Buck - Fiction by Freon

“You know, Ms. Conrad, without your glasses, you don’t look so awful bad.”
The hooker stopped sobbing for twelve seconds, considering a notion that she could seduce herself out of the back of the cruiser. Had to nip that in the bud.
“Even better now that you aren’t swinging a knife at my partner’s throat.”
She started crying again. I shrugged, shutting the door on her. Better to keep a drunk in tune with reality.
I stuck her Iowa State ID into the clipboard, while Rosie got in. Somehow, she had gotten some coffee.
“Oh, oh, oh – you’re a goddess!” I dared a pull through the plastic lid, the aroma too tempting. We slid off the easement and backed into the street. “Who in Kerns is open this late?”
“The bellhop’s coffeemaker. They use the same stuff as the Casino café – and I thought you could use a little spoiling.” Rosie poked at the elbow bandage she’d put on the cut that Ms. Waneeta Conrad had afflicted there. “Thanks for covering me – might do the same for you sometime.”
“When’s the wedding,” said the drunk.
“Ms. Conrad, if you don’t mind,” I faced her momentarily and uncasually shut the plexi baffle, which she promptly spat on. “That’s nice. Thanks for cooperating. Keep it up, we’ll need samples later.” Unimpressed, I drummed my hands on the wheel and chewed my pen.
“I wanna talk t’ my agent.”
“Look,” Rosie said, pleasantly. “You had every chance to do that without pulling a knife. He’s a little off talking with you, tonight.” She examined her fingernails and babied her cup of coffee. “I suggest someone useful in your defense, Ms. Conrad. Try to think of who you wouldn’t attempt to kill--”
“Go stretch your neck.”
Glazed eyed glowed in the mirror, ringed with macabre streaks of eyeliner.
“---before you waste any breath.” Rosie’s voice trailed off. “Pete, is that something on the roadside?”
I squinted past her hand, to the curb ahead. She’d already grabbed hold of the spotlight. We stopped alongside what looked like a very large fur coat, or someone wearing one, in the gutter at Sullivan Reserve on Main. “I’ll call in. Can you see---”
“Oh, man,” Rosie sighed. She cleared her seatbelt and sprang out the door. “It’s somebody alright. Get on some gloves; I see a little blood here.”
I parked and rattled off a short call to Dispatch. Both of the city’s ambulance crews had remained in town, since Ms Conrad had been somewhat glancing in her earlier attack, and I’d turned them around. Either were half an hour out.
“A hit and run?” The enormous mass on the ground lurched. I came round the front of the car to see a hand reach up, clutching at the beam of the spotlight. “Easy, take it easy,” I said reflexively. I could see abraded elbow, bloodstains on the back of the palms.
“Jus’ lemme alone.” A deep voice, alcohol-slurred. “ Doin’ us no good, never before, and not now.” Then he gave a whallopping kick, barely missing Rosie’s shin.
“Hey, hey!” She stepped back. “You heard him, take it easy. Are you okay? Did you get hit or mugged or something? What do you remember?” She made to reach out a gloved hand, but another kick and a swat was all she got in return. “Pardon me!”
“I know this type, Rosie. Leave it to me.”
The lump on the asphalt regarded my words, and heaved a disgusted sigh. “Oh, here we go, now.” A face lolled into view, over hairy, naked shoulders and a braided mane of straight black. “Just what you mean by that, officer?”
I was close enough to smell the breath. The alcohol had been an improvement.
“I mean nothing by it, young man,” I began, very carefully. I looked him over from a safer distance. “You have any ID on you? License?”
“What a joke.” With a sarcastic laugh, he righted himself. “Look at me. Like I can ever fit behin’a wheel of a car. You people are lucky me and my brothers don’t jump that fence back there ever’ night, take a few of ‘em off the highway for laughs.”
“Sounds fun. Ever do it,” Rosie muttered, flashlight out, peering into the guy’s pupils and making it clear that she could use the aluminum tube as a smart little club if he tried to resist. Naked from the belly up, he had abrasions mostly across his face. Unsteady knees wobbled as he eyed my partner.
“I take the fifth. I wanna reservation lawyer.”
A cackle issued from somewhere behind the beam. “If he’s drunker than I am, you can let me go,” Ms. Conrad ventured.
“Shut it.” Rosie turned and marched off to the car. “I’m gonna go get some gauze.”
“Sir, you appear to be the victim of a hit and run. You don’t need a lawyer, you need medical attention. Get off it and cooperate.”
The guy narrowed his eyes. Drunk hate flared in them. He pulled himself from the ground. “Get off what?”
He stood, wavering, his head and hair rising above the car’s searchlight and into darkness. A pair of bloodied arms crossed a wide chest. Below, coarse black velvet pulsed all the way to the tail.
“Someone bagged a buck!” Waneeta Conrad howled mercilessly.
Limping on massive forelegs and advertising a badly skinned rump, he trotted uneasily to a bus stop bench a few feet away, grabbed a fannypack lying there and tossed it carelessly in my direction. “Get off my high horse? That a po-lice joke?”
