The Autumn Dead

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I spent two hours that rainy Tuesday morning honoring my boss's request to explain to a chunky twenty-two-year-old Chicano kid named Diaz why he'd get canned if he ever again used the choke hold on anybody.

"He was shoplifting, man," Diaz said.

"Not exactly the same as shooting or raping somebody."

"He looked dangerous."

"He's forty-three years old and he gets early social security because he shakes so bad from injuries he picked up in Nam. I saw him, Diaz. The poor bastard's barely alive. He shoplifts because the boys in Washington cut vets' benefits. And in his present condition, he couldn't whip Madonna." I lost it then, just a bit. "We're rent-a-cops, Diaz. We're not mercenaries or whatever those guys are in those magazines you read. You understand?"

Diaz has an annoying habit of snuffling phlegm up in his throat, then expectorating it into his empty Styrofoam coffee cup. I have to wait a few hours afterward before I can even think about eating again. He did it now and he kept his eyes on me all the time he was doing it. "I ain't gonna get wasted because of some weirdo creep, man. The boss don't let us carry iron, then he shouldn't have no objections when we use some force."

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