I talk on the phone with Chassidy as I watch the blue and red lights flicker from a distance. I can see them from my bedroom window. They’re nebulous at first but they’re easing themselves closer and closer to my father’s home. And with the flashing lights comes a droning siren. WEE-WOO, WEE-WOO. It’s Baltimore. Those sirens could be for anyone. WEE-WOO, WEE-WOO. We live in a bad neighborhood, police activity is to be expected. WEE-WOO, WEE-WOO. Okay. This is nothing. This is completely normal. WEE-WOO, WEE-WOO. The police are downstairs. 

Knock knock. The police rap on my father’s front door fiercely. It’s a townhouse, there is no porch. A posse of white pigs all hound the two little steps leading to the doorway. My father answers the door. I ask what’s happening. 

“Don’t worry about it.” 

I sit down on the steps, inside the house, and watch my father try to talk his way out of a situation with a police officer who couldn’t possibly speak his language. 

“Turn around,” one of the officers say in a tongue I can understand. 

They wrestle him down to the floor in a spread eagle position and take him away, very aggressively. No one is around to help him but me but I can only watch. 

“I think my dad just got arrested?” I say on the phone to Chassidy.
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published April 26, 2022