Lack

I know it was wrong: that lack of empathy. I understand that what I did that night wasn’t right. I’m a police officer by the name of Jack Huckabee, or at least I was. I miss my life. I was a hero to the people of Oklahoma. I was looking for a way to serve my community so I went into the force. The only problem was that I had no idea what I had seen.

It was a Monday afternoon. I was in a rough side of town. I was at NE 36th St. and Martin Luther King Ave in Oklahoma City. There was a black guy. His name was Ben, or at least that’s what he’d told me.

You could never trust these guys.

He was the leader of a gang of fools. Each one of them had a gun on them and they were marching towards me as if I was their prey.

I realized haphazardly that I was. These guys were not people I wanted to mess with. It was getting dark so no one would be able to see me, and my cop car was too far away to walk to easily.

“Stop. I’m a police officer,” I cried.

“I’ll have your badge,” said Ben, glaring at me.

“No you won’t! You have no credibility to do that. Who’s going to believe you?”

I’d snapped.

“You’re just a nobody in a shitty neighborhood. No education. No girlfriend probably. Just a gang member with anger issues.”

That’s when Ben, or whatever the fuck his name was, had beaten me up. He’d then left me on the pavement with my head pounding and blood running from my broken nose, my leg seething with unbearable pain.

I’d called my mom, Jeany, and she’d showed up, worried sick about me. They’d gotten me to a hospital and it’d taken me months to recover with my broken leg and all.

The guy had really done me in.

After that experience, you might think I would have a suspicion burning in my heart whenever I saw a black man walking down the street, especially if he was surrounded by other black men, and you would be correct. It was a matter of self-preservation as far as I was concerned.

So it was a Friday night and I was on a shift. It was minor stuff. I was just catching people for traffic violations and making a quick buck, but there was this one guy. His name was, well, I don’t know his name—He refused to give it to me.

I chased him down, which took over an hour because he kept trying to drive away.

He probably knew what was coming to him.

Finally, I caught up to him and he stopped.

“Sir. You were going 90 in a 60 mile per hour zone.”

“So?!”

“So, you’re breaking the law, sir.”

I’d called him sir. I was trying to be respectful of the bastard.

“Fuck you! Fuck the police!” He’d said, out of nowhere.

“Sir, I am trying to calm you down. You have committed a traffic violation.”

“You are such a fucking asshole! You racist dick!”

“This is not about race, sir.”

That’s when he pulled out a gun and threatened to shoot me.

“If you don’t let me go, I’ll fucking shoot your ass!”

I took out my gun and there was a battle. We wrestled each other for a long time and then he tried to choke me. That’s when I shot him in between the eyes.

It was in self-defense, but even God doesn’t seem to agree. I was a coldblooded killer. A racist cop who didn’t have any right to kill a black man. The decided upon narrative was that the guy was innocent, complying with the law completely. It was a narrative and nothing more, as far as I was concerned.

I still think I did what I had to, even though it wasn’t pretty. I would’ve been murdered that night, strangled to death, if I hadn’t gotten out my gun and shot the bastard, but not to the media. Not to God.

I killed a man.

I think this is a bad time for me to tell you how I feel but, then again, every day’s a bad time. I feel like I’m burning alive over and over again, the flames lapping over my skin and boiling it.

Lucifer comes over to me.

“You’re a murderer. A racist. You will rot in Hell for the rest of your life.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” I say, despite myself and my convictions.

“Hehehe,” He cackled and walked away.

I wonder, sometimes, why I’m in Hell. I’m a killer, I get it, but it was in self-defense. Couldn’t I be in a lesser torture chamber? No, because I still killed a man. Maybe I’d be in Heaven if I let the guy kill me. I don’t know. I’ve always been a Christian. Jack Huckabee always went to church when he was on earth. He never missed a Sunday. The pastor knew me by my first name and we’d even go to lunch sometimes after the service.

“You are a model Christian,” He would tell me, waving his hand dismissively when he was talking about other, less committed Christians, “You won’t be going to Hell like all of those other fools. Not like those morons who only join me every other Sunday. You’re special.”

I’d nodded proudly, beaming. I’d actually believed him, which was stupid of me. Pastors don’t know everything—only God does. Sure, I went to church every Sunday, but I sinned Monday through Friday. I had sex with my wife Doreen long before marriage—about five years before marriage—pretty much every day. I also knew I was not what you’d call an upstanding Samaritan: I never donated to charity or helped the homeless, and I was the worst gossip at the dinner table. That’s why I’m in Hell, I guess: because I’m a sinner who thought I was a saint.