Screaming to Get Out & Other Wailings of the Damned

by J. F. Gonzalez

The older cop’s tone was lower now, more controlled. He leaned forward in his seat. “Let’s try to be civil now. I’m Officer Frank Cunningham. This is my partner Derrick Morena.”

  Rick nodded in acknowledgment. “Rick Martinez.”

  “Okay, Rick.” Frank appeared to be choosing his words carefully, as if he was stepping around strategically placed land mines. “Why don’t we talk this thing out and see what we can do?”

  Interstate 5 was coming up and Rick slowed to get into the eastbound on-ramp. He shook his head. “What is there to resolve? You tried to kick my ass for no reason, I responded by instinct and defended myself, and all I want to do is make a citizen’s arrest but I know either way I’m still gonna be fucked.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way, though.” Frank was fast with his answers, and Rick assumed the man’s brain was working on overdrive to get him and his smart ass little partner out of this jam. “We’ll turn ourselves in and absolve your part in—”

  Derrick shot up in his seat. “Wait a fucking minute!”

  Frank turned back to his partner. “Shut up.”

  “Fuck you! I’m not taking any rap this asshole lays on us.”

  “If you don’t shut up right now, I’m stopping the car and I’m gonna put a bullet in your fucking brain.” Rick conveyed his threat visually, eyeing Derrick through the rearview mirror. He was on the 5 now and began drifting toward the off ramps. “We can stop right here if you want to. There’s no houses, nothing but industrial buildings in this area, and if I wanted to I could kill you out here and nobody would know a thing. Should I stop the car now?”

  Derrick slumped back in his seat. “Fuck.”

  “Is that a yes or a no?”

  Silence.

  “Answer me!”

  “No!” They were now in the first lane, drifting toward Montebello Avenue. Derrick read the intention in Rick’s eyes, instinct telling him that if he pushed it too far he was going to end up with the gray matter of his brainpan spread out on some industrial parking lot. He averted his gaze toward the window. “Just keep driving.”

  “I hear one peep out of you and you’re history. You understand?”

  “Yeah.” Derrick sulked like a spoiled brat denied an afternoon of play.

  “Okay.” Rick turned his attention back toward the freeway, hands gripping the steering wheel in tight concentration. Frank was silent as they hit congestion on the freeway. The police banner came through at intervals, and now it was announced through a mechanical voice that two LAPD officers had been kidnapped, identifications pending. Rick snaked his way to the shoulder lane for passing. “Where’s the flashing lights on this thing?”

  “Switch to your left on the dash.” Frank was checking the traffic, his mode on red alert status. Rick hit the lights and accelerated, making as if they were legit patrolmen on a secret pursuit. They drifted past the congestion with ease until they hit free flowing traffic. Once there, he swung into the fast lane, accelerated to ninety. They had to get out of the city.

  Rick drove, his mind racing and formulating a way out of this mess before the shit hit the fan.

  FORTY MINUTES LATER they were in Riverside County, and attempts had already been made to contact the officers via police radio. Rick ignored the inquiries and was positive that a full alert was on in the Southern California area with complete descriptions of the officers and himself. It wouldn’t be long before somebody in the air—local news networks had helicopters all over the place, and various law enforcement agencies also employed helicopter patrol throughout the region—noticed the vehicle identification number painted in large black letters on the roof of the car and commenced a high-speed chase. Rivulets of sweat ran down Rick’s face as he pulled off the 91 Freeway into an unincorporated hilly area of south Riverside County. “We gotta get ourselves another vehicle.”

  Frank and Derrick remained silent. Frank had tried coercing Rick into giving up and letting them go. No charges would be pressed; they would turn themselves in for unprovoked assault on a civilian, they—

  But Rick nixed that. What they did to amend the situation would prove worthless. Their superiors and the city of Los Angeles would be hungry to press charges anyway. His wrong move had been herding them into the vehicle during his citizen’s arrest. Legal sharks on the D.A.’s side could categorize that as kidnapping and interfering with a government agent. Either way you looked at it, he was going to jail no matter how innocent he’d been initially.

