The Writing Sample I Sent to White Wolf with My Resume

"All is Futility"
-Ecclesiastes 12:8-

Everyone in the room stood quietly. There are times where there is nothing that can be said to make things better and all you can really do is wait for something to happen. If it were not for the hush of the respirator, the intermittent beeps of the monitors, and the slow drip of the IV, the room would have been silent. Everyone waited for someone else to get the ball rolling.

Sheriff Sidney Dorsey watched the people standing with him next to the bed, along with District Attorney Paul Howard and Dr. Eric Perteet. He did this so he wouldn’t have to look at the mess that rotted on the bed.

Officer John Garza was a hero. All of the papers had said as much. He had disappeared immediately after a drug raid on Allison Drive. He had been gone for weeks. Speculation about what happened to him had raged on in the papers for quite some time. The media had made all kinds of wild accusations and speculations. Slowly, it was uncovered that eleven other officers had gone missing and that all of them had been at the bust with Garza. Reporters hounded Sheriff Dorsey for weeks.

Rumors had circulated that they stole what drugs were found and ran off. Others said that Garza had killed his partner, Deputy Keith Ruiz, who had died at the scene, because the suspects they had busted had some dirt on him. When he turned back up, naked and unconscious, next to Piedmont hospital, the papers changed their tune. Now Officer Garza was praised for his bravery, even though no one knew what had happened to him. No one but Officer Garza knew, but the bruises across his body and the deep rope burns on his limbs suggested torture, and calling him a hero sold more papers than calling him a villain.

A tickle kept plaguing Paul Howard's brindled mustache. He looked up from his hunched shoulders and spoke first. "Well... I guess we should get this started."

Sheriff Dorsey looked at Dr. Perteet with his watery eyes and trepidation etched upon his brow. "Doctor. Would you be so kind?"

"Of course, Sheriff," Dr. Perteet murmured as he reached to cut off the sedative that had been trickling into Officer Garza.

All three of the stood and waited for the sedative to wear off. Paul Howard's knees started to ache from standing still for so long, so he started to shift his weight from one leg to the other to alleviate the pain. Dr. Perteet's congestion from years of smoking began to act up so he kept clearing his throat as the seconds dragged on. Only Sidney Dorsey was still as he looked, unblinking, at a point slightly above Officer Garza's head. District Attorney Howard's eyes started to tear up in sympathy as Mr. Howard wondered "when the hell Dorsey would God damn well blink."

John Garza came to slowly. First with a few grunts and moans that left a slight mist of condensation on his oxygen mask. The mask combined with the wrapping on his skull made him look almost like a fighter pilot. It was not too much of a stretch to imagine a healthy Garza in the cockpit of a F-22. If he had joined the army, he would have been a great soldier. If he had joined the Air Force, he would be a renowned pilot. But he joined the police force, and now he was laid out on a hospital bed, beaten and broken.

Garza's eyes began to open. The pain screamed on his eyelids. Still, he kept his composure as he collected himself enough to awaken to the stabbing brightness of the hospital room.

"Hi, guys. What can I do for you?," across Garza's lips whispered.

Sheriff Dorsey spoke first. "Well... well... we need to talk to you for a bit, if you're up for it."

Deputy Garza coughed a couple of times, despite his dry throat. "What about?"

"We need to know about what happened to you, John. That's why the DA is here, and Dr. Perteet is going to monitor you and make sure you are up for talking," said Sheriff Dorsey, his voice edging towards lamentation.

"No problem, Sheriff. Could I have some water first?" asked Officer Garza.

Paul Howard chimed, "Of course. I've got it." Mr. Howard darted over to the sink and filled a cup with water. After some fumbling, he managed to fit the straw he had put in the cup under John's oxygen mask to allow him to drink.

"That's better. Thank you," John hiccuped, "Where should I start?"

The District Attorney spoke, which earned him a warning glance from the sheriff that said "This is MY interview", "Why don't you start with when you got picked up."

"Hold on, now," interjected Dr. Perteet. He looked Officer Garza straight in the eye and said to him, "Now, if at any point you feel tired, or in pain, you let me know, and we can pick this up later. Alright?"

"Alright," intoned John.

Garza shifted in is his bed so that he would be more upright. "Well, I'm guessing you found mine and Ruiz's car. I couldn't believe how it went down. I was coming back from the raid at the Delamora residence on Allison Drive near Buford Highway. I turned at Valmar and Autumn Drive to get to the hospital to check on Deputy Ruiz when another automobile came and slammed into my driver's side door. It was a really good wreck. When my car hit the lamppost, my head impacted the window and dazed me.

