eclectic_muses Love you/Hate you


"You done here, Wuertz?" Anna's eyes darted around the smoke filled bar. The only Latina, the only woman not sitting on a fat biker's lap, the only one not drinking, the only one not smoking...she hated feeling out in the open. Normally she didn't follow Wuertz in when he came to pick up his 'little taste' but she'd had to pee so bad her teeth were floating.

Wuertz rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, keep your panties on. I'm coming."

The bartender leered at her. "Nah, man. You ought to be tellin' her to drop those tight panties of hers. I'd like to give tight little Spic ass a good..." His sentence never got finished because he was too busy cursing up a blue streak when Wuertz slammed the guy's head against the bar, picked him up by the hair and slammed it back down again.

"Hey! That's my partner you fuckin' greaseball dago. That's my partner you're talkin' to." Wuertz slammed his face against the bar twice more and pushed him back hard enough that he slammed into the shelves of glasses behind him. "Now, next time she comes in here you're gonna remember to keep your mouth shut aren't you?" Wuertz's voice raised. "Aren't you?"

"Yeah, yeah. Lay off, you fat fucker!"

Anna yanked on her partner's arm. "Come on." She pushed him out in front of her, keeping alert for any trouble from the other patrons but instead of looking hostile most of them were laughing.

Once they were outside Anna shoved Wuertz. "I can handle myself. I don't need you starting shit." She slid into the passenger's seat of the patrol car while Wuertz eased his bulk into the driver's seat and set a brown paper bag on the seat between them. $10's and $20's spilled over the top of the bag.

He caught her looking at it. "Any time you want in, all you gotta do is say so, kiddo."

She shook her head maybe a little too vehemently. "I'm not dirty." Her head leaned against the cold glass of the window as she made a point not to look back at the bag.

Wuertz slapped his hands down on the steering wheel. "That what you think, Ramirez? You think I'm 'dirty'? You think I don't risk my ass every goddamn night like you? You think I don't get shot at, spit at, punched? You think some fucking tranny didn't bite me a couple months ago on his/her way to lock up? Fuck off." He wheeled the car out into traffic. "I got fifteen years of wearing this badge. You come talk to me when you get this far and you can tell me all about it."

Anna kept her face against the window, hunched down in her seat. Yeah. Wuertz was dirty. He took bribes. He knew it. She knew it. Hell, most of the station knew it. Everybody knew he didn't get his brand new fishing boat by winning runner up in the Miss Congeniality contest. Everybody knew and nobody seemed to treat him any differently for anyone else. It was just some big secret that wasn't any secret at all. The other cops worked with him, joked around with him and even went out on his boat with him. His kids went to private school while her sister was in the shittiest district using textbooks that were ten years out of date.

"I didn't say you were a bad cop. I'm just...I just don't want it, alright?" She didn't mean it and Wuertz knew it and when she got out of the car at the end of the night she had $1500 that was going to go a long way to getting the collections people off her ass. $1500 and it's not like it had cost her anything...much.

15.3 - 13 days or moments you'd like to relive.

1. The day Theresa was born.
2. The day before my dad died.
3. Day I graduated from high school.
4. The day I got accepted into the academy.
5. The day Theresa gave her valedictorian speech.
6. My 21st birthday.
7. When Theresa got her college acceptance letters.
8. Getting my badge.
9. Making detective.
10. The night I met Tonio.
11. Every night I had with Tonio after that.
12. When Mama woke up after her fall.
[Locked]
13. The first time I got my bills paid.

1. I'm a cop.
2. I work in Gotham.
3. No, I don't know who Batman is.
4. No, I wouldn't tell you even if I knew.
5. My dad was a 3 time Golden Gloves champion.
6. I don't believe in Harvey Dent.
7. I work hard.
8. I have a sister named Theresa.
9. When I made detective I was the youngest in the GCPD.
10. If you want me to do anything before 8am there'd better be coffee and lots of it.
11. I don't like guns.
12. I only trust other cops.
13. I wanted to be one of Charlie's Angels when I grew up.

The first time I ever held a gun was right before I joined the police academy.

Growing up in the Narrows like I did, guns were always something to be scared of. Gunshots in my neighborhood meant you dropped to the floor squeezed your eyes shut as tight as you could and waited for it to stop. But when I decided I wanted to be a cop I knew I was going to have to get over it. Those gunshots that used to terrify me were going to become part of my life. That instead of dropping to the floor and putting my hands over my ears I was going to have to hold my ground and learn to think in the middle of the chaos.

I couldn't afford to be terrified anymore.

The gun shop had a shooting gallery in the basement. Even through the headphones it was still loud. I remember picking up the gun the way I'd been shown, heavier than it looked, cold in my hand. It felt awkward. I remember thinking the first time I fired it that I was never going to stop flinching.

By the time I got out of academy I'd fired thousands, even hundreds of thousands of rounds and I wasn't flinching anymore. The gun that felt so awkward in my head was just like an extension of my arm. Yeah, I was your typical rookie: cocky.

I was over my fear of guns. I was a COP now. Anna Ramirez was one bad ass mother fucker. Nothing could shake me.

Until the night my T.O and I were making a bust. We had the guy in cuffs and were putting him in the back of the car and one of the guys who'd run off came back and opened fire.

I didn't drop to the ground and cover my ears. I held my ground, covered my partner and did my job. But it was a good lesson guns are always fuckin' scary and anyone who isn't at least a little afraid of them is either crazy or lying.