The Sad Cycle

Ultimately it was the badge in Silverman's pocket that was his undoing. The junkie lived in the third floor of the building. It was Number Who Cares on 123 Anydamn Street, Inner City, FU. In other words, it could have been anywhere, and it would have ended the same. Silverman knocked; the man opened the door. Silverman said what you got? The man asked who you is? Silverman reached into his pocket to get his cash... But it was the wrong pocket, and out came his badge. The door slammed. Silverman hammered on it in a panic. He needed the smack bad--he was starting shake. He wasn't the only needle-freak on the street beat, but he was hooked worse than any of the rest of them. Officer Silverman hammered on the door, shouting for the man to bring him some, he had money, plenty of money, it was a mistake, please, you gotta open the door...! The only part of the door that opened, though, was a ragged hole about eight inches in diameter, and the same hole opened in Silverman's chest as the muffled blast of the shotgun from inside the apartment reverberated through the hall of the dirty tenement.

Silverman hadn't been a dirty cop... Just a sick one. Now he was a dead one. Another statistic of pathetic addicts gunned down in deals gone bad, not honorable cops gunned down in the job. He was now a number on the Other Side, and the force would have nothing for his wife and baby son.

The badge by which he lived and died was decommissioned and destroyed a week later. On the anniversary of his death, no one now in the 23rd precinct even remembered a cop named Silverman used to work there.