Work Text:
I apologize for any grammatical errors. It is very late right now, but I wanted to get this all down on paper, so to speak.
When I was a young man, I worked as a corrections officer in a prison. One of the inmates, Jon (not his real name), kept trying to break out. He was in jail for theft, but the escape attempts kept adding years to his sentence. He would complain that he had only stolen food, as though that forgave the theft or the escape attempts.
He was otherwise not a difficult inmate. He kept to himself most of the time, I don’t think I ever saw him get into a fight with another inmate. Part of that might be because Jon was huge and incredibly strong, I don’t think the other inmates thought they could win in a fight. He was always given the heavy lifting jobs.
Before he was released, I left the prison to become a police officer.
Years later, I was transferred to a smaller town in a different state, as a favor to my then police chief. The town had been under an economic depression for a few years until Mason (not his real name) took over as the owner. Apparently he had started working on the line and worked his way up within a few years. His workers loved him and he paid them well. When it came time for municipal elections, he was elected even though he a) did not run, and b) did not want the position. He took it anyway.
He was already mayor when I was transferred there. Again, it was a small town, and my work with the police kept me in contact with him frequently. He started to remind me of Jon, and when I called the prison where I’d worked, they told me he’d been released on parole 8 years earlier, but had been missing for almost all of it. Everyone assumed he was dead. I told the prison and the state police to inform me if he turned up.
I waited a few months, and Mason only became more beloved by his people. His workers would talk about “payroll errors” in their favor, especially single parents. Nobody thought this was suspicious. I did.
It came to a head one day when a traffic accident happened in the middle of the town (the town is too small to have any stop lights). I watched Mason lift a car off of one of the drivers, some gardener. Mason was older, maybe in his early 50s. I’d only ever met one man that strong.
I contacted the state police in both the state with the prison and our current state and told them I suspected he was Jon living under a false identity.
A month later, I still hadn’t heard anything. I followed up and was told that they found Jon after all, and he had been living under a false identity - some bum named Chapman.
All we have in our world is order. This is why Jon’s pleas about his “starving nieces and nephews” never convinced me. It is imperative I uphold these values. I made an appointment with Mason the next day and confessed that I had wrongly accused him of being an escaped criminal.
He forgave me immediately. I should’ve known better.
Mason left town that night, showing up a few days later at Chapman’s trial. He told everyone that he was the real Jon, showing a tattoo he’d gotten in prison. Before the bailiff could arrest him, he fled. Nobody saw him again for nine years.
I’d been relocated again, this time to a major city. An old philanthropist named Mr. Foster lived there. He donated a lot of his money to local causes, but dressed like a bum. Not in the tech startup, sweatpants and t-shirt way. I mean his clothing looked like it was easily more than twenty years old.
I was sure it was Jon, but I had to be certain this time.
Before I could find more information, my city was overtaken by protests (I won’t say for what). I was still a police officer and I was assigned to infiltrate one of the rebel groups. I did, but some kid I’d arrested many times (vandalism, theft) recognized me.
All we have in our world is order, and there was order in this too. The rebels ended up handcuffing me to a railing in the alley outside of the cafe they’d been using as their “base.” I could hear them talk about killing me. I’d heard unsubstantiated claims that the rebels had had a few casualties on their side, and thought my murder at their hands would send a message.
The fighting in the street escalated later that night. I could hear it, but couldn’t see it from the alley. From what I could make out, it sounded as though someone had brought a leaf blower to disperse the tear gas the officers were using to control the crowd. It sounded like an old, but heavy duty one - not something your average dad would have in their garage.
The man who brought the leaf blower was talking to one of the rebel “leaders” (if you can call any of these children a leader), who mentioned my “arrest.” A few moments later, that philanthropist, Mr. Foster, came into the alley, wielding a set of hedge shears.
I knew two things for sure: first, that this was that prisoner, Jon, who had also been Mr. Mason; second, that he was going to kill me. All we have in the world is order, which was the only thought in my mind as he approached me.
They weren’t hedge shears. They were bolt cutters. He cut the chain on the handcuffs and told me I was free. All we have in the world is order - I told him this changed nothing. I told him I knew who he was, I had documentation of his crimes. He said he knew that, and that if he survived the protests, I could arrest him at his home. He gave me his address.
He told me to run, so I did. I kept to the alleys, eventually leaving the part of the city with the rioting.
I just kept walking. My mind was buzzing. It was well past midnight at this point. I could hear the sound of metal scraping and watched as a manhole cover was removed from inside. I was too dazed to do anything but watch as a young man’s body was pushed out of the manhole, followed by - who else?
He told me the boy was not dead, as I’d believed. He was injured in the protests and he was trying to bring him home. I asked him why. He said his daughter was in love with him. I laughed. Both him and the boy were covered in muck and sewage. I told Jon he was under arrest. He begged me to at least take the boy home first. We were far from the station and still far from Jon’s home, so I ordered an Uber. Jon tried to pay both me and the driver to have the car professionally cleaned because of all the blood and sewage, but I refused. I will not accept charity from a criminal.
We arrived at his house. He took the boy upstairs. I waited for him in the Uber for several minutes, then left. I didn’t say anything to the driver. I’m not sure where he went or what he did.
All we have in the world is order - what order is there in this? What order is there in this criminal I’ve chased for twenty years having my life in his hands, and choosing to let me go? My documentation on him is not shared, as I had been told it was not a valuable use of police resources, despite Jon’s repeated crimes. Killing me would’ve solved his problem. Killing me would have ensured his freedom.
Where is the order in me letting him take the boy home?
Where is the order in me leaving?
I am unsure where to go from here. All we have in the world is order. It’s all we have. Without the law, the world would descend into chaos around us. I have always followed the law, because I knew I’d be on one side of it or the other. My mother was in prison while she was pregnant with me, and I never knew my father. I did not want to turn out like my parents.
Jon broke the law. Jon saved my life. What should I do? Would I be the asshole if I still arrested him for crimes he has not answered for?
Edit: Only the child that recognized me was a "child" in the strictest sense of the word. The others are mainly in their twenties.
Edit 2: To the "blue lives matter" crowd in the comments: No, they do not. "Blue lives" don't matter. The lives of law-abiding citizens matter. You are doing a disservice to the people you are trying to defend when you put the law's officers before the law itself. The police and law exist to serve and protect the people. If an officer is a threat to a law-abiding citizen, they are within their rights to protect themselves. Police must be held to a higher standard. How can we expect others to uphold the law if we refuse to uphold it ourselves? If a civilian approached you, an innocent person, with a gun and was threatening to shoot you, you would have the legal right to defend yourself. Police officers must be held to a higher standard and must not wave their guns (or threats) around with impunity. Police are meant to uphold peace, not threaten it nor dismantle it. An officer who kills an innocent civilian has committed a worse crime than the "cop killer" who might've stopped them. While I do not agree with all of the goals of the movement, I do believe "Black Lives Matter."