The Dividing Line (2016 rewrite)

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Minor revisions to text, chapters combined.
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Part 2 of the 3 part series

Updated 06/08/2023
Created 09/09/2005
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May 7th

Sara Wood lived in darkest shadowlands, and she kept to her shadows -- lived to blend in, to disappear; if caught in light of day, she simply faded away into the pale warrens of the city. Sara Wood was an expert in the fine art of disappearance, of camouflage, of falling through cracks in the few systems left to deal with girls of her sort: homeless, nameless...faceless girls used to life in the darkness. There was 'no place like home' for Sara Wood, there never had been. No Auntie Em, no Toto, and never a Wizard of Oz waiting to carry her back to Kansas. No, there had been foster homes. Homes where spectacled, fat-thumbed men tried to introduce Sara Wood to the rituals of oral sex -- when she was nine years old, and finally, shelters. Where wild-eyed women pushed her down to her knees -- Bible in hand -- forcing her to repent for sins she had never committed. There had never been, in Sara Wood's life, a fridge in the kitchen to feed her empty belly, no television in the den to fill her empty time, nor were there chat rooms or the 'net late at night in a darkened bedroom were she could learn about the carefree, empty lives of teenagers spread over the American landscape -- like a thin coat of white paint.

So, Sara Wood kept to the shadows of the city, although there were times when it felt like the city did it's very best to keep her in the dark light of day. Out of sight, she knew, was out of mind. What little comfort in this world she could buy, she paid for in the currency of her soul; earned on her knees in alleys, or with her legs spread in back seats of suburban minivans. She was paid for taking short, smelly cocks in her mouth, or for taking a reedy, whiskey-soaked tongue up her vagina. She didn't use drugs; the thought had never occurred to her because she couldn't afford them. Dealers and pimps didn't hook her and sell her; the market was glutted with teenaged boys and girls who sold their cocks and cunts and mouths for almost nothing, just enough money to, perhaps, buy a burger and a coke. Sara Wood couldn't rock the boat -- because there was no boat to rock. She couldn't beat the system -- because the system was gone.

So, in Sara Wood's shadowlands, she knelt on the altar of poverty, and of justice for all. On any given day, like today perhaps, her face poised before urine tinged khaki trousers, she sucking the three inch dick of a fat, smelly man named Bob, whose plastic name tag identified him as an employee of the New Life Christian Family Bookstore. Bob had Sara Wood's hair grasped tightly in his hands, and he was pulling on it roughly, calling her a dirty little whore, telling her to suck his cock, to eat his cum. His half-hard dick, Sara Wood thought, was about the size of her little finger and she had been sucking on it for what felt like an hour. Bob would not -- or could not -- cum, and the more apparent this became to Bob the harder he pulled on Sara Wood's hair. Bob looked down at Sara Wood's face and noticed tears in her eyes when he pulled her hair especially hard, and Bob liked that. He liked that a lot.

Bob gave Sara Wood's hair a vicious tug, and she cried out, tried to pull away. Bob liked that even more, and could feel his dick get hard and twitch in response to her discomfort and attempt to flee, and he told her to hold still, that he was going to cum. He held her head forcefully to his groin and tried to pump away, but Sara Wood was now in a fair amount of pain, getting afraid, and was in fact trying to pull away from Bob with a fair amount of effort. Bob both liked and disliked her struggling. Bob liked the fact that he could frighten and hurt someone; this was something very rare in his experience. Bob disliked the fact that he was probably not going to be able to cum in this girls mouth, which, too was a very rare experience in Bob's life, one that he had paid good money -- five bucks -- for. Determined to prevent her spoiling the moment, Bob decided to shut her up, and with his fist he swung down with his not considerable strength -- and hit her smartly on the top of her head.

Bob's cock was, at just that moment, seated rather deeply -- and deeply for a three inch penis is of course a relative term -- in Sara Wood's mouth. At that moment, as well, Bob still had a hold of Sara Wood's hair and he was holding her tightly in place with his grasping fingers, pulling her tight against his right knee, which he had lifted to brace Sara Wood against, to keep her from pulling away. As Bob's hammer blow connected -- driving Sara Wood's head downward as a result -- her lower jaw, now supported against Bob's right knee, was in effect driven up. Unfortunately for Bob, Sara Wood still had all of her teeth, and they were in pretty good shape.

