A Part of the Job
Hal Stuart sat in the dark, silently brooding, glaring at a dull street lamp through his bug splattered windshield.  Rage boiled beneath his skin as his mind replayed the past few hours of the night:
He had just come in from patrol and was expecting to come home to a nice leftover meal, a child in bed, and a beautiful wife.  His fingers wrapped around the cold door knob, and he felt wet screams claw at his ears.  At that moment Hal knew this night would not be the night he was hoping for, but one of the more common nights, ending with an empty stomach and an empty soul. 
The door cracked open, and Hal stepped inside.  He unbuckled his equipment belt and laid it on the table next to the door, awaiting his return.  Hal walked down the hallway, and the screams grew louder and louder, enveloping him.
“Where have you been?! You should have been home an hour ago!”  Rachel spat, storming form their daughter’s room, the cries fading behind her.  Hal began to justify himself but Rachel cut him off, “Your daughter will not eat or bathe or get in her bed without a screaming match, and her lazy father can’t even come home when he promised he would!”
Hal’s jaw tightened as he dug his nails into his palms, ‘If she would just let me get a word in, maybe this won’t happen all over again.’  Once again he opened his mouth to explain himself, but Rachel was faster, “I don’t even know where the hell you’ve been all night!  How am I supposed to trust you anymore?!  You’ve probably been off at some motel with that slut Carole, blowing off your own family.”
That sent Hal over the edge.  How could she accuse him of cheating? Of turning his back on this family?  After everything he goes through every day and everything he tries to do for her. Before she had a chance to continue her onslaught and before he could stop himself, there was impact.
He had come back to his senses to see his wife on the floor, a whelp rising on her right cheek and to hear his daughter’s wailing return to the otherwise silent house.  Hal turned on his heels and stormed out the door, snatching his equipment belt on the way out, gun gleaming in its holster.  He climbed back into his police car and peeled out of his driveway, turning on the radio to drown out the screams rattling his mind.  He didn’t stop driving until he reached his favorite spot to set up a speed trap, right on the corner of North Main and West Front in downtown Hattiesburg, his patrol car slightly hidden by an oversized dumpster.  The back of his right hand began to pulse as he recalled the feeling of Rachel’s skin when he slapped her.  In hopes of burning the images from his brain, he continued to flare into the light of the street lamp directly in front of him.  A bead of sweat eased down the side of his face, and his muscles began to contract as the bitter cold set in.  Eventually, he looked away from the lap and became mesmerized by the blue splotches across his vision, until his mind slowly wandered back to what had just happened.  He reached for the volume knob and twisted it until the music became a whisper to his senses, lightly brushing his consciousness.  There he began trying to sort his thoughts. 
‘Why can’t I keep this from happening anymore?’ he thought.  ‘It’s all her fault!  I tried to stop, but she has never once tried to see my side of things, why I’m so stressed out all the time.  She just keeps on and on and on until I can’t control myself, like she wants me to slap her senseless.’  Then an unfamiliar sense of understanding blossomed in the back of his mind, and he latched on to this miniscule sign of justification for the pain he inflicted.  ‘That must be it!  She wants me to hit her!  She must get some sick sort of satisfaction from seeing me lose control… Well, I’ll show her losing control.’
He reached under his passenger seat and curled his fingers around his icy flask.  He always kept this large container hidden in the car, it was the biggest one he could find, and he bought it in hopes of being able to make it last long periods of time, but tonight, he had no intentions of making it last.  He swallowed the contents of the flask fast but felt the effects of it even faster.  His vision and thoughts began to blur together as he tried to focus on the street lamp again, but for the second time that night, he felt himself losing control.
It all happened so fast.  A figure stepped under the street lamp, hood up.  It startled Hal, and he fumbled for his keys to crank the car.  He finally ignited the engine and bolted the car out in front of the strolling figure, screeching to a stop inches from hitting the figure.  Hal rolled down his window and yelled, “Aye! Wudder you dooin’ out here this late?!” his south Mississippi accent strangling the words as drifted over his tongue.
The figure slid its hands into its pockets, frozen in fear, but Hal took this display as an act of defiance.  Thrusting open his door and clambering out of the vehicle he growled, “Take off yer damn hood and lemme see a face!”
The hood fell back to reveal a handsome young black man, skin of caramel and a face carved of precious stone.  Hal stumbled forward, drawn to this man’s bright golden-tinted irises.  The man took a shaky step backwards, the foul stench of alcohol and violence brushing his nostrils.  Hal picked up on the man’s apprehension and attempted to focus on the situation at hand through the fog of his mind.  He took it in – a black man, walking alone late at night with a hood shielding his face.  Disregarding the fact that it was the middle of January, his mind slowly came to the cloudy realization that this man was up to no good.  He heard ever racial stereotype he’d learned growing up echoing through his skull – ideas, accusations, and awful jokes that he had locked away somewhere deep in the darkest corner of his brain.  Things that he had promised not to allow influence his own child were now taking him over, and he was afraid – afraid for his life.
“Please officer, I don’t want any trouble,” the black man said, raising his hands to show submission. 
“That’s what they all say,” Hal whispered, sliding his pistol from its holster, face steel but inside exploding in terror. 
Hal pointed the gun straight ahead, his arms strangely stable considering his unstable state of mind.  The black man squeezed his eyes shut and whimpered a barely audible, “please”.
Hal pulled the trigger.