The Cop and the Junkie

He was dying for a fix, just dying for a hit. He could kill for a fix, just kill for a hit. He could stab someone. Stab. He was off his rocker and he hated it. Nobody ever loved it. Any see you next Tuesday who ever said he loved it was a flaming see you next Tuesday. It had been so long since he'd had a hit that the dogs had stopped speaking to him. They used to say, G'day, Joel, but with dog accents. He had tried to explain it to Samantha one night after they had just had a quicky and were enjoying a PFL (post effing light-up). He had managed to get some good glass. You gotta smash glass to get glass, he had joked. He laughed. He was always laughing at his own jokes.

In another part of town, Sergeant Wilfred Blaxland, Will for short, but only to his mates. A hard as nails copper with a propensity for violence, who loved to smack a smack head to the face and to face plant a crack head in the ground, was busy doing his least favourite part of policing: paperwork. Blaxland was offputtingly serene tonight. Whether it was the monotony of the paperwork, or if he were building up to something slowly, his colleagues, and the drunks in the holding cells neither knew, nor wanted to know. The reason for Blaxlands newly found Buddhist serenity was that he had discovered the whereabouts of an old time crook that he had had helped to put behind bars but, owing to some enthusiasm with the phonebook (this was a couple of decades back now) he had been found to have gotten a confession that could not be used in court. It was now, having discovered by way of the traffic police, that the same crook had been pulled over for a broken brake light.

The whole station knew of Blaxland's Ahab like obsession. They knew about it but didn't understand it. The crook in question was just some kid, no older than 18 at the time his and Blaxland's paths had met. He had been caught graffiting the nearby train station. Blaxland had found other certain things on him that indicated other criminal activities. Blaxland knew that it was enough to get the kid time, but not much. There had been a serious of armed robberies in the area, and Blaxland was sure he had his scalp; he just had to rip it off and add it to the long row he had already accumulated in a distinguished career.

He hadn't been able to get even a Little Bo Peep out of the kid. Contrary to local folk tales, it hadn't really been the phonebook that he had used at all, but the phone. Blaxland had threatened the kid that he would get on the blower to other local characters, with whom he was also acquainted, and tell them that all it had taken for them to be ratted out was a few kisses from the White Pages. Nobody would believe that the kid hadn't caved with his face all bruised as it was.

Not only did the kid get off, but Blaxland was forced before Ethical Standards, found to have nothing to answer thanks to refusal of his colleagues to provide evidence against him, which was mostly out of fear, not loyalty, and given one month of forced leave with pay. Now, one week back on the job, he would get his white whale.

The plan was the oldest in the book, and therefore the simplest, but also the most obvious. He knew if he was caught he would have the book thrown at him. He smiled at the irony of the unintended pun. He would stake out the place, waiting until the target left. Then he would break in. Over the years he had learned how. He had learned from the best and worst. Once he was in he would plant evidence from a previous bust. There had just that day been a shipment of seedless watermelons that had in fact been found to contain seeds after all. Blaxland would sow now and then await harvest.

Joel Mason was only a few streets away, trying to break into the first house he had come across with its window half open. He had brought along a metal bar in the event he would need to smash a window, and potentially a few faces. He would do anything to get some money or valuables for his hit. He had managed to slink inside the window into a bedroom. He lifted up his delicate and emaciated frame, scab covered and needle marked. He walked like a hairless ape come down from the trees onto the flat savannah. He looked like a creature unaccustomed to his own niche. He had been here twenty times before. Not here in this house, but in this exact position. He was lost in the thought of how easy it had been just to break in. It hadn't even really been a break in. He had just about been invited in.

Your, honour, he would plead, I am a poor fucking crackhead, that much is true; but tell me, is it not true - I can't think of the term in law, and my lawyers reckon I'm talking shit, only they said it all in legalese and what - but I reckon it should be a legal truth and what, that he who is stupid enuff to leave hes window open in that part of town where I did me work - I mean, where I was accused by the jacks of having done me work - is a numbskullus idiotus or whatever the term is. Me, on the other hand, should be be let off wiv a warning and maybe some acknowledgment of my brains for taking the initiative of climbing into a window that may have well have been left open for me. If none of that works, then I plead none compost Mentos. I rest me case.

He was awakened out of his reverie by the twisted hand of fate. The fists of the one and only Sergeant Blaxland in full. It was only with the two men now side by side that our reader can get a full appreciation of their differences. Had Blaxland been sitting and Joel standing the former would have towered over the latter by at least three feet. Blaxland's belt made a bell of his belly, set directly in the middle of his body, equator like, his gut rivalling the Earth's own massive bulge. He continued to rapidly and unceasingly swing at the anorexic Joel. Before Blaxland could render the skeletal Joel forever mute, that mangy dog spat these words through bloodied teeth: What are you doing, cunt.

Blaxland stopped momentarily, but kept his fists at the ready to start again.

- What the fuck are you doing here.

Joel had a sudden realisation.

- Hey! Yeah! Yeah I know you. You that copper who done me for breaking and entering. It was a few years back. I didn't do it. It was me missus house. It was her brothers house, actually, but she was living there. The bitch owned me fucking me. I just wanted me money. Yeah. So I broke in but it was basically me home as well. Yeah. I remember you. You beat the shit out of me then. What the fuck are you doing here? You don't live here. You don't live in this suburb. I would have seen you.

Blaxland took his place on the floor, brought low in more ways than one. He made out as if he were just getting his breath, but anybody with two eyes and a brain could see that he was done for.

- I'm defeated. My reputation in the hands of a junkie. Then again, nobody would believe you if you told them. Let's just say that it looks like we both wanted the same thing but for different reasons. I'll make you a deal. No. It's more like a suspended curse. If you don't tell a soul what you think it is I was doing here, and believe me, I know you saw enough, and I know that I have a reputation that whatever you said about me would be taken as gospel even from the lying lips of a diseased junkie. But if you were to do that, I would find you; and when I did I would tie you up, just arms reach from a hit, but unable to get at it; and you would stay like that. But that's enough talking. That's more talking I've done in a lifetime, at least from my mouth. People like me don't need to say shit. People like you are the ones always singing. Don't worry. I won't take you in. Let's just make out like we both saw a ghost.

With that, they both went their ways. Blaxland burdened with his many weights, and Joel with the monkey on his back, soon to look every bit the toothless racoon.