Bob screamed and reached for his groin as he fell back in agony, his groin now on fire. He fell in a thrashing heap, and as he tried to come to grips with what had happened he reached for his groin, felt the bloody stump of his cock, and brought his hands to his face. Bob's ensuing scream was reportedly heard five blocks away, and over city-traffic, at that. Bob tossed and twisted on the grimy asphalt; unfortunately Bob was losing a lot of blood just then, and his gyrations slowed to a fetal crawl as shock set in.

Sara Wood had, at the time Bob dropped, fallen to the ground under the impact of his clutched fist, fallen in a completely unconscious pile of ragged disarray. There was now, in fact, a large raw patch on the side of her head where a substantial handful of hair had been pulled out -- when Bob's penis had come into full contact with Sara Wood's teeth. Bob's penis was, by the way, lodged under Sara Wood's tongue. The only visible evidence of this was the small trickle of blood that leaked out of the corner of her mouth down onto the grimy asphalt of the potholed alley.

In due course an ambulance arrived, and a squad car from the police department was not far behind. Bob was stabilized by the fire department's paramedics; firemen who responded with the paramedics searched they alley and the nearby garbage cans and potholes for the remnants of Bob's penis. The street-waif had been ignored by the medics as just another piece of garbage; they had concentrated their attentions on the man who was bleeding profusely, and who was now, in fact, in very serious condition.

The first police officer on the scene was Paul Edward McCarley, a twenty one year veteran of the department. McCarley's glacial demeanor stood in stark contradiction to his open, friendly face; his slow movements and quick eyes belied careful observations, endlessly analytical observations. He was the first official to move to Sara Wood's side, to see the blood and the raw patch on the side of her head. He looked across at the man on the ground and saw hair twisted in his hands. He felt inside her pockets, found a grimy, sweat-soaked five dollar bill inside, and shook his head knowingly. He felt a twisting churn in his stomach as he took a silver Cross pen out of his shirt pocket, and pried open her mouth.

"Get me some saline and a baggie...I got the penis right here," McCarley said quietly. A couple of firemen came over, and of course these firemen all had something quick and clever to say about the penis in the young girl's mouth. McCarley just grimaced as he put on his latex crime scene gloves, pried open the little mouth, and swept the penis clear of the girls mouth with his gloved finger.

An ammonia stick was produced and cracked open, waved under the girls nose. She stirred, her eyes fluttered, and she sat up in startled confusion. She looked around -- wildly, then coughed and wretched when she recognized the taste of blood in her mouth. She sat holding her knees to her chest, breathing in shallow fear -- because she wasn't in the shadows just then. Then, as Sara Wood regained awareness of her surroundings, the first thing she noticed was, and this was a very dangerous thing in Sara Wood's world, a police officer kneeling beside her. It didn't matter that this man was speaking gently to her, holding her shoulder with kind, steadying hands. What Sara Wood saw was a navy blue uniform, a badge, a black leather belt, a holster, a gun, a nightstick and radio, and most dangerous of all, handcuffs. She saw a system that could hurt her, had ignored her, and here was a man in uniform that represented a system. A system that had always been manifestly unjust to her, even as it's adherents swore to uphold justice.

The policeman asked what her name was, where she lived. He wanted to know what had happened. She was non-responsive, a deaf-mute, a shadow-girl. She didn't exist; she knew that this man would know that one simple fact of her life better than anyone else in this alley. He told her he didn't want to take her to jail, that he thought he knew what had happened. If he guessed right, would she tell him he was right, he asked gently. He talked to her, told her what he thought had happened, told her about her missing hair, why her head hurt, what the taste in her mouth was -- where that bloody taste had come from.

Sara Wood turned away from the man in the uniform and wretched, would have vomited all her stomach held but for the simple fact her stomach was empty. She didn't even have what little nourishment there would have been in Bob's cum. She lay on the earth and felt the world spinning beyond reach. She lay on her side and drew her knees up to her chest and cried like a baby, cried like the baby she had never had the chance to be.

+++++

June 14th

Ed McCarley sat in his squad car writing a police report on his battered aluminum clipboard, listened to calls on the car's radio -- to respond if anyone needed back-up -- and checked his watch. Ten minutes until he could check out for lunch, so he turned his attention to the report, wanting to finish it now in case calls backed up later in the afternoon.

"Hey there!" A girl's voice, out of the blue.

