Mike Faricy - Bombshell

“Ughhh,” was about all I got out as the wind was knocked out of me. Knees and feet pinned me to the floor, someone seemed to be standing on my head.

“Freeze asshole, don’t move,” someone yelled.

Move? That was the least of my problems. I couldn’t breathe, I was struggling for air, panicking. Some guy was sitting on my chest and it felt like it was collapsing. I couldn’t move, couldn’t get the weight off. I couldn’t breathe, more panic.

“Hold still, damn it,” someone screamed as a pair of hands reached on either side of the boot standing on my skull and twisted my head, slamming my face into the floor. My nose gave an audible snap when it met the quarter sawn oak floor, cutting off my air intake. I panicked even more and began to frantically struggle for air.

“Hold still, damn it,” someone slammed a boot or a fist a couple of times into my ribs just as my arms were twisted up behind my back, almost pulling them out of the sockets.

I vomited burrito and Dr. Pepper from the blows, coughed and then gasped for more air.

“Oh shit,” a guy yelled and the upper pressure on my right arm was relaxed.

From somewhere behind me on the stairs another guy laughed.

I was too busy passing out to find anything funny.

When I regained consciousness I was on my knees, vaguely aware my hands were cuffed behind my back. My head was held down, but not too forcefully. I could feel something cold moving back and forth across the back of my head.

“Just stay still, take some deep breaths, relax.”

Yeah, I thought, that’s what I’ll do, relax. Footsteps were pounding up and down the staircase behind me. There were two or three pairs of black boots moving in and out of my peripheral vision. On the floor in front of me blood continued to drop from my nose forming a small pool. The nose wasn’t working at the moment and I had to breathe through my mouth. The left sides of my upper and lower lip were swollen and torn and my lower jaw was not quite lining up.

“Three pistols so far,” a voice said. I heard the weapons bounce off one another along with some rattling or crinkling. I guessed each weapon had been placed in a plastic evidence bag and was being handed to someone.

I attempted to say ‘I’m licensed to carry,’ but it came out as unintelligible garble.

“No one’s talking to you, piece of shit. He good enough to travel?” A voice from somewhere above me thundered.

There must have been some sort of response indicated.

“Good, then get him out of my sight. Nesbitt’s out front with the brass doing the PR gig, stuff him in a squad and take him downtown, they’re waiting for him.”

I was helped to my feet, sort of, pulled up by the shoulders by the two large cops dressed in black on either side of me. Lifting me up must have seemed like nothing more than throwing a beach ball around to the two of them. The guy on my left squeezed a blue gel pack in his hand. I half caught his eye as I stood.

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

He looked at me with cold eyes, dropped the pack on the floor, “Shut the fuck up, asshole.”

“Just a minute,” a very large cop with a thick mustache and some sort of sinister looking automatic weapon over his shoulder held his hand up. I think he was the one who had asked if I could travel, he held the evidence bags with my pistols. For the first time I saw SWAT in white letters across someone’s back.

“Devlin Haskell, you have the right to remain silent…”

Eventually I was led out the door toward a squad car waiting in my driveway with the lights flashing. There were two uniformed officers standing on the city sidewalk talking to three different camera crews. My guess was it was the guy named Nesbitt and some higher up puke that fascist with the mustache had mentioned.

The news crews rushed past him as soon as they saw me on the porch. A couple of uniforms made a half-hearted attempt to hold them back.

“Why did you kill Fiona Simmons?” a woman said into her microphone then thrust the thing in my direction. The microphone was fuzzy, gray and looked like a Muppet on a stick. She looked familiar, the woman, but I couldn’t place her.

“Where did you get the fingers?” some guy shouted, his toupee went slightly askew when he tried to duck under the arm of a police officer and he quickly took a step back, indicating with a wave of his arm that the cameraman should focus on me being placed in the back of the squad car.

“Why were you stalking the English woman, Fiona Simmons?” another guy asked.

Cameras and news people clustered alongside the squad car as the two officers took their sweet time climbing in. We sat in my driveway for a good couple of minutes so everyone could get their shots of me arrested, handcuffed and bloodied being taken downtown. Many more camera flashes and I was going to have post traumatic stress.

As we backed out of the driveway the woman with the fuzzy gray microphone was back on the sidewalk, pushing her microphone into the face of the fat woman with the dog. Fatty raised her hand holding the bag of dog shit and pointed at me as we drove away.

We took a different, less direct route than the one Officer Trang drove to the police station yesterday. But then, this entire experience had been a world of difference from my encounter with the beautiful Officer Trang.

“God, really sorry about that,” the officer in the passenger seat said. He nodded in the direction of my head, I still couldn’t breathe through my nose and I was aware of the blood running over my lips dripping onto my shirt. My left cheek bone felt like someone had taken a belt sander to it.

I half coughed and spit a mouthful of blood and mucus into the corner of the car floor in an attempt to clear my throat. The cop in the passenger seat turned round and glared at me for a second then half smiled, looking friendly.

“Sometimes those SWAT guys get carried away, you know, things just get out of hand even when it’s a nice guy like you,” the driver said. He looked at me in the rear view mirror, grey eyes lifeless. I preferred the sparkles in Officer Trang’s dark brown eyes from yesterday.

“Yeah, we’ll get you checked out, make sure everything is okay. I’m wondering Donny, if we shouldn’t report this, Mister Haskell being abused like this, it’s just not right,” passenger seat said.

Donny the driver nodded his agreement.

Passenger seat turned to face me again, “Any consolation, it probably feels and looks a lot worse than it actually is. You’re young, day or two, hell you’ll be good as new.”

“Some folks just don’t get it. It’s like those skating chicks, The Roller Derby chicks, they can say and do anything they please. Wear those outfits leaving nothing to the imagination. You and me make a comment, look at ‘em wrong, next thing you know suddenly we’re in trouble. What the hell is that all about?”

There it was, my pals. They were just letting me know they understood why I murdered Harlotte Davidson. Matter of fact, might be a good idea to just get the whole thing off my chest, imagine how good I’d feel once I confessed and told them all about it.

I just stared out the window. We were going in the opposite direction from the police station, heading out Rice Street to Maryland Avenue, hopefully. With any luck, we’d cross over the freeway. The route just about tripled the time it took to get to the station. That left just enough time for me to confide the horrors of my crime to my two new best friends.

“You gotta wonder about some chick with the name Harlotte Davidson,” passenger seat leisurely chatting with Donny and me, trying a little different tack. “I mean, Harley builds the iconic American bike brand and these English chicks, with no sense, go out and try to ruin the thing or ride on the coat tails of all of Harley’s hard work. What the hell is that about?” He asked looking back at me.