Page 10 of Imperfection is Beauty

And in a small town, you inadvertently kill a cop, it doesn’t matter that he tried to kill your little brother.

He bonded out after that happened and was awaiting his sentencing hearing.

The second event then took place.

He was seeing this girl; her name was Karla. She was sweeter than cherry pie. She had to work late, and Van was supposed to pick her up and take her home.

However, what he never foresaw was a flat tire on the way to pick her up.

He had called her and told her to wait for him.

Sadly, she hadn’t listened to him.

And all because she had to mop the floors and her socks got wet, she couldn’t stand the feeling of wet socks on her feet.

Ten fucking feet from the diner’s front door, she was dragged behind it, and into the alley, and was assaulted.

My brother rolled up to that and then beat the ever-loving shit out of him.

And Van sat there, on his ass, with her beaten and broken body curled up in his arms.

She took her last breath in a dark, rat-infested alley.

All the while, the man who had beaten her, and assaulted her, also took his last breath.

The cops arrested him for that. He told them what happened, and sadly, once they ran his name, they didn’t care that the man had pulled the knife on Van first.

The same one he had used on Karla.

He was sentenced to eight years for the first, ten years for the second, and eight years for the third. The third being the murder of Karla.

Six months ago, the owner of the diner had sold it.

And the new owners had done a deep remodel.

The previous owner never told the cops about the camera footage. Nor the backups. That was because he was the cousin of the cop, the cop that Van had killed.

Needless to say, the new owners knew about what had happened all those years ago and they hadn’t agreed with what had taken place.

Van was acquitted of killing the man because the footage clearly showed that once Van had rolled up, he had seen it, ran into the alley, grabbed the man by the back of his shirt, and flung him off of Karla.

He had knelt to check her pulse when the man came at him with the same knife, he had used to attack Karla.

Thanks to the footage, Van was acquitted of those charges, and since he already served eight years for the first crime, he was released three weeks ago.

He didn’t automatically come home.

He took the time he needed to breathe.

When he got out, he called our mom and dad, and then he called me.

After I took a sip of my beer, I asked, “So, you sticking around for a while?”

He nodded, “Yeah, this is my home.”

A sudden thought came to mind, “You got plans tomorrow?”

He shook his head, “Nah. Whatcha got?”

---