Get me outta FLA
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It's not like a movie; more like a dream. Like being somewhere, somewhen, someone else.
Here is Hernando County, Florida; now is April 2009. We are Matthew Strauss, and Matthew just got back from a screening of Watchmen; headed straight into work after. He's 24. He's got a yellow smiley face pin with a hole in its head on the clean khaki breast of his uniform and he's explaining earnestly to his partner Juliet Suarez the potency of a particular scene.
"'I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me.' Just... the sheer ba--, uh, guts, Jules. Y'know?" Rorshach, to Matthew, represents a whole new theory of law enforcement. He imagines himself, standing over the ingrate population of Hernando County, and they look up at him and cry for help, and he says... well, yes, eventually, because it's his job, but he makes 'em crawl first.
Jules doesn't look up. "Mm-hm." He likes Jules, he can talk to her about the kind of stuff he likes and she usually knows it, but that doesn't mean she gets it. He's got a theory women never really get comic books. They're distributing trays of slop to the scumbags in lockup; full house tonight, and a losing hand. Not exactly the looming supervillainous thugs of Matthew's fevered imagination and Rorschach's fever-dream reality.
Here's Dan Stanwell, locked up for hitting his wife again. She'll bail him out in the morning. Here's a couple of drunks, fighting over an ex, who beat each other up and are now crying on each other's shoulders and puking intermittently. Here's Carrie James, who has moved up from Night Train to meth recently. She looks like a walking skeleton, more like ninety than her fifty-five, and Matthew guesses they'll be zipping a bag up around her instead of locking her in a cell one of these nights soon.
And here's someone he doesn't know, but Jules treats with the genial contempt his appearance seems to deserve. He looks real country, straight from the depths of the 'Glades; the kind of asshole who spends his time wrestling gators and handling snakes and just molesting reptiles generally. He's got a big, illegal necklace of gator teeth and miscellaneous crap that looks to have accreted rather than been made, and the jaundiced eyes of one of the big lizards, too, squinting out of his cell. He's a scrappy little fuck, like a little bantam rooster, his arms and chest bare under a ratty vest and lined with wiry muscles. One arm bears a shittily-executed tribal tat, interlacing blue lines and thorns. He's taken abuse all night with a kind of giggling tolerance that suggests drugs or idiocy or both. Locked up for petty vandalism, smashing windows on the turnpike after traffic came to a dead halt with an overturned lime truck. A carbon for an impound, and Matthew can imagine this douchebag's car without ever seeing it. Rusted out Monte Carlo. Sticker of Calvin pissing on the Ford logo. Confederate flag in the back window. Bet the bank on it. Stick it in your dossier.
Now the douchebag frowns down at the tray, though, a thought struggling to wade through the moonshine and methamphetamine swamps behind his wide, pimpled brow. "Deputy," he says to Jules. "I di'n't get a fruit cup."
"'Scuse me?"
"That man got a fruit cup," he whines, pointing. "And so did she. Everyone of them people got a fruit cup and I di'n't. That ain't fair. That ain't justice."
"Haven't you read your Niven, Delacroix?" Jules says, stepping closer. Letting the uniform talk, although the lady in it helps too. Jules is a big, tough girl, amateur boxer, and probably outweighs their little guest by twenty or thirty pounds. There's not much she doesn't know about balls."There ain't no justice."
Pretty sure that's Heinlein, Matthew thinks, wasn't Niven's line there ain't no such thing as a free lunch? Which is funny because that's exactly what the scumbag is whining about: a free lunch. He's opening his mouth to correct her when things go suddenly wrong. The scumbag sticks his arms through the bars, fast as one of the rattlers Matthew pictured him juggling, and smashes his fists into the sides of Juliet's head, which also goes suddenly, wildly wrong.
She drops in a crumpled heap, like a steer going down at the slaughterhouse, right there at Matt's feet, and he stutters and stumbles and staggers back, trying not to puke. He fails.
The douchebag grabs the bars of the cell and starts to pull. It's an electric lock, and greasy smoke starts to pour from the gearbox as the muscles in the guy's chest ripple and jerk. Unbelievably, the door begins to inch back and alarms begin to scream.
Matthew gets out his sidearm, but he doesn't put up much of a fight when the guy steps out of the cell and yanks it from his hand. He casually lifts the gun and shoots Carrie, who shrieks like a teakettle and then stops.
The two bros drying out scrabble, each trying to hide behind the other; douchebag caps one and then the door opens. Sheriff Steele comes through with a scattergun, which is by the book, but Donnie crashing into his back in the scrum isn't, and the douchebag crosses the room (stepping nattily over an unresisting Matthew), shoots the sheriff and gets to the shotgun ahead of Donnie. It's a homerun swing with the stock, and the sound when his neck snaps ruins baseball forever for the survivors.
"Yeah!" says Stanwell, with a kind of sick hope in his voice. "You... you show them suckers, bro."
The douchebag stares at him quizzically, like a talking dog, and fires the shotgun into the cell, aimed low. He glances down at Matthew. "Enough guts for ya?"
He leans down, and the deputy flinches, but all he does is pluck the yellow smiley face pin from the breast of the fouled uniform. He grins, and for the first time Matthew sees that his teeth are stained ivory needles, like the ones in his necklace in miniature. "Christ, I like that." He fixes the pin among the other detritus of the necklace and ambles in the direction of the impound lot.
It happened so fast, is what Matthew has to try and explain at the hearings. How impossibly fast it all unfolded. And they nod, and they pat him on the back, and when he finds he can't carry a gun anymore they get him a soft position in the county assessor's office. Everyone's very kind about it.
