Nicola Griffith - The Blue Place

“Gather round. The first rule of survival is: pay attention. Usually that means paying attention to what’s going on around you. Today it means pay attention to me. Very close attention. I won’t tell you twice. You can call me Lieutenant.” I wasn’t, anymore, but I found it got me a faster response time. That and the Red Dogs sweatshirt I was wearing. “This isn’t the academy. Today you’re here to learn how to protect yourselves, first, and how to restrain a perp without injuring him, second. You can’t protect yourself from someone when you don’t know where he or she is. If they’re in cuffs and on their belly, you’re a bit more safe. You,” I said to a wiry man with red hair who looked as though he was supple enough to not hurt himself. “Pretend you’re trying to pull me off balance and run away.”

I held out my right wrist. He reached for it.

If this was real and I knew my attacker intended to hurt me, I would have crippled him without thinking: a kick to the knee, an elbow slammed into his floating ribs. But this was, perhaps, an elderly drunk who didn’t deserve to be hurt, so as Red grabbed with his right hand, I turned my wrist, drew it back just enough to pull him off balance, stepped behind him on the diagonal, and whipped his right arm straight and against the joint. He froze in pain and I swept his feet out from under him. He went down on his belly.

“If you keep hold of his arm like this, he won’t struggle, because if he does, you can pop it out of its socket as easily as pulling the wing off a turkey. Make sure you keep his palm turned up, like this.” I moved it just enough to show them and Red squealed. “As soon as it starts to hurt, slap the mat and your partner will stop.” Red slapped the mat. I eased off. “Your grip will be firmer if you keep your thumb on the back of his hand, and your elbows close in to your body.” I pulled cuffs out with my left hand and snapped them on. “You should practice with the cuffs until you can do this with either hand. Keep him on his belly while you pat him down, and when you let him up, keep that wristlock on until you can get him in the car.” I unlocked the cuffs, tucked them back into my waistband. “Questions?”

“How did you turn your hand over his, right at the beginning?”

So I showed them; in a group, singly and in pairs. Over and over. Some of them were quicker to grasp the concept than the others. Some didn’t bother with technique at all. The big woman was relying on her strength to simply overpower her opponent.

“You. Yes, you. Over here.” We stood eye to eye. I took her wrist. “Try with me.” She tugged. I shifted easily. She tugged harder. “Don’t use your muscles. Besides, what if I was a seven-foot biker on PCP?”

“I’d shoot you,” she said, looking around, playing for a laugh.

“Guns are vastly overrated,” I said mildly. “Go get your weapon and belt.” She smiled uneasily, obviously wondering if she’d heard right. “What’s your name?”

“Miebach. Linda.”

“Miebach, go get your weapon.” I let her see I meant it. She practically ran and came back with the heavy belt with gun, cuffs, baton and extra clips. “Put it on.”

She buckled on the belt.

Everyone was watching. “The only safe place to be when someone is about to draw a gun is behind them. Everyone stand behind Miebach.” They did, looking nervous. “Now, Miebach, draw your weapon. Eject the clip.” She tucked the clip into her belt. “I’m glad to see you have the safety on. Now take it off.”

“But—”

“Take it off. Reholster the weapon. I want you to draw and try to shoot me.”

“I—”

“This is not the police academy. This is what it’s like out there. Do it.”

So she tried, and I took it away from her and put her down and touched the cold metal ring to her forehead. “Better not move, Miebach. You didn’t check to see if the chamber was empty.” A bead of sweat trickled into her eye but she didn’t dare blink. I don’t think anyone in the room breathed except me. I stepped away and worked the chamber. A round shot out and tinkled on the wooden floor.

There was absolute silence. “She could have shot you,” someone said in a shocked whisper.

“No. But I could have shot her. Remember that. Never draw your weapon when the perp is within reaching distance. Miebach, put that belt away and collect yourself.” I fished out my watch. Twenty minutes to go. “You.” One of the muscle guys. “Come here.” He stepped up warily. “Miebach seemed to think that her weapon would protect her from anything. Guns can be taken away. Now let’s take a look at strength. This man is bigger than me.” He was certainly wider. I held out my wrist. “Try manhandle me.”

He didn’t want to, I could tell, but he tried anyway. I slid my hand over his, sidestepped past him on a diagonal and, going to one knee, brought him down in a back-arching bow over my thigh. He breathed fast and shallowly, toes just touching the floor. “If I sneeze, I break his back. He’d never walk again. If I move him a few inches higher…” he gasped, “he’d never feed himself.” I rolled him off and looked around the white faces. “There will always be someone bigger than you. Muscle is not the answer. All of you, try it again.”

The two most inept rookies had paired up. It usually happened that way. I watched them flailing uselessly at each other and wondered why I bothered doing this.

“Break,” I said. “Let’s take it one step at a time.” I held out my wrist. I gestured for the pale-haired one with the freckles to take it. He looked terrified. “We’re going to do this in slow motion, one stage at a time. I won’t throw you. I won’t hurt you. Reach for me slowly.” He grabbed nervously. I just smiled encouragingly and moved my arm as slowly as treacle, twisting up and over his. I stopped just as the tendons began to pull tight in his forearm, before he started to hurt. “See how I’m keeping my elbow tucked into my waist? All the movement is in the lower arm. And the pressure goes on there, on your wrist. Remember, where there’s a joint there’s a weakness. Again.” I showed him twice more. “Now you try it.” I reached for his wrist. He jerked in panic. “Slowly for now. Let’s try again. That’s right…no. Let go a second. Have you ever drawn a circle using a pin and a piece of string tied to a pencil? Well, imagine your elbow is the pin at the centre of the circle. Your forearm is the string, and you have a pencil fixed to the tip of your middle finger. Keep the elbow still, tucked in, and draw that circle perpendicular to the floor.” I demonstrated. “That’s the basic movement. Let’s try again.”

And on the third try, he got it. He smiled tentatively.

“Good. Very good. Now let’s try a bit faster, about a third speed.” It was still right. “Half speed.” It got a little raggedy as he tensed up. “Remember to keep those shoulders relaxed. A bit faster.” He did it as fast as he could and got me in a very respectable arm lock. He grinned like an idiot. “You can let go now.”

He did, and swung his forearm in a circle a couple of times, as pleased as if he had discovered a cure for AIDS.

He was wearing a Braves T-shirt. “It’s a bit like pitching: get your elbow in the right place and everything else follows. Now show your partner how it works.”

I surveyed the room. They all seemed to have the basics, now.

“Okay, people. Now that you understand how it’s supposed to work, let me tell you that it often doesn’t. When you get someone who is dusted, or a certifiable lunatic, they don’t care whether you rip their arm off. They don’t feel it. So when you’re faced with someone like that, you disable them.”

I had their attention.