faller Chapter 11 the man

Chapter 11

the man

i saw the cop and the woman screaming and i saw him draw his gun and i fell to my knees and laced my hands behind my head. all i could think about was that i was thirstier than i had ever been in my entire life and i didn’t want to die thirsty. 

i never cared much about living.  i just didn’t want to die thirsty. 

not that thirsty.

the cop yelled at me to lie down on the ground and i did that. the woman kept on screaming. 

as far as i knew i didn’t do nothing wrong but that never stopped anyone before and i didn’t think for a minute that it was going to stop him from killing me. i locked my fingers behind my head and waited for the bullet. 

i thought about what it would feel like.

been stabbed. been punched and kicked and none of it ever felt like your thought they should. sometimes no pain at all. sometimes just some kind of dull thud and ache inside or this feeling like you’re feeling pain from somebody else’s body. 

like it doesn’t belong to you.

sometimes a lot worse than you expect but mostly the pain comes after. sometimes a little bit after and sometimes a little more after and sometimes not for hours and sometimes not for days.

been shot at but i never actually been shot.

that probably hurts different.

i kept waiting for the cop to shoot but he didn’t shoot right away.

i heard him tell the boy to come to him.

i told the boy to go to the cop.

i was pretty sure the cop would shoot me anyways especially if that woman kept screaming. i would of shot her but the cop would probably shoot me. but if the kid moved at least he could get clear. most people don’t exactly shoot straight when there’s a lot of commotion. 

the cop might know how to shoot. 

he probably didn’t. 

at least the kid could get out of the way.

cop shot my uncle charlie when he was stabbing his wife. uncle charlie was stabbing the wife. i hated that bitch. charlie’s wife. cop emptied his whole clip into charlie. everybody wanted to sue except me. i saw charlie when he was off his rocker and all the way over to crazy.

i never blamed the cop. i would empty my gun too. 

i didn’t feel nothing bad about this cop either. he just knew what he saw and with all the shit going down all the screaming and the kid i probably would shoot me too.

i told the boy to go to the cop but he just stood there.

he stood there for a long time.

i had my face deep in the dirt. I could taste some kind of animal shit and there was bugs biting at my legs but i kept still and i told the boy to go to the cop again.

don’t know if the kid heard me or understood what i was saying.

somebody was going to get shot.

better me than the kid.

i just wanted him out of the way so when the cop started shooting he didn’t get hit with a bullet meant for me.

i don’t know how the woman kept on screaming. I don’t know don’t how she didn’t lose her voice.

then the kid turned and started running the other way.

i could see him out of the corner of my eyes and i could hear him running.

i didn’t say nothing.

i just waited to get shot.

i didn’t blame the kid neither. he was just a kid and kid’s do stupid things and most often they don’t mean no harm.

i just laid there in that dirt with the bugs biting at me and waited to get shot.

that’s all i did.

there was a long time or at least it seemed like a long time where nothing else happened. i stayed down there with my face in the shit and dirt and the woman kept on screaming. maybe there was some words in there but i couldn’t tell what they were if there were any words. maybe she called out the kid’s name. i can’t remember it or i didn’t understand it if she did but it seems like she might of called out the kid’s name somewhere in there. 

that went on for a while and i didn’t feel nothing towards nobody except by then i was starting to wish the cop’d just get it over with so i could stop breathing in all that shit and dirt so i could could stop feeling so bone shaking thirsty.

then he started talking to the woman. the cop. he tried to calm her down and i started thinking that if his attention was on calming her down then maybe he wasn’t going to get around to shooting me after all. 

eating all that dirt and shit was making me a whole lot more thirsty.

more thirsty than i could ever tell anyone about.

i don’t think i was ever that thirsty in my whole life. 

i can’t remember ever being more thirsty than that.

i don’t think i was ever once as thirsty as i was right then.

but i didn’t move. i knew better than to move when a uniform was involved. now way of telling what was gonna set them off. for all i knew the cop might be alright. but put a uniform on a guy and he’s gonna have to show you why he’s got the uniform.

i got nothing against the police.

they framed me up more than once and i took more than my share of beatings from cops and prison guards. black bag over the head so you can’t say for sure who it was. even got the phone book treatment case you thought that was just a joke. banging on me with their clubs through a phone book. maybe now they use something else. with phone books getting rare.

but i always chalked that up to people being people. given a chance to get away with it most of us would do the wrong things.

cops.

jail guards and prison guards. 

criminals.

all the same when you come down to it so i never held anything in particular against the police.

i get nervous when i see a cop.

but i don’t hate them.

not even rez cops who can be the biggest pricks or the most understanding depending on who you run into. this cop could shoot me flat out and get away with it if he really wanted especially when i got up and started walking and then started running the cop might be a prick in some ways and a pretty good guy in others. he coulda shot me just out of panic.

