I glance up to see a small fat chick, eyes almost hidden by long, black bangs, 5’2", maybe 5’3", and about 220 lbs. Like all overweight people you can only speculate on her age, but I’d say late twenties.
— I called it in, she repeats, waving her cell phone. — It’s all on here! I was parked over there. She points and I crane my neck in the direction of her car, visible under the overhead lights, on the hard shoulder of the bridge, almost backed into the causeway’s barrier of bushes, shrubs, and trees planted between the road and the bay. She looks at the broken, prostrate figure underneath me, my thighs that lock onto him as he shakes under his convulsive sobs. — Is he crying? Are you crying, mister?
— He will be, I snarl, as sirens tear out and a police car screeches to a halt, swathing us in blue light. Then I’m aware of the gross smell of urine rising from the guy beneath me, turning the hot air fetid.
— Oh . . . the fat chick sings mindlessly, wrinkling her nose. It’s like old alcoholic piss, where the bum in question has been drinking cheap rot gut for days. But even as the warm wetness rolls over the asphalt and makes contact with my skinned knees, I’m not relinquishing my hold on this whimpering motherfucker. Then a flashlight shines in my face, and an authoritative voice tells me to stand up slowly. I blink and see the fat chick being pulled away by a cop. I try to comply but my body feels locked astride this pissing wretch, and I’m now conscious of the fact that I’m wearing a short skirt, straddling a urinating stranger on a highway, surrounded by cops, as cars zip by. Then some rough hands tug me to my feet, the muffled cries still coming from the sad bag of bones on the deck. A short, butch Latina in a uniform is in my face, her groping mitts under my armpit, pulling me harshly upward. — You have to step away now!
I can’t use my hands and arms to steady myself, or rotate or lean my torso forward, and as I stand up I’m stepping on the guy. This is so fucking embarrassing. My friend, Grace Carillo, is a Miami cop, and I’d drop her name but I don’t want her or anybody I know to see me like
this
. My constricting tight, short denim skirt has ridden up into a thick, folded belt around my waist, through my action of kicking and straddling this creep. Denim doesn’t fall back into place just by standing up, and the fucking cops won’t release their grip so I can smooth the butt of my skirt down. — I gotta fix my skirt, I shout.
— You need to step away! the bitch shouts again. My underwear is visible from the back and front and I can see the frozen, waxy faces of the cops in the headlights scrutinizing me as I step off this pants-pissing prick.
I feel like tearing the bitch a new fucking asshole, before I remember Grace’s advice that it’s always unwise to fuck with a Miami cop. For one thing they are trained to assume that everyone is carrying a firearm. The two other cops, both male, one black, one white, cuff the sobbing gunman and yank him upright, as I finally get to shimmy and smooth the skirt down. The shooter’s face is pallid, his wet eyes set on the ground. I realize that he’s just a kid, maybe early twenties at the most. What the fuck was going through his head?
— This woman is a hero, I hear the bloated chick shriek in rabid attestation. — She disarmed that guy. She points in accusation at the cuffed kid, who has gone from stone-cold assassin to pitiable wretch, with a big wet stain on his pants. I feel his gross wetness on my scraped knees. — He was shooting at these two men. She points over to the edge of the bridge.
The fleeing cripples are now standing together, contemplating the scene. The Latino guy tries to skulk away, while the white guy has his hand over his eyes, shielding them from the harsh overhead light. Another two cops head over to them. The chunky little chick is still talking breathlessly to the Latina cop. — She took the gun from him and kicked it under the car, one chubby digit indicates. Then she pushes her sweaty bangs out of her eyes, waving her phone in the other hand. — It’s all on here!
— What were you doing stopped over there? the black cop asks her, as I catch another male white officer looking over my Cadillac and then back at me, perplexed.
— I felt sick driving, the fat chick says, — I had to pull over. I guess it was something I ate. But I saw everything, and she’s playing back the video recording on her phone to the cops. — Another car hit one of those men too, but they didn’t even stop!
Even as I feel the drumbeat of my heart pump more than it does after a cardio workout, I’m thinking how this girl’s skin, under the police car’s pulsing red lamp, matches almost
exactly
that horrible giant pink T-shirt she’s wearing with baggy jeans.
— That’s right, he just opened up on us. The white guy with the smashed leg has lurched over, flanked by another cop, pain streaked across his crinkly leather face, as he points to the weaselly motherfucker gunman who is being pushed into the back of the squad car. — This lady saved my life!
