By Edgar Clinton, Jr.

The patrol car had a peculiar smell…It wasn’t minty fresh or manly clean by any means, More like Stale Puke and Oozing Bloody. No carpet shampoo was going to get all of that out. Officer Sully was checking out soon. One more year! “How the hell did I make it this long?” All his buds from the old days were retired, promoted, or dead. Heart attacks were legion, alcoholism just as prevalent, and eating the gun not unknown at all. Suicide seemed to be a contagious condition. You could count on at least three in the series. One down and next in line there were always at least two buddies that were hanging by a thread ready to drop. A corpse can freeze-frame a painful moment in time, but you just know he’s beyond the pain of this world. Many envy him his peace . Maybe there’s an end to the existential torture of the fractionally alive. Anyway it usually takes at least three.

To make it out of the Marine Corp, two tours in Nam, Then the next twenty in DPS, is just like pulling the chin whiskers and spitting into the eye of the grim reaper. When Sully lost Sue Linda, he lost his will to get out. The years pull us one way or the other. In Sully’s case he’d grown tired of bullying and intimidating inoffensive people. It was all the rage, with the drug war and all. And all the “You’ve got to put cash in if you want to cash in with the Department…” He’d played along, even got the moniker Ticket Master. Giving tickets to anyone, for the smallest of infractions, color of law and imaginary crimes and always, seizures more seizures. Drugs were good, but money was better. It was in the department training manuals and the cop trade magazines and in department policy.

But what really hacked his grits and burnt his fries, were the fed seminars, with FEMA, FBI, or some pasted together interagency task force or so call “fusion force” grouping that was all the rage. Jurisdictions were disappearing, and new laws were fissioning into existence from the churning amoebas in the bowels of some fed agency. Then the army guys showed up. Or some kind of inter-service amalgamation of semi to secret to top-secret ops, whatever. He’d looked into the same dead eyes, heard the flat voices, felt the chill horror of horrors spoken of like a laundry list recitation somewhere before. It was all too much like Nam. But this time it wasn’t the Vietnamese going down. This time the American People were the gooks.

He was freaking tired. It wasn’t a good tired, either. In the early days he’d been a .45-packing Ugly Angel of Retribution, The first line of defense in keeping the peace and bringing evil-doers to heel. He’d grown less and less sure. Now he was looking forward to retirement. There was some money put by, ( he had been frugal) closer to seven figures than six.

There had been a few shooting scrapes in his career, no more than average for a soldier then a cop, and Vietnam seemed more like someone else’s bad dream. Till he woke to the fact the strangled despairing cry was his own. But he never forgot or wanted to forget the oozing realization that had always rushed into his head while at the same time grasping vise-like his gut, when something really bad was about to hit and hit hard. That recognition could save your life. Sully was feeling it more and more. Low and slow this time, but it was still the same stuff.

The civilians had been getting restive lately. Might have had been this, might have been that. The Internet had been shut down to a few thousand sites. Between Haji terror recruiting and domestic hate groups wreaking havoc on the public’s mental well being and stability, how could the civilians maintain a pursuit of happiness? And isn’t it in the constitution “The pursuit of happiness”? Who could maintain that with so much mistrust of the government?

Of course that was all bullshit. They were still upset about handing over the guns and being broke. Of course there were still lots of guns out there. Criminals had ‘em now. If a former square john patriot type kept his, then he was the worst type. The Political type of Criminal… Much more maleficent than the common, or street criminal. Or so they taught at the Fed-State fusion center. Sully had some serious doubts, but he had learned to keep his mouth shut.

Sully was big but very little of his big was fat. But it was something in the way he moved that commanded respect, something in his eyes commanded fear, and something inside of him made it damn near impossible to kiss ass to get a promotion. Even though he would have gone nuts behind a desk, promotion is respect. And if you didn’t kiss ass you weren’t going to get that promotion. He was a road warrior and would die or retire as one whichever came first. It could go either way. Best to keep an eye on the task at hand. One time his attention had slipped.

It had been a hard week and it wasn’t getting any softer. Sully was patrolling out by the end of all that was ever civilized just west of Laredo, when something made him turn right down by the river. He’d just skylined on the levee when he noticed three wetback types and a slicked up Cholo moving a little too quick and nervous for 107degrees in the shade. And they were in the sun. He was about half a mile away, it was a windy day, and there was a chance they hadn’t made him yet.

He killed the big 464 and coasted under some mesquites off the shoulder, lifted the long glass for a look see. Unless they were playing catch and hide with sugar plum boxes the tooth fairy had dropped off from across the river, something very un-kosher was going down. Procedure demanded he call for backup and wait. There was no time for that. Looked like the Mexican swim team was set for another lap back across the Rio and Mr. Slick was headed for San Antone or Detroit or some place in mid America. Time to make a move.

