many men and women didn’t have their families anymore. And Kent was their defender, their beacon of justice, of truth and of righteousness. Right then, it all coalesced in his mind.
This was his own personal road to Damascus.
“This is why they had to die. This is why You did it, God. You took them from me to bring me here. So I would be your true servant. Oh, my God. I am so sorry.” James felt hot tears soaking into the freezing fibers of his mask. He had been so blind, but now he saw.
Bukowski faltered, collapsed onto his wounded knee. He wiggled and pushed to stand once more. Halfway there, Kent slapped down on the gas. The back doors slammed shut as the car sped forward.
“My God, I am your servant, your true servant. Use me!”
The front grill crashed into the drunk’s legs with a loud thud. The man’s body was flung upward, rolled across the hood of the Jaguar. Like a salmon swimming upstream, its body flailing wildly, violently slapping back down against the current, the fat thing made its way over the roof of the Jag and off of the tail end of the car.
As he watched the body disappear into the dark rearview, Kent skidded to a stop. The thought had just occurred to him, that body might just be dead at this point. He didn’t care. There seemed to be no humanity left to pull him back from the edge. This was his mission. His God had called him to it.
He shifted into reverse and slammed the pedal again. The car met with a thud, and then a scrape.
He cut the engine, was next to his prisoner in a flash. The adrenaline was in full effect, his movements felt displaced. He pulled off a glove, felt the man’s neck, searched for a pulse. Kent’s hand was bathed in a sopping mixture of blood and sweat. The fat man was still breathing. Out cold, beaten and on the verge of death, but still breathing. Air escaped Kent’s mouth, drifted up into the atmosphere, and evaporated into the black night sky. The sky was black as a raven, not one star to be seen.
It was beautiful in its emptiness. It soothed him. His soul felt peace. He thanked God for his calling. And he ran. He ran and didn’t look back.
Tuesday
December 11, 2012
Morning
It was morning and he needed some sleep, any would do. James sat up straight, stretched his shoulders until he felt his back crack in several places. He was thankful he had the next two days off. He’d still be sore sitting in the VIPER chair on Friday, both sore and exhausted. He hadn’t realized how tense he was the entire time he’d been driving the night before. Tossing and turning for hours didn’t help anything. Throwing up until his tank was empty made it worse.
He’d sat up with the radio, waiting to hear if someone discovered the pummeled bad guy on the beach. Someone did. Then that made it worse than not knowing. He had to fight to keep from calling the hospital, going to the precinct. He needed info, needed to know if that drunk fat fuck lived or died. He needed to know what the cops knew. He needed to force himself to sit tight and to sleep. But that wouldn’t happen. James turned in circles until the sun came up, the night’s events looping continuously through his head.
There was no coming back from the road he’d chosen. The road chosen for him. But he had to start planning better. He got out of bed, dressed, went to the auto store not far from home. He bought five containers of Goo Gone before grabbing a bacon, egg and cheese from the deli down the block, then went back home to spray down his car. As his teeth chattered, he hooked up his dad’s power-washer. James stepped back and sprayed off the Plasti-Dip paint job, returned the car to its original stock white. Brought the wheels back to silver next. His car was now just one in a million on Staten Island. At least one base covered.
Whatever he did next, he’d need to prepare even more than the first time. Maybe wear his vest, too.
Then, find more perps. Ascertain more appropriate ways of judgment, of punishment.
His first night was perfection, better than he could’ve planned - a drunk driver’s discipline meted out by his own fucking car. He could imagine the headlines once they found ol’ Duane and his Jag.
“But then, that's what happens when the Spirit of the Lord leads you,” James muttered. He cleared his voice. “Lord, lead me now. Deliver your enemies into my hands. Like the Canaanites of old, I will strike down those who oppose your will.”
Getting stripped down, thrown into the rubber room, that was emasculation at its finest. But VIPER had helped James more than he’d expected, and it would
continue to help. It would make him something more, much more, absolutely not less.
A curse upon anyone who dares defy the law.
James ran his fingers through his hair and smiled. He smiled for what felt like the first time in nearly two years.
Tuesday
December 18, 2012
Cleaning Party
Almost three in the morning and they were still raging. Everything on the Barker Street corner of Castleton Avenue was alive.
