Hok the cop, my friend the cop. Maybe not my friend. Maybe I’ve just known him since we were kids. He’s got a badge & a bad temper. Wife split for the bed of another woman. She paid for it though man. The night she left he told her, I said you could stay. Said you could fuck that dyke all you want. I just want to watch & join in when I feel like. That thing tween your legs belongs to me. Don’t ever forget. & what you do w/it is up to me until the day you die sweetheart. Until the day you die. Don’t ever forget.
Yeah yeah definitely just somebody I know, went to school w/, no big friend, nope. Off he goes to harass the homeless again. Homeless Hank. Used to be a writer back in the 50s. A pretty radical one too from what I hear. Only read one of his books. It just confused me & made my head hurt every time I blinked my eyes.
Hank’s not bothering anybody but the wall. He’s just talking to himself in the middle of a nice sunny day. Hok goes up to him in crisp creased uniform. His mouth opens wide and his teeth part. He says, Who you tawkin to old man.
Guess I’m tawkin to YOU now, sonny boy. Hey kid do you know who I am.
Hok slaps him light across the face just to let him know he can.
Alright kid well I know who you are. I knew your daddy you know. Way back when we was your age. I used to fuck all his women when he wasn’t looken. Ha ha yeah. Even fucked that snaggle toothed, flat assed bitch he wound up givin a ring to. Now I guess that would make her your mama huh big copper man. Yeah uh huh I know who you are.
Alright kid you can slap an old man. Okay you fuck’n meathead. She used to beg for it in the ass & allll the way down her throte too. Yeah believe it. I was one of the best swordsmen around back then. Could really lay pipe. & your daddy well he just couldn’t keep it up long enough to keep any of the ladies around very long. Yeah & RUMOR has it (he squints & looks at Hok sly & sidewaze) the apple don’t fall far from the tree.
Hok backhands him, pulls out his gun, puts it to the old man’s head. Hank says something about already living too long anyway & spits in Hok’s face. Grabs the gun. Fires it in the air. Hollers. Wails crooked-necked in some secret crazy-old-man code up up up at the bitter-pill sun. He wants it to drop on our heads, burn us all up, make all this shit irrelevant. He’s got the gun and waves it around over his head.
The old man hisses, the serpent, his tongue protecting him, a poisonous thing, flick, flick, right in Hok’s pointy face. He says, Wish I had the AIDS, flatfoot. Cause if I did I’d pull down your drawers right here & now & ram it raw right up your ass til it tickled the back of your throte all just so’s I can watch you die long & slow like you deserve. Ha ha kid. Bet you’d take it too. Ha ha yeah. Like father like son yeah ha ha.
Then he looks at me crazy & says, Who are you.
Nobody Hank. I’m home sleeping right now man. I’m not even here.
Damn right you’re not. Now git. & take this purty little thing wich ya.
We call Hok Hok because in high school he hocked his grandmother’s wedding ring for a couple cases of cheap Colorado piss-water & pack of Philly Blunts on graduation night. His real name is George. We came up together. He used to cry if you looked at him funny. People said that’s why he became a cop. Guess he figured he didn’t have to cry any more. Guess he figured the costume & toy gun would make him a man but it just made him a cop.
I dragged Hok out of there & only looked back once. There was the old man crazy from the heat, adrenaline like heroin bloating his veins, cheap whiskey surging through him, all the blood rushing to his head you know. Twisting that pistol around & around his finger. Old west gunfighter talking to the sun. Talking to himself. Standing over the body in the road, the blood reddening the dirt, townspeople gushing & gasping.
Hok went back later looking for him but the old man was nowhere in sight. Lucky for Hok. Lucky for me because I’m the one who’d have to haul off the pieces then later try to put them back together from memory. & everybody knows my memory’s not what it used to be. Too much shit in my head for there to be room for anything useful, anything valuable, anything that might actually move me one square forward on this stupid game board. So I just keep rolling the dice until snake eyes makes all the decisions or the double sixes roll out to pay me twice what I’m worth & I can skip this town for good.
