The November breeze stung Pete Winger’s face while neon
signs were burning his eyeballs. The sound of boots marching on concrete
streets was the coup de grace in slowly waking him up from his head-pounding
slumber. His first instinct was to roll out of bed and get in his trench coat
and hat. Except where he laid was significantly less comfortable than a coil
spring mattress. He couldn’t roll off of it either since his wrists and ankles
were held in place with steel cables. Struggling for freedom didn’t get him an
inch off of the steel surface that made his spine ache.
Pete finally opened his eyes, but not enough to take in the
glow of the neon motel signs. Rundown buildings with American flags barely
hanging on the doors (if the buildings even had doors). Concrete streets with
potholes the size of dinner plates. Windows shattered. Graffiti smeared all
over the brick walls. Minorities in ragged clothing out on their porches
wondering just what the hell was going on.
Pete had the answer they were looking for. White hooded
minions carried him on a steel crucifix while a cowgirl with an AK-47 strapped
to her back led the charge. Her annoying voice seemed all too familiar to Pete
when she ordered her hooded cohorts to stop. It was her alright. Long brown
hair in a ponytail. Curvy hips. A leather biker gang jacket. A cowgirl hat with
a feather in it. She was unmistakable. She was none other than Tifa Cody, America’s
loudest voice.
Pete struggled some more in his bindings while Miss Cody goose-stepped
into the middle of the street to address the impoverished citizens of this
ghetto. “Alright, now listen up, y’all!” she belted in her signature southern
accent. “It’s November and you know what that means for America: new
politicians, same old crap. And in the interest of fairness, I’m here to make
sure none of y’all are going to vote illegally in our fine democracy. Voter
fraud is as real as it gets. If I catch one of y’all stuffing the ballot boxes
this Tuesday, you’re getting an assload of lead!”
As Tifa unhooked her AK-47, Pete groggily said, “Hey there!
You think you can get me off of this cross? I mean…Blue Lives Matter, right?
Isn’t that what you’re always saying on the radio?”
Tifa pointed her gun at Pete. “Listen, Detective, and I use
that word loosely, the operative phrase there is Blue Lives Matter, not Blue
States Matter. I respect the authority of real cops who do their damn jobs, not
Dick Tracy knockoffs like you who protect snowflakes like these!”
“Miss Cody…do you not see the irony of what you just said?”
Tifa cocked her gun. “What irony, Mr. Pete ‘Left’ Winger?”
“Well…um…You’re getting mad over the fact that poor black
people are allowed to vote and yet they’re the snowflakes. Tell me how that
adds up.”
Tifa fired a series of warning shots past Pete’s ear and had
the minorities ducking for cover, their children screaming and crying. “This
ain’t about skin color, you Snowflake Justice Warrior! This is about protecting
our democracy from cheaters and thieves! You libtards don’t have a leg to stand
on in the facts department, so you try to vote multiple times. And for the
record, my stepfather is black, so don’t even try to play the race card with
me!”
Pete chuckled nervously. “Okay, so we know you have a
stepfather. But do you have any nieces and nephews? And when you visit them on
their birthdays in Bumfuck,
Alabama, do they refer to you
as…Aunt Tifa?” That zinger got a chorus of “oo’s” from the ghetto dwellers.
“Lay him down, guys,” she ordered her robed minions. After
they complied, she butt-stroked Pete in the stomach and earned a series of
smoker-like coughs. He also spit up a wad of blood-laced saliva. “Your jokes
are about as funny as the so-called woke comedians on late night TV. All that
PC propaganda is turning your brain into mush. You don’t know how to tell a
decent joke anymore because you’re too scared of getting thrown in Twitter
jail.”
“Come on, you had to admit that was punderful.”
“I don’t have to admit a goddamn thing. As a matter of fact,
boys, stand him up. I’m about to go all Auschwitz
on his funny ass!”
As the hooded minions stood up the steel cross, Pete let out
a string of, “No’s!” as if they would actually reconsider burning him alive.
While he struggled once more to get free, Tifa pulled out a book of matches and
struck them all on the collapsing pavement.
Her back turned to the residents, she said, “Are y’all
seeing this? This is what happens when you try to fuck with my country! Ain’t
no cops coming out to save him because he’s a damn traitor to real Americans,
not the handout takers and ballot stuffers! Cops don’t like that shit! That’s
why y’all keep getting shot all the damn time!” Tifa turned around momentarily.
“Are you shitting me right now?! Are you filming this on your damn phone?!”
Tifa aimed her AK-47 at a shivering black teenager with his
smart phone recording her. “This ain’t no comedy bit for your Tik Tok app or
whatever the hell you young fuckers love to do! You drop that damn phone or I’m
shooting it out of your damn hands!”
The teen refused to obey but continued to shiver. Pete knew
it was now or never if he was going to save more lives than his own. He wiggled
around on the cross some more. He struggled even harder. And harder. The steel
bindings cut into his flesh and formed purple scars on his wrists and ankles.
But the cross moved just a little bit at a time, so much so that the hooded
minions had a hard time keeping it erect. They tried to call Tifa’s name, but
she was in the middle of a tirade and had none of it.
