Down the Road: The Fall of Austin (5 page)

Within moments, the familiar crackle of
Derek’s tazer could be heard. The man on the ground in front of
Mike cringed.

“Don’t taze me, bro,” the man said with a wry
chuckle.

Mike sighed. “We’re fine here, friend,” he
said.

The crackling of the tazer then stopped, but
the noises that followed sounded a lot like swift kicks into
blubbery guts.

Mike decided some conversation might drown
out the disharmony of Derek’s brand of justice being administered
in the distance. “What’s your name?”

“Charlie.”

“Why did your friend feel he had to run,
Charlie?”

“Heck if I know.”

The crackle of the tazer sounded again,
accompanied by more yelping, and stopped after several seconds. The
yelps turned to whimpers.

“So, Charlie, mind telling me what you were
doing back here?”

“Just hangin’ with my friend.”

“You been doing any drugs tonight?”

“No, sir.”

“Stand up.”

The demonic laughter of the sinister tazer
was reverberating through the narrow alley yet again as Charlie
went through the process of standing up.

Mike shone the concentrated beam of his
flashlight into his eyes. They were bloodshot and glazed.

“Turn around.”

Mike reached into the back pocket of
Charlie’s Levis and plucked out his wallet. He flipped it open and
inspected the Texas driver’s license inside. It revealed that
Charlie’s full name was Charles Roth, currently nineteen years old,
and he lived here in the city.

The demon in the distance stopped its
laughter, but for how long, Mike had no idea.

“You still live at 2344 1st Street?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mike knew he had to keep his suspect’s mind
busy, so if he ever had to recall this incident later on, all the
shenanigans going on in the background might not be as memorable.
“Charlie, you have any illegal paraphernalia on you tonight?”

“No, sir.”

“No reefer, pot, smack, crack, heroin, coke,
smoking or snorting apparatuses, guns, hand grenades or atomic
bombs?”

“No, sir,” Charlie blurted.

Mike pursed his lips. Charlie had been too
quick to respond—too consumed in introverted contemplation and
therefore too quick to deny. An innocent person would more than
likely have been more calm and attentive and would have known the
last bit was meant as a joke.

“864 to dispatch. I need some numbers run.
Over.”

“Go ahead,” came the reply.

“1-niner-3-3-5-niner-niner-0-1.” Taking
advantage of the silent moment, Mike proceeded with his
questioning. “Charlie, any warrants I need to know about?”

“No, sir.”

Derek was now approaching, walking his
scraped and bedraggled suspect with him. The suspect was
handcuffed. A loud siren in the distance signaled an ambulance
urgently driving down William Cannon.

“I’m going to check your pockets, Charlie. Am
I going to find anything inside you should have already told me
about?”

“Uh... I don’t know.”

“
You don’t know
?” Mike echoed. “Well,
you either
do
or you
don’t
.”

He stuck his hand into each pocket of
Charlie’s Levis, being wary of any possible sharp objects, and
found an item of interest. It was a “dugout,” a small wooden
container with a carved-out section for weed and another convenient
hole for a “pinch hitter,” a small metal pipe used to place small
hits of weed at one end. And both holes of the dugout just so
happened to be filled with the product they were designed to be
filled with. It amounted to roughly a nickle bag.

“I thought you said you weren’t doing drugs
tonight?”

“They’re
his
,” Charlie said, nodding
toward the other suspect.

“Man, fuck you, Charlie, you asshole. That
shit ain’t mine.”

The CB buzzed. “Dispatch to 864. Suspect
Roth, Charles. No outstanding warrants. No priors. Over.”

“Roger,” Mike said into his shoulder CB.
“Charlie, you just messed up your perfect record.”

“Just don’t tell my mom.”

“Your mom?” Mike asked. “You’re still living
at home?” He then turned his head long enough to acknowledge
another police cruiser pulling up next to his and Derek’s cruisers
at the end of the alley. “I think your mom’s going to find out.
Sorry about your luck. Now, I need you both to get back down on the
ground. Mind the litter.”

The suspects slowly went to their knees,
trying their best to avoid the small pebbles and bits of glass
scattered all around, then lowered themselves onto their
bellies.