Smoking weed, popping pills, drinking, running trains on girls in the bathroom. No limit to their fucking debauchery.
No one in the neighborhood was calling in a noise disturbance; either they were a part of it themselves, or else too scared to get involved. The cops weren’t going to do anything either, not as long as the party stayed inside the barber shop-slash-tattoo parlor.
Have to keep a lookout for them just in case, though.
He had no way of knowing where the cops were, not any better than did the perps he was stalking. And anything he did tonight, he’d have to wait until after his weekend for a recap. His radio got snatched by his old Integrity Control Lieutenant at the 122. Kent couldn’t believe it’d been a week already since Bukowski. Couldn’t believe that drunken fool was still holding on for dear life in ICU.
Kent had to pee. He’d hopped the chain link fence across the street an hour ago and scooted alongside a giant white metal structure, something like a storage containment unit. He wedged himself between the unit and a couple of big, blue, rusted metal garbage bins. He leaned against the bins when his legs started to tire, wanted to throw up inside his mask from the stench. It smelled like someone’d smeared a baby’s dirty shit diaper across the back of his balaclava. Kent hoped it’d all be worth it in the end.
Joey Kush-ville was at the shop, a ridiculous nickname for a ridiculous specimen of a human being. A skinny white boy raised in the projects, made his first slash and grab before he was fifteen. Now he was in his twenties and with age had come bigger crimes. He’d been hiding out for some time. Wasn’t just the cops that wanted him, plenty of other losers from his old stomping grounds did, too. Kent could follow him home, teach him a lesson all his own, do everyone a favor. Kent patted the retractable utility knife inside his right front pocket.
It was ironic to him now how his acts of justice were perceived as crimes by society’s laymen. The paper hadn’t beaten up Bukowski like Kent had hoped they would. The Post blamed a sadistic monster for an atrocity brought upon a man who’d already lost everything in Hurricane Sandy. The Daily News just blamed the NYPD for doing a piss poor job of protecting the public. The Staten Island Advance combined the mentality of the two. All three papers left out the part about Duane being a complete degenerate who had single-handedly ruined multiple lives.
At least CSU never found anything.
“Fuck it,” he’d said, throwing the papers aside inside the lonely VIPER room. “It’s not about the headlines.” He was doing it for Hallie. For his mother and for Stacey. For the public, as blind as they all were. He was their God-given guardian, whether they knew it or not.
He hoped tonight would be better than the last. He left the VIPER room feeling the chaos just out of reach of their cameras. Cops had come in for the last two hours of his tour complaining. The raging party hadn’t let up. Kent was inwardly itching with excitement. His relief had made him wait an additional hour by running late. By the time he signed out, Kent was ready to run for the door, but he swaggered out and slow stepped his way to his Maxima. Once out of camera range, he floored the gas home, grabbed his black on black and flew back across the island.
He hoped this would be his golden opportunity. Opportunity to do exactly what, he wasn’t yet sure. He was waiting on the Lord when this party fell into his lap, so of course God would continue to lead his path.
Ten more minutes and Kent would have a solid answer.
The minutes ticked by in slow motion. Dejected, he was just about ready to call it a night. Just as he finished the thought, though, an old banged up Acura rolled up to the front of the barber shop. Two black males, red and black hoodies on each, baggy jeans, Nike sneakers. Same as the two that had tried to rob him in that UA parking lot. Kent wondered if they had uniform requirements.
They ran into the shop, leaving the Acura on the side of Barker Street.
Perps move pretty fast for having their pants on half way down their asses.
Inside the shop, the shouts, the screaming and the hollering started up immediately.
Yup, definitely some boys from a rival crew. Here for good old Joey, no doubt.
The situation was escalating fast, guns pulled inside the shop. Kent moved fast, too. He ran across the street, a black blur ducking into the back of the beat up auto.
He’d told them all. Every single time he went to a deli, there was at least one idiot in there with a ride outside, motor idling, cabin empty. He told them, “Stop leaving the keys in your car, someone’s liable to jump in there and take that thing while you get your coffee.” But the two in question now weren’t buying a coffee, they were putting a hit on Joey. And Kent didn’t want to take the car. He just wanted a ride, wanted to get in the back and lay down flat. Lay down and wait for the fireworks.
