"I don't like it." Said one cop to another.
"Don't like what?"
"That attitude. . . . The people behind these bars are criminals or expected of being such. But that talking down attitude our new guy used on
that mental kidnapper? I just don't like it. I'm not saying these people would appreciate being spoken to politely or that it would make that big
a difference in how they behave. Or even how much or little they even -deserve- being treated with manners. But seriously, that putting down,
superior attitude? I seriously just don't like it. It doesn't matter if it's someone higher rank you, someone behind the protection of a desk,
someone you took the last donut from without knowing and they hold out the keys from the washroom from you just so they can tell you a
fifteen minutes speech about sharing pastries or the man giving you a ticket because you broke the traffic laws and endangered the lives of
others . . . that superior attitude?"
"I get it. You really don't like it. Taking it or GIVING it."
"Damn straight. It just tastes way too much like the same flavor of how bullies in the schoolyard acted around me when I was at their mercy
and they knew there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it . . . I take back what I said before, the guy's not pscyho. The guy was a damn
IDIOT for not seeing how the kid he had spent a life time looking for was doing before playing the white knight and rescuing her from a castle
she didn't even need rescuing from. Though to be frank, I can't blame him if Jenkins WAS that bad before she pulled her life together. Mom
told me stories about her own mother and . . . they weren't pleasant when Grandma got drunk. Mother still has the scars."
"Well Jenkins clearly did pull her life together. Look at her now. I didn't know she had problems back in the day."
"Me neither. Which is kinda the point. Which is why I'm doing the polite thing and NOT asking for details about that."
++++++++
'Damn cops.' Thought the man in his cell, 'They're all alike. They're either robots who don't remember the laws are there to protect innocent
people and not harm them, or are like that stupid-tiger man who threw away his humanity like a change of clothes and is just a sadistic bully
who I bet just joined the force so he could bully whoever he wanted.'
+++++++++
Much much later, I had no idea that on the day Mr. York died, the first thing I'd find at the market was an teenage humanoid cat sipping on a
soda on her break wearing a nametag that was a female version of a male name I recognized from the store. Or that she'd be wearing the
store blouse and a swim suit bikini lower half and no shoes and socks. Or how when I pried in she said she had cleared with her manager that
since she was wearing what was required in the employees manual, and she wasn't technically breaking any public decency laws, and the store
didn't have a 'no shoes no service' policy, she wasn't breaking policy. And THEN I found out that the minimum age for the serum was being
passed now on a state by state basis. As for the man to woman animal thing, apparently her parents supported her on that.