Jay obediently produces a wallet from his back pocket. Through the open driver-side window, he hands his license to the cop. The cop shines his flashlight in Jay’s face. Jay is careful not to make any sudden moves. He steals a glance in the right side-view mirror. The second cop, white like his partner, but younger and thinner, is hanging in position at the right rear of the vehicle, one hand on his flashlight, the other at his holster. He’s watching Jay closely, as one might eye a cornered animal, a thing whose behavior is dangerous and unpredictable. The cop seems edgy, his hand inching toward his gun. Jay lets his eyes drop, scanning the ripped carpet along the floorboard. He thinks he sees the nose of the .22 peeking out.
My God, he thinks, they cannot search this car.
The first cop, tall, with reddish blond hair and thick jowls, shines the flashlight into the whites of Jay’s eyes. “Where you headed to tonight, sir?”
“Home,” Jay says, squinting against the light.
“Where you coming from?”
“A restaurant.” He tries to remember how many beers he had.
The cop waves over the roof of the car to his partner, signal ing him to move in closer to the vehicle. The second cop raises his flashlight. He shines the beam through the back window first, taking even-paced steps along the right side of the Buick, moving closer and closer to the .22 under the front seat.
Jay feels a burn in his stomach.
“I asked you a question, sir,” the cop at Jay’s window says, tapping Jay on the shoulder with the butt of his flashlight. His partner is inches from discovering the illegal weapon. Trapped, Jay makes a sudden, brash decision to go for broke.
He opens the driver-side door, forcing the cop on the other side to stumble back a few paces. “What the hell do you think you’re doing!” the cop yells. Jay swings his feet onto the pave ment beside the car, puts his head down between his legs. “I feel sick,” he says, hanging halfway out of the Buick.
“Get back in the car, sir.”
Behind him, Jay hears footsteps along the right side of the car, the cop’s partner moving into a new position, as they are sud denly in a situation here.
Jay starts to stand.
“I said get back in the car, sir.”
“Please, I feel like I’m going to be sick,” he says, wobbling on his feet.
The first cop has his hand firmly on his weapon. The second cop has already dislodged his from his holster. “Sir,” the younger cop says. “You need to get to the side of your vehicle and put your hands on the back of your head.”
Jay clutches at his stomach, staggering in the street. He looks up at both officers with a pitiful, hangdog expression on his face.
“Jesus,” the first cop says, somewhat irritated. “How much have you had to drink anyway?”
“Get your hands on your head, sir,” his partner yells.
There’s a pickup truck coming down Main from the north. Jay takes a chance, stumbling out in front of the truck, the cops yelling behind him. The young cop raises his weapon, leveling it at Jay. Behind him, Jay hears his partner say, “Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.”
The truck slams on its brakes, coming within inches of Jay’s legs. The driver, a woman, leans out of the cab, screaming.
Jay runs to the other side of the bridge.
He throws himself against the concrete railing, the line of it jabbing against his ribs. What comes out is real. Dark and bitter, flecked with blood, his insides pouring into the bayou below.
Within seconds, he feels his arms yanked behind him, the bones in his shoulders turned at an unnatural angle. He feels the pinch of metal cuffs on his skin. He knows what comes next.
“You’re under arrest,” the first cop states.
Jay lowers his head to show that he means to cooperate.
They walk him to the squad car, shoving him into the cage in back.
As the squad car pulls away from the curb, going north on Main, Jay turns around in the locked backseat and steals a last look at his car, still parked on the side of the road, the nickelplated .22 resting peacefully beneath the front seat.
Chapter 29
He said he would never be back here.
Behind bars an inch thick.
His feet aching on a filthy linoleum floor. A pool of urine in
one corner, dried vomit in another. Men sleeping on the floor like dogs. No place to relieve himself with dignity. No place even to set himself down so he can think straight.
Ten paces by fifteen.
He’s lived his whole life in this tiny cell, it seems. Lived in fear of it, at least. Which, it turns out, is exactly the same thing.
As being in the sweat and shit of it, the I-can-hardly-breathe of it.
