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#1
St. Augustine, FL - Seen walking unsteadily from the hotel in direct violation of the open container laws he’d enforce in his own jurisdiction. He is more drunk than usual at an unfamiliar time of day. He leans against a utility pole and spills some of his beer on his dirty white New Balance sneakers. His jeans are pulled just above his belly button and belted tight, compressing his gut into a capital B shape. Four months ago, he tazed a disabled man until the guy’s heart stopped.
#2
Jacksonville, FL - Spotted eating chicken wings by himself at Hooters. His beer is half empty. Sauce collects in his mustache. He is wearing thick sandals and mismatched white socks pulled up just above the shin. His polo shirt is tucked into his shorts. He has been planning this for at least a week. A waitress tugs at her shorts as she prepares to flirt with this man for a tip. Maybe she recognizes him too — he shot someone in front of their kids during a no-knock raid.
All my friends are at the beach and I’m ordering a third plate of fried pickles, listening to what is now the third Eddie Money song in a row. I keep getting texts and not answering them. Eventually, I turn off my phone. I never see cops out of uniform at home, and here are two of them in one vacation. Cursed odds.
I walk through town with my head hung down, hands shoved in my pockets, squinting away from the sun reflecting off windshields cruising west on Beach Boulevard as I go east. My sandals were not meant for three hours of hot sidewalks; by the time I reach the bridge over the San Pablo river, a hole has worn through the left one.
I can’t help reflecting on what pure distillations of Middle America these men are. They are the fire behind the bound prisoners in the cave, casting the shadows of a charmless, droning monoculture that they will happily burn us all to maintain.
Are they all like this? At once monstrous and banal?
I read somewhere that possibilities are ever more hideous than realities, which is why, when I turn my phone back on, I ignore dozens of unread texts and look up hotels that offer discounts to cops. Then I call a cab to take me to the airport because I don’t know where else to rent a car.
#3
Miami Beach, FL - Seen outside a Five Guys patting himself down for a cigarette. His shirt says “I Had Fun Once — It Was Awful.” He is wearing a fedora, although he will insist that it is a trilby. His sideburns are patchy and uneven. He is taking his time finding a cigarette, because once he does, he will have to smoke it and then go back inside to continue listening to his son’s defense of watching anime. Does his son know that his dad gives kids his age “rough rides” until their bones break? That he was suspended with pay for it until the press moved onto something else?
Five Guys is less tolerant of loitering than Hooters was, so I leave and buy five burgers from a Wendy’s and dear god I eat them all and toss the wrappers into the backseats of cars with their windows cracked open. I carry the last two wrappers for at least a half hour but greasy hands are the cost of seeing something through.
My bank calls because they suspect recent purchases on my credit card. I reassure them that my rental Mitsubishi Mirage is in good hands. A friend calls asking where the hell I am, and I tell her that Miami-Dade police have made over 800 arrests since February, and 300 of them during Spring Break. Over 70 firearms seized, over 5,000 traffic citations issued. She tells me I left my pills in her hotel room and I tell her to flush them down the toilet.
#4
Boca Raton, FL - Seen jogging. He has a ponytail and a spongy coat of graying hair across his shoulders, chest, stomach, and back, made more visible because he is not wearing a shirt. He is wearing a heart-rate monitor, a step counter, and red jogging shorts that are unreasonably short. He’s showing off, but it’s unclear why, or to what end. He once broke a suspect’s nose so badly that an ER nurse said it will “not be properly aligned again,” then lied about the guy trying to strangle him.
#5
Palm Beach, FL - Seen at a Palm Beach Cardinals game. He is wearing a “Slavery Gets Shit Done” t-shirt and camouflage cargo shorts. He’s drinking a beer and yelling at the away team; his taunts are 1/4 ballpark chatter to 3/4 swear words and PG-13 racism. He was captured on video smashing someone’s face into the wall of a convenience store several times before making an arrest. His 3-year-old son is with him. One cannot help but feel a lingering sense of inevitability.
“It seemed to be a sort of monster, or symbol representing a monster,” Lovecraft wrote as a description of Cthulhu. “A form which only a diseased fancy could conceive.” Fitting that a paranoid racist would accidentally stumble upon the perfect description of modern police out of uniform. Look away! Go back! Do not see!
Progress down I-95 is slow thanks to near-constant highway construction. So many car dealerships and shopping centers. Outback Steakhouse. Five Below. Starbucks. A friend calls and asks where I am, tells me to do some sightseeing. I tell them with a mouthful of fries that I’m a step ahead of them.
#6
Savannah, GA - Seen in line at Starbucks, wearing a sport coat over a button-down blue shirt, left untucked and hanging over pre-faded jeans. His haircut makes the rest of his head look like an undercooked ham. He is on his phone and doesn’t hang up before ordering his latte. The cashier’s lips purse and tighten—a gesture of annoyance, familiarity, and resignation—as subject flits between conversations. The video of this guy pulling a college kid out of a car and stomping on his head in the street pissed my mom off so much she stopped giving to the FOP.