Before I could move, these two Hispanic men opened the driver's side door and dragged me out of the car. Even though they had crushed the door, they ripped through it like Christmas wrapping. Their strength was unnatural. They threw me down like a broken toy. My face scraped the asphalt. I could feel the little pieces of sand on the road burrowing into my hands and face as they beat and kicked me until I blacked out.

I woke up alone on a dirt floor. At one time I must have been upright, for my hands and feet were bound to a wooden chair. The ground near my feet was saturated with water, yet by my head it was as dry as ash. I could smell something like engine oil and something else chemical and metallic in the air. The air was cold and goosebumps prickled my skin. They had stripped me, except for my boxers. I suppose I should be thankful they let me have some decency.

I tried to get a sense of my surrounding, perhaps even figure out where I was, when behind me I heard, 'Surprise!'. I got popped in the temple and blacked out again.

I woke up once more. I don't know how long I was out, but this time I was upright. My feet were still in the mud. I could feel people surrounding me and their eyes crawled across my skin.

I heard footsteps near me and the click of a switch. At that moment, a light shined brilliantly into my eyes, killing my vision. A voice called to me from beyond the light, 'Hey there, pocho. Sleep well?'

I heard laughter come from around the room. I knew that this voice was the one in charge, for every laugh was forced.

They turned the spotlight off and I found myself in the warmth of darkness again. A few moments later, they turned the overhead lights up. The sudden changes in brightness disoriented me, but soon I could finally see my surroundings. My ribcage ached and my skin felt as though it had been stretched across my chest. I was in the center of a warehouse. The floor was concrete, yet some places, such as where I was sitting, were covered in inches thick layers of dirt. The walls were cinder blocks and steel. The ceiling was arched with exposed rusted metal beams. Light fixtures seemed strung up randomly across the ceiling. In some places, boards had been placed between the beams, making a makeshift second story.

A huge press of people surrounded me, yet the only sweat I could smell was my own. All of them wore white shoes and dark blue jeans. They wore stark white t-shirts, or undershirts. A few were shirtless, and the couple of black t-shirts I saw read 'Silver 13'. Everywhere I looked were closely shaven heads and sinister, tooth-filled smiles. I could have sworn that a good number of them had their teeth filed to points, or wore grills fashioned into fangs.

What really stuck out was the tattoos. Every one of them was covered in ink. Many sported Our Lady of Fátima on their arms or backs. Others sported fanged skulls with crossed letter M's. Still, every tattoo had one thing in common, a blazing red rose.

I scanned the smiling and satisfied faces in the room. I spat out, 'You guys are so fucked. I'm a fucking cop. Every single officer is going to be out looking for you.'

The room laughed again. The man in front of me bent down, his shaved head and the rose on his shoulder shined in the light. It was the same voice that had mocked me earlier. 'You think we don't know who you are? You think we worry about maricón cops like you? Huh?' He wrinkled his nose at me, 'Hueles a mierda!'

He stood up again, turned his back to me, and almost danced towards his audience. 'He thinks we're scared!,' he shouted. The warehouse erupted in laughter. He then rushed at me and back-handed my face, causing my chair to tip to the ground. He then knelt over me. I could feel his face next to mine and for some reason his breath felt cold on my ear. 'You want to know where you are? You are in a warehouse off of Armour Circle. You know why we brought you here, instead of someplace more private? Everyone outside can hear you and not one of them will come to help you. You know why? It's not because they don't care. It's because we have you and there is no one that can save you.'

Two men picked me and my chair up and set me upright. They couldn't have been more than fourteen, but they stood me up as if they were straightening up a toy in a child's room. The man in charge of this group of Sureño was still standing in front of me, though now he was a few feet away. His skin was pale under the harsh lighting and he looked at me with a mixture of amusement and disdain. 'Officer Garza,' he said to me, 'we don't want much from you. We don't want to kill you. We just want a little bit of information from you. Comprende? We just want you to tell us what happened at the bust on Allison. 'Kay?' The light gleamed off the sharp points of his canines as he gave me a contemnible smile.

You ever look back at your life and wonder what the fuck you were thinking? This was one of those times for me. I must not have been thinking, for, like an idiot, I tried to play it tough. If I had just given him what he wanted, things might have been easier. I wasn't thinking. I was just reacting when I said to him, 'Yo cago en la leche de tu puta madre! I'm not telling you a damn thing.'

