Page 121 of But For You

After pulling out of the parking lot, I took a left, and a car passed me and then cut in front of me sharply and came to a stop. I had to either slam on my brakes or ram into it. I hit the brakes.

The car door flew open, and the second I saw Mr. Parker get out with a baseball bat, I grabbed my phone and dialed 911. As he yelled at me to get out of my faggot car and get my faggot ass out there, I talked to the operator. When he started beating on the hood, the operator asked what that noise was. I explained that he was hitting my van.

“And it’s new,” I groaned because, really, I was safe as long as I didn’t get out.

She sounded more frantic than I was.

He hit the window, and by that time, I had the operator on speaker and my phone shooting video because there was nothing else to do—I was stuck until the police got there.

“Mr. Harcourt, did you call in an assault on an officer the other night?”

“Yeah.”

“That was wonderful, what you did. I just… we weren’t allowed to contact you or… any …”

“Which one?” I asked as Mr. Parker took out the passenger side mirror.

What was I going to tell Aaron?

“Detective Everman is my brother-in-law… we’re all very thankful.”

“Are they both all right?”

“Yes.” She sighed deeply. “The two of them will make a full recovery.”

“Good. I’m—shit.”

“What’s wrong?”

He had retreated to his car, and now he had an axe.

“Tell the officers coming that this guy has an axe now.”

“Will advise. Move away from the windows, Mr. Harcourt. ETA is one minute out.”

“Okay.” I took a breath, scrambling into the back seat as Mr. Parker charged the van and swung at the windshield.

I was really sick of hearing sirens, hearing the yelling, but the sea of blue uniforms was cool, and the way they held their guns on him until he dropped the axe was like a scene out of a movie.

He was on the ground, and it was overkill, in my opinion, but they had no way of knowing what the man was on, and he was big and strong. But there was a knee driven down between his shoulder blades, one in the small of his back, and the last guy sat on his legs. It could not have been comfortable.

They sort of hog-tied him with PlastiCuffs and carried him to the back of one of the police cars. Once there, they came for me. The street in the little suburban neighborhood was full of working families, so there was no one out on the sidewalk to witness any of the excitement.

I gave my statement to Officer Fields as more men in blue joined us, clustering around. They asked if I was okay, and I explained again that I had not gotten out of the van. It was picture-taking time after that. When my phone rang, I saw it was Sam and excused myself.

“Where are you?” he asked me.

“Where are you?”

“I’m finally home. I took a shower and—did you go to work? I want to talk to you about everything and just … I need to see you, so can you come home?”

I coughed. “I’m actually with the police.”

There was a brief silence.

“What?”

“Mr. Parker just attacked me after I dropped off Kola and B, but I’ll be home after I finish with the police and then call Aaron to figure out where to take the⁠—”