Police Said (1978/1997)

Abstract

My friend Fats had a gun that didn't work. He took it from his father who was a Lieutenant on the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police force. An all black .357 Magnum with a dismantled trigger mechanism and a bullet jammed in the end of barrel. Fats's father wanted to be sure. That night, while we all sat in Fatss car, Fats playfully waved it at people in a 7-Eleven convenience store parking lot in Prince Georges County, Maryland. P.G. County, as we called it, was just over the Washington D.C. border. That's where we all lived. Fats was a goddamned fool. But we were all laughing. Cool, Brick, Fats and myself. Moments ago, it was funny; we had been inside that 7-Eleven shoplifting junkfood for kicks: Slim Jims, candy bars, ice cream sandwiches, bumble gum, bags of peanuts. A 7-Eleven store in P.G. County, Maryland. Home of the meanest, most reckless police officers in the world as far as we knew.