This didn't earn me another smack like I expected. Instead, he just kept smiling, though his eyes grew dark. 'If you can find the bitch, let me know. I've got words for her too,' he smiled at me, 'Besides, you think we don't know what we are doing? That we don't know how to get you to talk? You can yell 'Fuck Prince Gorman!' all you want, but you are going to talk. We've been at this for a long time, and we know what we are doing.'

He left the room. He just left me to the mercy of the men surrounding me. Surprisingly, it was the two fourteen year-olds who took charge. One had his head clean shaven, while the other had black hair slicked back and wore a tetchy little mustache.

People forget that the point of torture isn't to cause damage. It's to cause pain and fear, and they did. They were good at it too. Those little boys brought out another chair. They gently tipped my chair to the dusty ground. Their faces held no malice or anticipation, just cold efficiency. The bottom of my chair was lifted into the air and set on the chair that was brought in, while my head stayed on the ground. The blood rushed to my head and I could hear it thumping in my ears.

With that same coldness, the boys showed me the wooden rulers they had been holding in their back pockets. The eyes of the mustachioed boy gleamed. My heart was a jackhammer as they whipped the soles of my feet. The thwack of the rulers never found a rhythm, so I could never anticipate their blows.

It wasn't like the movies. They didn't ask me any questions or if I would talk. They just kept hurting me. I don't know how long it lasted. All I know is that it hurt.

It wasn't just my feet. The boys kept it varied. I guess it was so I wouldn't get bored. After I had shit or pissed myself, they would clean me up by spraying me down with a hose pistol. After they had soaked me, they would aim it at my upturned face and would blast it at full power. I felt like I couldn't breathe and I gasped for air while the water scoured my skin. Afterwords, my face would feel raw and the air current would scrape against me. This is when the audience would laugh and insult me, but never the boys. No. They just went about their work.

The only time the boys ever made a noise was when I was upright. It was then that I was cleaned up. Guns would be pointed at me so I wouldn't try to run, even though by this time I was in too much pain to move on my own. I was untied and two buckets of water would be brought over with soap and a brush. My arms were lifted and my boxers removed. Then I was scrubbed down, gently, like washing a child. The bald child would look at me and say, every time, 'This is so you won't get an infection.' He would then placidly put rubbing alcohol on any open wounds, on my face, and on my wrists and ankles where the rope had rubbed through my flesh. Fresh boxers would then be brought to me. This is the only time when no one joked. Somehow it was a solemn occasion.

After I was cleaned I would be tied back to the chair. One of their favorite things to do after I was clean was to bring a stool on which a fishing reel had been attached. The boys then pierced my chest with small fishhooks. The hooks were then slowly reeled in, stretching my skin. I could feel it pulling all the way from the small of my back with each click of the reel.

The worst was when I was left alone. Seemingly at random, a signal would buzz through the audience, and they would all leave except for the boys. I would be strung up, upside down, by my chair. Cotton would be stuffed in my ears, so all I could hear was the dull roar of my own body, and a blindfold would be tied across my eyes. I spun slowly when they shut off the lights, and all the while, no one said a word.

Sartre was wrong. Hell isn't other people. It's being trapped in your own mind. During this time, I ceased to exist. No one had acknowledged me in so long that I and me were gone, and I had forgotten my own name due to lack of hearing it. I just knew that no one was going to help me and that the only kindness I was ever going to receive again was when I was bathed.

Still, I wouldn't talk. I wouldn't cooperate, not that they ever asked me to, or asked me anything for that matter. I just kept telling them that I wasn't going to give them anything they wanted.

One day, or night, I couldn't tell which, the boy with the bald head looked at me with sullen eyes, and intoned to me in a mournful voice, 'Gunsmoke Gama coming. I will miss you.' He hugged me and I cried. I couldn't stop myself. I could do nothing but weep, for the boy whose name I never knew was going to miss me.

The crowd parted for the person moving through the crowd. It was him, the man with the rose on his shoulder and the gleaming teeth. He looked exactly the same as he did before. Same bright white undershirt. The same closely shaven head. The same dark blue jeans. He shone as he walked up to me. God, he was beautiful.

'John Garza.' I sobbed at the sound of my name. 'John, tell me about what happened during the drug bust. Tell me what happened to Detective Ruiz.'

