INITIUM NOVUM: Part 1

by Casper Greysun

  “Such a shame,” the cop says.

  “What is?” She responds blandly, already bored with what the cop is planning to tell her.

  “It’s just a tragedy, you know,” he begins with the carefully plotted out objective of expressing his feelings to the beautiful Ms. Cohen. As if they were something she might be remotely interested in listening to. She could not care less about his feelings, but alas he continues to share them, and her eyebrow continues to rise. She knows his type. She knows them well. Over-sensitiveness is generally a result having been raised by too many women and not enough of a strong-male presence during formative years. This little mama’s boy is wasting both his and Laura’s time mushy mumbo jumbo. “Nice, old lady has to suffer like this. It’s because of scum like that, you know, scum like that is why I became a cop.”

  “Is that right?” She asks blandly, uninterested in the answer.

  “No, yeah, definitely. I hate people who do bad things,” he says as they reach the witness, who is sitting on a platform bench.

  “Thank you, Deputy Do-Right, I’ll take it from here,” she says, dismissing the cop and shooing him away quite rudely. Not that he minds. Most men will stand around and swallow her abuse just for a chance to be near her. It also doesn’t help the cop’s chances that he embodies more of a sensitive nature than anything else. She hates the sensitive type.

  The first thing Laura notices is that the man is morbidly obese. The second thing she notices is that his t-shirt is wet and clinging to the rolls of fat on his torso. She wants, so badly, more than anything, to ask him why he is such a big, fat, sack of sweaty shit. She, of course, doesn’t ask him why he is as he is. Her professionalism, as always, keeps her in check, reserved, and proper. But, oh, how she longs for a release from the shackles of conformity. One might even go so far as to say she envies the quall of those she’s been responsible for locking away.

  “Sir,” she begins, already addressing him with a cold tone before he has had a chance to utter a word of his own. Since she is well aware of what happened during the incident, the very act of her talking to the man is a formality, a courtesy to her own reputation as it stands before the eyes of the people around her; because no self-respecting, crime-fighting, justice-delivering assistant to the District Attorney wants the people to known exactly what kind of shitty person they are. “I’ve been led to believe that you might have witnessed something and are holding information which might be of particular use to the investigation at hand.”

  At her prompt, the fat man begins to recant the entire incident to Laura. During his testimony, he pauses frequently in order to catch his breath in between strings of words. A look of disgust creeps across Laura’s face as she struggles to withhold her disdain for the man and his false testament. Her eyes dart back and forth across his forehead as she traces multiple beads of sweat threatening to springboard from his brows and onto her skin. The thought repulses her. Luckily the man finishes his accounts. Her breaking point was not too far away.

  “Let me get this straight, you chased the young man, but he got away?” she asks.

  “Right,” he confirms.

  “And you gave chase,” she begins, air-quoting the word ‘chase,’ “because the lady fell?”

  “Right,” he confirms again.

  According to Laura’s reasoning, the very fact that the fat man used the word “run” casts a shadow of doubt over his entire story. One look at the man and it becomes crystal clear, running his not his forte. Secondly, the lady fell after the young man had made it into the train. Laura had seen this with her own two eyes.

  “Where were you standing, in regards to the lady’s position, at the time of the incident?” Her questions begin to make the transition over to interrogation both in tone and intensity.

  “I was near her,” he replies.

  “And when she hit the ground?”

  “I was near the train.”

  “So then,” she begins, “please explain how is it that you chase the man for a deed not yet done? If you were already near the train by the time the lady fell.”

  “Uh, ugh,” says the fat man, stumbling over his words.

  “I’ll tell you how that was possible. You chased the man before the fact. Now you stand before me like some super-obese Good Samaritan. Come to think of it, from what I understand, you’re partly to blame for the incident.”

  “What, no. Wait lady, you got it all wrong,” he pleads. “I’m also a victim here.”

