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Justin is a strange name. Much like a shirt, you out grow it and it stops being trendy. My parents were
trendy and didn’t buy a baby name book. At seventeen, the name is great. You’re on top of the world with your blond
hair and washboard abs. At 31, it’s just your name; another part of yourself that you would like to work off in
a gym. I’m almost thirty, and I work professionally at a video store. This, of course, never runs through my head
when I’m on the way to work in my Nissan. This car of class is bright blue, with plenty of dirty brown. It used
to be red. But that’s another story and not very interesting.
“Justin, hand me the screwdriver.”
I shouldn’t be thinking about all that now. I need to be thinking why I’m in a damp parking lot at three in the
morning. Brian says we’re slashing tires. But he won’t tell me whose. We’re bent over next to a very, very ugly
station wagon. It has a garbage bag duct-taped over where a window used to be. I think to myself, “Talk about tinted
windows…” And I make myself laugh.
“What?” Brian asks, “You don’t think I can puncture some tires with a screwdriver? This is how I always do it.”
He says it like he has actually done this before. So…Brian grabs the screwdriver and jabs into the side of the
not-so-plump tire. Nothing happens. He says, “Dude, it didn’t go in.”
Try again; he tries again. It doesn’t go in.
“Man, what do we do?”
Here, I say, I’ll hold it next to the tire and then you go ahead and kick it. I think to myself, “I’ve had better
ideas, right?”
“Sounds good,” and Brian stands all the way up. He steps back and makes a practice swing. “Ready?”
Ready.
His leg triggers, and his foot slams into the screwdriver. Brian falls flat on his ass, but it worked. The screwdriver
is in, but no air is coming out. “Shit man, why isn’t this working…Black people can do this so well.”
Yeah, I bet they use knives.
“Man, shut up and help me.” We hold hands and he stands up. “I guess we just pull it out now…” And so I do. I pull
it out. Looking back, I wish I didn’t. See, when air leaves a tire that quickly it makes the most awful noise.
And it’s loud. And it hurts my ears. It hurts them to where I can’t hear the cops. And then I think to myself,
“I bet this lot has video cameras. Damn.”
Cop dramas on TV never prepare you for the anxiety that erupts in your stomach.
The swift lawyers that quickly take the most screw angle on every case. The competence of the main characters;
filled with infinite connection after connection. Oh, and the ‘take-no-shit’ attitude while incarcerating a teenager
for raping a delivery boy. In the show, they are clearly here for the benefit of society. In real life, they’re
here like I am. Video clerks with guns – they even have to catalogue me. Me, well, I’m serial number 90357 90003.
The twelve-year-old cop sitting next to me is processing my information into his Commodore Computer. He even has
rosy-red cheeks, and light blonde hair. If you ask me, he should be in the 5th grade. Of course, all this is very ironic. For a twelve-year-old, he gets paid plenty
more then me. Sure he gets shot at – but I have to deal with children. To further my disposition, this is the second
time me and this youngster have crossed paths.
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