I wasn't going to tell him. Even after all I had been through, there was no way I was going to tell him anything.

Disappointment mangled his face. I was surprised. I expected a smart remark, or an insult. He didn't even get angry. He just seemed hurt more than anything. He locked eyes with mine and I was lost. The me that I had regained from hearing my name was taken away again and I started to talk.

I told him everything. I told him about waking up next to my girlfriend. I told him what I had for breakfast that day. I told him about calling the girl I was cheating on her with while I was on my way to work. I told him everything about what happened the day of the drug bust on Allison Drive.

The room was silent while I talked except for faint whisperings and the creaking of my chair. Dust tickled my nose and the taste of bile saturated my tongue as I said to Gama, 'Deputy Keith Ruiz and I had gotten some information about a drug den on Allison Drive being run by an Edwin Delamora. We had gotten this information late that afternoon from Frank Enwonwu. Enwonwu is a Nigerian immigrant we had arrested years ago with ties to the drug trade. To keep himself from being arrested and deported, he fed us information on the drug trade.

Since it was so late in the day, to get a warrant Ruiz and I had to call several judges at home to get one of them to grant us a no-knock warrant so we could raid the place. We wanted a no-knock warrant so we could arrest as many people and gather as much evidence as possible. After several fruitless calls, Judge Julie Kocurek did what we wanted and the warrant was granted.

The great thing about drug raids is that everyone wants in on them. It guarantees that your name gets in the paper and public recognition is the fastest way to a bigger paycheck. Plus, if the raid yields a large amount of drugs, it will easily net you a commendation or a visit from a politician, and in this thankless job, any recognition is a good thing. Keith and I signed on eleven more officers.

By this time we had everything ready to go, it was 1 o'clock in the morning. We parked most of the cars a couple of blocks away so as not to tip off the residents. The rest of the cars would pull up as soon as we initiated the raid. Ruiz and I positioned ourselves at the front door as the rest of the officers surrounded the house and covered the back door and windows.

Ruiz wanted to be first inside. We readied our firearms. He looked at me and nodded his head. I turned my head towards the house as Ruiz got ready to break through the door. I shouted, 'Police!' The moment I announced our presence, before Keith's foot could make contact with the door, a blast ripped through the door, spreading splinters and glass. Keith collapsed to the porch, and an explosion of deep red had spread across his chest.

The second it happened, without thinking, like I had been trained to, I spun towards the door and kicked its remains in. Delamora was cocking his shotgun for another blast and was bringing his gun to bear. His jowls shook with his movements. I shot him in his shoulders, disarming him. I pushed Delamora to the ground, pulled his wrists behind his back, and placed riot cuffs upon him.

By this time the other officers had entered the house. I heard the radio call in, 'Signal 4 needed on Allison Drive, signal 25, signal 63!' The only other person we found in the building was Delamora's grandmother. She had heard the commotion and was hiding in her bedroom closet. Even in my despair and rage I could not bring myself to handcuff her.

Edwin Delamora was taken to a hospital, along with Deputy Ruiz. Delamora's grandmother was loaded into a police car and taken to the station for questioning as we brought in the K-9 unit. The look on her face as we prepared to search the premises was one of horror and confusion.

We searched the premises. The couch was ripped open, the kitchen drawers were dumped on the ground, and the bed was flipped and we had found nothing, so we brought in the dogs.

It was strange. When the dogs came to the premises, they wouldn't cross the threshhold. Their handlers had to drag them through the broken doorframe, while the dogs' whining pierced the air.

However, as soon as they were in the house, the dogs went crazy. The dogs hauled their handlers through the house into the living room, where all three of them started to scratch and whine at the living room rug. We got the dogs out of the way and moved the coffee table that was on top of it, and then removed the rug. All we saw was more of the hardwood floor, but the dogs persisted in trying to dig through the floor where the rug used to be.

An axe was found in the garage. The handlers managed to gain control of their dogs by then and were standing around the spot. I brought the axe to my shoulder and began chopping the floor at the place pointed out by the dogs.

What we found under the house is something that will stay with me forever. Under the living room was another room that had been dug out of the ground. It was four feet deep and it seemed to run the length of the living room.

Carefully, I climbed down into the hole. The light from my flashlight was swallowed by the space around me. I ducked my head down and searched the earthen room. I could smell the water in the pipes and the scuttling of beetles constantly made me turn my head. After taking a few careful steps, I hit my head on something hard and cool. I reached my hand and felt a dangling chain. I pulled it and a light came on in front of my eyes, blinding me temporarily.