My hands are shaking and I’m fervently wishing I hadn’t run out on Miles. Even a tepid fuck from an immobilized prick with a bad back would’ve been preferable to getting caught up in this bullshit. Now I’m being guided into the back of another squad car, the officer saying soothing things in such a strong Latino accent I can hardly make it out. I get that they are taking the Cadillac and I hear myself mumbling something about the keys probably still being in the ignition and that my friend Grace Carillo is an MDPD officer, working in Hialeah. Our car pulls off, the fat chick riding shotgun, craning her blubbery neck around, telling me and the dykey cop, in some folksy Midwest accent, — It’s the bravest thing I ever did see!
I don’t feel brave at all, cause I’m shaking and thinking
what the fuck was I doing opening that door?
and I kind of pass out or drift away for a few moments or whatever. And when I’m aware of where I am, we’re turning into the garage by Miami Beach police station on Washington and 11th. A TV breaking-news camera crew are here, moving aside as we go through the barrier, and the dykey Latina cop is saying, — Those assholes get quicker all the time, but in an observational way, without resentment. As if on cue, I turn to the window to see a camera lens sticking in my face. The fat chick in the pink, her glassy eyes going from me to the reporter, shouts, almost in accusation, — It’s her! It’s her! She’s a hero! And my reflection mirrored right back in that camera is telling me I’m looking pretty fucking bewildered.
I realize that I need to butch the fuck up here, so when the fat pinko says for the umpteenth time in that simpering, fey voice, — Gosh, you really are a hero, I’m feeling a little smile playing on my face and I’m thinking to myself,
yeah, maybe I am.
I’LL TRY ANYTHING
once, I told Kim. She said she was getting so much out of doing this thing called Morning Pages. You just free-associate anything that comes into your head. Well, for once, plenty happened to me last night! So here goes me!
I had pulled up on the causeway, got out the car into the thick, wet air, had my hands on the metal barrier, looking out, staring over the black, choppy waters of the Biscayne Bay. Then the heavy rain that was beating down just stopped, this somehow synced with the angry horns, ripping through the night, trailed by the screeching of brakes. Then out of the darkness: the cars, the men, and her. Shouting, screaming, then the sharp whistle of what I knew, from my hunting experiences with my father, was a gunshot. I should have gotten right back into the car and taken off, but for some reason, which I still can’t explain to myself, let alone those darned persistent police officers, I didn’t. Instead, I took several steps closer into the road and started filming on my phone.
I’m not stupid, I told the police officers. Because by the way they looked at me, judging and dismissive, I could tell they weren’t taking me seriously. But it was my own fault, I was talking nervously, overexplaining myself out of insecurity and excitement. — It’s her, I shouted, and I pointed to the girl, the woman, who had just overpowered the gunman.
Then I showed them the phone. The picture was dark at first as she decked the shooter, but it became clearer as I advanced toward them. She was on top of him, holding him down.
It was obvious that once they’d seen my film, even the police officers were in awe of this Lucy Brennan. She looked the part with her long, chestnut hair, streaked with honey by the Floridan sun. Thick brows sat over big, piercing, almond-shaped eyes and she had a sharply defined, trapezoidal jawline. In contrast to this Amazonian severity was her dainty snub-nose, which gave her a paradoxical cuteness. She wore a short denim skirt, a white blouse, and white ballet-laced sneakers. One of her knees was skinned, probably due to the way she pinned down the gunman with those sculpted, muscular thighs.
They took us all (me in the same car as the heroine, and the perp and his target in another) back to the station in South Beach. Then they separated me from Lucy Brennan. I was escorted into a stark, gray-walled interview room with just a table, several hard chairs, and skull-splitting fluorescent lights. They put on a tape recorder and asked me all sorts of questions. All I got from them was: Where was I going? Where had I been?
Damned if they didn’t make me feel like I’d done wrong, just for stopping on the bridge and getting out of my car to take in some air!
What can you say? I told them the dull truth; that I felt bad about the email I’d gotten from my mom, messed up by what had gone on with Jerry, frustrated about my work, guilty about the animals, about using their bones. Just pretty darn shitty about everything. I felt a migraine come on so I just stopped for some air, was all. They listened, then a woman cop, the Latina officer who had first been on the scene, asked me once more, — What happened next, Ms. Sorenson?