  Rick voiced his views and Frank seemed to consider them. True, he said. The city could press charges. But he was willing to testify against himself for Rick. At that statement, Derrick once again exploded into a tyrannical fit. Rick pulled off the freeway into a quiet cul-de-sac and pulled up to the curb. He got out of the car, opened the door to the back seat, and shoved the gun barrel down Derrick’s throat. Rick gazed into the quivering cop’s face. Next time, you won’t be so lucky. Do you understand me?

  The rising acidic stench of urine filling the interior of the car told him that Derrick understood too well.

  After gagging the little fuck with black duct tape he found in the glove compartment, he debated on doing likewise to his partner. Might as well. He gagged Frank, too, not really wanting to, but knowing that it was still him against them until this thing was over.

  He got another car easy. He jimmied the lock on a ‘78 Camaro parked around the corner, behind an empty storefront, and herded the officers inside. He ditched the patrol car behind the storefront. The neighborhood was silent and asleep. He jump-started the Camaro easily and cruised out of the parking lot and hit Interstate 91 at the legal limit.

  IT WAS TOUCHING on one a.m. when they hit the Barstow City Limits.

  Rick had ungagged Officer Frank some two hours earlier. Frank wasn’t a threat, and there was something in the older man’s demeanor and tone of voice that suggested that he was of semi-rational mind. Not too rational, though. After all, he was a cop.

  Rick had ungagged him for the simple need of communication. Derrick was out of the question. As long as Frank kept away from the negotiation attempts, he was okay. Rick had kept the radio on KFI, an all news station, until it grew fuzzy with static when they started climbing over the Cahon pass toward Barstow. The Camaro had a full tank of gas and wouldn’t require refueling until they hit the state line. When he pulled over earlier to ungag Frank, he had taken inventory of the backseat and trunk’s stock. There was a large dirty brown quilt thrown over the top of the backseat, which he could use to conceal the officers when they reached a gas station. The trunk had yielded a makeshift toolbox equipped with the necessities: wrenches of various sizes, pliers, screwdrivers, a couple of saws, and two hammers. A rusty tire iron sat locked within the spare tire. If Derrick acted up again he would use it to bash his skull in. It would make killing him more pleasurable.

  But he knew he wouldn’t do it. No way.

  His sole reason for ungagging Officer Frank was for a rap session, a hopeful man-to-man talk. Once his vocal cords were free, Rick nodded that he wanted to talk, just so long as they didn’t touch on the subject of turning himself in. Frank agreed. Anything to keep the channels open would keep them both alive.

  During the three-hour drive to Barstow they talked. Rick gave him the rundown on his previous subjection to police brutality and gave him some vital stats. He was thirty-six, divorced, father of three. He was an ex-gang member, joining the Gardena Trese street gang when he was twelve years old. He had spent the next eleven years as a hardcore gang member; committing robberies and drive-by shootings, dealing coke and smack and getting hooked on the latter; and being a general badass. The lifestyle had gotten him a lengthy rap sheet, with the most severe being attempted murder—he had served two to four for that at Chino Hills. His uncle had helped him get out of the gang, had put him through rehab. Of course, the Man Upstairs had a lot to do with his sudden turn-around as well. He always acknowledged that. Now he was a law-abiding citizen. He held a full-time job as a warehouse sup
ervisor. In his spare time he acted as a big brother and mentor to kids at risk. He played softball in the summer, jogged frequently, and had practiced martial arts for the better part of ten years. Purely for physical and metaphysical reasons, mind you; it did wonders for both the body and the spirit. He truly thanked God for saving him, and for showing him that there was more to life than life in the hood, which was why he tried to reach out as much as he could to the younger homies.

  Officer Frank had nodded. He told Rick that he admired and respected him for turning his life around. Rick could tell that Officer Frank was sincere about this.

