Dizzy blue spin of police lights. The bony crunch of boots in gravel. From bird’s eye watch Josephine hump the stretcher solo up the driveway. Lost you in transit. Misplaced you boy. The fuck am I. Out of body. Lost in the yellow still aware just by a hair now slow transmigrate to find self standing just beyond halo of pale lamplight. The muddy brown truck long gone. Or never was but you still hear the voices fierce whispering inside.
nah that’s a glimmer.
shut up polly you’re still wet.
one foot in the straylight.
residual too hot.
put some lead in his eye.
nah it’s a kink he ain’t here this a loop.
the hell cowboy motherfucker staring dead through me.
no he ain’t everybody stay cherry for fuck sake.
I make one male voice one female. Another male silent breathing. Then nothing. The whine of crickets.
Turn and head up the blue washed drive. In the backseat of first crown vic is another variable, young white male shirtless bobbing his head to internal lightshow. His wrists zip tied behind him and a hood over his head. The screen door slams like a thousand others. Blur of smoky fur past our feet. Ever watchful for the undead I glance in synch with a stray bend of light to catch green cat eyes peering back at me. Low growling and gray crouched under a crooked porch swing. One of the deputies looms by the front door, smoking. Josephine jukes past him and parks the stretcher in a hallway then cruises into the nether to examine the scene. Never not uneasy walking onto an unknown scene and losing visual with your partner. Even a scene I’ve walked through in slow motion frame by frame reverse and bird’s eye still feels like one of us stepped out of frame into another strand and we might be slightly out of tune or otherwise misaligned when next we touch. Anyway you twig the dude wants to talk. Nod and spark a cigarette of your own.
Tap the radio, check.
Mutter and sigh and Josephine’s exasperated check comes back.
Two minutes I’m right behind you.
Uh huh.
Blow smoke and watch the deputy glitch, waiting to say his lines. He grinds his teeth, chewing the sides of his cheeks. Stare cool at him and wonder how long before he spits something out without a prompt but the poor barney is locked up. Mario stuck in a corner and won’t unfreeze.
Okay, you say. What’s up with eight mile in your backseat.
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