Free Leaving: A Novel by Richard Dry Page B

the protesters stopped to listen to the confrontation, and the policemen felt them getting closer.
    “You don’t need a Fifth Amendment right until after I arrest you,” the officer said.
    “So you don’t intend to arrest me?”
    “I intend on keeping this sidewalk cleared for the customers.” He looked back at his partner, who nodded.
    “You mean you’re just doing your job,” Easton said.
    “That’s right.”
    “You’re an honest man who believes in what’s right.”
    “Look, I’m asking you nicely”
    “I’m just saying that you’re a decent human being, that you care about the law, about justice, and morality.”
    “That’s got nothing to do with you blocking the sidewalk.”
    “That’s right. It doesn’t. It’s got nothing to do with justice. I’m asking you as a person to a person, not as some sort of criminal: Why’d you become a policeman?”
    “Listen to this guy talk,” the officer said to his partner. “I thought he was taking the Fifth. Seems more like he’s been drinking a fifth.” His partner laughed, but his smile quickly faded.
    “I’m just saying, what are you bothering us for? Isn’t it worse what they’re doing to us than what we’re doing to them? I mean from your point of view.”
    “I don’t have a point of view. I’m just doing my job. Now, turn around.”
    “You don’t have a point of view? What do you mean? How is that possible? Don’t you care? Don’t you think for yourself?”
    “That’s enough. Turn around.”
    “Can’t you think for yourself?”
    The officer hit Easton in the ribs with a jab of his baton and Easton fell to his knees.
    “What did you hit him for?” Sandra yelled. She ran over and stepped between them. The policeman lowered his baton.
    “Come on,” she yelled again. “Aren’t you going to hit me too?” He looked down as if he were being berated by his own daughter. “Aren’t you going to hit a defenseless woman? Or is that finally sinking too low for you?”
    Charles approached them, and the second policeman lifted his club.
    “So now you want to hit me? Now I’m the one needs a whuppin ’cause I want to see what you done to my friend.” Charles crouched down and took Easton by the arm.
    “Stay back,” the first policeman said.
    “What’s the matter with you?” Sandra continued. “He was just talking, just talking like a civilized human being.” She turned around and knelt in front of Easton. Both policemen hovered there for a moment. They looked like they wished to finish the arrest, to maneuver around Sandra and Charles somehow, but instead they squeezed their fists around their batons and waited. Easton looked up at them, frozen there like angry children whose toys had been taken away.
    *   *   *
    FOR THE NEXT month, Easton recuperated at home. Once in a while he would venture downstairs. In the evenings, the living room was lit by a single curved lamp, and the mellow sun filtered through the burgundy curtains of the Victorian. Corbet sat in his chair with his pipe, smoke floating in front of the single bulb as he rocked beside the phonograph and listened to Charlie Parker. The rug was a dark, blood-red Persian he’d brought home from the shipyard. The polished wooden walls, railings, and windowsills also shone red.
    Corbet usually drank a glass of bourbon, slowly raising it to his lips and then placing it down on a circular black cast-iron table imprinted with Chinese serpents. His eyes were often closed, and his back was to the staircase, where Easton would sit and watch him.
    Corbet would shake his head and caress his strange pipe and, as if he were invoking some demon, growl softly with the music—sometimes not so softly, like hitting bumps in a road. For a week now, since he’d been laid off, Corbet sat in that chair every day and listened to music. He’d injured his foot, though because of his diabetes, he hadn’t known it until it was beyond repair. His foot was now infected and the doctors said