The Nothing (3 page)

The unprecedented nature of the situation was overwhelming.
He had no idea of what to do. Unfortunately his glance to the front window was long enough for Beth to run to the four people huddled against the wall. She began yelling and swinging the knife while standing just a few feet from them and yelling, “I didn’t kill nobody, you saw her attack me! Say something, say something to this fucking cop or I will cut you up! I am innocent goddammit!” As far as Bentley knew, the other patrons hadn’t said anything to her. But Beth had reached her limit. She was now directing her aggression at the four frightened patrons. They were kneeling on the floor by the bar area wall with no escape.

“
Ma’am please step away or I will have to shoot!” An intense rage filled Beth’s eyes as she turned and looked at Bentley. As if he just killed her mother or her dog. Those rage filled eyes fix on his as she turned to walk towards him at a zombie’s pace. Even though Bentley’s gun was pointed right at her chest, she didn’t seem concerned. Beth just kept stepping closer while never taking her eyes off his. Usually there would be a taser clipped to Bentley’s belt in front of his Glock. Unfortunately he wasn’t issued a replacement when his was turned in for repair. There weren’t any spares because several other officers had already received loaners while getting theirs repaired as well. Recently he had the wind knocked out of him by an old man who still had the taste for PCP. This old man, who was sixty-seven, took him to the ground with the vigor of a twenty year old when the taser failed to work. After several hours in the emergency room, he immediately went to the supply sergeant seeking a replacement, but with no success. The idea of shooting anyone puts knots in his stomach.
Ok, if I am going to shoot her, I will do it in the leg. I can’t kill her. This is too much!

“I’m going to ask you again, please put down the
knife. Please madam, I don’t want to shoot you. Please I’m begging you for God’s sake!”

When
Beth arrived within four feet, he aimed and fired one round into her right thigh. Immediately she dropped the knife and looked down. There was a small black spot on her jeans where to bullet had entered. Blood began to slowly seep to form a fast growing, dark red circle. Calmly and slowly, Beth pulled out a chair at the table next to her and sat down with the gentleness of an elderly woman. She was now a broken person who had experienced defeat and humiliation. Her head was held low.
She didn’t yell from the pain. Must be the adrenaline. Or a total mental breakdown.

Bentley continued to
aim his gun on her while inching close enough to kick the knife away. Beth appeared to be in a daze like trance. Her head was floating from side to side, back and forth and her eyes were jumpy. It took one second for Bentley to take out his cuffs and lock her arms behind her back. Plus also making sure to hook the cuffs around one arm of the chair so she couldn’t get up. For now, it would be enough to keep her secure and the hostages safe. But he couldn’t help thinking, despite the quarter size hole in the top of her right thigh spilling out blood, that she was a real hottie. At least now she won’t be running out and escaping. Bentley figured she got into a fight and killed her friend in a moment of stupid rage. She wasn’t a drug addict. He would have been able to tell if she was by taking a closer look, as he now was.

Now
, with an injured suspect in custody, he desperately needed back up and a paramedic. A button push, and a slight utter of “shit” under his breath meant the radio was still dead as well as his cell phone. Bentley knew it wouldn’t be wise to drag her to the patrol car. Not a good thing to get caught on some security camera or camera phone and be bashed in the news for dragging a bleeding suspect across a parking lot.

With the scene
somewhat secured for now, Bentley approached the dead girl on the floor. The color in her face was gone. Her eyes were tightly shut indicating a significant amount of pain at death; her mouth slightly open as if she had been speaking. It was like being on nightshift patrol all over again. Dead bodies usually littered the streets at night. But the news only got wind of maybe a fourth of what really happens when the Sun goes down. Bentley knew what people were really capable of. Seeing that Beth was secure and not going anywhere put him more at ease. Time to check on the patrons nestled against the wall. “Is everyone ok, anyone hurt?”

