surprise surprise – cop shoot cop

I’m writing this back home, in my own kitchen, drinking decent coffee from one of my own mugs. I’m out of hospital, finally.
Around eleven this morning, two guys in grey trousers and slightly darker tops, arrived at the nurses’ station. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but the nurse leaned over the brown counter and pointed directly at me.
The two guys nodded and strode at me, moving out to arrive at opposite sides of my bed.
Up close, their dark grey tops had the name of the hospital and a tiny crest over the left breast.
They grabbed my wrists at the same moment and dragged me down and off the bed. A nurse ran up, dodged around the guy on my right and started emptying the bedside cabinet into a large white bag marked, ‘patient’s property’ in red capitals. The same typeface tabloid newspapers use for their headlines. I landed on my feet, my legs weren’t capable of supporting my weight and I spilled forward.
As I fell, I saw the kid opposite, staring open-mouthed as the two porters grabbed my shoulders and jerked me back and upright again.
I was dragged-carried to the front door, where the nurse made me sign something while a porter held my wrist in a massive paw and handed me the white plastic bag, all sharp corners.
They left me there and I walked to the bus stop. The ten minutes or so I waited for the bus were among the most frightening of my life. Exposure to sudden violent surprises can get you like that.
I’d only gone two stops when Alison texted, asking if I was out and I replied, telling her I wanted to chill by myself tonight and I’d see her Friday, after work.
I was back home by half-twelve, answering messages on the clothfolks site and thinking about what I’d wear tonight.
I went out about seven, planning to arrive between quarter- and half- past eight.
The bar was pretty full, the same velvet- and satin- girls, still talking in their high voices about operas and painters, a table of metalgirls, too much make-up and traces of rust on their backs where they thought it couldn’t be seen.
I smiled across at one as she raised her head. She threw me something like a look of iron disgust, nudging her friends, making them turn to look at me, too. I smiled at the others and withdrew.
There seemed to be more of the rubber, leather, latex types tonight, in clumps of two or three, with that strong artificial smell they have.
There were at least two I’d have fucked if it was a slow week, but it wasn’t, so I left it.
Eventually, I let myself be pulled into the orbit of a table of two denimgirls, with their long pale hair and soft mouths. With them was a guy – also denim – with long frizzy, what’s the politically correct term for it nowadays? ‘Real hair’? ‘Person hair’? ‘Meat hair’? I let them see me and accepted their invitation to join them, shaking his hand warmly, but in a strong and fully heterosexual fashion. Which all three seemed to like.
I chatted with them for an hour or more, getting their names (and discovering it’s just called hair, apparently).
He was quite an interesting bloke, once I got talking to him. Up close, his faded material was dotted with a few brightly-coloured patches alerting me to old-time heavy metal bands.
More importantly, the girls with him were called Janice and Toni. Their denim looked newer, tighter than his, stretched more closely over their frames. They were probably both somewhere in their thirties and I got the impression they’d been on the scene for a few years, never having found ‘the one’.
I left the pub around ten, citing a bus I needed to catch.
Outside, I checked my wallet and flagged down a passing taxi, which got me home before eleven.