Someone smuggled a phone into prison and my dad calls me on it. I say I’m with friends at the beach and he asks if I got any tail. I say yes and he asks how much. I say enough and he snorts. No such thing as enough. He says his cellmate knows how to sneak porno magazines in, and would I buy him some. I tell him I’ll call if I see any adult bookstores on my way home and he hangs up. I walk across the street to McDonalds and press buttons on the food service touchscreen until an employee says I have to take some items off my order, they can’t do that much.
#7
Tybee Island, GA - Seen backing a minivan into a parking space near the Tybee Beach Pier. Sole bumper sticker on vehicle has been mostly scraped off. This man pulls up his knee-length board shorts upon exiting the vehicle; he’s also wearing a blue fanny pack and white running shoes. His wife unloads the kids from their car seats by herself — she looks tired. I remember his face from the mugshot on the news, the courtroom illustrations, my neighbor’s response to his acquittal. I key his van once he’s too far away to see me.
#8
Jekyll Island, GA - Encountered while standing outside a liquor store, wearing a black T-shirt that says “Not A Cop,” those short khaki shorts that Auburn U frat guys like, black Adidas sandals, and white Adidas socks. He asks a passing woman where she’s going, looking so good with no man. He shouts after her, demanding a smile. He tells a passing man to look him in the eyes, motherfucker, or keep walking. He is there for several hours. His shirt doesn’t fool me. He’s visiting from Baltimore, where he was suspended for beating up and arresting a 14-year-old at a pool party in front of his parents.
Madness rides the star-wind on the back deck of the Wharf, the island’s only waterfront bar. Well-fed thirtysomethings and retired boomers dance to blues songs that were old when my dad was learning how to skim credit cards. Any of the cops I’ve seen could be here, sloshing beer all over themselves under the patio lights while this band—who could also be cops—sleepwalks through “Pride and Joy.”
Why can’t I like this shit? This poured-concrete, high fructose corn syrup dream of a dream? My life would be so much easier if I could. I want to, if only because my dad would love being here and he can’t, but I can. But so can every child-murdering psychopath cop I’ve been cataloguing this past however-long-it’s-been.
At least a few people using the bathroom at the Wharf heard me trying to explain this to my friend over the phone and breaking down and wishing the seas would just fucking boil already because nothing we’ve done in my lifetime is worth preserving.
#9
Brunswick, GA - Seen in the gym, wearing purple/gold Zubaz exercise pants and a spaghetti-strap tank top. He is lifting his maximum amount of weight for one set of four reps, grunting and panting with exertion. He does not wipe his sweat off the equipment after using it. In the parking lot, he shouts at me and slaps my notebook and pen out of my hand. Hates that I’m smiling. Shoves me to the ground and calls me a slur before storming off.
My mom calls twice, but I don’t pick up. My friend calls and asks where I am, she hasn’t seen me since she got back into town. I tell her and she Paypals me money for a plane ticket. I try to tell her what I’ve been doing, what I’ve seen, but she tells me to shut up and come home. I hang up on her and my elbow smears blood all over the car seat. I try to scrub it out before ditching the rental car at Jacksonville International, but in the end I just drop the keys in the lockbox and hope they can’t tell I’ve been sleeping in it.
#10
Glen Burnie, MD - Seen in a grocery store near BWI Airport. His polo shirt is a) unbuttoned enough to expose a mossy patch of chest hair, and b) tucked into his khaki shorts. His cologne radiates an estimated 12” around him in all directions. As he wanders around with his cart, he talks to his wife on his Bluetooth, asking her what their children eat.
#11
Brooklyn Park, MD - Seen outside a convenience store, holding a bouquet of scratch-off tickets. Wearing a fleur-de-lys-patterned cowboy shirt tucked into jeans that are pulled up high enough to show off his thick white socks. He has apparently never arrested anyone who felt like explaining the concept of a moose knuckle to him. He has, however, beaten a pregnant woman with a nightstick. I don’t remember what I yelled at him, but he gave up chasing me after a block or two.
#12
Brooklyn Park, MD - Found wearing a backwards hat and a black t-shirt with “Don’t turn this date rape into a homicide” printed on it. His cargo shorts are splitting at the hems and there is a small hole developing next to his right-side back pocket. He shaves his head, but keeps his goatee gray to suggest maturity and wisdom. I bet he’s the piece of shit who reported me for public disturbance.
There were three other guys nodded out in the tank when my friend came to get me. I was thinking of taking a nap myself but instead I get slapped in front of a bunch of cops and they’re still laughing when the door shuts behind us. She hugs me in the parking lot and I wish she’d done that inside and slapped me out here. I tell her I don’t want to go home when she says my mom’s been calling, and when she asks where I want to go I say the porno store on Crain Highway. In response to the look I get, I tell her it’s for my dad, and we can get Burger King on the way. She hands me my pills and I take one just before rolling down the window and leaning my head out into the rain to tell everyone waiting for Home Depot to open that I have fallen into the sky.
