The Opal Causeway by D H Yeats

Author:D H Yeats
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary fiction
Publisher: Troubador Publishing
Published: 2022-09-16T00:00:00+00:00

After being bundled into a windowless paddy wagon together with other arrested, Pete’d been taken to be processed. That formality now over, dazed, he sat on a wooden bench. What was happening? He’d no idea where he was; California had suddenly become a dark, dangerous place. As well as still experiencing the effects of tear gas, internally he was in turmoil, yet trying his utmost to mask any physical manifestation of being in that state.

He raised his head and looked around.

Washington, a guy whose hair reached his waist and was finished being processed, now sat down beside him. He wore granny glasses and his sole item of clothing was mauve women’s panties. He’d not betrayed an inch of vulnerability during his process. Though the officers needled him, derided him something chronic, he remained stoic. An inspiration, Pete thought as he turned to ask where they were.

‘The Berkeley Police Department,’ Washington replied. ‘So what trumped-up charge have they got you on?’

‘Assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon,’ Pete replied, hesitantly, not quite believing it. A mistake surely had been made and he’d soon be let go.

‘Jeez, man, so what you do?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Hum, they just grabbed you. I thought as much.’

‘What about you?’ Pete asked.

‘For,’ Washington answered, with deliberation, his eyes scanning down at his near-nakedness, ‘being myself, I guess. It’s usually that.’

Pete had watched the hard time given to Washington when processed. Of course, dressed as he was, Washington was a dead cert for arrest, but it really kicked off when they asked his name.

‘Surname first,’ the officer had barked.

‘Fuck,’ Washington replied loudly; the room went quiet.

‘Don’t you go using that language with me – now tell me what your name is.’

‘Fuck.’

‘Enough of the funny stuff; now tell me your name.’

‘Fuck,’ Washington repeated, for the third time.

The officer’s face grew red with anger. It looked like he was going to get decked yet Washington calmly produced his ID from a small cloth shoulder bag and handed it to the officer.

‘Fuck’s my given name, sir,’ he emphatically stated. ‘Please look at my driving licence, sir. Washington Fuck’s clearly printed on it.’

A group of officers now gravitated towards what they evidently considered to be the freak of freaks, their faces distorted with a mixture of hate, disgust intermingled with traces of lust.

‘So now,’ the processing officer continued, unwilling to repeat Washington’s legal name, ‘your profession?’

‘Sexual revolutionary.’

‘Shit, whatever next, motherfucker?’

The cop had enough. He quickly sped through the processing. Washington’s strip-search certainly didn’t take too long.

Pete’s processing – the aggressive questioning, jibed comments and utter reluctance to believe his story – seemed Kafkaesque. There was scant acknowledgement of him being a foreigner; the cops acted like they didn’t want to know. When it came to being strip-searched, he felt a severe stab of self-consciousness, remembering, while unzipping his jeans, he was wearing no underpants. This detail didn’t go unnoticed, eliciting predictable comments, and there seemed to be more than an element of perversion in the cop’s behaviour when carrying it out. His possessions

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