“We're not hurt,
but we are very thirsty. Can we get out of here?” Regretfully Bentley couldn’t let them leave. “Unfortunately I need you to hang out here a while longer ‘till more help arrives. It doesn’t look safe outside. All I can say is to make yourselves at home. Get water or whatever you need from the bar.”

Even though h
e felt better, Bentley could see more people gathering outside, looking more agitated than before. He could faintly hear, “Thug with a badge,” and “Trigger happy pig fucker.” But hearing, “We can’t let him go,” put the gravity of the danger he faced right into the pit of his stomach. Anxiety weighed down Bentley’s shoulders and filled him with dread.

While reaching to get his cell phone out again,
he felt something, or someone, pull on the collar of his shirt and blow a quick breath on the left side of his neck.
Felt almost sexy.
Bentley missed the crack of a gunshot coming through the front window. The bullet missed his neck by two inches. He turned around expecting to see someone standing right next to him and saw flashes from outside the front window of the restaurant. Instant flashes that could only come from gun barrels. As soon as Bentley realized what was happening he dropped to the floor in the middle of the restaurant and pulled his gun out. Shots continued to whiz above him. Tables and Chairs were the only objects blocking him from the view of whoever was shooting. The snapping and cracking of bullets hitting tables, wood, and glass were in surround sound. Bentley’s breath wouldn’t slow down. His skin was on fire and he felt like he was floating on the floor of the restaurant. Like a bag of popcorn in the microwave, the pops were fast and frequent which eventually became slower and more spread out.
You don’t stop the timer when the pops slow down because you want as much corn as possible to pop.
Bentley kept hearing pops and there was no timer.

God what is happening, what do I do next?
I wish I were somewhere else. Please God perform some miracle or something because I don’t deserve to die like this! Please I’m sorry for whatever I did. Please turn back the clock!

On his stomach, he moved his body around toward the bar counter in the back, and made the longest crawl he has ever made in his life. The space behind the counter seemed so far away. Bentley kept expecting to feel the pinch of a bullet entering his body. Question is where would he get hit? Fear consumed him. But adrenaline gave him the fuel to crawl as fast as he possibly could. His breath though extremely heavy, didn’t have any effect on the speed at which he was moving. His mind had disconnected from his body. Bentley had heard that being shot felt like a burning pinch. But how painful depended on which body part got hit and if you even knew it.
You don’t want to get hit in the stomach or leg. The arm was the body part of preference for a man who has bullets flying at him. But if I am going to die, I want it to be quick. Give me a headshot or one straight through the heart. No face please. Of course I prefer to never find out!

As
Bentley got to the side of the counter, he saw a woman who was getting the water for the other hostages lying on the floor. He wasn’t able to tell if she was hit or if she was playing dead. Then he saw the blood beneath her. Reaching the rubber floor mats behind the counter brought a small sense of relief. Then like the ding of a popcorn timer, the volley of gunshots slowed to nothing.

Bentley ma
de a point to stay aware of the front door opening and listened for it. If they weren’t shooting, then maybe they were trying to get to a place where they could get better shots. Or they were getting ready to barge in. Shoe sweat and mildew coming from the rubber mat made him nauseous. But he forced the smell out of his mind and pulled his cell phone back out of his belt. The bars, still with the red circle with a line through it, made him want to scream. He then heard the front door squeak open and the sound of several feet shuffling on broken glass. It was time to fight. From behind the bar counter, Bentley could see a metal exit door with one of those long push bars in the middle of it at the back of the kitchen. He figured he could make a run for the door and keep running until he was far away. Maybe a few blocks down the road would be a good safe distance. Then he would find someone with a working cell phone, CB radio or by chance a fellow officer.

Being the worst possible time and place, Bentley’s stomach became gassy. He figured the stress was causing his stomach acid to burn up his breakfast, thus creating the smoke that forms farts. Laying on his stomach didn’t help either. After what seemed like a few seconds, his ass sang with the glory of a thousand tubas.
Shots rang out again from behind the counter after the gunman heard Bentley’s fart. Bentley couldn’t tell if it was five or fifteen feet away. The loud pops were deafening to him as he felt small splinters of wood poking and smacking against his skin as volley after volley of shots flew through the front side of the counter. Bullets made loud ringing sounds as they banged against the beer kegs underneath the counter. The air began to smell like sweet icing as bullets ripped through sugar packets.

