Give Up?

Many thanks to Dan at Larks Fiction Journal for publishing the flash fiction piece Give Up?
http://larksfictionmagazine.blogspot.com/

Give Up?

by MaryAnne Kolton

When he burst through the door he yelled, “Police!  Police with a warrant!  Everybody down on the floor!”

His son looked up, rolled his eyes and returned to his study of Middle Eastern social customs. 

His daughter, Jenna, said, “Mom, Dad’s home.”

From the kitchen, Joanie said, “Okay, dinner’s on the table.”

“I said everybody down on the floor, hands behind your heads!”  Pete yelled at them.

The kids headed toward the kitchen.  Pete grabbed his son, Todd, cuffed him and said, “Face down on the floor.  Now!”

“C’mon, Dad.  Give it a rest will you? 

His son looked toward his mother as she took the spare handcuff key from a hook inside the kitchen cupboard door.  She uncuffed her son, put the key back and said to her husband, “Sit.”

Pete brought a yellow legal pad and pen to the table.  During dinner he diagrammed a take down of a suspected drug house on the west side of the city scheduled for later that night.  He was just about to assign positions to each of them when lights strafed the front of the house and a car pulled into the driveway.

 “Gotta go.  Justin’s here,” said Jenna, jumping up from the table.

 “Stop.  Don’t move or I’ll shoot.”

 “Whatever, Dad,” Jenna said, heading toward the front door.

Pete pushed past her, opened the front door and saw the young man in the car.

“Hands!”  He hollered.  “Hands where I can see them.  Now!”

“Dad, just stop it and go back in the house,” said Jenna, sliding into the car.

His wife stepped out on the porch, wrapped her arms around her husband and whispered softly in his ear, “Pete, I love you, now why don’t you get those sweaty clothes off and take a shower?”

As she sat on the porch wondering about getting a pot of red Geraniums for the steps, her elderly next-door neighbor Mrs. Ulatowski scuffed her way across the driveway.

“Oh, Joanie” she said, “You are so lucky that Pete is so protective of his family.  And,” she said with a flirtatious little grin, “he looks so handsome in his uniform.”

Yes, thought Joanie, he does.  She missed watching him get ready for work, loading up his duty belt with cuffs, keys, Taser, weapon light, baton, Sig Sauer and the other assorted equipment that kept him safe, but the new part-time job with UPS seemed to be working out well and the uniforms were perma-press.