19160720 13:33:33

CA-N-7900

19160720 13:33:33

William Humeski felt that he was having one of the best days of the summer. The church's fishing excursion was a success for him, as he was able to get three large pikes on the day; the first of the three he was able to sell off to another boy for twenty cents, and the other two he could bring home to have for dinner. In the course of the morning, the two dimes seemed to burn their way through his pants pockets and weld themselves into his thighs. The relief came when he was able to go to the corner drug store and buy a few chocolate bars, which he made sure to tightly wrap separately so that they wouldn't smell too much like the fish when he put them together in the paper bag. A wide smile of satisfaction beamed from his face like the hot summer sun which blazed all around the buildings and street in his view. William was walking up to 80th and about to turn the corner to go west when he was startled by the sound of shattered glass.
He instinctively looked towards the street in the assumption that it was a car collision of some kind, but he soon saw the sun reflect in shards of glass as they rained down from the air above the sidewalk. Before he could blink and comprehend what he was looking at, he watched the man fall from the shattered window on the second floor and land upon his back with a forceful audible slap upon the pavement. William was transfixed and couldn't keep his eyes away from the man who slowly began to writhe upon the ground after being immobile for a moment after the impact. Suddenly, the first floor door to the building with the broken window flew open and another man dashed out of it; he then lept onto the fallen man and struck him repeatedly in the face with his fist.
"You gonna come back here now with your shit, asshole! You gonna do that now!" Exeter screamed the question loudly enough to make his voice echo over the few cars which were on the street.
William turned in place and looked around the entire city block in disbelief that he was bearing witness to this sequence of events. When he looked back again to the entrance of the corner drug store, he saw a policeman standing and watching the confrontation as well. What William found peculiar is that the policeman watched this without an expression of shock; his eyes were halfway open and he lazily chewed something in his mouth while he spectated the savage beating. William didn't understand what was happening. Why did this policeman just watch all of this as if it was normal? Wasn't he supposed to do something to stop this?
"This one is ours! You'll get worse than this if I see your nasty shit face here again!" After standing up to tower over the man and scream this at him, Exeter kicked at the man, which caused him to gently roll to the side and audibly wallow in pain.
He couldn't help but to speak to the policeman now.
"Aren't you supposed to do something?"
Without glancing towards William, the policeman spoke out.
"You OK there?"
"What?" Exeter snapped his attention away from the man to the officer in a glare, then quickly changed his countenance when he recognized who was speaking to him. "Oh, uh, hey John. Yeah I'm fine. I'm fine. This guy just needed a reminder. You all right?"
"Ayup."
"Good."
At that point, both men turned their backs to each other and walked in opposite directions. The injured man slowly writhed his body upon the ground until he was able to support his back against the curb, then held his body upright in that position so that he could breathe better.
William remained frozen in place for several minutes with his bag of fish and chocolate held loosely at his side. He tried and tried again, but he could not understand what he had just seen.