Grounds for Arrest

Before I start the story, I just want to indicate what specific feedback I am looking for.

I want to know if the idea for this story is sound. Does it hold your interest? Does the structure work?

Thank you for all comments.

Grounds for Arrest

I’m in trouble. It started several days ago. Well, the story could go back further but it was in the last few days that things actually got interesting.

See, I’ve got this… problem.

George Perrault.

I go to Canneen Public School. As schools go its pretty normal. A lot of students, some number over fifteen hundred in accordance to the Facebook membership. It’s hard to stand out in a school like that, neither George nor I are one of them.

Anyway, George has issues. Anger management, youth delinquent, nothing you probably couldn’t guess. Maybe he’s abused by his parents, I dunno. I wouldn’t care if he didn’t take it out on me.

It started pretty tame. I guess, depending on your definitions, it still wasn’t that dangerous. He shoved me around a few times, discovered I didn’t push back, and started doing it more regularly. Several times I’ve gotten angry and put up a fight. Those usually don’t go very well for me, though once I actually knocked one of his teeth out.

So, this has been going on for quite some time. I’ve talked it over with the guidance councilor and the principal a few times, but they haven’t done very much. I guess they talked it over a few times with George, given him detentions.

So, I was talking it over with a friend, Jaden.

“He just won’t leave me alone man.” I remember leaning on the table, I’m frustrated as hell. Ready to do just about anything. A very dangerous state. Now, I’ll say this about Jaden. He’s an amazing friend. But he wasn’t someone I should have been talking to in that state.

“Yeah it sucks. Really sucks. I could, like, help you out.”

“That would be stupid.”

“Come on man, we could take him.”

See, this is why I shouldn’t have been talking to him.

“Still not a good idea.”

“Well, you got to pay him back some how. Get him off your back.”

“How the hell do I do that?”

We both thought on that for a few minutes.

Now, as much as I would like to pin this on Jaden, it was defiantly me who next spoke. Sadly.

“Shit. I just came up with the craziest idea.”

“Yeah?”

“What if I jumped him in the dark? Like, downtown?”

“What, like…?”

“Like, if I put on one of those ski masks, the hats with the visors….”

“Hell yeah! That would sure scare the crap outa him.”

Stupid Jaden.

So, I wasn’t really serious about the idea. But the more Jaden egged me on, the more I wanted to get back at George. It was pretty tempting, getting back at him. I wouldn’t bring a knife or anything stupid like that, just jump him and maybe grab his backpack or something.

It didn’t need much preparation. All I needed to do was buy one of the masks, and find a good ambush opportunity.

If I hadn’t gotten so lucky, or unlucky as I look at it now, in getting him alone, I probably would have come to my senses and abandoned my plan. But as it was, I happened to find messages between him and a friend on Facebook, yes; we have each other as friends on Facebook.

He was arranging a meeting with this buddy at a bar. A downtown bar, off Centre Street. I probably wouldn’t have gone if I hadn’t found this out with Jaden present.

But, that aside… I did.

I took the bus down, an hour early. I wasn’t going to be late.

Being alone down town, with intentions of assault, it was completely nerve racking.

I was sweating in my concealing cloths, but I couldn’t take anything off in case someone remembered me. I had the mask on but the hoody up so it wasn’t obvious I looked like a bank robber.

The streets were covered in slush, the brown slush that makes everything seem dirtier then it really is after several weeks of no new snow. My breath came out as smoke before my eyes.

I didn’t move from my spot in the shadows. I would have paced, but I was worried that would draw attention to me. I was jittery though, my heart was pounding and in the quiet I could feel my pulse with every beat. I checked my watch at least a hundred times in that hour. I had to check every person who passed.

George didn’t arrive exactly on time. The last few minutes, the time he was late, they were excruciating. But then I saw him coming down the street.

There were people down the street, at the pub end, but it was pretty far down. Strangely, that was one of the hardest parts, not the worry I would be seen, but stage fright, like I was performing an act.

Well, the fear of getting caught was pretty bad also. I should have paid it a little more attention.

The actual attack, of course it’s very clear in my memory. I can analyze every minute of it in horrible stupid clarity.

I came up behind him and hit him in the back of the head. When he turned around I punched him in the face, then the stomach.

He was holding a bag of chips. I grabbed them.

There were shouts from the pub down the street just as he was keeling over. That and the blaring of a police car.

I remember distinctly yelling “Fuck.”

George didn’t do anything as I turned to run away, he was still gasping for air. I ran, hoping to find an alley to hide in, but I was disoriented. I saw the cop car coming towards me, and slipped on a patch of ice trying to turn around.

Then I had my arms pinned behind my back and was pressed against the car, I could see another cop helping a very confused George stand out of the corner of my eye.

That’s how I ended up in jail.

Now an officer sits across from me, wanting to know what I was doing. Was it gang related? Was I just a mugger?

I flinch away from his eyes.

“No.”

I tell him everything, every single fact I can recall. But as I tell him, one thought runs through my head over and over again.

Where were these guys, when I was getting beat up in school?