A Moment of Silence: Midnight III (The Midnight Series Book 3) (5 page)

“Remain calm,” a male voice shouted excitedly as the riders
jeered and scrambled. Only one man seated and wearing headphones didn’t panic. His head was bobbing rythmically to the music he must’ve been listening to. There was only one way to go, towards the dirty door that I was blocking. Glass broke and someone sprayed the extinguisher and another pulled the red wooden handle of the emergency stop rope. The train jerked hard and screeched and screamed to a halt. The crowd that was pressed against me fell backwards. Lights off again suddenly. In the coughing, cursing, and confusion, I opened and shot through the door past a pissy homeless man laid out on the seat, who I couldn’t see but could smell. I dropped down from the last train car and onto the train tracks.

All New Yorkers know, pull the red emergency stop rope and the train gets stuck for a long time. Still they stay put, scared of getting electrocuted or suffocated out in the train tunnel where only the young wild wolves would venture. An A train recently got stuck and some Wall Street regulars got the shakedown: wallets, jewels, cash, coins, and even eyeglasses, shoes, and technology. They made them run it all and escaped through the tunnel. Now the subways in all five boroughs were crawling with police at every platform.

Walking through the darkness and cutting through the thick fumes that substituted for air in the underground, I was headed on foot to the next station, without the train, without the crowd, without the D-tec. There was one urgent thing that I had to do now, that I wasn’t comfortable doing until after I had finalized the execution.

3. THE SILENCE

Thirty-six minutes after midnight and four nine-millimeters aimed at my head and my heart. Two police dogs, more like wolves or tigers trained on dark meat and human bones, were standing still and strong on long leather leashes. Three NYPD, one undercover, two transit police, and a small crowd collecting as six more NYPD came storming down the subway stairs.
Far too many cops
, I thought to myself,
to arrest one man for the murder of a nobody.
Everybody else is still. Still they shouted, “Don’t move!”

“You are under arrest,” a stern and stout uniformed cop barked at me, face-to-face as another patted me down asking me, “Do you have any weapons on you?” No response from me, so he picked up his speed searching my ankles, back and front pockets, and all the places where any man could conceal a weapon.

“Don’t you hear an officer talking to you?” A solid, broad-backed policeman slammed me in the stomach with his nightstick, as the one searching me pulled my box cutter out of my side leg pocket.

“He’s clean, nothing but a box cutter,” the searching cop said. “And he only got six dollars on him.”

“Impossible,” the stern and stout arresting officer told him.

“Get down on your knees,” the broad-backed nightstick cop ordered me. “And put your hands behind your head.” Now he had both hands around his gun instead of his nightstick. The stick for
when he thought I was guilty of possessing a concealed weapon. His gun drawn for after he was sure I was not carrying a weapon.

I stayed standing. A young looking, frightened rookie-type cop leaped over with a swiftness and stung me. A strong electric current ran through each of my veins. As my body overheated my legs began to buckle, and the broad-backed cop forced me down with his nightstick. His gun now in his left hand, the nightstick in his right, I was not on my knees, but was facedown on the pavement. He put his foot on my spine, using his heavy shoe and shifting his weight to press and hold me there. He pushed his nightstick against the back of my neck to be sure my face was mashed into the filth of the pissy subway cement. The stern and stout cop yanked my hands behind my back and cuffed me. The other officers began to huddle as the broad-backed nightstick cop shouted orders to disperse the small late-night crowd. He didn’t want any witnesses as he attempted to crush me to death.

The two unleashed tigers approached me. In a haze, I watched the cops observing their canines’ every action, eager for them to send even a slight signal. The police dogs sniffed me but didn’t bark or growl or roar. They searched the area surrounding me. Disappointed, ninety seconds later, the cops called their loyal dogs back.

“You have the right to remain silent . . .” the stern arresting cop explained.

Silence
, I thought to myself, in a flash of a second. I don’t believe there is one American who knows what that is. They are a nation of chatterers, speaking even when there’s nothing good, right, or true to say. Talking nonstop trash, and completely unfamiliar with the pause. Even when the greatest American tragedies occur, they can only reserve and observe a moment of silence.

Now the black leopard of Sudan will show them the true power and meaning of slience.

