other-side-of-deception-victor-ostrovsky

"16 / VICTOR OS'lRVSKYters like this got me excited and scared. "What?" I started to chuckle."Are you talking to me?""What's so funn!: soldier boy?""Are you talking to me?""You think it's funny, do you? I'll show you how funny this is."He slammed the booth door open to one side and stuck in his bulldogface, almost touching mine. In such situations, I'd been trained to beoverly cooperative, friendly, even wimpish. Soothe the man and get theproblem to shrink as fast as possible. But-maybe it was everythingI'd gone through the past few weeks, maybe it was how the night hadunfolded so far-for some reason, I wasn't in an obliging mood. "Areyou talking to me?" The words just came out, and the smile on myface widened.The cop grabbed my shirt collar and slammed me against the backof the booth. The metal shelf under the phone hit my lower back,sending bolts of pain through my legs. "Do you have papers?" Hisface was twisted with anger at my smile. He turned his head to hispartner, who was slowly getting out of the car. "We got ourselves asmart aleck here. Should we take him downtown or feed him someknuckles first?"The second cop was a giant. "Well, little soldier," he said. "I cansee you want to play games.""Are you talking to me?" I wasn't smiling anymore. The big cop'shuge open hand came from behind and hit me on the top of my forehead.My head snapped back, slamming against the glass pane. I couldhear the glass crack. The insides of my head vibrated; I was starting tolose consciousness.Suddenly, both cops backed up, yanking me out of the booth. Thecontact with the cold air brought me around."You're coming with us, soldier boy," the bigger cop said as theytossed me into the back seat of the small Ford Escort patrol car."Where are you from?" the gorilla asked as he forced my headbetween my knees and cuffed my hands behind my back, closing thecuffs tight."Are you talking to me?"A fast jab to my ribs brought a short cry of pain. When I tried toraise my head, he pushed it back down, hitting my lip on my knee. Icould taste the blood. I stayed down. Whatever happened, I couldn'thave them leave marks on my face. My face was the most importanttool I had in this strange trade of mine. I could not do my job with ablack and blue face. I knew they were instructed not to harm me orleave me visibly bruised, but often the cops would get carried away.IrHl1OIHI R 5Ini I I E ' T/ 17I felt like telling them, I know the routine; let's get it over with.Rut all I could say was, "Are you talking to me?" My mind wandered.Meanwhile, the beefy cop was slapping the hack of my head andpunching at my ribs. From time to time, a sharp pain would drag meout of my thoughts and force me to face what was taking place. Iknew I could stop this by playing along, but something insidewouldn't let me.Then I thought of Dina; how easy it urould be to get into bed withher and forget everything, just let things happen. Even at such a lowmoment, the thought excited me. I tried to push the fantasy away,telling myself the encounter would never happen. Rut I knew it wouldsomehoxl; and that became something to focus on.It was almost a full hour of sheer agony before the police carreturned to where it had picked me up. As the cruiser pulled over, thedriver turned, grabbed me by the hair, and wrenched my head up. Myvision was blurred, and 1 had a pounding headache.The cop scowled."What were you doing here, you little bastard?" He spoke rightinto my face, tightening his grip on mv hair."Are you talking to me?" I mumbled. I could see they were confused.This was not the way things were supposed to go. They weren'tsure if I was doing it wrong or they were. The gorilla was now staringout the window, clearly worried that he might have overdone it."Yes, you little shit, I'm talking to you," he finally said. I didn'trealize how much I'd needed that little victory."Why didn't you say so?" 1 smiled faintly.He smiled back in relief and let go of my hair. His big friend tookoff my cuffs and opened the door. He then got out of the car and gentlyhelped me out. Before he closed the door, he looked at me. "Youokay? No hard feelings?""No - ~hard feelinrrs." I shrugged and staggered back into the phone-.booth. The cracked pane was staring me straight in the face. It seemedso long ago, I had almost forgotten how it started. I dialed, and on thesecond ring Dor answered.''It's Kid." I said."What's up?""You son of a bitch. I just . got - off a roller coaster.""What took you so long?""I don't know. I guess there was a communication problem with.the operator of the amusement park.""What do you mean?""I mean I'm tired, you asshole. What do you think I mean?"