Mike and Derek walked back to their cars
where they were greeted by two mustachioed and buzz-cut colleagues
who had stepped out of the new cruiser.

“How’s it hangin’, fellas?”

Mike and Derek greeted the newcomer
simultaneously. “Hey, Clark.”

“Hey. We were nearby. Thought ya’ll might
need us.”

“Nah,” Derek said. “We just got us a couple
of potheads brought their smoking toys out of the house tonight.
They should have stayed indoors and saved us the hassle.”

“Aw, come on,” Clark said. He winked.
“Pretend you need us anyway.”

Derek chuckled. After a moment he motioned
toward the suspects they had down on their bellies, and replied,
“Yeah, ya never know. These guys might turn out to be hardened
gangbangers or something. Better safe than sorry.”

Clark laughed and patted Derek on the
shoulder.

Mike wasn’t paying attention to them. For the
second time now he had heard the faint sound of scuffling footsteps
and an occasional crunch of gravel. He stepped away from the group
and squinted his eyes down the alley while the other three officers
continued their banter. Derek took only a passing interest in his
departure.

The sounds seemed to emanate from the other
end of the alley, near where Derek and his suspect had scuffled.
Mike clicked on his flashlight and shone it that direction. The
beam wasn’t powerful enough, however, and it was easier to see
without it now that Mike’s eyes had adjusted to the dark. He
clicked the flashlight off.

With his naked eyes, he could see shadowy
silhouettes in the distance. Three of them.

“They didn’t see anything,” Derek said
softly, almost in a growl, close to Mike’s ear.

Mike asked, “Huh?”

“They didn’t see anything,” Derek repeated.
“The vagrants over there. They didn’t see a thing. So stop your
worrying. All right?”

“Were they there when you were subduing your
pothead?”

“They were just waking up out of their
cardboard boxes. Goddamn bums. They didn’t see anything. Give it a
rest, Mr. Paranoia.”

Mike started to say, “I’m not—” but Derek had
rejoined the other two officers before they could get too curious
about Mike and Derek’s private conversation.

“Hey Roland, how’s Meredith?” Derek asked. He
opened the door to the driver’s seat of his cruiser and sat down.
The other two officers followed him, which had probably been his
intention—to lead them away and distract them.

Mike sat down in his own cruiser. He plucked
up the clipboard on the passenger seat, clicked his pen into the
writing position, and began the process of filling out some of the
basic paperwork. He peered over the dashboard to make sure the two
suspects were staying put.

“Oh, Meredith is
veeeeery
good—”
Roland started to say, but after a groan was heard, he and Officer
Clark focused their attention down the alleyway. Mike looked up as
well.

The three vagrants Mike had noticed before
had advanced several feet closer. They seemed to be heading for the
two downed suspects.

Clark raised his palm to them and said
sternly, “
Gentlemen
. Police business. Go back the way you
came.”

The vagrants continued moving forward,
totally ignoring the command. They hadn’t even hesitated at all to
consider it.

All eyes turned on the figures. Officer Clark
stepped forward, and Officer Roland quickly got in stride with his
partner. With a growl of annoyance, Derek rose from his seat and
stepped out of his cruiser to join them. All three men pulled out
their SL-20 flashlights and aimed the white beams at the three
interlopers.

Mike stayed in his seat, but flashed a couple
of glances up from his paperwork to make sure his colleagues had
everything under control.

“Folks, you need to stop and turn around
now,” Derek said. “You hear me?”

They didn’t comply.

“You need to stop and turn around now,” Derek
said again. “Last time I’m going to tell you.”

Mike then decided it was best to step out of
the cruiser and give the situation his full attention.

The vagrants drifted under an overhead night
light on the side of the building, and their sunken faces and
cloudy eyes were revealed.

Mike shivered to the bone in fear and
recognition. He had seen faces exactly like those only hours
earlier, at the disturbance call at Riverside Apartments. The
mother in particular flashed across his memory. He remembered her
face. Her tears. His tears. Goosebumps rose on his arms.

Derek recognized the faces as well. They
matched the one the crazed boy had worn. He had had to taze that
crazy bastard multiple times.

