Alex Part 6

Once McDonalds was over we returned home.  By now the house had been vacated by the visiting potential buyers.  But still, remains of their visit haunted us like a bad dream.  Or, in this case, bits and bobs that were out of place.  A cup had been moved, or the cushions had been rearranged.  The place always looked different after these visits.  Like it wasn’t ours.

Danny had gone to his room to start his homework.  At least, that was his story.  I knew that he had a hand held system hidden in his backpack that he sometimes played at school.  I’d let him have his fun until his mother got home.

I sat about and watched some sitcom on the tv.  I sipped at my coffee and waited for the time to pass.  The minutes went by slowly.  Whether it was the inevitable return of my sister or the dreading hour I would have to return to work.  And after the shit-storm of a day I already had, I wasn’t looking forward to either.  And, because Danny would be home all day tomorrow, I would get less sleep than I usually would.  And that I would have to watch him during that time, and really couldn’t go work out or go to the station for free food.

Crap.

Soon enough Danny was hungry again.  He emerged from his room for the pasta that I had made with a completed worksheet.  It was his proof that he had done something during those hours cooped up in there.  I smiled appreciatively and we ate dinner in mostly silence.  He returned to his room to continue working on his homework; or playing the hand held games he had.

Suz came home with the door banging open.  She went into the living room and collapsed into one of the couches.  She stretched out her legs and sighed loudly.  I glanced her way and grabbed the remote.  I turned down the sound on the tv, now a news channel, and put the remote back down on the coffee table.

“What happened?”

I raised an eyebrow.  I wasn’t that surprised that she knew of Danny’s predicament.  The school most likely had called her at one point or another.  Whether that was before or after me didn’t matter.  The only thing that mattered was that Suz only knew that Danny had gotten in trouble, and that must have been resting on the back of her mind like some heavy weight for the past half-day.

“Danny got into a fight at school.”

“A fight?”  For all of her tiredness, she raised herself up to a sitting position.

“Yeah.  He won.”

“I don’t care that he won, I care that he got in trouble.”  I looked dubiously at her.  “Okay, I’m happy he won.  But what happened?”  She bit into each syllable.

“According to the school, he punched another kid without provocation.  Danny told me the full story, which he had failed to relate to the principal.”

“And what was the story?”

I smiled.  “Jeez, Suz.  Let me finish.”  She glared at me.  “Danny was talking to a girl at school.  The boy whom he hit came over and said some very unflattering things to the girl.  She started crying.  Danny punched him.  Gave him a split lip and a nice ripe black eye.”

“So he fought for a girl?”

“Yeah.  But he didn’t tell the principal what had happened, so he has got the rest of the week off from school.”

Her eyes went big.  “He got suspended!?”

“For a few days.”  I waved my hand in the air to dismiss the severity of it.  “It won’t stay on his permanent record because he’s still in elementary school.  He won, and the other boy won’t make a repeat of that mistake if he knows what’s good for him.”

“So, did you punish him?”

“I explained to him the right and wrong reasons of telling the teachers about what happened.  I told him that it was okay not to beat the crap out of another kid.”

“So you didn’t punish him.”

“Not exactly.  He has to finish his homework before he can play.  He’s got todays and Thursdays and Fridays.”

“So that’s it?”

I winked.  “I figure that you could scare the living daylight of him when you got home.  But not too much though.”

Suz smiled.  “I’ll talk to him now about what happened.  But I think considering the circumstances he's not in too much trouble.”

“Sounds good to me.”

She made to get up but stopped, falling back to the couch.  “Crap.”

“What?”

“Alex, I’ve got another house call tomorrow in the morning.”  I hung my head.  “Then another into the afternoon.”

“Don’t worry.”  I raised my head and smiled.  “I’ll watch him.”

She sighed in relief.  “He’s in his room?”

“Yeah.  Probably playing that game of his.”

She half-groaned.  “You should’ve taken it from him.”

“In his defense, he did do at least one worksheet.”

“Only one?  After almost six hours?”

“Closer to seven, but yes.”

“You should have taken that system from him.”  She reiterated.

“I couldn’t not let him have any fun at all.”

She narrowed her eyes.  “Fine.  I’ll be the big bad guy.”

I watched her get up.  “I don’t want to play the bad cop when I have to babysit for the next couple days.”

She turned to look at me.  “You never play the bad cop, Alex.  You never have and you never will.”

I brought my hands together and let my fingers tap each other like I was some sort of B-rated movie villain.  “Or am I?”