When I regained my sight, what appeared before me made my eyes widen with shock and caused me to lose even more faith in humanity. At my feet laid a little boy, his face gaunt from starvation. He looked to be about ten years of age. The boy's skin was covered in dirt and filth, and his short, coarse hair was matted against his head. His hands and feet were bound, and his mouth was gagged. A strip of leather was wound tightly across his eyes. Next to him was a small bowl with several hypodermic needles. At the end of each needle was what appeared to be dried blood. It was strange, for there was no lighters, or candles, or baggies, or spoons nearby, like you would expect with junkies.

I called on the radio for paramedics to come down here and proceeded to cut free the boy. First I cut off his blindfold. He recoiled from the light of the bulb. When he got used to the brightness, I could see his black and bloodshot eyes. His eyes grew large at the sight of me and he began to thrash about like a caught fish. I managed to restrain him long enough for him to calm down. My radio squawked that paramedics were on their way. I proceeded to slice the boy free. First his feet, then his legs, and his hands.

As soon as he was free, the boy lunged at me. I was knocked backwards by the force of this tiny dynamo. His hands were claws and the boy kept trying to bring himself within biting range. To me his mouth appeared to be a gaping void lined with sharp, needle teeth. I could feel the knots of his muscles beneath the skin of his toothpick arms and his knobby knees continually slammed into me. Gasping for air, I managed to bring my boot to the boy's stomach, and launched the kid off of me.

The boy was now beneath the opening I had hacked into the floor earlier. With a strange hiss and roar, the boy rocketed out of the hole. I hacked and coughed as he got away. Other officers came down the hole to check on me, and reported hearing a strange animal sound right before a blur rushed its way out the front door. I showed them the ropes, the leather strip, and the needles, yet no one wanted to believe what I saw, or what they saw.

That's all I know. I was trying to decide what to say in my report when you abducted me. I don't know what to do. I know what I saw, but no one is going to believe me. I wouldn't believe it if it was someone else,' I exclaimed to Gama and his men.

The look on Gama's face was hard to read. No longer was he the man in charge. Something in the air had shifted. The look on his face was that of a scholar, listening to an interesting point made by one of his students. Something very dangerous was happening and I didn't know what it was. Gama then regained his composure and stature and told me, 'We are going to let you go.' When I heard this I began to cry once again, I was so relieved. 'No, no,' Gama admonished, 'There is more. You will not tell anyone what you saw or what has happened to you since. You will tell people you do not remember. If you decide to remember, we will put you on the hyitzilopochtli, and you will die.'

"Gama then turned to his audience and shouted out, 'However, no one will believe you were kidnapped without some better scars! Have fun, boys!' With that, he and the two boys left. The audience of hoodlums and barrio rats swarmed me and beat me. The crowd quickly slammed me to the ground. My mouth was filled with mud. They kicked me, and hit me, and struck me. I was a piñata off its rope. My nose crunched beneath someone's heel and I soon passed out.

That's all I can tell you about what happened. I know it sounds crazy, but it is all true. Everything else about what happened you already know. The next time I woke up, I was here, and was being borne on a stretcher to my room."

Sidney Dorsey looked up from the hospital bed and looked out the window. Dr. Eric Perteet cleared his throat while Paul Howard adjusted his glasses and walked over to the hospital room door. Dr. Perteet then proceeded to unhook the IV bag from its tubing, emptying it on the floor. Breathless confusion worked its way over the face of Officer Garza. Dr. Perteet tasted the alien flavor of the saline solution as he filled the bag with his breath and reconnected it to the IV tubing. Howard put his foot against the bottom of the door and braced it shut with his hand. Sheriff Dorsey reached down onto the bed and held down Officer Garza's arms, and looked at John Garza's face with his watery eyes. Dorsey's face issued an apology that also said that we must all submit to the inevitable. Eric Perteet then squeezed the bag, forcing its contents into Garza's veins. The air burned its way up his arm and Officer John Garza's face contorted and his mouth stretched open as tears welled up in his eyes and trickled down his face. His silence was broken when his shriek finally managed to break free of his vocal cords. Paul Howard clamped his eyes tight as John Garza died, Eric Perteet looked at some spot on the floor, and Sheriff Dorsey's eyes never left the face of Officer John Garza.

Their business done, Sheriff Dorsey turned to his companions, "Well, Let's go talk to the others."