Dirty Old Men [And Other Stories] (Zane Presents) (47 page)

Derrick stuttered. “But that…that’s, that’s what I mean. I…I don’t want all of that attention. I just want to live my life.”

Again, Jill started to feel a certain bias against his sexual orientation.
If he were a straight kid who got jumped, there wouldn’t be a problem. But since this kid is gay…

She asked, “Well, what were you doing out there in the first place?”

Derrick hesitated a second time. “Ah, minding my own
business,
” he quipped. “And are you trying to um,
insinuate
something?”

You know what, this boy needs a real…
Officer Jacobs stopped and shook her head against the phone. She figured it was all a waste of time.

“So, that’s it? After all my work of rounding these kids up, you’re just gonna let them get away with it?”

“Well, they know that they’ve been caught, right?”

“Look, that doesn’t mean
anything,
if you don’t force them to
pay
for it. They’ll just look at this as a dodged bullet, and they’ll go right back out there and assault somebody else.”

“Oh, it sounds like you have a lot of
faith
in humanity, officer. I wonder where you learned
that
from.”

Jill had to stop and pull the phone away from her ear to look at it. Was that kid serious or what?

Amazing!
she told herself.
The people you meet out here as a police officer.

Finally, she told him, “Okay. Good-bye.”

Before she could hang up on him, he muttered, “Thank you,” and continued to be a smart-ass.

Jill hung up the phone and shook her head again. “I’ll just let my superiors handle this boy,” she grumbled to herself. She planned to pass his case on and go on about her life as a Baltimore City Police officer.

More than a month later, Officer Jill Jacobs spotted Derrick Wilcox walking out of the Baltimore Public Library downtown with books in hand.

“Well, looka’ here,” she told herself from behind the wheel of her squad car. She happened to be heading north from the precinct downtown.

She stood idle for a minute at the street corner and watched the college student as he headed back in the direction of Johns Hopkins University. But his walk wasn’t as pronounced as the first night she had seen him. And it wasn’t as late at night.

“I guess he’s learned his damn lesson,” she presumed. Then she became curious. She wondered if he still had a sour-ass attitude. Was it because he was embarrassed at being beaten for his sexual orientation that evening on Pennsylvania Avenue, or did he have personality issues?

She sped up the street in his direction to catch up to him, and alerted his attention with her siren.

WHUURRPP! WHUURRPP!

Derrick turned to his left and spotted the Baltimore police cruiser pulling up beside him in the street. He frowned at it and wondered what he had done.

“I know she’s not stopping for
me,
” he told himself.

Inside the squad car, Officer Jacobs rolled down her passenger-side window.

“Derrick Wilcox,” she called to him, remembering his full name.

Derrick stopped and eyed the officer in confusion. Once he realized who she was, he mumbled, “Oh my God, it’s
her
again. Yes?” he spoke to her, still with obvious resentment.

Jill read his face and attitude. “You know what, what is
wrong
with you? I’ve only tried to help you out, and all you give me is constant
beef.
Now do you have a particular problem with me or what?”

“I mean, what is it that you
want
from me?” he asked her snidely. “That incident is like, so
over
with.”

Oh, he is such a fucking BITCH!
Jill incensed.
Just drive the hell away from him, RIGHT NOW!
she tried to tell herself. But the young man was so irritating that she felt like slapping him around, for the hell of it.

She grumbled, “You know what? Fuck it!”

She climbed out of her squad car to get up close and personal with the boy to figure out what his problem was.

Derrick backed up as soon as she approached him on the sidewalk, as if the officer was ready to give him another beat down.

“All right, now what is your problem?” she asked him. She was right up in his face on the sidewalk.

“I don’t
have
a problem.”

“Yes, you
do.
And you
act
like you got a damn
period.
” As she studied his face up close without the fresh bruises this time, she couldn’t help but notice how pretty he was. The young man had girlish features without alterations— naturally sharp eyebrows, long and curled eyelashes, long sideburns, baby hairs; soft, pouted lips, and smooth, hairless skin.

Shit, he actually looks like a damn girl,
she told herself. He made
her
feel like a man, especially while she was still in uniform.
He makes me want to pull this fucking shirt up,
she snapped.

“Why can’t you speak to me with any
respect?
” she asked him. “Everything that comes out of your mouth is smart-aleck.”

“That’s just
your
perception.”

The young man happened to smell good, too, with a mix of sweet cologne, cocoa butter lotion, and fruit-flavored ChapStick.

“Are you walking back to campus?” she asked him out of the blue. She figured maybe she could soften him up with a ride back to school.

But Derrick frowned at the question. “Heck no,” he answered. “I’m catching the bus up the street.”

“No you’re not,” she told him. “You’re going with me.”

She would simply drive his ass back to campus, whether he liked it or not.

“Am I under arrest?”

The thought seemed interesting. Maybe he
did
need to be under arrest to correct his foul attitude. “I can
put
you under arrest, if that’s where you wanna
be.
Now walk on over there and get inside the car before I
do
arrest you,” she ordered.

He studied her serious demeanor. “Well, do I even have a
choice?
”

“Yes, you have a choice. You either climb into the car
without
handcuffs, or be
pushed
into the car
with
handcuffs.”

Understandably, Derrick didn’t like the sound of either one of his options.