  “A victim of cholesterol and diabetes, maybe,” she snaps at him. I’ll tell you what, get your fat, cheesy ass away from me and I’ll think about not having cuffs slapped on you for obstruction of justice, you fat, fucking piece of lying shit.”

  She can almost feel her temperature rising, steaming her from the insides. Laura cannot believe the audacity of the man, to claim himself a victim as well. Not that she cares for the well-being of the old lady as it is in her nature to only give consideration to the victims which she can claim as her own. Her sudden anger stems from many thoughts racing through her head, but the one fact that, without a shadow of a doubt, exacerbates her fury is the aesthetics, or lack thereof, of the fat man. His fatness pisses her off to the point where she can literally visualize ripping his head off and using it as a bowling ball to knock over the uniformed pin-heads around her, specifically the sensitive Deputy Do-Right. But as quickly as she had lost it, Laura recollects her calm, collected demeanor and scurries off in pursuit of the EMTs who are carting the old lady off to the nearest hospital.

  After a brief chat with the emergency medical technicians just outside of the subway, she acquires all the information she requires, the old lady’s name and the hospital she is being taken to.

  On her cell phone, she opens up an application marked “Beta Test GPS,” based on a similar technology already in use in fitness apps. However, this particular app does not trace the global positioning of an individual’s cell number, but uses a radio-frequency emitting chip small enough to be concealed on a piece of paper, more specifically, a business card. Once the app is running, a small cursor on the map begins to blink, displaying a location near the Brooklyn-Bridge. Although the very practice of tracing an individual through such means happens to be extremely illegal (specifically, in regards to violating a person’s basic constitutional rights), no one, especially her superiors, need to know it about it.

  Without further ado, she calls an associate of hers that she met in college. This associate is a high-ranking officer in the New York Police Department. Since the two have been friends for quite some time, there is little need to explain that this high-ranked officer is no Deputy Do-Right. This guy, he’s old-school; beatings, interrogations without attorneys, and forced confessions. That’s the type of old-school this cop is.

  It’s only a matter of minutes, if not seconds, until she gets the confirmation call back. Within another few minutes, a small team of three undercover officers are heading her way. Just a few minutes after that, she is being picked up by an old friend named Hector Santiago. He pulls up to her in a Dodge Charger, the usual and obvious choice for undercover cops. There’s an open seat in the back but she stands by the passenger side door with one hand on her hip, tapping her foot on the pavement and staring at the occupant, a detective named John Corey.

  “She can’t be serious. Right, Hec?” Corey asks his partner.

  “Just give her the seat,” Hector replies with a smile, amused by Laura’s bitchy antics.

  Reluctantly, Corey vacates the spot, staring hard at Laura who requites his stare, as he climbs out and then back into the car, resenting her for making him do so.

  Once they’re on their way, Hector’s cell phone goes off, playing an ironically funny ringtone as he’s receiving the call.

  Whoop, Whoop, That’s the sound of the police.

  Whoop, Whoop, that’s the sound of the beast.

  Whoop, Whoop, That’s the sound of the police.

  Whoop, Whoop, that’s the sound of the
beast.

  He silences the phone after one loop of the ringtone, disregarding whoever it is that is attempting to reach him and turning his attention to his friend.

  “Laura, looking as youthful and beautiful as always, it’s very nice to see you,” he greets her.

  “Likewise, except for the youthful and beautiful part,” she quips. They laugh. “But seriously, thank you, Hector. I owe you.”

  “Nah, get out of here. It’s my pleasure. Besides, we’re on the same team, you and me. I cuff them and you put them away for good. Teamwork.” Hector Santiago turns his head to face her and smiles.

  There is a definite affinity held for Laura in Hector’s heart. She knows this, but the feeling is unrequited. To her, Hector is just a friend; more specifically, he is a useful friend, one that does not mind dirtying his hands for her, nor she for him.