Pete wiggled again. And again. His muscles ached and his
limbs seemed as though they would fall off. And then…the steel cross lurched
forward. “Look out!” shouted one of the minions as the cross landed on top of
Tifa, bringing her and Pete into chest-to-chest contact. Her gun was knocked
out of her hand, but the book of matches still burned and that tiny spark was
enough to weaken the straps on Pete’s right wrist.
“Get off of me, goddamn it! Who do you think you are, Bill
Clinton?” Tifa struggled while her hooded thugs ran away from not only the fallen
cross, but also the minority residents who began throwing bottles and bricks at
them. Some of them got away with no bruises other than their egos. Some of
their heads splattered on the pavement. One hooded punk got his back cut up by
pieces of glass.
As Tifa squirmed and wiggled to slowly pull herself out from
under Pete and the cross, the detective tugged harder on the burning straps.
His wrist singed with red hot pain. His skin grew crispy and black. The purple
bruises opened up to leak pus and blood. But get his hand free he did. While
Tifa crawled towards her AK-47, Pete began to unlatch his other wrist before
hunching down and undoing his ankles.
Both Tifa and Pete slithered like snails across the ground
while the hooded thugs were still being chased away by the impoverished
residents. Tifa was fingertips away from her gun when Pete grabbed hold of her
ankles and bear-hugged them. She rained knuckles on Pete’s scalp until she was
able to crawl close enough to the AK-47 to grab it. But Pete ignored his head,
wrist, and stomach trauma long enough to squirm over to her and get in a tug of
war over the weapon.
Tifa elbowed and kneed Pete in the ribs and stomach, but he
refused to let go of the automatic rifle. He spit a wad of blood in her eyes
and snatched the rifle out of her hands, sharp pain in his chest aside. Despite
being temporarily blinded, she slowly pulled herself to her feet and staggered
towards one of the abandoned buildings. Which one, Pete couldn’t see because he
was too busy curling up in a ball on the ground. Some neighborhood kids pulled
him to his feet and supported him. When he asked where Tifa was, they didn’t
know.
“Damn it, I can’t believe I’m letting that bitch get away!”
Pete’s rib and chest pain sharpened like he was being closed in an iron maiden.
He doubled over and spit up more blood, dazed at his surroundings. “Do me a
favor, kid. Get me that American flag over there. I got an idea. Just do it!”
The teen retrieved the ratty-looking American flag off of a
neighbor’s front porch and handed it to Pete. The detective waved his helpers
away for a moment and he was able to stand up on his own two feet, beaten, but
not dead.
“Tifa Cody! Get your ass out here and face me, you militia
nitwit!” Screaming that caused even more sharp pain to bend him over. Still he
waved off the neighborhood kids, who all gathered around with their smart
phones to record the action now that Tifa and her stooges were a non-threat.
“So Tifa…you like to call people who don’t agree with you
snowflakes, right? You like to call them SJW’s whenever they rightfully
complain about being disenfranchised? Well…now it’s your turn to cry,
sweetheart! I’m going to raise this flag…and everyone around me…will take a
knee. Go on, do it!” The neighborhood residents did just that: get on one knee.
“Oh, that’s not enough to piss you off, Tifa? Sure pissed
off the rest of your political flunkies. Wait a minute…I’ve got a better idea.
Tifa Cody…if you don’t get your ass out here and surrender…I’m going to do
something to this flag that’ll make your precious eyeballs leak like faucets.
But what will I do to it? Will I wipe my ass with it? Will I blow my nose on
it? Will I cough up blood on it? No…I think I’ll just fill it full of holes
with your own assault rifle! And yes, it is an assault rifle no matter how much
you say otherwise! I’m counting to three and this flag is going up in smoke!
One…two…three!”
On cue, Tifa bolted out of a nearby building and shrieked,
“NO!” before tossing a brick at Pete. It didn’t have the chance to smash his
face in. It disintegrated into dust the minute Pete pulled the trigger and
filled Tifa full of holes. Her bloody carcass dripped and splattered all over
the building steps before rolling into the gutter. Everyone in the
neighborhood, Pete included, took a moment to breathe heavily, either out of
relief or heart-pounding adrenaline.
Pete slowly turned around and faced the cell phone cameras.
“You see that?” He spit out blood and kneeled down in pain. “Crime doesn’t
pay…no matter…who you vote for…For all of you…who say…All Lives Matter…clearly
Tifa Cody’s didn’t…Don’t believe me?...Just ask her…She…drew…first…blood…”
Pete’s vision blackened as he stumbled over face-first onto the ground,
bleeding out of the mouth and any other wound her had. The neighbors gathered
around to try and help him, but he was a lost cause.
The last thing Pete Winger heard before passing into the
afterlife was police sirens off in the distance. This left him with an anxious
feeling in his gut. Would these cops do the right thing? Whose side would they
take: his or Tifa’s? Would these impoverished voters surrounding Pete become
easy casualties? Pete Winger never got an answer to any of these questions. But
hopefully whoever was watching the live videos being taken would question
everything all at once, including their government. That’s all Detective Pete
Winger could ask of them in his weakened state. His duty as a blue life that
mattered was complete.
