Stagger Bay

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The morning I went to hell I was passed out drunk.

One moment I was lost in the sodden oblivion last night’s twelve-packs had bought, the next a whole passel of cops was rat-packing all over me in my bed, slamming me onto my face to shackle my wrists behind me before I could fight back.

The feel of cold steel snapping shut around my wrists made me relax, despite them ratcheting down tight enough to cut off the blood flow completely and hurt. I’d worn such bracelets more than a few times when I was a kid and the familiarity cut right through my alcoholic haze, made me stop any resistance.

I was wrenched to my feet and propelled out the master bedroom and down the hall, all of the cops shouting: at me, at one another, at the world. As I was staggered toward the front door (or what was left of it, for now it was no more than a shattered pile of wood dangling to the side off the bottom hinge) my son Sam stood mute by the TV holding one of his injection-molded plastic action figures.

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