  And no matter how many times she’s used her powers to the point of abuse, it never ceases to amaze her just how efficient law enforcement can be, especially when one bypasses the law in search of the quickest justice available. And as anyone (anyone dirty, that is) in law enforcement can tell you: there is no justice like quick justice. What they don’t tell you is: quick justice is no justice at all, because justice must be considered from all angles. Justice, like the reach of one’s actions, is a complex geometric shape. It’s never just one straight line. And the times that it is a line, it isn’t straight; it’s twisted, crooked, and eventually spirals out of control. Justice should be straightforward. Too bad that’s just not the way things work. Ever.

  In her mind, she recreates the young man’s face, detail by detail. A nearly eidetic memory aids in the task of snapshotting the recent past. She likes the young man, there’s no question about it. The only uncertainty there is concerning the matter is whether or not she likes him more as a person (hard to believe since she knows nothing about him, not that it matters, it is said that females decide whether they like someone in the first couple of seconds after initial meeting anyway) or as a conquest (of which she can never have too many). Only time will tell what the outcome will be, but if her current train of thought serves as any type of indicator, Mr. William Freeman best to take the “Initium Novum” clause very seriously. The only other option he has is to ride it out and hope he can effectively maneuver his own life choices so as to avoid tempting the authority of Ms. Cohen and provoking a grim fate. One might go so far as to say that he should attempt to tempt her in a different fashion, so that he might remain off of her list of accomplishments.

  CHAPTER 5:

  Detective Hector Santiago, high-ranking officer and Senior Investigator for the NYPD’s Crime Syndicate division, has a wife, Ruth, who at the very moment is sitting at their home, rolling a joint by the window still, watching the clouds move across the gray and solemn sky. On her lap lays her personal cell phone, open and ready to be used.

  Prior to rolling the joint, she had been readying herself to place a call to her sister, who she has not spoken to in a very long while, too long for her taste. Her last interaction with her beloved sibling ended in an unnecessarily heated fashion. Ruth’s sister does not like Hector’s womanizing ways, especially when Ruth calls crying because she, once again, suspects her husband of infidelity. During their last outing, the sibling’s manner of support was a bit too intrusive, causing an explosive riff between the married couple which threatened to dissolve the marriage. As Ruth’s sister alleged, Hector had been cheating. However, then, and as always, there was only the knowledge of an affair, never any proof. The lack of evidence, which is not too surprising considering that Hector Santiago is specially trained to seek out all forms of evidence, was the deciding factor in Ruth siding with her husband rather than with her sister, who knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that Hector was guilty.

  The phone displays Ruth’s sister’s number along with her contact image, a snapshot of both sisters playfully squishing their faces together for a silly picture taken at the beach a few years back. The only thing left for her to do is to touch the call button and wait. Her finger hovers over the button but it never lands. She cannot bring herself to call her, no matter how much she wishes to hear her little sister’s voice.

  She places the phone gently by her side and lights the joint with a match, despite there being a lighter in her pocket. She, much like her younger sister, has always enjoyed the scent of sulfur dioxide produced when a match is struck and then dies. She inhales deeply, holding the smoke inside her chest for a few seconds before releasing it. Repeating this process, she smokes the joint down to the halfway before she is seized by a fit of coughing. Instead of snubbing out the joint, she buckles down and finishes her smoke, choking slightly in between every strong toke.

  Within minutes, the weed is kicking into full effect, producing a large enough euphoric sensation that her entire body slouches back against the wall of the windowpane, completely relaxed. Her mind, on the other hand, does the exact opposite, it races, darting to and fro different thoughts as if her mind were playing a game of cognitive ping pong. Finally, she settles on the thought which had consumed her in the moments before she sparked the ganja, her younger sister.