Mike’s lips stuttered, shocked into inaction
as he recalled the moment from earlier that day. Thankfully Derek
was quick to send out a warning to their fellow officers.

“Guys!” Derek yelled. “Clark! Roland! Stop!
Get back!”

“What?” Clark asked, perturbed.

“Just get back and draw your tazers! I’m
thinking this might get ugly!”

Derek remembered how ineffective his tazer
was earlier that day, but he dared not suggest the men draw their
sidearms—not yet. He knew they would be discharged, probably
several times, and he was not going to be part of another A.P.D.
investigation into the shooting death of a suspect.

“What are you talking about?” Officer Roland
asked, clueless to Derek’s subtext. He probably hadn’t heard about
the Building H incident.

In the confusion, Mike and Derek left their
suspects vulnerable, something neither of them would have let
happen otherwise. Lying bound on the ground between the police and
the three approaching cloudy-eyed vagrants, they craned their heads
around so they could see what the commotion was all about.

Charlie yelled, “Oh, shit!” Helpless on the
ground, he was the first to be attacked. His friend screamed, first
from the fearful shock of watching his pot superstar friend have a
chunk of flesh taken out of his shoulder, then from having a
matching chunk taken out of his. The third vagrant attacked his
exposed lily-white legs.

“Stop them!” Derek yelled, dashing forward
and tazing one of the vagrants. Officer Clark zapped another. Since
the attackers were still on top of the potheads, the electrical
charge was also sent through the victims like a live-wire chain,
and all five rattled in an electro-shock dance.

Roland dove and tackled one of the crazed
vagrants, removing him violently from his victim and forcing him to
the ground. He whipped out his pepper spray and squirted a sharp
stream straight to the eyes. The vagrant wasn’t fazed, however, and
grabbed Roland’s arm and bit down.

Roland screamed and yanked his arm away. He
viciously punched the man three times in the face, breaking a
cheekbone, before twisting the man’s arms behind his back and
cuffing the wrists together with the skill of a seasoned
veteran.

Mike kicked the other two away from the
potheads so the unfortunate men wouldn’t be electrocuted further.
Charlie and his friend were crying in pain, helpless in their
handcuffs.

Mike switched on the CB. “864 to dispatch. We
need an ambulance at 1837 South William Cannon and Congress
intersection, behind Quates Liquor. Over.” Static buzzed as he
turned to Derek and Clark and advised, “We don’t want to kill them,
guys! Keep those tazers going on and off at

intervals! Short bursts!”

However, Mike knew a single burst alone
should be sufficient to take most
anybody
down. Nobody he
had heard of had ever been able to take more than two before giving
up.

Are these wacked-out side effects of some
new street drug?
he wondered.
Or some sort of human fucking
rabies? Or is this shit just pure insanity?

Whatever it was, it was definitely
contagious.

Roland had stood and was inspecting his
wound. Mike called over to him, “You’re not done, man. Stay on your
perp. I’ll get you some leg shackles.”

Mike was right. The perp was attempting to
stand, rolling up on his own face and rising ass first. Had the
situation not been so intense, Roland might have laughed. Instead,
he rolled the perp back on his belly with a well-placed boot.

The CB buzzed. “Dispatch to 864. All
ambulances are on calls. No one can get there for another thirty
minutes. Over.”

Mike’s face turned sour. What the hell are we
going to do for thirty minutes?

He knew they certainly could not continue
tazing the madmen for thirty minutes. They would die. At least they
should, if nature held its rational course.

But the world was somehow becoming quite
irrational. It had somehow escaped his perception since the
situation at the apartment, and had been growing ever since.
Multiplying exponentially. Nature was altering, twisting. Wading in
the chaos, Mike had a moment outside of the skirmish that was
unfolding in front of him to listen to the city. Gauging its
heartbeat. Feeling its sleepless and relentless energy.

The crackling of the tazers faded, and
Officer Mike Runyard’s aural perception began to focus on the
sounds all around him.

Distant screaming.

Eight gunshots from somewhere south.

A car wrecking in the distance.

Townies yelling and running on the
sidewalks.