  Officer Frank continued: the reason he had gotten into law enforcement was to uphold the law and protect the weak. He’d fought in Viet Nam at the tail end of that conflict and pulled in rookie time in Watts and South-Central Los Angeles. Despite his work on the force, he'd never been promoted to anything higher than his present position. He never even made the detective bureau. He worked his ass off for eighteen years and watched as the weasels wormed their way ahead of him. His protests over their lack of qualifications fell on deaf ears. And look where it had gotten them today.

  Rick knew what the man was talking about. They delved deeper into the topic, discovering that they shared many qualities. Both were avid gun owners, both were Christians who believed in the basic faith but thought organized religion and its leaders were a bunch of hypocritical assholes. Both agreed that the judicial system was going downhill, mankind was going downhill, and those in power weren’t doing shit to stop it. Frank said that he’d once dreamed of working his way up to Police Chief and then, hopefully, running for Mayor. Beyond that, the potential was limitless. He had spent his youth being stepped on by the system; those in power could step on you anytime they wanted. When he was an infantryman fresh off the boat in Vietnam, he learned that the only way you could change the world, make it a better place, was to gain a foothold in the political ladder. Four weeks after his honorable discharge he was majoring in political science and criminal justice at Long Beach State. He became a cop in 1981. He was still a cop. So much for working his way to the top.

  Rick asked him what had happened—why couldn’t he ascend higher?

  Frank sighed and laid the cards on the table. The good-old boys network was rife with the scum that controlled and manipulated society. They were airtight, maintained a strong defense, and rarely let newcomers in. Frank had tried to barrage his way past the red tape and political bullshit. He petitioned for a detective job and was turned down. When the job of police Lieutenant opened recently, he petitioned the Police Commission for the job. He was denied. Despite his strong arrest record, psychological profile, and his commitment to law and order, liberty and justice, God and Country, and twenty-four years of dedicated service, he had lost out to some pissant who had been on the job a mere two years.

  Rick nodded. He felt a strong kinship with Officer Frank. They talked some more, discussing various topics and finding out they agreed on many issues. The racial tension in this country, especially Los Angeles, was bad. If you were a black male, or if you had a shaved head and wore clothes that were two sizes too big you were automatically branded a gangbanger. If you were Hispanic, you were thought of as an illiterate immigrant; if you were male and sported hair that touched your collarbone, you were a heavy-metal druggie punk out to cause trouble. If you were a Caucasion male with a shaved head or a buzz cut, and you owned firearms, you were assumed to be a right-wing racist. It didn’t matter that fairly normal looking people committed most crimes. Corporate suits get away with murder all the time and were never caught because they just don’t look the part. Everybody knows that if you don’t look normal then, by God, there must be something wrong with you. No wonder the world was so fucked up.

  Which was why Rick couldn’t turn back. He explained this to Frank, who nodded, agreeing on most of the salient points. The system had never really protected him for anything. Yeah, he had gangbanged when he was a kid. But he had done his time. He'd turned his life around. He'd tried to live by the straight-and-narrow. And all it had done was come back and bite him on the ass even more. He hadn’t done anything to invite harassment from the authorities on his behalf. Either way you looked at it, he was fucked.

  Frank agreed. In a way, he was fucked, too. Unable to gain justice for victims of violent crime and robbery due to judicial corruption, he had gone on in his job, dutifully making arrests and not doing much of anything in beating down crime. He had held the aspirations of being a police officer since childhood, hoping to make the world a better place by getting criminals off the street. The bureaucrats and red tape involved in politics made it virtually impossible to do that. The Criminal Justice system was aptly named; the criminals were the ones who got the justice while the victims remained imprisoned by death, disfigurement, or the pain that will last a lifetime. It was a never-ending wave of corruption that would only cease when somebody put their foot down and took action.

  Both men laughed. They quickly learned that they had much more in common. Both agreed that if they were running things, they wouldn’t give in to political pressure and special interest groups. Everyone currently on death row would get waxed, and most of the lawyers would go with them. Frank suggested that urban battlefields like South Central Los Angeles and other areas in big cities were lost causes. All the gang bangers should be herded out, sent off to a deserted island somewhere where they could kill each other off, and the whole dilapidated urban section from which they sprang razed down. Rick nodded and thought about it; as much as he hated to admit it, Frank was right. You could only do so much to help the homies in the 'hood. If they didn't want the help, fuck 'em. Tear it all down and start over. Build newer tenements and housing and shopping malls. Create jobs so people would really want to live there. Make it affordable. Poverty bred crime, which in turn bred fear and prejudice toward certain ethnic groups. The only way to kill most of that was to cut the cancer out. And start over.

