STRAIGHT LIGHT
STRAIGHT LIGHT
By Pamela Garza
The last of the whiskey went down hard. And eyes as cold as a morgue slab cased me from across the room through a cloud of illicit smoke and the usual bar chatter. I'd seen eyes like that before, but never knew where they came from.
Naturally, a cop on the streets met all kinds; but in my work, `all kinds' had fractured into the debased factions of all that was evil. An undercover cop wallowed in it, slept in it, ate it day and night. And what did that make me?
The radio went on to bigger things. To shut it up, I slid twenty bucks in coin down the jukebox' throat just so I could hear IF I WERE A CARPENTER by Bobby Darin again. I watched the bar patrons conduct their `business' from my back-to-the-wall corner, but the song carried my memory back to the time when being a cop was the dream, not the nightmare. How could a snot-nosed rookie possibly know what it was really like? How could any Academy prepare wide-eyed idealism for disillusionment?
As I caught sight of those granite-hard eyes again, it shocked me to realize that they were a woman's eyes. I wondered what they had in mind. Did I have anything to fear from them? Instinct, put there by 10 years of reading people correctly as a matter of life and death, told me, NO. They held no passion, no purpose. Only emptiness scanned me from across the room.
My callous spirit shrugged, and I signaled for another drink. The patrons in the bar grew restless at hearing IF I WERE A CARPENTER for the 25th time.
The thought amused me, and I noticed a spark of response, like the straight light coming from behind a thundercloud. The best song played on, and I toasted to those eyes, those eyes in the mirror.
"If I were a carpenter".. I wish I were.
--No part of this story may be copied without the express permission from the author.