NYPD and transit cops and even the plainclothes detective
argued over who caught me.
Caught me
, I thought to myself. Even after just having been electrocuted with the Taser, I was clear that I had walked right down into their nest on my own two feet, of my own free will. The fool who needed murdering, I had already murdered with full intent and zero regret. And the second and final deed I had to do had already been done. I had no plans to take down no cops, even though I could’ve waged war against them till the end. I could’ve run and hid myself away in any number of places. I have a house of love in Queens, where my women welcome me warmly, respect me, enjoy me, love me, and serve me. I have my two closest friends, Chris and Ameer, who would’ve both put me up till the heat was off me, or at least till it died down.

But a true man never leads a trail of pain or war to his own house or to the homes of his loved ones. Men fight. Men work. Men defend. Men murder. Ninja-trained warriors burn their trail and all traces that jeopardize their team, territory, or goals.

I know the deal. Now that I had done what had to be done, I’m like mercury or radiation to all who know and love me. I made a conscious and clear decision. I understood the seriousness. Now, I need all pain and punishment to fall only on my shoulders. I need for my sister and mother and wives to be untouched, unseen, uninterrupted and unknown to anyone who we, and they have not chosen to be a part of our world. I need family and friends to stay far away from me. Further, I need not even one of them to attempt to see, talk to, or even contact me, not even by letter. They each should deny that they ever knew me. Treat me like I’m dead and remain completely silent until I hit time served and my hands, mind, heart, and body are all free.

“Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law,” the cop said.
The law
, I thought to myself. How can there be a law without trust between the lawmakers and the people? People don’t ever expect to be protected by the law. People don’t even expect their loved ones to ever be protected by the law. People don’t expect justice from the law. People don’t ever expect the lawmakers
to obey the laws they made. So there is no law, just bandits with authority versus bandits without authority.

Now I was in the cruiser, not cruising, but cuffed and uncomfortable. One blue to my left, the same cop who first searched me; one blue to my right, the young frightened rookie. Nightstick blue was driving up front. The stern stout blue was riding shotgun. Loud police radio reports and orders coming in and out. No oxygen in the car, just heat. Serious-faced cops, even their body language and breathing was pure intimidation.

“How does it feel, asshole?” The nightstick cop broke the silence. I was blank-faced and facing front. “Can you believe this fucker?” the same cop, the driver, said. “He doesn’t show us the respect of a response even though he’s caught in our monkey trap.” They all laughed.

“I think the nigger’s deaf,” the searching cop right beside me announced loud and clear in my ear. I didn’t flinch.

“Must be,” the arresting stern cop said. “We’ll have to talk to him with our fists and guns. He’ll understand that,” he threatened, and the backseat cops chuckled.

“No, seriously, you know Officer Moldonado? The Spanish guy with the deaf sister who speaks only in grunts? He’s sensitive about all the handicaps. He was on foot post, tailing this perpetrator right here, said he showed no signs that he could hear what was happening around him. Moldonado is supposed to apprehend this guy. He protects him instead. Lets the perp walk right out in front of him and disappear into thin air.”

“Fucker might be deaf but he ain’t blind. When I had my nine-mm pointed at his head and told him to get down, he dropped down like a prostitute,” nightstick cop said. They all broke out in laughter. I didn’t move.

Silence is discipline. Even while being provoked, lied to, lied on, insulted, and maligned.

“I just want to thank him for the overtime. I needed the dough. I’m ready to question him all night,” the rookie blue said.

“Me too,” the searching cop agreed.

I’m thinking these big white-boy cops ain’t from Brooklyn. The way they’re talking and their accents, they weren’t from any close-by place. Probably poor white boys from upstate farms who caught a job that armed them, then paid them more than they could ever earn from their own intelligence.

Police cruiser I’m in, gets cut off by a speeding black Plymouth. All heads yanked forward then slammed backwards after the nightstick cop driver reacted to the shock and rammed the brakes, barely avoiding a collision.

“Fucking bastards!” he said as he jumped out of the cruiser at the same time as his front-seat partner.