  The Barstow City limits were rapidly approaching and Rick mentioned that it was time that he gas up. He pulled to the side of the road and gagged Officer Frank again with the black duct tape, apologizing for the inconvenience as he did so. The conversation had been good, but he couldn’t take chances. Officer Frank nodded in understanding. The glitter in his eye said he didn’t blame him.

  He covered the duo with the blanket and cruised to an all night convenience store/gas station. He filled the Camaro’s tank with the last twenty dollar bill in his wallet, then, on an afterthought, pulled one of the police issued nine millimeter's from his jacket pocket and demanded all the cash in the register. After the clerk handed him the money, he herded him into the storeroom and locked him inside. He couldn’t bear shooting the clerk because the man had gotten a good look at his face. All he wanted was the money to live on while he was on the road.

  Ten minutes later they were on the outer fringes of Barstow, heading for the Arizona desert.

  Cop status notwithstanding, Rick finally felt he had found a comrade in Officer Frank.

  Forty miles into the state of Arizona and the early morning sky was still black as night. Daylight would be rising in another hour. The Camaro’s tires ate rubber on the two-lane blacktop highway as it purred over the interstate. The rolling desert hills of Arizona was an endless sea of sand and cactus without a rest stop in sight.

  Rick had ungagged Frank outside the Barstow city limits and they had resumed their talk. Despite his growing fondness for the man, Rick still felt it necessary to keep him cuffed. Derrick was still bound and trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey. His features had gone from macho swagger to hollow-eyed, trembling fear. He’d been listening to Rick and Frank talk for the better part of four hours now, and Rick was unable to tell if Derrick was more scared because of their situation, or Frank’s sudden outpouring. Rick didn’t feel that Frank was bullshitting; the waves coming off the man were genuine, reflecting that he meant what he said and that getting all this off his chest was cathartic t
o him. Like sitting on a psychiatrist's couch. He was a man trapped in the wrong profession for the wrong reason.

  Frank told Rick that if they were caught it was most likely that all three of them would go to prison. For violating his civil rights, and for violating police procedure, which stated that you never handed your piece over to a suspect. If prison wasn’t he and Derrick's outcome, getting booted from the force would ensue, and at his age Frank would have a harder time finding a job. Derrick would probably bounce back easier. He could get a job beating up longhairs as a security guard at thrash-metal shows.

  But what good would that do?

  Twenty minutes into their talk Derrick began making unintelligible mewling noises from beneath his taped mouth. Rick ignored him, engaged in conversation with Frank. Derrick’s whines rose in insistence until Frank batted him in the ribs with his elbow. “Be quiet!” he barked. “Can’t you see we’re talking?”

  Rick pulled to the shoulder and stopped. The interstate was empty and silent as he yanked open the backdoor and pulled Derrick’s gag off with a rip of facial fuzz. Derrick grimaced at the pain, blinking. “What the fuck are you trying to say?” Rick stood over him, a dark silhouette against the lightening sky.

  “I’m just trying to tell you that I’m thirsty.” Derrick’s voice was a parched whisper. “I was wondering if we could stop somewhere for a drink...”

  “We’re not stopping anywhere.” Rick’s defenses were up. He wasn’t going to put up with any bullshit.

  Frank spoke up from the backseat in a defiant tone. “He doesn’t need a drink, Rick. He’s the root of all your problems. If it weren't for him, both of us wouldn’t be in this mess now. Just look at him.”

  Frank’s revelation stung him as he looked down at Derrick. The puny little cop looked up at him with wide-eyed innocence. He shook his head. “No, man. I just want a drink. I’m not going to cause you any more trouble—”