Fall 2017

It’s dark, and we’re approaching a three-story townhouse with attached garage.

There are guns everywhere in here.

Rusted .22 by the front door.

Pistol on the counter.

Busted shotgun leaning on the kitchen cabinet.

A woman in her late thirties, two children, a half-eaten cheeseburger, a juicebox, a blunt still smoking in an ashtray.

Earlier this week he sold cocaine to one of my teammates.

He lives here.

We believe he’s home.

We’re on the first floor of three, and hoping we find him quickly, before he has time to re-orient. His girlfriend and her two boys are on the first floor. The cheeseburger and juicebox belonged to the older of the two.

“Older of the two” is maybe twelve years old.

We pop the door to the garage and enter another universe. I expect a car, a refrigerator, shelving, a gunshot, a fleeing man, or any combination thereof.

But it’s just trash.

A knee-high hodgepodge of garbage bags, pizza boxes, food, metal, clothing, and rotting rags. A sea of refuse whose breakers gently caress the foot of the three wooden stairs.

We announce ourselves and order anyone inside to show us their hands. We conceal ourselves as best we can behind the door and scan the rubble for anything that resembles “human”.

Nothing.

We listen. For what, I don’t know. Maybe a rustle, a breath, a heartbeat.

Nothing.

I hate this. Scanning and scanning to no avail, a game of illusory control. He knows where we are, and we don’t share a reciprocal luxury. If he intends harm, the ball is in his court.

I love this. The highest stakes, the ultimate test, the deadliest game. We prepare for this. If he intends harm, he better be very good or very lucky.

We are ON.

We are alive.

“Hey, man. I SEE you, and if you don’t show me your hands, I will SHOOT you.”

15 feet from the door, the leviathan breathes, it’s expanding lungs swelling a section of it’s cardboard/cotton/compost body until it resembles something vaguely humanoid. For a moment, the pile looks pregnant.

Got him.

He stands from beneath his protective canopy, sluffing detritus as he rises. His hands are raised as far away from his body as he can get them. He doesn’t want to die.

“We got him.”

Aside from the garage, the first floor is relatively uneventful.

A baby gate cordons off the second floor, but the stench of it would be barrier enough. It’s eye-watering, noxious. I’m thankful for my thin lycra facemask, although it does little to mask the decay of this level.

The dogs live on this floor. Exclusively. A pitbull and an I Don’t Remember share the entire level, and appear to have been doing so for years. All of their business is conducted here- food, water, and bathroom- and no one has ever lifted a finger to clean it up.

Every inch of this floor is covered in shit. The boys live here, too.

Stay focused, get it cleared, head to the third floor.

This is where the king and queen reside.

They use a toilet, but their sanctuary isn’t much better than the preceding level. Filth. Everywhere, filth. Moldy plates, their half-eaten fare decaying alien shells of their original form, chimeras born of meat and mold. A fan in the master bedroom unfurls a 2-feet-long flag of dust, dead skin and dead hair and dead dirt defying physical law as it clings to the thin metal spokes, the appalling standard of their depravity.

The dude is well-dressed. So is the mother.

It’s hard to wrap my head around.

He’s going to jail tonight (an easier fate than what he has earned).

She should be, too.

She’s incensed that we would imply any wrongdoing on her part. She has to be crazy (right?), but nothing about her demeanor betrays the fact- decent job, well-spoken, and seemingly intelligent, she seems to have zero issue with the condition of the second level, with the condition of her boys’ living conditions.

“It’s been awhile since we cleaned up, up there.”

The boys sleep on the floor, blankets piled atop literal piles of shit, an acrylic barrier between them and months of two dogs’ bowel movements. Their clothes are on the floor, too.

Animal Control takes both dogs without hesitation, appalled at the way these animals had been neglected.

Child Protective Services are reluctant to respond. When they do, it takes some convincing for them to find alternate housing for the boys. If I could’ve, I would’ve taken them home, figured out the paperwork later. In a different world, maybe I would’ve.

After a berating from my boss (the spokesperson for our discontent with all of this) CPS relents and agrees to have the boys’ father retrieve them.

But he doesn’t want to.

It’s late and he has to get up early tomorrow.

Sorry, but he just doesn’t feel like it, y’know?

My boss disagrees, and Dad relents.

It’s chilly outside and the boys remain indoors with their mother while we wait for Dad. We take shifts inside to give our lungs a break. At some point one of our guys steps out to dry heave. He spends the next couple days in bed with a respiratory issue.

A teammate and I take the boys up to pack their bags for the stay at Dad’s. The older of the two takes charge of packing for his younger brother. He peels a backpack off the floor, shakes off the feces that clings to its underside.

A 12 YEAR-OLD PEELS A BACKPACK OFF THE FLOOR AND SHAKES OFF THE FECES THAT CLINGS TO ITS UNDERSIDE.

He smells a number of shirts from the floor until he finds the least worst of them all.

I’m fucking floored.

What must these kids smell like in school? How bad must it be when the odor is contrasted with the comparative clean of the rest of the world? How are they treated by their peers, how do they navigate the brutal pre-teen world of savage ridicule and vicious judgement? What must this be doing to their psyche? To their LUNGS?

“I’m sorry about this, little man. I hope that you’re okay.”

He nods and returns to his work.

My rage at the king, queen, and apathetic Dad is overtaken by a deep, deep sadness for these two children, a despair at the inadequacy of my position.

I feel useless.

I feel an intense responsibility to defend the defenseless. Tonight, bound by the cold rules of the pitiless machine, I hand them over to the lesser of two evils.

Operationally, tonight was a success.

Humanistically, it felt like a failure.

Years later, I’m struck by the stoic countenance of the older boy, the heroic older brother. I can’t see his face, only his demeanor, the courage he shows during our brief interaction.

He selects and gathers his belongings with a care of one well beyond his years. No one tells him to do this. No one has to.

He maintains his dignity, seemingly resigned to the fact that this is his burden to bear, a testament to what we may endure, what we may accept. He knows enough to be embarrassed, but shows no outward resentment for his fate.

I’m struck by how he cares for his younger brother, a tender heart in this harsh, harsh world, stepping into the gap in a touching display of what we can accomplish when in service of another.

Maybe he knows that he is all the younger boy has.

Maybe he’s empowered by the responsibility of being counted on.

Maybe whatever he showed that night will be enough.

Maybe not.

Good luck, little man.

Thanks for reading.

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