Day 810: 5 Minute Freewrite CONTINUATION: Wednesday - Prompt: backwoods

Continued from the "Backwoods" freewrite ...

The blast of a thousand questions – angry questions, for the erroneously low death count made official by Big Loft's police department had been taken up without question by all the local mainstream news organizations, news organizations who knew the Lofton County Free Voice was going to eat all of them alive – blistered Commissioner Scott in the moment after the magnitude of what he had just said filtered through all the layers of shock.

It was a terrible report for BLPD to come clean on. The Ridgeline Fire had been set by a rogue police officer, Bruce Deadwood, frustrated because he felt he was being denied his proper wages as a hitman in a 30-year plot to profit from a local private prison. That was plenty bad enough, given that the fire had destroyed three of Big Loft's most elite neighborhoods – 4,000 houses and all the associated infrastructure, burned to the ground.

Plenty bad enough that the Blue Ridge precinct charged to protect and serve those neighborhoods had failed completely in evacuating even the lower Blue Ridge neighborhood. Its officers had ended up just tagging along with 83-year-old Mrs. Selene Slocum-Lofton as she did their job.

Plenty bad enough, to read the august, revered names of the 120 property owners dead and take the heat for not being able to save them.

But to undercount by 12,000 Black and Latino lives – after the Blue Ridge precinct was already being sued for beating down three Black art students who were just studying along with their White classmates – this took an already unspeakable disaster to unprecedented proportions, to the level of a national and international incident.

Since Commissioner Scott knew he was throwing it all in, he drew the appropriate parallels in response to a snarky question.

“Where I personally failed was where many men of my age and race have failed, even when meaning no harm. Humans are humans, ladies and gentlemen. When I saw that the three Black art students were brutalized, and their White classmates traumatized, that should have told me I had a precinct whose leadership and rank and file had no regard for human life, only for being lackeys to the same old nonsense that has held the South back 150 years.”

That, again, brought dead quiet.

“We are humans, ladies and gentleman. We get into the habit of disregarding human life enough, and we can't just turn it on and off. Any group of people who could so traumatize and brutalize human life is not about to be the first to risk themselves in a deadly situation to save other human beings. Any group of people with that kind of callous disregard for life is not about to be useful in a situation that may require sacrifice of life and limb for other human life. I failed to recognize that. I should have moved Captain Lee over six weeks ago and let him do what he will have to do now. But I didn't see it. I'm more callous than I knew I was, too. So are many of you. I guess we found out about ourselves today.”

Now, certain people were angrier than ever – for Commissioner Scott had pulled the cover off of them too. Callous disregard for human life … for anybody could have done the math the Lofton County Free Voice, Captain Lee, and some others had done knowing that all those 4,000 houses had servants. But everybody in the local news except the Free Voice had accepted and parroted the bad number BLPD had officially given them.

The questions went on, and on, and on … after a while, Commissioner Scott heard himself answering but was having something of an out-of-body experience … the shame, the humiliation, the apprehension for what this news would do to BLPD … somehow he withdrew from it internally, although he was glad he seemed to be observing himself answering competently and honestly.

And then, he crashed back into full reality after another reporter raised his hand and showed that the callous disregard for human life continued.

“Any word on the number of pets lost?”

Dead quiet again as Commissioner Scott went through a range of possible responses. It would have been easiest to cuss the reporter out, given that all of BLPD was at stake, 12,120 local families were without lost loved ones, and the city in nearly all evil from lawsuits and needing to rebuild its infrastructure and the political turmoil that had been going on since the Gilligan House Burning (catch up with that in full in reading Black, White, and RED All Over, the prequel to all of this, or, get it in full on Amazon)!

Yet Commissioner Scott knew the Spirit of God had kept him humble, calm, and wise thus far – no need to grieve one's Helper …

“Sir, we have just now caught up with the proper human count of the dead. May I suggest you call the local ASPCA for the projections on pet count?”

“Don't you think with all this revising for accurate figures, you should have included the pet count?”

“Sir, with all due respect, we are still struggling in Big Loft to protect and serve all humans up to the level the Constitution and civilized common sense require. At present, we are not yet competent to even begin proper protection of pets – that will have to be left in the hands of the experts. Thank you – that's all for today, folks.”

Commissioner Scott wished there were some cool, autumn-colorful backwoods for him to just walk off into, but instead, he dutifully went back inside police headquarters, walking through the very lowest moment of his entire life.

It just seemed right that one would meet the silently observing Angel of Death, and that the angel would get into step beside one as one thoughtlessly climbed four flights of stairs … the coup-de-grace would indeed be the stroke of mercy.

But instead, once he had reached his office, the commissioner found that the hand and the eyes and the voice of Captain H.F. Lee – the hands and eyes and voice and presence that had destroyed the five predecessors of Commissioner Scott in office – were a source of great encouragement.

“Sir,” Captain Lee said as he laid a hand on the commissioner's shoulder, “should I reach your span of years, and your authority, I can only hope and pray the Lord will grant to me to comport myself with the courage, the humility, the honesty, and the dignity that you have on this day.”

Then Ms. Thornton his secretary came and gave him a quick hug … and then released him to his wife, Della, who came and embraced and kissed him.

“I'm going to need a lot more of that tonight,” he murmured to her.

“You'll have it – well done, Winfred, even with the world arrayed against you. Well done.”

Captain Lee got a call at that instant – “Yes, Longstreet? What? Well, that will give the news folks something else to cover, although it is no better.”

Della Scott felt her husband began to lose his strength.

“Better sit you down,” she said.

“I don't think I can take much more,” he said.

Ms. Thornton rolled the commissioner's desk chair around. She helped Mrs. Scott get the commissioner in it while Captain Lee finished his call and looked at the commissioner with grave face.

“I regret to report to you, sir, that while you were at the press conference, the station house for the Blue Ridge went on and slid off the foundation and collapsed.”

Commissioner Scott thought about it, and then broke out laughing.

“Uh oh,” Ms. Thornton said.

“He just needs the relief,” Mrs. Scott said. “He'll be all right – at the darkest moment, Winfred can find the humor!”

“Everything has slid off the foundation and collapsed – that's the analogy they are going to make across the country and the world about this entire department!” the commissioner said as he wiped his eyes from laughing until he cried. “But see here, y'all – we have now hit the absolute bottom! This is great news, Captain Lee – because from here, what way can we possibly go?”

Captain Lee thought about it in silence a long moment – the bottom usually wasn't where people thought it was, because what you thought was the bottom could fall out on you. There were already rumors swirling around that BLPD was going to be put into court-ordered receivership, an extreme step that state and federal governments sometimes took to get organizations with no regard for human rights under control.

But then again, things were so bad at BLPD that if this wasn't already the bottom, it would be unkind to intimate that to the commissioner.

“Provided we do not get comfortable here,” Captain Lee said, “the only way to go is up.”

“Exactly! Get over to the station house and do what you need to do there, and then go home! Ms. Thornton, let's shut the office down so you can go home! Back at it tomorrow – today we hit bottom, tomorrow we start climbing out!”