but he didn’t.

i got to the woods and i don’t know why but i started following the kid’s tracks. not hard to track a kid and a goat running through the woods and i still could remember for some reason how to read sign even though i can’t remember the last time i tried or the last time i hunted. i stopped hunting soon as i didn’t need to kill to eat but i don’t remember when that was but i remember i kept tracking even after i stopped hunting for at least a while but i don’t remember how long. people are the easiest animal to track unless they don’t want to be and this kid and the goat didn’t seem to be thinking about throwing off any trackers and i could hear them every now and then.

i guess maybe i was worried the kid would hurt himself somehow. why i followed him. that he could fall somewhere some way or run into a tree or a boulder or something. truth is most indians are no better in the bush than most people and i didn’t know nothing about this kid other than that he was going to get me some water and he ran away when everybody started yelling and he was mighty scrawny making me think maybe he could break bones easier than most.

or maybe i was just thirsty maybe i just didn’t know what else to do so i started following the kid and the goat.

i don’t know.

i don’t know why i do half the shit i do truth be told.

at some point the woman stopped screaming and the cop didn’t come right after us. i was pretty sure i’d hear a cop that size following us in his cop boots and cops mostly can’t do anything without barking orders and yelling at people particularly when they get to chasing them. my guess is that he was smart enough at least to realize that chasing people blind into the woods with a gun is just not the smartest thing to do. a city cop or state or provincial might be stupid enough to try that kind of thing but a rez cop probably would know better.

i figured this rez cop was a lot of things but probably not stupid.

i broke from a kind of lope to a fast walk. can’t do much faster than a lope nowadays. i couldn’t hear the kid anymore but i could still see sign. pretty recent. he wasn’t running into things or over things and it looked like he slowed down from an all out run to a jog or a fast walk. i wasn’t going to catch up to him unless he stopped but he wasn’t too far ahead. 

i still didn’t know what i was gonna do if i caught up to the kid. i still didn’t know why i was following him exactly. maybe to make sure he wasn’t hurt or wasn’t gonna get hurt. maybe just because i didn’t know what else to do or maybe i was hoping the kid’d take me to something to drink.

i could hear crows up ahead. lots of times crows’ll follow people in the woods in case they leave any food behind because crows know people drop shit and just throw shit away. the old woman would say that crows like to laugh at people count of we walk on two legs but can’t fly and we’re always dropping stuff or throwing it away. crows don’t throw nothing away and that’s the real reason they follow us.

they must get a real kick out of me. falling down again and again and getting up my face full of dirt.

i swear once upon a time a long time ago i could move through the bush without making a sound or falling down even once.

maybe that’s just a dream or some shit i made up in my head. they say every time you remember something you change it just a little. and my memory is sketchy on my best day. so even what i remember how i remember it is probably not how it happened.

i just kept following the kid and the goat. falling down and getting back up to follow some more. maybe it didn’t make sense but nothing makes sense to me anymore.

maybe it never did.

one point i fell into a pretty big hollow face first. didn’t break anything but i could feel blood and burning across my face from scraping it when i fell and a pretty good lump over my one eye where i hit a rock or something hard.

i got back up and kept following. i just kept getting up and following.

then the kid stopped. 

felt him stop more than hearing or any other way.

i used to feel things that way all the time. i could feel the other fighter ready to attack. getting ready to give up. mostly they give up long time before the fight is finished. in their body and in their heart and maybe i see something or hear something about the breathing or how they move. but felt it before i knew about hearing or seeing.

i lost all that when i started throwing fights. it didn’t matter no more so i stopped feeling it out and i just fell down. took the count or tapped out. i used to be able to feel weather and other things like what kind of day it was gonna be for me. things i didn’t understand but i knew.

the more i fell down the less it mattered.

i got way lost in selling myself too many ways.

but right then at that moment i felt the kid stop and it was almost like i never sold it all away.

just for that moment.

then i was me again. the sold off sold out worn out washed out me and i broke into a walk because i was so tired. knew he was close and i didn’t know why i was even falling him or what i was gonna do when i caught up to the kid.

i wondered if he knew.

wondered if the kid felt things the way i used to because he was too young to have sold off most of his being alive.

i walked and caught up to my breath and wiped the sweat off my face with the back of my hand.

felt the kid and the goat just waiting.

nothing ever waited for me.

not that i knew of anyways.

it sure felt like nothing and nobody ever waited for me.

i slowed down real slow.

i knew they were going to wait. i didn’t necessarily want to keep them waiting but i didn’t want to rush them neither. it seemed like they deserved for me not to rush so i slowed down.

maybe for the first time in my life. on purpose for the first time not because i couldn’t move any faster or because i didn’t want to move any faster but because it felt like i should take the time.

i don’t remember ever feeling like that.

not in my entire life.

i just slowed down and kept walking and knew that they would wait.

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