A Girl in New York (Pre/Sequel to The Outsiders: A Girl in the Gang)

Chapter 22- This Is What It Feels Like

Around eleven at night I decided it was time to go home, mostly cause the wind was picking up and I was getting cold, so I climbed down from the roof and headed down the street, my head bent against the wind, my hood up and my hands stuffed in my pockets, clutching the wad of bills and the bottle of pills.

I was about two blocks from our apartment building when all the sudden I heard gravel crunching under the tires of a car slowly pulling up behind me. I risked a glance over my shoulder only to see it was a cop.

Damn it, I realized, suddenly acutely aware of what was in my pocket.

"What's a little girl like you doing out here all by yourself?" the officer asked in a gruff voice, peering through his rolled down window as he pulled up next to me.

I kept my face impassive and didn't say anything. I hated cops, they always thought they could do whatever the hell they wanted to you and get away with it cause they had a piece of metal called a badge and some paperwork somewhere stating they were certified in the ways of the law.

"Come on, get in. I'll take you home," he said, playing nice cop.

I wordlessly shook my head no, my mouth set in a grim line and my eyes hard as I watched him while I slowly backed away before turning to continue walking. He proceeded to follow me though, getting out of his car and coming over by me, slapping his billy club in his palm as he menacingly came near me, and I stupidly stopped.

"What are you hiding, kid? I'm guessing you're only eight or nine years old, huh? The streets are no place for a young girl like you, especially this time at night. Now why don't you let me take you home," he threatened, stepping closer.

I vaguely wished I was bigger as I backed against a wall—damn, now I was trapped—cause then I could have probably knocked him over and run away. As it was, I was pretty much screwed at the moment, being only ten against a surprisingly muscular thirty-or-forty-something cop.

"What's in your pocket?" he asked slyly, and I kept my fists bunched around the bottle and the bills in my pocket because if I took my hands out he'd see for sure what I was hiding.

In seconds though the big cop had my hands out of my pockets, the contents of my pockets in his hands, and an evil grin on his face. Oh, shit.

"Well ain't that just swell," he said, mockingly sarcastic, "An eight-year-old selling drugs. Who do you work for kid, cause this is quite a bundle of money," the cop remarked, fiddling with the bills in his hand.

"Like I would tell you," I snapped, bluffing because obviously I didn't work for anyone. But if basically living on the streets had ever taught me anything, it was never let on to the boys in blue as to what was really going on.

He laughed cruelly and then swiftly spun me around, wrenching my arms behind my back and snapping cold metal cuffs on my small wrists.

So this is what it felt like to be arrested.

He stuck me in the back of his car and I glumly thought: there goes our rent and apartment, as he took me down to the station.

I was put in a bare cell with cinderblock walls and a cement floor all by myself, probably because I was a minor, and there were three or four, much older, tough looking guys that I definitely wouldn't want to tangle with in the other holding cell. The look of surprise and shock on their faces at seeing a little girl thrown in the slammer actually made me laugh, and then they gave me a look like I was crazy.

 Maybe I was, selling drugs and then getting caught. Right then and there I promised myself I wouldn't do it again. That was so stupid, of course I would get caught the one time I tried it. Karma, or God, or whoever, was a bitch. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I felt like banging my head against a wall and muttering it over and over, not that it'd do me any good.

Spending the rest of the night, and half of the next day, in jail wasn't near as bad as it sounds. It was just really, really boring. Which left me with a lot of time to think about the preferred method my father would choose to kill me when he found out. I hope he was out of bullets for his rifle.

Also, prison food sucked. It was worse than the school lunches I occasionally stole, and I only managed to choke those down cause for a while it was the only meal I got all day.

 But prison started looking a little more inviting when I saw my drunk father stagger into the station to take me home—and most likely beat me to death—late the next afternoon. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair looked like a rat's nest, but at least his shirt was clean. I think.

As a cop, a different cop than the one who had arrested me in the first place, unlocked the door for me, he shook his head and remarked, "I'd hate to see you end up like the rest of the guys in here. Be a little more careful out there, kid," as a...warning?...before he let me go.

I rolled my eyes and wondered who he was to think I would actually listen to his advice as I wordlessly followed my father home. We had had a truck, but that had been taken for collateral since my parents hadn't paid the insurance on it, almost two years ago, so now they went nowhere, or they walked.

When we got home, my father didn't even yell at me or anything, he just growled, "Get me a beer," and sat down on the couch in front of the T.V. Which didn't work, cause they'd turned our power off last week.

If getting him his damn beer kept him from killing me, I'd do it, so I wordlessly went and pulled one off the counter and handed it to him. I was a little surprised to find that my mother wasn't home, but she was probably supposedly looking for a job right now, and I retreated to my room and then headed out the window and down the fire escape again.