City In Heat (standard:drama, 1379 words)
Author: Bobby Zaman	Added: Jun 15 2002	Views/Reads: 3493/2298	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Now these hot days is the mad blood stirring.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


He checks the rearview mirror. 

He veers out of his lane and moves on to the shoulder and floors the
accelerator. 

At the same time, three cars ahead of him, another not-so-well-dressed
blue-collar worker has the same idea and pokes his car out onto the 
shoulder. 

The yuppie is too busy checking the rearview for cops and slams into the
blue-collar's car. 

The woman sips her drink.  She brings out a handkerchief from her
leather purse and pats her cheeks to soak the perspiration.  Her 
movements are slow and concentrated, she feels hurried to do nothing. 

The Marine picks up his pint glass and heads for the door. 

Charles, reeling from heat and disappointed, hurries along Lincoln
Avenue with his head down. 

Charles runs into the Marine just as the serviceman steps out of the
bar.  His pint glass goes flying out of his hand and the beer spills on 
the woman's dress.  His snarling, knotted head snaps at Charles and he 
throws a clenched fist at Charles' panic-stricken face. 

The blue-collar worker bursts out of his car, his face grimy and bunched
up like a prune.  The nose of the yuppie's BMW is wedged in the side of 
his Chevy Impala.  Smoke billows out from under both crumpled hoods.  
The choppers see the mess and close in. 

The yuppie throws open his car door and steps out to face the
blue-collar. 

The SWAT team is outside 309 and waiting for the red-faced Sergeant to
give the order to break down the door.  Their suits are heavy and hot.  
The helmets hug their skulls a little too firmly. 

Inside, the young man, once a great quarterback, moves the nozzle of the
shotgun away from his girlfriend and daughter and points the barrels at 
himself. 

The red-faced Sergeant brings a walkie-talkie to his mouth. 

The SWAT leader hears the cackle and motions to his team. 

Charles goes hurling back and crashes against a row of tables, knocking
chairs in all directions. 

The woman is on her feet and yelling and cursing Charles and the Marine.
 The bartender holds back the panting and gasping Marine and hollers at 
one of the servers to call the police.  The server, a 
twenty-one-year-old college girl, is frightened and confused and 
stumbles to the phone. 

The yuppie and the blue-collar worker are in the middle of a shouting
match.  More heads pop out of windows from the rows of the 
fender-to-fender clog.  Two more choppers have joined the first one.  
Off in the distance the wail of approaching sirens makes the yuppie and 
the blue-collar pause and look over their shoulders. 

The girlfriend shrieks.  The daughter yelps.  The young man, the
football star, pulls the trigger, and just before the shells rip off 
his head he tells his girlfriend and his daughter that they are the 
only part of his life that wasn't a mistake. 

The SWAT team kicks in the door and storms apartment 309. 

Charles lays on the sidewalk in a daze.  His lower lip is hidden by
blood.  He's swallowed the tooth that snapped from the Marine's hit.  
The bartender yells at the young server to call the police.  She 
counter-yells that she has and runs off to the back.  The bartender has 
the Marine against a wall.  The Marine doesn't resist or retaliate. 

Restaurants and bars all over the city switch to a live broadcast of a
hostage situation on the North Side.  EMTs are hauling out a body bag 
on a stretcher.  A group of cops escort a woman out of the building and 
help her into an ambulance.  A little girl clings on to an EMT as she 
is also brought out of the building and placed next to the woman in the 
ambulance. 

The yuppie and the blue-collar are pulled apart by State Troopers.  The
accident is the yuppie's fault and he gets written up for hundreds of 
dollars and moving violations and has to pay additional costs for 
damages to the blue-collar.  The expressway is a bigger mess. 

The choppers disperse like a flock of disgruntled vultures. 

The lakefront is thronging with men and women that are ecstatic about
the weather and revealing as much of their body as is legally 
permissible to get the perfect tan, and, if all goes well, strike up a 
summer romance. 


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