Lost in paperwork -- a rookie's mistake -- Ed McCarley jumped in his seat. His head jerked to the left, quickly assessing his surroundings, analyzing threats as he reached for his holster. What he saw was a girl, one that looked like a ghost from one of those concentration camp survivor photos. He looked in her eyes and it took a moment or two -- but he recognized her. Her eyes.

"Sara Wood, right?" he said

"Yeah. Howya doing?"

"Good," he said as he scanned her, gauging the threat. "What's going on with you?"

"Nothin' much," she said. "Actually, I just wanted to thank you for what you said to those D.A. people. They told me if you hadn't done your job right I'd be spending a long time in jail."

Ed McCarley looked down; he never knew how to take a compliment, or even a simple expression of gratitude. He just nodded.

The girl took his silence as rejection, stepped back, and started for the nearest shadow.

"So," Ed McCarley asked, "how are you doing?"

She stopped. Something in his voice. "Oh, you know."

All Ed McCarley had to do was look at this girl to know how she was doing. "Hey, I'm going to check out for lunch in a minute. Care to join me?" He could see the conflict roll across her face. Trust. Fear. Trust. Fear.

"Yeah, I guess," she said.

He thought he could see her salivating. He picked up the microphone hanging from the side of the squad car's radio. "2141, 25 code baker kilo 114" In that jargon, he checked out for lunch at the Burger King in his district: southwest. He rolled up the window, got out of the car and locked the door. "O.K., let's go!" he said with forced enthusiasm.

Inside he ordered, and asked her what she wanted.

"Guess a glass of water," she said, looking down at her shoes.

"Sara, I'm buying. What'll it be? Come on, sky's the limit!" Sara Wood ordered two Whoppers with cheese, a large order of fries, a large Coke -- and a small chocolate shake. The girl behind the counter repeated the order, called it out over the system and shook her head. They got a table and waited for the order to be called, and McCarley carried it back to the table when the surly girl slid it to him over the counter.

Ed McCarley sat back and watched the show as Sara Wood tore into the food. It was almost painful to watch, and he was sure that, as shrunken down as her belly was it would be very painful to see in an hour or two. He didn't say a word, didn't want to interrupt Sara Wood as she piled the food down, which took about three minutes. "Still hungry?" he asked.

Sara Wood made a laughing noise that came out her nose, her mouth was so full of food. She nodded her head and got out, "Double Whopper?"

"Comin' right up." He walked up to the counter and placed the order. He waited until surly-face slid it over to him, then took it back to Sara Wood. He put it on the table in front of her and smiled. "Well, bottoms-up!" he said, and only then did he start on his grilled chicken sandwich, and he sipped his iced tea while he looked at Sara Wood's face -- as if for the first time -- and as he did he flinched. As he looked at the pale blue eyes, the weathered skin and the scabs on her shoulders, he recognized something lost and even lovable in her abandoned, forsaken eyes. Whatever that something was, the feeling tore at his sense of humanity.

'Fuck, I'm getting old,' he thought. "So, filling up?" he said, forcing another smile.

Her mouth full, she nodded, managed to say, "Yeah, this is really good!"

He smiled at her. "Alright!" he replied.

After they had both finished eating, she asked him where he worked, and he told her at Central Division, and gave her one of his cards. "You can call me at the station if you need me; if I'm not in they'll know how to get in touch with me." he said. 'Now just why the hell did I do that,' he thought.

Sara Wood took his card as if someone had just given her a burning stick of dynamite, or a one pound bar of gold. The conflict she felt was instant and extreme. She looked at the card intently for a moment, then stuck it in her pants.

The radio on Ed McCarley's belt came to life: "2141." He slipped the radio free of it's holster and brought it to his mouth. "2141, go ahead."

"2141. 17B Main and Oaklawn, possible fatalities."

"2141, 10/4," he said into the radio, and he turned to Sara Wood: "Sorry, gotta go. Really. If you need me, call me!" And he was gone, trotting out the door.

She watched him as he got into the car; the red and blue lights turned on, then he pulled out into traffic as the siren came on. She watched his car as it sped away, went to the window and watched the blue and red lights until they disappeared. She didn't realize it just then, but she was standing on her tip-toes, biting her lip, afraid for him.

She was afraid of all the unknown dangers she knew were waiting out there on the streets, waiting out there for Ed McCarley.