“Don’t fucking move,” left blue in the backseat warned me with heated anxiety, “or you’ll end up in the morgue.” The crooked cruiser was paused right there in the middle of the street blocking all cars behind us. Both backseat cops remained seated on either side of me. The two trash-talking blues began barking on the two Plymouth pushers soon as they jumped out of their vehicle. They were all shouting and strapped.

All cops, all four of them
, I thought while watching their every move through the cruiser windshield. Otherwise the uniformed cops would’ve popped and locked them two plainclothes ones easily for speeding through the red light, for cutting off the cop cruiser and causing the traffic foul-up, and even for getting out of their Plymouth, walking towards the uniformed cops, and looking them in their eyes and mouthing off. If the two Plymouth guys were not cops, if they were regular civilians, the cops would’ve killed them for that handful of violations. Killed them first and called it justifiable later.

Now the two blues beside me opened their back doors; each placed one foot on the ground but didn’t get out. The rookie cop was on his walkie-talkie calling for backup. I observed that frightened cops are the most dangerous. Their fears and their imagination
link up, and before you know it, there will be bodies everywhere. The uniformed blue who had arrested me was chest-to-chest with the plainclothes cop. “Hey! Back off! This is ours. We cuffed and collared him,” his partner yelled as the four who had already been arguing were now shoving one another around and about to go to blows.

Some decorated captain showed up in a third vehicle, fucking up the already fucked-up traffic jam even further. A couple of drivers were forced to drive their otherwise deadlocked vehicles onto the sidewalk, to clear the way for the captain. Almost one in the morning; luckily there were no pedestrians. I knew it wasn’t because no one was outside walking. Once late-night pedestrians peeped it was the po-po, they’d opt to take a detour on foot rather than encounter them.

The cop crew was out there for almost an hour before they made a decision. Left blue was out of the cruiser now, rerouting traffic around the cop beef. Right backseat blue, the rookie, was still beside me, inflating with anger as he watched the uniformed cops fighting and losing in the loud negotiation he could see clearly through the cruiser windshield.

“Get the fuck out the car!” The nightstick cop who had been driving and then arguing screamed on me. He had returned with the saltiness of an athlete who had just lost the NHL hockey championship game after an undefeated season, and by only one shot. When I did not move, the still seated rookie blue pushed me forcefully, then jumped out the cruiser himself. Now all uniforms were out of the car standing in the street, leaning in on all sides, ordering me to move. I didn’t speak. I didn’t move. Left blue had already said that if I moved one muscle, the next stop was the morgue.

Pushed and then pulled and dragged out of the car where everyone could see me, I balanced myself on my feet, hands still cuffed tightly behind me. I was turned over to the two detectives in plainclothes, who walked on either side of me, then mashed my
head down until I was seated in the backseat of their Plymouth. Doors slammed shut and they screeched off at a high speed for a short distance.

Commotion at the 77th Precinct, I was cuffed and seated. A fat-fingered cop attempted to type, while another stood over me.

“Name?” the fat cop asked me. I stared ahead, blank-faced. “Name,” he repeated, then paused, waiting for me to jump at his command. “Name, name, name, name?” The volume of his voice was steadily increasing, his fat head flushed now with a maroon color. “Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed.

“Maybe we should name him Jesus Christ,” the standing officer said straight-faced, and other cops seated at their own desks dealing with their own matters laughed.

“
Cómo se llama
?” An officer from across the room stood up from his desk and walked over to where I was being held. He was serious-faced but even-tempered. Seemed like he really suspected that he was speaking a language that I understood. But I didn’t.

“
De dónde eres
?” he questioned, attempting to look me in the eye. I continued to stare forward, still blank.

“He’s obviously not Spanish!” the officer who had been standing over me the whole time said. “They ain’t got no Spanish people that black! No offense, Officer Ruiz,” they clowned the Spanish-speaking officer for trying.

Officer Ruiz didn’t answer back to the ignorant cop. He probably knew what anyone with common sense knows. There are black-skinned people all over the world, speaking any and every language that has ever been spoken. Just then I recalled the Senegalese brothers whom I met in Tokyo. They spoke that Japanese fluently, like it was their father tongue. They could switch from speaking Japanese to Wolof, to Italian to even German, like it wasn’t nothing, and they were black Africans, skin as black as mine.