All for a Quiet Cell

The whole back seat smells like dried puke and sweat. My face stings, my knuckles throb, and blood pools in my mouth, electrifying a broken tooth or two. I taste the copper every time I swallow. My cheek remains stuck to the plastic seatback with the kind of old gum you never think about until it is under your skin.

My wrists burn against the cuffs, wrists that once held a glass of whiskey steady as anything. Now they’re just raw, scraped meat. I can still see the bastard’s face in my head—his smug smirk when he threw the first punch at the bar. I’d ordered my last drink of the night—hell, maybe my last drink ever. But I never get to have anything go smoothly, do I?

Somewhere in between the second whiskey and a cigarette I’d been looking forward to like it was a hot date, I felt that fist hit my jaw. I don’t remember much after that except a lot of fists and broken glass. Then the fuzz showed up, and it was all over.

I couldn’t just go quietly, though. Why should I?

They’d been looking at me sideways for years like they’d been waiting for me to slip up, give’em a reason to throw me in cuffs. When they grabbed me, I went down swinging, teeth bared and spit flying. A couple of hits to my ribs and a nightstick against my temple, and here I am—bloody, bruised, and cuffed in the back of a cop car.

The cop driving glances at me in the rearview, and I swear I see him smirk. He’s got the face that screams Monday morning on a Friday night. I give him a half-smile back, blood smeared across my teeth. He looks away like he’s got better things to think about, but I know he’s getting a kick out of this.

My head’s pounding. The blood in my mouth has gone sour, like everything else. I don’t even know where they’re taking me. Maybe it’s back to the same cell I’ve been in a dozen times, the one with the peeling paint and that smell of piss you can’t get out of your nose for days. Or maybe this is it–they’ll finally put me in a cage I won’t claw my way out of.

Outside, the streetlights smear yellow across the car window as we pass through town. And I know that when they throw me in that cell, I’ll sit there, as I’ve always sat there, waiting for the bruises to fade, for the blood to dry, for the ache in my chest to turn back into numbness.

But for now, it’s just me, the broken glass in my mouth, and the cops who got the last laugh tonight.