Stories About Corn by Ri Xesin

Author:Ri, Xesin [Ri, Xesin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-08-06T22:00:00+00:00

Late-June

One Tough Day

“I hate June,” said Officer Reingold, alone in his patrol car.

He sat waiting for another traffic light to turn green.

The day was hot. His car was hot. And his brother’s dog tag flashed in the glaring sun; it swung back and forth from the rearview mirror, hanging by its metal bead chain.

A car pealed its tires to his right. The car was a small but powerful Subaru Impreza with a suped-up engine. The kid at the wheel looked over with wide eyes as the smoke passed over the front of his blue sedan.

The kid was clearly dumb and hadn’t even seen the cop just two lanes over.

Heads turned to look at what the officer would do from each of the cars between the kid’s car and James’s patrol car.

Officer J. T. Reingold stared at him with two angry eyes. It was the same damn kid he’d given a ticket to just last week. Something like Barry or Larry was the kid’s name. Didn’t have a job. Didn’t care about tickets. Probably smoked pot. Was, without doubt, a heavy drinker at only nineteen. Other drugs were an unknown. Family life was probably wild and undisciplined. And the kid was a bad driver and a terrible liar. James remembered thinking the kid had better pray to develop a silver tongue if he was going to survive his life.

Officer J. T. Reingold, sitting at the light, sitting in his uniform, sitting in his marked patrol car, staring at the kid, seeing the green light the other way turn yellow and then red decided to stretch out his arm and give the kid something to think about, a police officer’s outstretched middle finger. The kid’s eyes grew even wider and his mouth dropped open. James flipped on his lights and siren and then jammed the throttle to the floor for a full burnout when the left turn arrow lit up green. And back the way he had come, he went, as he slid around the median smoking his tires and leaving the intersection and the kid behind.

“James, James,” came the voice of Hazel, the police dispatcher, over the radio.

“Yeah,” he said, thinking he’d definitely get reprimanded when citizens called in the bizarre scene they just saw.

“James, there are some scattered reports near the downtown area of a man walking around causing some type of disturbance. Description is varied—possibly a forty year old male, Caucasian, between six-foot to six-foot six. Weight might be between two forty and three hundred. Clothing: may be wearing a light-colored t-shirt with some type of beer logo on it, and khaki pants with grey running sneakers. The suspect might be talking lewdly or throwing things over a fence near the Dover Park area.”

“Alright, I’ll swing over and see if I can’t get a bead on him.”

“Sure thing, hon. By the way, were you expecting anything in the mail?”

“Nothing in particular, why?”

“You got a great big envelope from someone in Illinois.”

“Really, well, that’s something. Keep it safe for me, would you?”

“Sure thing, hon.

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