It was mid-morning and already the day had taken on an eventful start. The fire alarm in a nearby building had gone off and while it seemed like the firefighters should be able to handle it, they were calling in some of the police force just in case. So, sirens blaring I headed over to the building to see what all the fuss was about. Once I reached the building the deafening firetruck sirens drowned out pretty much everything and thinking became almost impossible. As I took in the noisy scene I realized that today was surprisingly a pretty nice day weather wise. It was still cold but the sun was shining and people actually seemed to be out on the streets walking around. Had the actual city itself not been so shitty looking and had there not been sirens blaring so unbearably loudly, someone driving through might have mistaken this for a normal neighborhood. I snapped back into reality when I realized the sirens had stopped and an angry looking fire fighter was yelling something about a false alarm and how we should move out. False alarm. Let me guess, some little shit kid decided it might be funny to drag my ass out here for no reason and waste every one's time. What a racket. After the excitement died down I headed back to the station to find out what else was in store for me today.
On the way back to the station I drove past Donald James riding around on his stupid little bike in the 30 degree weather. He was an odd character and in the past I had given him warnings on various occasions for disorderly conduct which was usually fueled by alcohol. Like I said, a strange guy but he seemed harmless enough. As we passed each other he sent a look my way that was anything but pleasant, though I can't say I'm not used to getting those kinds of looks. I finally reached the station and continued on with a normal day at work.

I was on duty at the intersection of Polaski and Main St. this morning. I hadn't bothered to shave or even shower. It had taken an exceptional amount of time to will myself out of bed this morning. Maybe it was exhaustion from yesterday's work. Maybe it was something else, something deeper. Recently I've been having this feeling that it's just not worth it. My life is centered around people who seem to have this relentless hate for everyone else. For the world. It scares me to think that it may be rubbing off on me.

As I scanned the street for any kind of trouble a noise caught my attention. I followed it to the very back of the Polaski St. Diner. I scanned the alley, dark and cold even in the early hours of the morning. Eventually it caught my eye, there was a man digging through the dumpster further down the alley. My immediate instinct was to call out to him, give him some sort of citation, look up his records, ultimately finding some sort of incrimination I was supposed to impose upon him, but something stopped me. That same feeling that had kept me from getting out of bed began to bounce around in my mind. I wanted it gone, I hated it.

I looked closely at the man with his worn out clothes and dirty hair. His sad eyes searching for something, anything in the dark wet dumpster. I watched the man for a few more long moments and then turned to leave the alley way.

My head stopped pounding as I left the homeless man at peace.

Another cold night. What a surprise, I thought as I stepped out onto Rouse Blvd. and started walking toward my sad excuse of an apartment. I pasted Mo Liquor and contemplated going in to buy yet another bottle of vodka to take the edge of an extremely long day at work. I decided to keep on walking after peaking inside and seeing the ten person long line. Another surprise, a long line at the liquor store. I can only imagine what the line at the Jaguar is like tonight. Work today had been worse than it normally was. I knew when I moved to this city a few years ago that this job would be extremely rough especially in this kind of neighborhood but this was ridiculous. How many drug dealers and robbery cases could there really be in one city? Apparently a lot because today alone I had arrested about four people including chasing one down on foot for at least ten blocks. That was my job, no better yet, that was my life. Outside of working ten or eleven hours a day there wasn't much else. I finally reached the front door of Jupiter Apartments and headed up to the tenth floor. It was a late night on a week day so fortunately the hall was empty. I'm not much for small talk with the neighbors. In fact I've never even met a few of them but that suits me just fine. I stepped into my tiny hallway and headed for the bedroom. It had been a long day and I was looking forward to catching a few hours of sleep before I needed to be up again to start this all over tomorrow. This isn't exactly the life I'd pictured when I'd signed up to be a cop when I was younger. I was certainly getting plenty of action out on the field but I thought one day my hard work would be paying off and so far I had nothing but a day full of long hours. Oh well, maybe one day it will all change but I wasn't holding my breath. I got ready for bed and instantly fell asleep to nightmares of the people I had recently put behind bars coming after me and getting what they felt was much deserved pay back.