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It's not like a movie; more like a dream. Like being somewhere, somewhen, someone else.
Here is Hernando County, Florida; now is April 2009. We are Matthew Strauss, and Matthew just got back from a screening of Watchmen; headed straight into work after. He's 24. He's got a yellow smiley face pin with a hole in its head on the clean khaki breast of his uniform and he's explaining earnestly to his partner Juliet Suarez the potency of a particular scene.
"'I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me.' Just... the sheer ba--, uh, guts, Jules. Y'know?" Rorshach, to Matthew, represents a whole new theory of law enforcement. He imagines himself, standing over the ingrate population of Hernando County, and they look up at him and cry for help, and he says... well, yes, eventually, because it's his job, but he makes 'em crawl first.
Jules doesn't look up. "Mm-hm." He likes Jules, he can talk to her about the kind of stuff he likes and she usually knows it, but that doesn't mean she gets it. He's got a theory women never really get comic books. They're distributing trays of slop to the scumbags in lockup; full house tonight, and a losing hand. Not exactly the looming supervillainous thugs of Matthew's fevered imagination and Rorschach's fever-dream reality.
Here's Dan Stanwell, locked up for hitting his wife again. She'll bail him out in the morning. Here's a couple of drunks, fighting over an ex, who beat each other up and are now crying on each other's shoulders and puking intermittently. Here's Carrie James, who has moved up from Night Train to meth recently. She looks like a walking skeleton, more like ninety than her fifty-five, and Matthew guesses they'll be zipping a bag up around her instead of locking her in a cell one of these nights soon.
And here's someone he doesn't know, but Jules treats with the genial contempt his appearance seems to deserve. He looks real country, straight from the depths of the 'Glades; the kind of asshole who spends his time wrestling gators and handling snakes and just molesting reptiles generally. He's got a big, illegal necklace of gator teeth and miscellaneous crap that looks to have accreted rather than been made, and the jaundiced eyes of one of the big lizards, too, squinting out of his cell. He's a scrappy little fuck, like a little bantam rooster, his arms and chest bare under a ratty vest and lined with wiry muscles. One arm bears a shittily-executed tribal tat, interlacing blue lines and thorns. He's taken abuse all night with a kind of giggling tolerance that suggests drugs or idiocy or both. Locked up for petty vandalism, smashing windows on the turnpike after traffic came to a dead halt with an overturned lime truck. A carbon for an impound, and Matthew can imagine this douchebag's car without ever seeing it. Rusted out Monte Carlo. Sticker of Calvin pissing on the Ford logo. Confederate flag in the back window. Bet the bank on it. Stick it in your dossier.
Now the douchebag frowns down at the tray, though, a thought struggling to wade through the moonshine and methamphetamine swamps behind his wide, pimpled brow. "Deputy," he says to Jules. "I di'n't get a fruit cup."
"'Scuse me?"
"That man got a fruit cup," he whines, pointing. "And so did she. Everyone of them people got a fruit cup and I di'n't. That ain't fair. That ain't justice."
"Haven't you read your Niven, Delacroix?" Jules says, stepping closer. Letting the uniform talk, although the lady in it helps too. Jules is a big, tough girl, amateur boxer, and probably outweighs their little guest by twenty or thirty pounds. There's not much she doesn't know about balls."There ain't no justice."
Pretty sure that's Heinlein, Matthew thinks, wasn't Niven's line there ain't no such thing as a free lunch? Which is funny because that's exactly what the scumbag is whining about: a free lunch. He's opening his mouth to correct her when things go suddenly wrong. The scumbag sticks his arms through the bars, fast as one of the rattlers Matthew pictured him juggling, and smashes his fists into the sides of Juliet's head, which also goes suddenly, wildly wrong.
She drops in a crumpled heap, like a steer going down at the slaughterhouse, right there at Matt's feet, and he stutters and stumbles and staggers back, trying not to puke. He fails.
The douchebag grabs the bars of the cell and starts to pull. It's an electric lock, and greasy smoke starts to pour from the gearbox as the muscles in the guy's chest ripple and jerk. Unbelievably, the door begins to inch back and alarms begin to scream.
Matthew gets out his sidearm, but he doesn't put up much of a fight when the guy steps out of the cell and yanks it from his hand. He casually lifts the gun and shoots Carrie, who shrieks like a teakettle and then stops.
The two bros drying out scrabble, each trying to hide behind the other; douchebag caps one and then the door opens. Sheriff Steele comes through with a scattergun, which is by the book, but Donnie crashing into his back in the scrum isn't, and the douchebag crosses the room (stepping nattily over an unresisting Matthew), shoots the sheriff and gets to the shotgun ahead of Donnie. It's a homerun swing with the stock, and the sound when his neck snaps ruins baseball forever for the survivors.
"Yeah!" says Stanwell, with a kind of sick hope in his voice. "You... you show them suckers, bro."
The douchebag stares at him quizzically, like a talking dog, and fires the shotgun into the cell, aimed low. He glances down at Matthew. "Enough guts for ya?"
He leans down, and the deputy flinches, but all he does is pluck the yellow smiley face pin from the breast of the fouled uniform. He grins, and for the first time Matthew sees that his teeth are stained ivory needles, like the ones in his necklace in miniature. "Christ, I like that." He fixes the pin among the other detritus of the necklace and ambles in the direction of the impound lot.
It happened so fast, is what Matthew has to try and explain at the hearings. How impossibly fast it all unfolded. And they nod, and they pat him on the back, and when he finds he can't carry a gun anymore they get him a soft position in the county assessor's office. Everyone's very kind about it.
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