A Dominate Fury

It has been 32 days since Detective Laura Kimber’s partner was shot down at the corner of Lee Avenue and State Street, and for those days Kimber found herself walking around with a dark cloud and the weight of the Bridgeport Police Department on her back. The struggle itself has been mocked and the unconditional surrender to move on pressed hard one day to the next.

It was a drug deal that went wrong and the shooter was only a fifteen year old street thug named High Tops. When they came upon him he was wearing a stained New York Knicks sweatshirt and blue denims and it appeared that he just emerged from the clutter of humanity right there on the corner of the street, asking permission to empty out his back pocket. He was granted permission from Detective Eric Brown and that was his big mistake. After shooting two rounds into the detective he dropped the gun and held his hands up into the air in a surrendering motion. He was hauled off to jail with a big smile on his face. For the detectives inside the Congress Street Police Station, contempt and even rage were only natural emotions. However, for Laura Kimber, it was the battle going on inside her head. She was completely lost in a dominate fury.

She was carrying that dread on her mind for weeks, wondering if there was something she could have done. Anything. The voices of reason, and unreason in her head kept spiraling out of control.

They would trust the youths of this city believing that they would not only respect the laws, but the elders as well. High Tops was brought to the lock up that morning with so many others of the city’s troubled youths and he’d be lost in the sweltering mass of the holding cell. Kimber remembered standing by the doorway as if it were the other end of a long tunnel to hell.

She’d watched the rival gangs arguing drawing a great deal of curiosity and interest from the cell guards, the sound of an angry police escort on the other hand, was more than enough to frighten a good amount of the gang-bangers. Sadly, the only one who was not intimidated was High Tops. He watched the entire confrontation unfold with little interest, and he never took his eyes off Laura Kimber. The police escort, in the meantime, was desperately trying to keep a lid on things.

Kimber stepped back, her eyes blazing, and her mind racing. The action she wanted to take would have been so devastating that the entire Police Station might never recover from it. She closed her eyes and suddenly had a vision of High Tops being hurled to the floor, and she was standing over him empting her revolver into him.

That was 32 days ago and it was still fresh on her mind. She stood in front of the same cell and there was dead silence. There wasn’t a soul being held today.

“You got to let it go,” the voice of reason whispered in her head.

“Try to get him killed while he’s doing time,” the voice of unreason added.

Those voices kept attacking her like seagulls at a McDonald’s parking lot during the lunch hours. She didn’t know which way to go, and she felt compelled to try to do something, even if it was as trivial as harassment. She wanted High Tops to know that he wasn’t going to get away with it. Those three meals a day and a bunk for the nights had to have come with a price.

She kept thinking about how the system was going to teach High Tops a trade and help him get his GED. Make him a productive member of society while Eric Brown’s body lay wasting away with time, and his family struggling to regroup.

The voices kept clawing at her only adding fuel to that dominate rage and she just had to get away from it.

“Enough!” she shouted, her voice cutting through the conflicting chatter from the inside of her head. Then there was an odd silence. Someone had placed a restraining hand on her shoulder, and Kimber was grateful for that.

“We’re not making much progress in these sessions Detective Kimber,” said the doctor. “But give me a little more time and we’ll help you through this.”

“Next week, same time?”

“Laura, I’d like to see you three times a week,” the doctor replied.

Kimber nodded.

#