This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue... Down in the Dirt magazine (v106) (the May 2012 Issue) You can also order this 5.5" x 8.5" issue as an ISSN# paperback book:

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The Cop from Hell

Jon Brunette

    Jack joined the police academy after he left college. He liked to wear the gold shield, the black leather jacket, the leather gloves, and the gun. Mostly, he liked the gun. It stayed on his hip, like an extension of his body, pulled rarely, but pulled nonetheless. When he did have to pull it, he’d pull it out with zest, like an Old West gunfighter about to hang. He understood that he was upholding the law, punishing the lawless, but he couldn’t help it—the gun brought joy to every situation. He could tell that he had had a great-great-grandfather in the Old West, who had killed thirty men like his father had always told him.
    In his childhood, his father would always talk as though his great-great-grandfather had brought a lot of pain to the land, and had died because of it. He had been killed below a noose by a lawman his father couldn’t remember, yet he could still recall his relative proudly, like a parent would look at his son at Little League practice. Jack loved his gun like his relative must have. It became an extension of his body, like an arm or a leg; he would feel limp without it.
    In college, Jack did time in jail. He had to expose his body to the guards in strip searches, and also, which burned him behind the eyes, he had to take a pickle inside his rear. Two inmates had held him down: one pulled his arms out; the other yanked his pants off and put an appliance into Jack. As he sat in solitary (he had snitched on them and had gotten the hole, which he had never really minded), he dreamt about those that he would put behind bars, who could rape as much as humanly possible, as long as they didn’t rape Jack. After Jack got out of college, and also jail, he joined the police academy, and never looked back.
    Years later, he had to kill someone. He had never killed anything that had ever lived—not bird, deer, or fish—but the bullet he had put into the criminal who had shattered a window at a local liquor store and had killed the owner for a bottle of vodka had to die by Jack’s hands. It brought a thrill that couldn’t be extinguished, like a grease fire that erupted harder below water. He didn’t just become a cop to put people behind bars to rape others to their hearts’ contents, he wanted to right wrongs, but mostly, hurt people who also hurt people, and feel the power of the badge. He wanted to feel the power of the gun, too. He loved that gun, like his great-great-grandfather must have in the 1890s.
    Many years later, Jack still carried that gun. He would still wear his badge proudly, too. He truly loved his job: nothing compared to the ability to hurt people who lived unjustly; it brought quite a thrill to punish people who liked to harm other people. He would put bullets into their bodies; he would kick them disrespectfully, and tell them they shouldn’t think that crime paid. It didn’t, and Jack would tell them as aggressively as he could.
    With skin like that of an alligator, and a heart just as cold, Jack put his badge above his black leather jacket, and the pistol on his hip like an appendage that would never leave his body. He stood at the metaphoric gate, fire in his eyes, fire in his heart, and hate equally powerful; he stood at the metaphoric gate to guard his master like he had been trained to do.
    Inside that gate sat the Devil, whom Jack respected beyond anyone alive; he would always respect Him like he had always respected his great-great-grandfather. He liked playing cop, beyond any job imaginable, in Hell or on Earth, as they were actually the same place. Like others didn’t, he enjoyed life in Hell.

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