“I don’t want your money too,
I just wanna make love to you.”
-Muddy Waters
Hagerstown Maryland, March, 2012
Jack arrived home late from work and Jillian was already waiting there with a scowl on her face. Before he could finish saying, "Hey Babe, what’s up?" she launched into him with venom.
“Our anniversary, that’s what’s up. You forgot our anniversary. You were supposed to have dinner ready for me—candles, roses. I worked all day—”
“I worked all day too Jillian. Give me a break.”
“I’ll give you a break,” screamed Jillian as she swung a fist at him and he pulled away, causing her to pitch forward on her face.
Rather than help her up, he stepped back, conscious of the fact that any fighting between them would get him in trouble. She rose up in a fury, one eye already swelling, and both eyes showing signs of deep emotional hurt. "You bastard, you let me fall. You busted my face up!”
“No, no, no Babe,” he said as he backed out the door.
She was now snarling and crying all out. “You bastard, this is our anniversary and you’re walking out on me. You drop me on my face and walk out on me!”
An hour later Jack was at TeeTee’s Bar and Grille with Mason, talking about how messed up women and the world were, when a big heavy hand came to rest on his shoulder to the right and a woman’s voice sounded to the left. He looked into the mirror ahead of him to see a big man cop and a little dyke cop behind him. “Jack Jarrett, you are under arrest for domestic battery.”
The bruising from where the cop had ‘accidentally’ shoved his head into the roof of the cruiser was still causing his head to throb as he was processed. Then, after being printed and mug shot, he was escorted, not to some barred cell, but to a safety-glassed room, like a sturdily built high school detention area—and un-cuffed. As the corrections officer shut the door behind him he looked around to find himself surrounded by a savage bunch; a half dozen big black dudes with scars and gold teeth, and as many vicious tattooed Latino guys who regarded him from dark needlepoint eyes.
Jack thought to himself, “What a bitch!” as the biggest black guy stalked over to him and loomed down in his face, like a cat that had just caught a mouse in the foyer.