“And what’s option number
three?
You leave me alone, and let me go back home to mind my own business?”

“You
wish,
” she told him. “Now get inside the squad car before I have to arrest you.”

Derrick hesitated again.
Is she for real?
he asked himself. But when the officer moved to grab him, he quickly picked up his feet and scampered toward the squad car before she could reach him to do it herself.

“You want me in the back?” he asked timidly.

His complete recessiveness and stance led Jill to think a few inappropriate ideas about him. She even acknowledged the ill intent of her thoughts to herself.

Yeah, he’s the kind of person who just makes you want to do foul things to him. I can’t even lie,
she admitted.

Derrick climbed inside the back of her squad car, looking like an edible gazelle who had just been trapped by a lioness.

Oh, my God, he looks like such a little pussy back there,
the officer thought. The college student was giving her a lot of crazy-ass thoughts. As soon as she popped the car in drive, she asked him a personal question.

“Have you ever been with a woman before?”

Derrick looked totally floored. “Excuse me.”

“You heard me right. Have you ever been with a
woman?
”

The college student hesitated and stuttered, “What, what does that have to do with you driving me back to campus?”

“I’m just trying to figure out who you are, because you always seem to have a sour disposition with me. Do you have a thing against
cops
or is it against
women?
”

“No, I
don’t
have a thing againt
women.
And my mother and I get along quite
fine.
Thank
you.
”

“What about with every other woman?”

“I have girlfriends.”

“Girls who are
friends,
or
girlfriends?
Because there
is
a difference.”

“I know that.”

“So, which one is it?”

“And why does this
matter?
”

Jill stared at him through her rearview mirror. She thought,
Okay, he just needs to get FUCKED good! That’s all there is to it. I wish I could take him down to the jailhouse for ONE night.

“Okay,” she finally responded. “So, you want me to do this the hard way.”

“What?”

“You didn’t tell your mother you got jumped down here in Baltimore, did you?”

“Why?”

“Because she would have told your behind to pack up your bags and get back down to Virginia as fast as a heartbeat, that’s why. So I
know
you didn’t tell her. Otherwise, we would have heard about it down at the station, I’m sure.”

You damn momma’s boy!
she snapped to herself. Now she understood him much better, and she planned to use that knowledge against him…like a cop
would.

Before Derrick could respond to her, she added, “She probably didn’t even want you going to
school
in Baltimore. What do you have, a scholarship to Johns Hopkins, and you’re studying in the medical field?”

She imagined that he was smart enough to have been awarded an academic scholarship. He came off like a spoiled, little whiz kid who still needed adult guidance.

“Well, Johns Hopkins
is
one of the premier medical schools in the country,” he bragged. “
And
I get to do an internship at their prestigious hospital.”

And what are you studying to be, an OB-GYN, so you can live the rest of your life with pussy envy until you can afford a sex change?
She amused herself with a chuckle.

She realized that the young man could likely talk about academics all night, but not about sex—he hadn’t had any.

“So, what were you doing down on Pennsylvania Avenue that night; trying to find someone to turn you out? What were you, in
heat
?” she asked brashly.

“
What?
I don’t like your line of
questioning,
Officer…” He stopped and looked into the mirror to read her badge backward. “…
facobs.
”

“But it’s the truth, isn’t it? You’re still a
virgin.
That’s why you were out
there switching so hard, to get some attention. But you ended up attracting the wrong
kind
of attention, didn’t you?” She was pouring a psychological profile on him to break him down.

“Whatever,” he responded weakly.

“So, you can’t find anyone you like on campus? Or you don’t want them talking about you, especially since you like
boys?
”

Derrick began to get all flustered in the back of her squad car.

“Look, does this have
anything
to do with
anything?
”

Jill was finally at peace with the boy as she continued to drive.

His smart-ass mouth is all about getting attention, too,
she pondered.
This poor boy needs a kinky friend to help turn his hot-ass out. He’s flaming so hard he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

“Well, I don’t want you catching
AIDS
out here just because you want a little
friend
to play with, Derrick. It’s very dangerous to start sleeping around with men you don’t know like that.”

“What? I wasn’t
trying
to. I was just
walking
back to the
bus stop,
” he huffed at her, irritated by her hard truths.

“Yeah, on Pennsylvania
Avenue
of all places, near ten o’clock at night. And why, because you thought you’d run into some
action
out there? And you just talked yourself into doing it?”

She was really socking it to him now! Derrick had no defense for it.

He breathed heavily in the back of her squad car. “Whatever.”

She then received a police call on her radio.

“Yeah, don’t you have to get back to
work, harassing
people or something? I guess I
do
have a thing against
cops,
” he stated.

Jill ignored him and answered her radio call.

“On a quick run, give me fifteen to thirty.”

“All right. I’ll call Darryl on it,” the dispatcher told her.

“Good, I’ll back him up in a minute.”

Just like that, she was off the radio and back to Derrick.

“What if somebody gets
shot
while you’re still in here
harassing me?
”

Officer Jacobs shook her head and grinned. She was approaching the campus.

“We know which calls are urgent and which ones are routine,” she responded
to him. “Otherwise, we’d have a bunch of officers flying around the streets of Baltimore all day long. And that would be unsafe for traffic.”