Safe Harbor - 1

Bobby aka ‘Prizm’ peered over the edge of the roof again, pulling his head back quickly. When he took another cautious look he thanked his lucky stars he’d decided to sleep on the roof tonight, not in one of the doorways.

Below him in the alley two kids he vaguely knew were being rousted by a pair of cops. He couldn’t see the cops’ faces since the only light came from dim bulbs over the back doors of a couple of shops, but he sure as hell could see what they were doing. One of them had his hand tangled in the girl’s hair, forcing her to her knees in front of him. The other one already had the boy on his knees, light glinting for a second off the hand cuffs on his wrists.

Bobby didn’t have to watch to know what came next. Instead he inched his way to the corner of the roof, searching for the squad car. He knew he probably wouldn’t do anything about it but he still wanted to find out who the bastards were if he could get a number off the car. The problem was there was no squad car in sight. It surprised him as they had to have come in from that end since it was a blind alley.

Resting his back against the parapet, Bobby waited. A few minutes later he heard a muttered oath and the sound of a hand hitting flesh. Taking another surreptitious look Bobby saw the girl was sprawled on the ground, sobbing, the cop standing over her as he zipped up his pants. The other cop finished moments later, pulling out of the boy’s mouth. As he stripped off a condom and put his flaccid cock back in his pants he glanced at his partner, receiving a nod in return.

They pulled the kids to their feet, cuffed the girl, and marched them to the end of the alley. As Bobby watched they opened the door to a dark sedan, shoving the kids into the back seat. Then they got into the front seat and moments later drove off. Bobby tried to get the license number, managing to see the first letter and a number as the car passed under a streetlight.

"D3, D3, D3," he muttered as he made his way back to where his few belongings sat. He took a scrap of paper from his backpack, wrote the information down then shoved it in his pocket.

Now what? For sure I can’t walk into the cop shop and report what I saw. Not with my record.

His ‘record’ included a couple of busts for soliciting and one for having drug and graffiti paraphernalia on his person. He’d spent time in Juvie for the soliciting busts since he hadn’t had the wherewithal to pay the fines. Of course now that he was eighteen his records were sealed but that didn’t mean a damned thing and he knew it. He’d been on the streets since he was fourteen and the cops in the area knew his face and had rousted him often enough even when they had no grounds to pick him up.

So who can I tell, and do I even want to? Yeah it ain’t right what they did, but…

Wrapping his tattered blanket around himself he curled up, using his pack as a pillow. He started up at the dark sky, the few stars partially obliterated by fast moving clouds.

Just don’t rain again. That’d really put a topper on the night.

He finally drifted off, still debating who he could talk to and whether it would even do any good if he did.