I caught the bag before it could strike me in the face. I showed my revolver, and chose a voice that would carry over the fence to the reserve, as well as my car’s onboard video camera.
“Actually, yes. Wanna hear another one? You’re coming to the station on the hood of this car, if you don’t calm down right now and give us a story.” I flicked the leather stay from the holster, resting my left thumb on the hammer. “Let’s start again: Are you alright, sir?”
The species card hit the bottom of the deck, for the time being. The centaur steadied himself, looked me over, and bellowed a quick chuckle of bravado. “Just take the ID, biped. Then we talk. Nobody’s puttin’ me down as no damn John Doe.”
#
“Do you have any idea how much booze a centaur needs to get this drunk,” asked my partner, leaning on the fender while we waited. Waneeta Conrad had mercifully passed out.
“Never thought they could get drunk! Bored sonovabitch tried to kill himself with booze.“
I dragged off the last of my coffee. The radio APB had been easy. ‘Be on the lookout for a latemodel pickup, southbound on Main, may look like it has recently hit a wall.’ I regarded our centaur, the vic with the attitude. “He’s not real keen on us.”
“All the same. They---” she admonished herself. “He leans pretty hard on the reservation crutch.” She sighed, frustrated. “Why can’t people just make something of themselves? My momma would’ve beat the daylight out of me for drinking at this age.” She shook her head.
“She never had to choose between the unemployment line and guaranteed Federal aid if you all stayed on-campus.”
Rosie peered past me. “No offense! I just don’t get it. It’s a waste. He’s a wiseass for his age, too. I mean, I can apologize for myself. Who’s feeding him this bigotry?”
“Nobody. Too proud to blame himself. You heard him. Kerns is a dead-end town. Casino won’t hire four-footers, and there’s no jobs left in this state.”
“Why are we the bad guys? We can fit into a car, we can get jobs, and we don’t need special housing. So we’re the bad guy for not complaining?”
“We’re The Man. Rosie, you just listed half the breaks. Being a centaur is a handicap … but just go tell them they’re handicapped as a species. Equal opportunity be hanged. They’re trapped. They hate us for it.”
Chiron limped over, scratching his chest. “I’m not under arrest,” and started to amble away.
“You have the right to press charges, Mr. Chiron. “ I held out a hand to give him pause. “…And it’s technically against the law to leave the scene of a road accident, even if you’re the victim. Wouldn’t you like some justice for a change? The ambulance can treat you---”
The centaur stopped, amused. “I’m surprised you didn’t call a vet.”
“Truth is they’re certified both ways,” I conceded, “under the circumstances.“ I nodded in the direction of the fence. “Do us the favor. We want him as much as you do.”
Centaurs evidently sober fast. I faced an unwavering glare. “He went out of his way to hit me.”
“I could see that from where we found you. You’re within your rights to have justice done. We won’t tolerate this.”
His mane bristled. “Justice? I think you don’t know justice from jack, officer.” He turned, pacing, wringing his hands. “Maybe I wanted to get myself killed.”
“It’s not out of the question---”
“What do you care? I’m just another buck. Momma will make more, right?”
“Who says?” I was a fool, lecturing a boy four feet taller than myself, but I stood my ground. “Who says anything about your momma? Who says I don’t know exactly what you’re going through? You wanna be treated like a stupid buck, go ahead. Ask for it.”
Chiron fell silent.
“Look, we’re not here to fix all your problems. We can’t.“
The buck started angrily. Then, resigned: “I know you’re the law. But Your Law. Not ours. I’m drunk, underage, and I’m lucky you’re not arresting me.” He dropped his arms to his flanks. “I just want for there to be an outside. You know?”
Rosie stood and walked back, tending to a chirping radio. I called after her. “Kill the spotlight too, Rosie. While you’re at it?”
In the sudden dimness Chiron cantered, silhouetted against the lights of his home – the reserve. He became an awesome reverse constellation, a looming, brooding void among flickering lights. After a moment, I followed and soon caught up. We stopped at the fence.
“Ron, you’re seventeen years old.” I reached out and nudged the centaur’s elbow when I saw the tears. “When I was seventeen I had everything I wanted, and I still wanted out. This place is a low hill in a deep hole. The further you go – alone – the worse it gets. No matter who you are.”
Rosie called from the car. “EMTs are four miles out.”
“Alright. We’re not going anywhere.”
After a long moment, Chiron turned to me. “I can just go back.”
“It’s up to you.” I fell back, holding my palms up. “Justice, Chiron. We’ll trip all over ourselves, maybe look like complete idiots. Bear with us.” I looked at him earnestly. “Have a little patience, and we’ll give you dignity and respect. That’s the law, yours and mine.”
Rosie whistled, from the distance. “Pete, it’s Unit Five. They stopped the pickup on Merollis Avenue. The guy’s pissing drunk. Somebody must be having a sale.”
Chiron blinked, and looked from me to the waiting cruiser, and back. He took a step forward. “If you have the time, then so do I.”