Batteryville

The Friendly Stranger

On my way to work the next day I took the long way through downtown. I was going to look in the Goodwill and see if Roy if had fixed the 3DS game I was looking for but as soon as I turned the corner from my street I saw the people in front of the old police station next to the old city hall and I stopped. I don't know why, exactly, but it didn't feel right.

There were a couple of men I didn't really know. Of course, I'd seen them around but I'd never had much to do with them, Mr. Murdoch and the other guy whose name I didn't know, standing in front of a small crowd of younger people. I noticed Garry right away, jerk, and a couple of his friends.

So I just kept walking.

At the charging station Marco was already there and I asked him if he knew what was going on with Garry and Mr. Murdoch and the others and he said, "Probably putting together a search party, looking for their dicks."

"It's the new Batteryville PD."

I turned and saw Maddie coming in and I said, "What?"

"After the meeting there was another meeting, now these guys think we need a police force."

Marco said, "Oh yeah, and what do you think that's for?"

I had an idea where this was going so I just wanted to get to work, but there was nothing ready to be charged. I figured Garry and the others at the sorting centre were all downtown talking about the new police force.

Maddie said, "What do you mean, what for?"

"Who do they think needs policing?" Marco said. "It's to keep us in line."

"What are you talking about?" Maddie said.

"When they said this last attack had help from inside I knew this was coming."

"Who's they?"

"The new police force."

"They didn't say they had help from inside Batteryville," I said. "They said that the attackers knew their way around inside, some of them were in here before."

"So now they're going to stop letting people in," Marco said.

"Maybe that's not such a bad idea," Maddie said.

"Yeah," Marco said, "or letting people out."

Maddie said, "What else can we do?" Then before Marco could say anything she said, "If there's nothing to do here I'm going to go home."

I said, "Yeah, I've got some things to do, too."

We walked out together and cut across the football field. The grass was pretty long and still covered in dew. After we'd walked about halfway across the field Maddie said, "I don't know why I argue with him."

"I don't know either."

"I don't want him to go crazy," she said. "Crazier."

I said, "Yeah," but I didn't know what else to say.

"As if we don't have enough real problems, he has to worry about made up stuff."

"Maybe that's why," I said. "Maybe the real stuff is just too hard to deal with sometimes."

"Sometimes? It's always too hard to deal with," Maddie said.

We were at the edge of the football field then and she stopped and look both ways, up and down Maple Street and said, "But it's real."

From where we were standing on the sidewalk looking at the houses lining the street, big trees full of leaves hanging over, sunshine, quiet, it just seemed like a small town on a summer day. We didn't know any different but from all the TV shows and movies I'd watched and all the books I'd read this was usually what they described as idyllic.