WyzWmn's World©

the sound: Phil Collins – In the Air

I’d spent virtually the whole day at the police station, going over and over my statement with the police…with several police officers in fact. To be sure, in the impeccable words of my father, that I had my bloody story straight.

Late in the afternoon 2 officers came in and held a heated whispered conference with my father. Today had been the big “staff appreciation” party at the hotel. Everyone that I knew would have been there. The police raided the party and arrested Bennie and Frankie.

At the time Frankie had a plastic bag in his pocket with 160 eight balls in it. Bennie (true to his name) was carrying several hundred black beauties in a bag down the front of his pants. Both of them were being charged with possession with intent to traffic as well as armed robbery and expulsion of a firearm within the city limits. Charges over Amelia’s baby were pending.

As the only person on staff that was not there at the time, the only person that had been involved in the robbery that was not there at the time, the only person whose father was a cop not there. Two plus two equals four…..so everyone pretty much knew immediately that I’d been the one to blow the whistle. Apparently the act of arresting them had been rather stellar, I heard whispers of riot gear, clubs and pepper spray.

I hung my head. “How ever would I live this one down?” I was pretty sure that my days in my particular line of work, or with my so called friends were numbered.

At dusk we returned to my parent’s house. I was surprised to see that there were still officers there. But better safe than sorry my mother said. We (the family) bedded down for the night as the officers settled in for the night watch.

Over the next week we had officers at the house or outside it round the clock and we settled into some sort of bizarre routine. By the end of the week yet another whispered conference was held and the officers left us alone.

The following week my brother and sister returned to public school. On the Thursday my seven year old sister came home in tears. A “big bad man” had pulled her off of the street and into the bushes on her way home from school. He had threatened to kill her if I didn’t “shut the fuck up” and then he cut off her beautiful long blonde hair with a “big scary knife”.

The police came back for another week and then left again when nothing happened. The day they left my mother received a phone call from a man with a deep mean voice….”don’t let your boy go to school tomorrow if you want him to return home a boy”.

The police came back. Finally it was suggested that I should go to Toronto to stay with extended family a while so that my immediate family could get a life. I did as I was told and packed a bag to go to the airport.

I was escorted to the airport by my father, who’d spent most of his time on the drive there telling me what a failure I was as a human being. I was at the height of anxiety; I was scared, ashamed of my breach of trust of all my friends, worried about my kid brother and sister, and just plain scared to get on that plane by myself.

I got out of the car and watched as my father came around the car to escort me into the airport. Side by side we walked into the small town airport terminal and walked towards the counter. My father picked up my ticket at the counter and handed it to me. He admonished me once again and sent me on my way towards airport security.

The little airport was teeming with people…a plane from Winnipeg having just arrived. I remember watching people greeting family members and friends as I walked towards the security check. I looked down for a moment…just in time to see a hand holding a knife coming towards my right abdomen…just below the rib cage.

Time froze.

I noticed a braid of beautiful blonde hair hanging from his dirty jean vest.

I looked up and into the brown crazed eyes of the man holding the knife.

I had a moment of complete clarity.

I recognized him as one of Frankie’s cronies as he pushed the knife into my gut and started to pull up….

I heard someone screaming.

It was me.

the sound: Golden Earring – Twilight Zone

Twenty minutes later I was sitting in the back seat of a police car on my way to my parent’s home…the father had sent in reinforcements.

We arrived home to my mother sitting on the couch in the living room with the bother and the blister and 4 of the officers that worked for my father milling around. I sat with my mother and asked “hi mom…..what’s going on?”

“Your father is once again concerned with how the results of your actions affect the rest of the family” she said….scathingly.

“but mom…these guys are small potatoes…their just cheap thugs…and not even really good thugs….they seriously couldn’t organize something like this…someone else did the thinking for them…I just know it!” I started.

“His point exactly Baby, once again, that calibre of people you are making your life with can and will take the law into their own hands….your father is just not taking any chances…he will not allow your need to ‘do your own thing’ cause harm to anyone else.”

“oh blah blah blah”…I replied, and then sat back and remembered the sound of the rifle as it exploded so close to my head, and the sound of the bullet going into the wall where I’d been sitting. “maybe she’s got something there” I thought.

My father…ever the pragmatist was on the phone to the local police department ‘making arrangements’ and no sooner had I finished this conversation with my mother he and another officer furtively whisked me out the door, into the back seat of the patrol car and off to his office.

“In a police car twice in one day” I thought…”this can’t be good.”

At the police station my father and his men rallied around loaded for bear, they truly seemed caught up in the expectation that Frankie and Bennie might come bursting through the door with guns blazing.

I on the other hand was not so convinced….and as always in the presence of my father was beginning to feel pushed around and just the tiniest bit belligerent in return.

Two detectives from the local PD arrived and in no time at all I was ensconced in a small room with them, one of my father’s men and a stenographer to take notes.

I made a cursory statement about the robbery and then they began to grill me.

In not time at all I was at the ‘refusing to further answer’ stage of my morning. I was tired, and pissed and disgusted with being treated like, what I considered at criminal might be treated.

Just to firm my resolve, at a moment when I was being particularly obstinate about not sharing what had happened the police officer that worked for my father asked me if I was aware that someone had “taken shots” at my parent’s home that night?

What?…what do you mean shots? I asked.

“shots Baby…with a gun you bloody fool!” came the reply

I drew in a breath, my initial gut reaction was to tell them nothing further but then three things occurred to me simultaneously. One being that everyone at the hotel had known but me, two being that I had come very very close to loosing my life to a junkie and three that in fact a life had been lost, Amelia had lost her child.

I resolved to be done with the kind of people that would take life so lightly, mine, Amelia’s baby’s nor that of the rest of my family.