When the sun rose I awoke in a daze. It was as if all the studs that had held my world up had been kicked out and now the only things between my fragile head and my demise were air and time. I got up from my bed and stumbled into the bathroom turning on only the cold water for my shower. I needed to think, not be comfortable. Chances were I'd never be comfortable again. Faintly I heard a siren in the street outside and I cringed until if passed deeper into the city. I was afraid, I was afraid for myself, I was afraid for that poor cop and most of all I was afraid for Kara. How would Kara look at me if she knew. I slid down in the shower the cold water droplets hitting me like an icy scourge on my neck. Goosebumps crawled over my skin and I began to shiver, in fear, in this the constant cold of the godforsaken city, in hatred of this life in Jupiter Apartments.
We had to go.
Back in my room I pulled open the top drawer to my dresser and looked at the evidence of my crime. It was just as I had stowed it the night before. When I barged in last night, long after dark, the power had been out and Alex had been jumping around in the kitchen trying to crush the vermin that infested the building durning the winter. I had sad a grumbling hello and bee-lined for my room. I had to get out of those clothes. I had hidden in the last place they would've looked, Lu's Garage. Lu had closed up early for some reason. Lu had been a fixture in the town for decades and had let me sleep in the Garage when I was younger but I sill remembered how to slid in through the window by the dumpster. I was warm in there, or at least warmer, but no sleep had come as the lights of the boys in blue flashed like the reflections of water on the ceiling. I was beautiful really, at least until the ambulance arrived and stained it red.
Bloody water.
It had looked like bloody water.
I shook myself and looked down at the stained tracksuit. It was red on the shoulder where I had collided with the officer and red again on the sleeve I had used to stop the bleeding on my face from where the buckshot had torn up my cheek. It had looked grizzly in the mirror but I had gauzed it up.
Luckily Alex hadn't said anything. He rarely asks questions that shouldn't be asked, especially if he thinks it'll give him the boot. Alex was a good man, Kara loved him like family, and honestly that was good enough for me. He seemed sad to me, a real family man without any family. Oh well, he said he would be my alibi for the whole night and we had shared some beers until the power came back on for Leno. A good guy that Alex.
I took one last look at the tracksuit. My blood on the sleeve, the cops on the shoulder and a light powdering of cocaine in the pocket. I didn't have to be a genius to know that this would be the easiest conviction of all time. I shoved it into a garbage bag and then emptied all the trashcans in the house on top of it.
"What else could get me?" I muttered aloud, glancing about again. No blood was in the drawer, it had dried by the time I got home, I had thrown the cocaine in the well in the park, I had showered off...
the gun.
I reached back and found it tucked into my waistband, I hadn't even remembered doing it after I got dressed. I was just second nature now.
"Whats behind you back, dad?"
"WHOA!" I jumped and whirled to see Kara standing wide eyed in the doorway to the common room.
"Oh, you startled me, babygirl." I said trying to slow down my heart, "Just an itch, babe, I'm just taking out the trash and got an itch."
"Okay." She said, just as startled as I was, "Can I watch some cartoons?"
"Cartoons? Oh right! It's Saturday! Of course, of course." I walked over and gave her a kiss on the forehead. "Get yourself some breakfast and watch some cartoons. I've got to take out the trash."
I slip on a jacket and head out into the cold of the hallway, the black bag hanging over one shoulder. My mind is in overdrive, can we really leave? Is getting out of this godforsaken place really an option? Money, we haven't got any, damn. Transportation, none of that either, damn. It doesn't matter, we've got to go.
Suddenly I stop. Two cops are standing in the lobby, right in front of the door talking to the super. They must have heard me stop midway down the stairs and, in perfect sync, all three turn their heads and look at me.
Don't freeze.
Don't freeze.
Don't freeze.
"What's going on?" I try to ask honestly as I continue down the stairs, fighting to keep the monstrous fear from my voice.
"There's been a significant increase in violent crimes in this area recently, we'd like to interveiw anyone that might have seen anything." Cop One says, narrowing his eyes.
"Mind if we ask you some questions right now?" Cop Two continues, "Starting with whats in that bag."
"Trash." I say meekly, my voice is leaving, the pistol at my back feels like its alive, writhing about like a freezing liquid metal snake, trying desperately to get the attention of the officers.
"Just trash." I repeat.
"Mind if we take a look?" Cop One says.
"Sure." I open the bag and the smell of half eaten yogurts and bad mac and cheese wafts out, Cop One and Cop Two pull back their heads. Eerily in sync.
"Okay, sorry for the inconveinience, sir." Cop two says.
"Its just a little strange to take out your trash this early on a Saturday..." Cop one continues.
"Yeah. You can only put it off so long though, right?"
"Ha, yeah, I guess you're right." Cop two says.
"Ain't it the truth." Cop one agrees.
I glance back in forth bettween these two peculiar beings. Before turning and taking a step away.
"Wait." They both say.
The gun, I was a fool, they saw the gun, they saw it and they'll take it and test it and I'll go to jail for the rest of my life and my girl will be stuck upstairs eating offbrand cereal and watching cartoons.
"Your coming back right?" Cop One asks.
"Yeah, I've got to get back to my little girl."
"Good, we're going around apartment by apartment and asking everyone if they've seen anything so we'll see you in a bit." Cop Two says.
"Alright, then." I reply, "I'll see you then."
My feet carry me out the door quick enough to avoid further converstation. My legs are jello and my stomach feels heavy and queasy.
When I get to the dumpter I have to vomit behind it.
I practically run back upstairs, taking the long way to avoid the cops.

(Incomplete)