Three shots rang out on cue. Then two more and the shattering of the shop’s front window. One more shot later, a torrent of screaming, then the barber shop’s doors blew open with a crash. The duo ran for their car. They shot at the shop one more time before reaching their ride.
Kent felt the extra weight drop into the front seats. The driver squealed with delight as the car clunked into gear. The passenger laughed as the tires spun and launched a thick black fog of burnt rubber into the air. The car careened through higher and higher speeds. Kent’s stomach cringed, on the verge of content expulsion. A grimy sweat built up, layered between his palms and the inside of his gloves. A hard right, wavering unsteadily, felt like it was taken on two wheels. He braced himself, couldn’t let himself shift or they’d know he was there. Couldn’t give away his position yet. He prayed they wouldn’t wreck. He couldn’t see a thing.
They were both laughing like hyenas. Joking about taking out Joey Deads-ville. His new nickname, evidently.
Kent inched out the knife, thumbed the knob down and forward. The razor blade slid from its sheath a half inch. Another inch exposed. He was ready.
Tires screeched to a stop; what sounded like trash cans rolled across the hood. Both perps were still laughing, thoroughly distracted.
Kent popped up from the back seat like a whack-a-mole, the surprise to his advantage. First the driver, before he could open his mouth, definitely before he could get to his gun. Kent put his hand around the bottom of the perp’s jaw, pulled it back, exposing the man’s Adam's apple, swiftly letting the blade glide across. Blood sprayed the steering wheel as the kid gagged and coughed, grasping wildly at his own throat.
No one was laughing anymore. The other one was scrambling for the exit. Kent repeatedly stabbed the knife into the side of the kid’s neck, held it there after the third plunge. The kid stumbled and fell out of the car, loosening himself from the blade. Kent reached over to the first perp’s waistband, retrieved the gun - a Glock 19 just like his service weapon. As the blood flowed from his throat and his eyes went wild, Kent methodically put the gun to the man’s forehead and pulled the trigger.
Police officer James Kent exited the vehicle covered in the dead perp’s blood. His balaclava was soaked with it. The second perp was scrambling to stand, clutching at his neck in surprise. Blood flowed down into the hoodie.
He got a bullet to the back of the head, base of the skull at the neck. Down he went. His formerly audible mirth had been replaced now by a strange, low gurgling sound. Like a pipe spontaneously unclogging itself from years of congealed dirt and grime. Kent liked it. Couldn’t believe what he was actually doing, but he liked the way it sounded. The way it felt. He felt like Jason, Ghostface, Freddy fucking Krueger.
&
nbsp; Laughing boy was lying face to the ground, struggling to breathe. Kent was attending to that gurgling as if it were his new favorite song, a symphony of the streets, exclusively for him.
The perp’s hands were twitching at his waistband, probably his near-crippled attempt at going for a gun.
That half dead bug under your shoe still squirming after your first stomp.
Kent crouched down next to him, listened to his song. He bit down hard, swallowed loud, spoke through a hard pressed jaw. “How many people have you mugged, dirt bag? How many women have you beaten? Forced into sex? In our projects. We’re the ones who pay for little cockroaches like you, you mother fucker.”
The perp writhed.
“Make no mistake, you savage piece of shit.” Kent leaned in close to the perp’s ear. “This isn’t about Joey. This is about you. About your filth, and how you infect this Island, how you and your fucking kind have infected and deteriorated this city.”
The perp’s gasps for air bubbled to a near stop. Sirens rang out in the distance. Kent lifted the Glock to just above the first hole on the kid’s neck. The perp was oblivious, barely twitching anymore. Kent crushed the bug dead with one clean shot to the back of the head, the noise momentarily deafening the siren wail. He watched the shell roll, tossed the Glock to the ground, grabbed the gun from this bug’s waistband. It was nicer than the first, snub nose .38. New drop gun.
James Kent stood and ran.
Gun in one hand, knife in the other, his boots thudded against the ground. He sheathed the blade and ran for his life. Like the night he had run from Nick. Running until he felt like his legs were going to tear off and leave his body behind. Fences were training hurdles. He had to get used to this. He knew where the cameras were, knew where they weren’t. Knew where to park too, but it was far. It was a lot of running.
D.O.A. Page 14