  She palms her phone, contemplating whether or not she should call. Postponing it, she decides to call her husband instead. Truthfully, she doesn’t want to speak to him. She’s actually hoping that he does not pick up the phone. If he does answer the call, she’ll make up a random question concerning dinner later. This is her version of the coin flip. Undecided about calling her sisters, she tells herself that if Hector picks up, she won’t call her sister. However, if Hector doesn’t pick up, she will call her sister. Her reasoning, obviously impaired by the high, does not require logic, only the delusion of having an excuse. Because no matter how badly she would like to speak to her sister, she does not have an excuse to call her, mainly because there was truly never a good excuse for why they ceased talking to each other. Of course, Hector is to blame for their now sour relationship; but Hector himself should not have been reason enough to keep two sisters apart for so long. In his defense, he couldn’t care less whether or not they ever talk to each other again. In his opinion, the issue isn’t that important anyway.

  Two rings later, her phone call is being redirected to Hector’s voicemail. This relieves her. She had no desire whatsoever to talk to her husband; not enough time has elapsed between now and the morning when she last interacted with him. A brief interaction it was too, over breakfast which he scarfed down hurriedly as she sipped her coffee, watching him eat like an animal. A kiss on the top of her head later and Hector was rushing out of the door and into his Dodge Charger, still chewing his eggs and toast, leaving her where she sat, at the table in front of her own plate, her hopes of sharing a nice breakfast with her husband deflated yet again.

  It takes Ruth a few more minutes, but she finally gains the courage to call the one person she wishes to speak to more than anyone. While she didn’t quite expect her sister to pick up, hearing her voicemail message comes as a bit of a surprise to her. Feeling worse than being flat left at breakfast, she decides that she’ll roll another joint in a little while. It’ll be hours until Hector comes back from work, which leaves her with more than enough time to air the apartment out and rid it of the scent of her leisurely activity. Although, at times she toys with the idea of letting him catch her in the act, she doesn’t. She wouldn’t want to place him in a conflict of interest due to his career. Yet, the prospect of scandal has an allure that she cannot deny.

  Striking another match, she listens to the rest of the voicemail, hoping that she’ll hear her sister’s voice when the music stops playing, but the music plays until the very end of the voicemail message, right up until the beep.

  Nobody can tell ya

  There’s only one song worth singing

  They may try and sell ya

  Cause it hangs them up

  To see someone like you

  You gotta make your own kind of music

  Sing y
our own special song

  Make your own kind of music

  Even if nobody else sings along

  Ruth puts the phone down, and takes a deep breath. By the time she’s done exhaling, she’s already crushed nearly an entire gram of weed. The gram breaks up well enough to form three heavy joints from it. She doesn’t need that much pot to feel good. She knows this. Not that it’ll stop her from smoking all of it just to fill the time, and more importantly than time, to fill the void.

  Halfway through her second joint, she decides on calling her sister again. She presses the call button but the attempt fails due to a network communication error.

  “That’s weird,” Ruth says to herself. “I always get good service here.”

  After examining her phone and seeing that the device has full bars, she becomes confused as to why it has no reception. Maybe it’s a sign from beyond, she thinks. Of course, she isn’t entirely wrong. Not to say that she’s right either. There is a reason for her phone malfunctioning and it is not a case of damaged hardware of any sort. The phone, a gift from Hector, represents something to Ruth. It represents that Hector is capable of moments of unexpected sweetness. Given that Ruth’s sister and Hector do not mesh well, she gives considerable thought to the ironic belief that maybe Hector’s sweetness could never connect her with her sister. This brings her far closer to the truth than her previous suspicion that a higher force had been issuing signs and hints about her attempts at reuniting with her sister.

  The phone was brought by Hector to keep Ruth from asking questions regarding his whereabouts earlier that particular evening. That very night he presented the gift to his wife, his excuse was that he was buying her a new phone. The truth is that Hector was late because he was with another woman, buying that woman a new phone. As a matter of fact, if Ruth had done just a little snooping she would have found his credit card statement listing two phones, one full price, one free. It had been part of a buy one, get one free promotional deal. Ruth had gotten the free phone, the secondary phone. The dark humor in it being that if Ruth were to get wind of it all, of every single detail, what would break her heart more than the infidelity itself is the fact that Hector, her husband, gave his wife the secondary phone and brought the original for his sidepiece. For all it’s worth, he might as well have put them on the same family plan.