— It’s on the phone, I told her. I had already forwarded the clip to them.
— We need to hear it in your words too, she explained.
So I went through it again.
Lucy Brennan. She’d told me in the police waiting room that she was a trainer, like a fitness trainer. It made sense; she radiated health, bristling with power and confidence. Her hair, skin, and eyes shone.
And through my fatigue I was burning with excitement, just being around her. Because I felt that somebody like Lucy could help me. But when the police were done with me, giving me a token for my car keys in the downstairs lot (they’d insisted I couldn’t drive my own car back here), I looked for her and hung around, but she was gone. I asked a police officer at the desk if I could get in contact with her. He just fixed me a stern look and said, — That is not a good idea.
I felt like a reprimanded child. So when that news-crew guy talked to me outside, in a civil, proper way, I was happy to let them interview me and I forwarded them the clip of my footage.
So that’s my Morning Pages. I write Kim an email explaining the same thing, but not Mom, as she and Dad worry enough about my being in Miami. After driving home I was exhausted but still exhilarated. So I went to my studio and started sketching. I’m no portrait artist, but I needed to try and capture Lucy’s fantastic golden-brown mane and those searing, vigilant eyes. All I can think about is picking up the phone and calling her.
But where in hell do I start?
COULDN’T SLEEP. DIDN’T
even try. As the sun rises I’m stretching out in Flamingo Park, preparing for my early-morning run. I’m not going to let Miles, a Motor Vehicle Accident, some asshole shooting off a gun, or even the entire Miami-Dade Police Department fuck with my routine. So I’m pushing down 11th Street toward Ocean, at an easy 7.5ish mph. Roadworking Latinos hoist fallen palms back upright, supporting them with wooden stays. The rehabilitated trees gratefully swish and wave in the cool breeze.
When I first came down here, a resentful high-school sophomore, I recall Mom’s boyfriend, Lieb, explaining to me that palm roots were shallower than those of most trees, so although they were easily blown over in hurricanes and storms, they didn’t suffer such great trauma and could survive this. I was missing Boston and made some bratty comment about how, in Miami, even the trees have superficial roots. But I didn’t pay much attention to them at the time, my disdain was fixed on the red patch on Lieb’s balding dome. Of course, a couple of months later, when it turned out to be an aggressive skin cancer, which he thankfully got removed, I felt bad for my previous disgust.
As I hit Washington, I slow down to a 4 mph jog for a couple of blocks, opting to take in the mess of tattoo parlors, sports bars, nightclubs, and stores selling tacky beachware. Even this early some drunk groups are still about, looking into closed store windows for future purchases. Shrill girls check out thongs emblazoned with slogans like DON’T BE A PUSSY, EAT ONE, while snickering guys earmark tees with the silhouette of naked pole dancers and the proclamation I SUPPORT SINGLE MOMS. From plush cocktail lounge to tacky sports pub to seedy dive bar, you can find all social levels in SoBe. Only one thing holds it together: a love of pure, unadulterated sleaze. Convertibles cruise past, their blaring sound systems often as expensive as the car, rolling downmarket as obviously nobody on Ocean or Collins is paying attention, no doubt lost in their own narcissistic concerns. A trio of shivering junkies share a cigarette in one doorway. A little farther down, two people of indeterminate sex lie asleep under a pile of unwashed laundry.
Enough of this B.S.; I turn toward Collins and Ocean, the sand and the sea, skipping past a stumbling drunk who mutters something unintelligible. Without this kickstart to my day, I’d be lost. A day without a morning run is a day you fumble through, rather than one you attack.
I rack it up a few notches to around 10 mph, running down the beachside tarmac path as far as South Pointe, picking up more speed on the way back. I’m flying past them all now, my sneakers slapping the ground in light rhythm, my breathing controlled and even. This is how it feels when you know you are with the gods. The rest of them, the shambling mortals, are just losers; so slow, so limited. Tailing off to what feels around an even 7.5 mph, I cross over Ocean, oblivious to the sleepwalking cars, and head down 9th before turning onto Lenox. Up ahead, I see a crowd of people in the street, outside my condo. Like others in the area, our building facade is art deco but ours is unique in being painted lavender and pistachio with an abstract geometric design of ocean-liner stripes and portholes. But why are there guys with cameras, shooting pictures of the outside of the property? I suddenly worry there’s a fire or something, then, as I get closer, I realize in mounting panic:
this shit is for me!