Forgot I had it...

Damn he needed a fix.  Cruising the streets like a zombie for 72 hours without sleep was just another long day in his single track mind.  He felt the itch squeezing his entire being as he slowly walked out from the shadows of his neighborhood into the street lights of the rich mans paradise. 

The dope man don’t hand out free rocks.  The dope man doesn’t take credit.  The dope man has to be paid for the ride to continue.

He didn’t know why he picked that house.  It just happened he was there when he took a break from walking.  The yard was pitch black and there was a really nice car in the driveway.  He rattled the back gate and didn’t hear the growl of a startled dog.  The gate made a high pitched whine as he slowly raised the latch and opened it just far enough to squeeze his lithe body between the metal bars.

He prided himself on this next move.  Amateurs kicked in the doors or broke a window.  He knew how to pry the glass open and melt into the house.  He also knew to check the door locks first and smiled when the first knob he turned revealed the living area of a family.

He could feel the cocaine laced blood pumping through his brain screaming out for another warm hit off the straight shooter in his pants - but there were no more rocks left.  He needed what these people had first.  He usually just grabbed something easy to carry and left.  He usually entered homes that he knew weren’t filled with life.

He usually wasn’t high when he did this.

Tonight he wasn’t just interested in another quick score for some cash.  Tonight he wanted a little taste of what these people had.  Tonight every thought of a quick theft turned to something else when he saw the pictures of the teenaged blonde girl all over the living room.

He felt around on his side until his fingers gripped the handle of the nasty double blade knife he refused to sell for a rock.  The sharp steel was the only thing he loved more than the rock.  The knife was his special high.  His glazed eyes betrayed a thin smile as he slowly made his way up the stairs in search of the room that held his prize. 

Her room was glittered with pink and yellow with pictures of baby faced boys in various poses framed with the name of their band.  She has just entered that age between little girl and woman that makes mothers smile and fathers scowl.  She was dreaming of things only teenage girls can dream when something seemed to reach into her subconscious and pull her into a dark reality.

She couldn’t really see him at first, but she could smell him.  The weeks of living on the street and the strong aroma like plastic burning of the crack cocaine he regularly smoked emanated from his body like a pungent warning.  His eyes were bright and white as he smiled and the little light from outside twinkled off the blade as he turned it in his hand.

She screamed.

Her parents woke suddenly and ran into their daughters room.  Her father was an editor for a large local paper.  He did not believe in owning a gun and could think of nothing to defend his family when he saw the man standing over his daughters bed with the knife twisting so playfully in his dark stained hands.

He grabbed a frying pan and began to chase him around the house while his wife desperately yelled for the call taker on the other end of the phone to send the police.  The dance between the two must have seemed like hours but only lasted a few moments.

I was making the usual laps around the high crime areas that I preferred to frequent.  It was a pretty slow night and most of our usual locations were quiet.  I was just about to pull around and find some coffee when the tone of the emergency alert pierced through the calm of my car.

The dispatcher was telling all of us that there was a burglary in progress at a house in the nearby residential area that few of us ventured to during the midnight hours.  These were high dollar homes sandwiched between the plywood shacks of one community and the overcrowded apartments of another.  The only divider being a simple two lane city street.

Cops who work nights are often divided into two categories - those who prefer to sleep and those of us who are adrenaline junkies and flock to adventure like little kids to cartoons on Saturday mornings.  Being a slow night there must have been a dozen of us racing each other to that house.

I don’t recall which one of us pulled up first but it seemed like we all arrived at the same time.  The arrest was rather uneventful.  All those officers and only one stoned crack head who was having trouble walking did not make for an exciting foot chase.  We walked the handcuffed zombie out to one of the patrol cars and began to empty his pockets.

One large knife…rope….crack pipe…pornography.

We thought we had a simple burglar who got caught until the head of household came outside still shaking with what could have happened to his family.  He told us of the man standing over his daughters bed when he woke up to her screams and how the stranger just stared at him as he yelled for him to get out of his house.

The crack head smiled but would not say anything to us about it, so we placed him into the backseat and went looking to see if he had dropped anything while running away from the home owner.

I could see the fear in the girls eyes as she stood on the front lawn of what had been her safe and secure home.  I could see the fear in the mothers face as she held onto her daughter.  I walked over to the man and asked him if he owned a firearm.  I wanted to let him know he had every right to defend his family.

He looked at me with astonishment.  He didn’t believe in guns.  Guns never solved anything and only simple minded Neanderthals believe that only firearms would work when words failed.

I took one last look at the shattered security and uncertainty on his daughters face and just walked away.

I was later able to ask the suspect what he intended to do with that knife and rope and he just smiled.  I asked why he didn’t use that knife on the father and his answer was that he simply forgot he had it.

That little girl and her family were very lucky that he had smoked so much prior to his decision to hunt them.

That piece of shit was very lucky it wasn’t my house.  A simple minded Neanderthal lives here.