Sully idled closer until it was obvious he’d been made. The perps scattered south, except for Hans Cholo, he went for his blaster. He yanked that sucker from the trunk with one easy move, and commenced unloading on Sully like freaking battle star Galactica in an evil consortium with rogue elements of the Romulon Empire. Suly caught one glimpse before the big man that he had been a moment before made himself verrrrrry teeny tiny behind the dash. There was time for one thought. “ That’s the biggest Mf-ing gun I ever seed!”

Then there was no time to think. About a hundred rounds per minute were slashing through the unit. Full Metal Jacket, armor piercing shit. His Kevlar wouldn’t stop that, even if he had been wearing it. He did have a riot gun. When Hans was slapping in a new clip into his blaster, he shot back through what was left of his windshield. Bounding along on a rough road at 60 mph with two front tires out trying like hell to keep from turtling, yeah he missed…. Sully’s last thought for the day was short and sweet:”Shiiiiit”…It seemed the Fing grenade was only coming at him a few miles per hour, but there was no time to appeal to “Sweet Jesus” call for Momma or nothing. Then it was good night, Texbilly prince. May flights of honky-tonk angels fly thee to a nest. Sully usually messed up his Shakespeare.

The captain filled him in on what happened to him at the hospital a few days later. The cruiser had turtled, plowed thru the field, come to a rest and started a slow burn. Someone had pulled his cantankerous, ignoring department policy, lucky not to be demoted ass from the cruiser sometime before it exploded. The mules ( or perhaps more accurately denoted) “delphines” must have delayed their swim back to Mexico Bonito and come back to save him… He did give don’t go to jail passes to 6 Mexicans, and a Puerto Rican by accident the first few months he was back on the blacktop There weren’t any warnings in his book for slickety cholos. That was a big bug up his backside that wouldn’t be going away for a while.

As for Hans Cholo, he’d probably be back. There were few contrabandidos with the sense to retire while they were still up in the game. Sully thought about that blaster for years. What the hell was that hand cannon? When he saw one again, it was much later in the game. Maybe too late in the game.The long and the short of it was desk duty and driving tests for the idiot John Q Publics and also a big ol Dirty Harry possible rogue half-cocked cowboy demerit in his jacket. Everybody gets a few f ups and all luck runs out in the end. Still the Ticket Master had some pages left to be filled.

Eventually Sully got back to field duty. A few things would never be as right as before, but he bucked it up, showed no pain and made it through the physical. Lately he was one for just light duty and was riding the desk, doing some swing shifts a few times a month and coasting into retirement. He was going to be spending some time south of the border after retirement. He knew some Spanish, liked the people and the possibility of romance still held appeal for him.

The women on this side of the border that were interested in him, he wasn’t interested in and the ones he was interested in didn’t feel the same way back.
A change of scenery would be a good thing. Plans don’t always work out.
There was a Texas Ranger Captain in his office as he came into the headquarters one morning and bigger than death and twice as ugly there was someone else, obviously Army Special forces, maybe Delta. He didn’t have a uniform, But his suit was no disguise. He was uber level dogface, high ranking, but still in on the action. Some things you don’t forget. No matter how much you. want to.

The Delta Spook knew all about him. Knew all about Nam, his little tour of Columbia and all the stuff that Sully wanted to forget. He had a request for Sully from his country and also a little present he said was from his country as well. Three hundred Hamiltons in two leg belts. It would look just like a hideout pistol, or what some of the higwaymen used for a throw down. It was do or die. Take it and he was forever compromised, refuse and be a marked man. It was more like heads you lose, tails you don’t win. Later he regretted going for the money.

There was a troop exchange program going on and Sully knew Spanish so he was going to be liason and shepherd for the South Americans. They would be training at an undisclosed location, no need for him to know that now. Whether they were Army, Police, or special Palace Guard for tin-pot Presidente wasn’t important. There was a special need for them, They would do without hesitation deeds that American Forces might not. In fact they would probably be Village heroes when word got out about how “Jorge” or “Pepe” had busted caps on the Gringos.

Eight weeks of training passed. Sully felt like throwing up everyday. At last it came to an end. He tried to put it out of his mind, but one year to the day, he got the call that he never wanted to get.

There was big trouble in Texas. Somehow the Texicans had found their cojones and were making like 1836 all over again. What was worse, some of the Sheriff Departments and the Texas State Guard had gone over to the “Patriots”.

This was why the Columbians were here. There were also Iraquis and Canadians and Salvadorians, Guatamalans and others. It wasn’t going to be pretty. Sully cursed himself everyday for not leaving the Country when he had a chance. Troops were thick as fleas on the border, inspecting every one going south now. Not to mention the Gd fence. They had trigger happy America Corp Punks too. Some just 14 years old. They thought it was a big game to kill somebody and it had happened too…quite a bit. Sully rolled out…he was ready. He had his flag, all his guns, about three thousand rounds, and determination.

He just hoped he could make it to the Pariot Camp and that they would’nt shoot before he could surrender….If the Dogs of the World Order didn’t get him first.

Death was the only certainty he had in life. The odds were stacked. But he was happy, felt good inside, for the first time in a long time.