+++++

June 21st

It was Friday afternoon, and Sara Wood looked across the street at the Central Division sub-station, still standing in the shadows. She had been hiding there, waiting, watching until she saw Ed McCarley's car pull into the parking lot, until she had seen him walk across the lot into the station. And still she remained, waiting now to see if Ed McCarley would walk out of the front door. She just wanted to see his face, know he was alright, maybe even talk to him. About twenty minutes later he did walk out, dressed in jeans and a white shirt, wearing sneakers, and he carried an orange canvas gym bag. She looked as he walked to the sidewalk, and wondered where his car was parked. He stopped to talk with a couple of other -- she guessed -- cops, then he crossed the street in front of her and headed down Grant. After two blocks, he turned left on 21st. She followed him, but stayed well behind him, always in the shadows. After a couple more blocks, on a street lined with narrow two-story apartment buildings, he turned out of view at a grey brick apartment building, his retreating form hidden by a wooden fence and a thick row of hedges. She darted forward to catch up, to see which apartment was his, and as she got up to the fence she flew around the corner and ran into -- Ed McCarley!

As she ran into him he caught her in his arms and brought her gently to a stop. "Whoa, there, kiddo," he said. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to follow a cop?"

Sara Wood just stood in Ed McCarley's hands, mute.

A couple of moments passed, his face awash in a befuddled grin as he scanned his surroundings, then he sighed. "Well, c'mon. Let's get you upstairs out of this heat, maybe get you a Coke." He led off toward an apartment house one block over and back towards the station. Sara Wood figured it out right then and there. He knew he was being followed, probably from the time he crossed the street in front of the station.

He walked up one flight of stairs, took out a key and opened the door to Number 7, then walked in. He turned the thermostat on the air conditioner down, way down. He put his gym bag on a table by the door, then went into the kitchen. He poured two Cokes over ice and went back out into the entry. McCarley knew he lived in a modest apartment, but when he looked at Sara's face it looked as though she was gawking at the White House. He walked and handed her the Coke, and right then the smell hit. Pure, rank, unadulterated stink. He looked at her skin and saw that the dirt he had thought was on her skin -- was in her skin -- ground into the pores of her skin. Her hair was greasy. The fabric on the Salvation Army jeans and t-shirt was thin and foul with dirt and body odor. He thought the worst would be the shoes, but he had no intention of finding out. One thing was for sure, he had to get her cleaned up before the neighbors complained! Cleaned up, and maybe out to a shelter.

"Well, sit you down, Sara Wood, and tell me a story!"

She looked at him quizzically; she still hadn't spoken since he'd caught her following him. "What kind of story?" she said.

"Well, maybe your story, Sara. Like maybe what you're doing following me home."

"I was scared. I wanted to see you was O.K."

"What were you afraid of, Sara?"

"Afraid of you gettin' hurt."

"Don't you have any family, or friends?" Sara Wood shook her head. "Well, Sara, how old are you?"

She shrugged her shoulders, shook her head. "Nineteen, I think, maybe twenty. Nobody's sure. Maybe twenty, I guess. "

"Where did you go to school?"

"Didn't go to school."

"Where do you stay?" he asked, not wanting to hear the answer. She just shrugged. "Well, O.K., you got any other clothes?" She shook her head. "When's the last time you took a shower, or a bath?"

"At the jail, when you took me." He remembered now, the case of the missing dick! That's where he knew her from. Street girl, sucking dicks for food money. His stomach turned. "Do I stink?" she asked.

"Well, honey, uh-Sara, you sure do."

"You can call me honey if you want. I like it when you say it."

Ed McCarley looked down at the carpet, embarrassed.

"It makes me feel like you ain't gonna hurt me." McCarley looked away, hurting inside for this poor human being. When he looked at her again he wanted to cry.

"Well, O.K. then. Let's get you cleaned up" He stood and took her Coke into the kitchen. She followed him like a puppy, almost thoughtless devotion, he thought, maybe more like a child. He felt intensely uncomfortable as he went into the apartment's only bathroom and turned on the shower in the bathtub, and he adjusted the water to warm. "Alright, Sara, you come on in and get cleaned up. There's soap and shampoo in the shower. You take your clothes off and put them in that hamper," he said, pointing at the white plastic basket next to the sink. "I might have something to fit you in my kids' room."

"You got kids?"

"Yeah, well, they live with their mother up in Oregon. I see 'em twice a year now, but I have some of their stuff here; I'll bet I can find something for you to wear. Now come on and get yourself cleaned up."