I mwa-ha-ha’d as she rolled her eyes and left for her son’s room.  I returned to the news and turned the volume back up.  She popped her head back into the room.

“Don’t you have work soon?”

I hung my head.

Leaving the living room, I returned to my little nook in the house.  I dressed into my uniform bottoms.  I would change into the rest of my outfit when I got to the station.  I left my room where Suz was collapsing on the couch.  Her legs went up over the edge of the couch, her eyes were half closed and covered by an arm.

“Long day?”

“Very long day.”  She answered.  “The ones who visited today didn’t like the place well enough to place an offer.”

“I figured.”

“I’m getting worried, Alex.  This moving process has been taking too long.”

“It’s only been a few months.”

“But the place across the street sold after a few days, and the place down the street sold almost instantly.  It’s a seller's market.  The price is good, it’s just that no one is taking it.  It’s frustrating.”

I sat down on the couch next to her.  I took her hand in mine.  “You miss Thomas.”

“Oh God, yes.”  Her arm moved and she opened her eyes.  “I haven’t been with my husband in months, Alex, months.  And he’s on the opposite side of the world.  It’s rough, ya know?  Not having your love here.”

“I know.”  I nodded.

Her eyes widened, and she back tracked.  “Alex, I—”

“Its fine, Suz.”  I smiled, hiding the pain that I was feeling.  “Are you going to skype him?”

“Yea.  I think I’m going to take a quick nap.”

“I better get going then.”  I got up.

“Stay safe.”

“Tell Thomas that I miss him and our talks.”

She nodded sleepily, her eyes closing.

I turned off the lights and left the flat.  I strapped on my helmet and went down to headquarters.  I parked in my usual spot at the back edge of the lot and went through the doors.  I set off the metal detectors once more but the guy behind the counter waved me through all the same.  These were Night Watch Officers, these were the people that knew me as opposed to the Day Watch’s Johnny Boy.

The Day Watch and the Night Watch were appropriately separated by Day and Night.  Now, this would normally be the only difference between the two divisions.  However, in the fair city we live in, there are certain issues that can’t be solved typically.

The Day Watch holds the bureaucratic men and women.  These are the ass-kissers and the suck-ups.  They stand in front of the press and play nice and make people love them.  They sidle up to politicians and people with money and power.

The Night Watch is the exact opposite.  We’re the outcasts, and the people that others would typically like to sweep under the rug and not let them inside to eat at their table.  The running gag is that we would all burst into flames the moment we would enter a church or a mosque or anything like that.  We’re the ex-soldiers and the thugs and the vigilantes and the loose cannons.  And then there’s me.

The issues come to our force two fold.  The first is the money-grubbing, corrupt powerholders of the city.  They literally control the power, political and militaristic.  There’s almost nothing to be done to throw the book at them or to convict them of any of their crimes.  The other are the several large gangs which haven’t yet died out.  The city is cut up into rough chunks, and each chunk is held by one gang or another.  And all the gangs fight it out over territory and drugs and money.  And each gang is backed by one of these power-hungry money holders.

The Day Watch tackles the civilians whom break the law.  The Night Watch tackles the gangs in their street wars.  The nice part of the city I live in doesn’t have the corruption that the other parts do.  There’s no gang war on my front steps, and there’s no one vying to kill the people there.  That’s because it is in the middle Lady Debbie’s territory; which is undoubtedly one of the nicest and well-kept territories in town.  However, the further you get out of her territory the closer you get to the street trenches.

Now, these aren’t literal trenches, but they are as clear as lines upon a map.  One moment you could be in a nice part of town with parks and museums and restaurants.  The next you might be in an area closely resembling the slums.  That’s not to say all territory-centers were nice and all the territory-borders were crap.  But typically, this was how it went.

I was to work that night for Collins’ shift.  He was slated to work with Officers Mark Sanchez and Tim Jefferson and Addie Marks.  Four officers to a unit, and that made Collins’ unit.  Our area?  It was in one of the rougher slums of town, at the border of two gang’s.  It was between General Perkins and Master Fetz.  Both men were notorious about expanding their territory at any cost.  It was going to be almost literal hell in there.

The fighting was always worse at night.  That was when things went wrong.  You know the Purge movies?  These nights inspired those movies.  I normally don’t have to deal with the rougher parts of town.  Tonight would be rough, and as I suited up in the protective armor we were all required to wear, I could only stare at myself in the mirror hanging on the inside of my locker wall.

He stared back, just as apprehensive as I was.