Bentley wondered
if he was going to get out of this alive. He wanted to pray, but knew it would take away from his focus. He didn’t think about his wife Mary, wanting to have kids, or anything they say flashes before your eyes in moments like this. All that was on his mind was defending himself and escaping. It was a hard focus. The metal door in the back was probably twenty or twenty-five feet away. It was a sprint that guaranteed nothing. He would get up and run as fast as he could, knowing that bullets would be flying at his back. The chance was almost guaranteed that he would feel that burning pinch he had heard described to him before. Spoken from officers who were lucky enough to survive being shot. As he readied himself to go, he heard a voice call out, “Come on out motherfucker, you don’t go around shooting bitches in this neighborhood!” Sounded like a gang member, but Bentley wasn’t sure. Couldn’t tell anything without seeing his face.

Bentley had hoped to never ha
ve to shoot anyone. Yet he knew what he had to face on the job day to day. To make it home alive, every time, is what he would pray for. Many cops, who have had to kill someone in the line of duty, say that you are never the same afterward. Hearing some of the stories made Bentley question his decision to become a cop from time to time. Mary once told him, with tears in her eyes, “I love you as you are now and I want you to always stay the way you are. Promise me you won’t let the job change you like it has others. Be strong and come home the same sweet Bentley that I fell in love with. You are what I need. I need you to talk to me if something happens, don’t hold anything in or deal with it by yourself. Promise me ok?”

It was now or never.
Bentley leaped into a sprint knowing that he would be fully exposed to a group of men who wanted to kill him.
Thank God that girl is alive for now. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to shoot her. I wanted so badly for her to put the knife down and sit. Why oh why didn’t she sit the fuck down?
Bentley ran harder than he had ever run before. His eyes fixated on the back door, left open a few inches from previous refugees. Bentley’s head was in overdrive. The radio and cell phone were dead and he had to abandon a suspect he had just shot, who was still bleeding.
Screw what ever comes out on the news! Better to be alive and bashed by the evening news than be dead
.

To Bentley’s surprise
, no one shot at him as he ran toward the back door. Hot August sunshine slapped him in the face as he flung the door open. Bentley immediately saw and ran maybe ten feet to a blue garbage dumpster and ducked behind it. He aimed his gun around the side and waited. Quickly glancing around, he noticed that it was a dead end alley behind him, but open at the other end in front of him, which was probably one hundred feet or more. If those men came out, Bentley would be trapped. Quickly, he ran out from behind the dumpster and fired three shots towards the back door as he ran to the open end of the alley. After he made it halfway down the side alley, he saw four men walk out in his path thirty feet ahead of him at the street. He had left his cover back at the dumpster leaving him fully exposed; only walls to either side of him now and nowhere to duck. Bentley quickly assumed it was the men who had been shooting at him and emptied the rest of his clip in rapid bursts while sprinting towards them. Two of the men fell to the ground while the other two ran from sight. Bentley decided it would be better to run for his squad car as fast as he could instead of running around the streets like a lost dog. The car was still parked in the street opposite from the front of the restaurant and the crowd.

As h
e passes the two men he had just shot, he notices they were both wearing ties and dress pants. It hit him like a ton of bricks when he realized they were both businessmen; black businessmen. And, there weren’t any guns around them. Only a briefcase, fancy backpack, and two small styrofoam boxes filled with leftover lunch. If it weren’t for the adrenaline, fear and relentless August heat, he would have been able to see their professional attire and control himself. But Bentley made a mistake. It has been in the news much too often when a police officer kills an unarmed black man. Some are justified, but some are questionable. It is an issue that has continued to haunt society with no resolution.