… There’s something going on outside, I said, and we both went out the front door and to the edge of the drive way. The cops were crowded around something  or someone just down the block, but a fear kept us from straying past our own driveway even on to the sidewalk.  In your own driveway curiosity is a right, bought and paid for, but an officer saw us and gave us a stern look and took one step in our direction that sent us scurrying   -rights be damned- back into the safety of inside. We went straight  to the office where we could see the scene pretty well through a high window but we needed to stand on our toes.  Our view was some what obscured by a tree. I opened one of the windows so at least we could  hear.

You fucking bitch!
Hey! if you yell at her again then our whole attitude here is going to change! You get me?
I love you!  He moaned without irony

And then they walked him away from the corner and made him sit down in the neighbors drive way. He was close to us now, the whole scene only twenty feet away.  One corner of the window had the better view and Sarah Jane and I traded off standing in the sweet spot, and the one always whispered commentary to the other.

They have a man sitting on the ground now.
Really?
What kind of man?
It’s hard to say.

About ten feet  away from the man a cop was going through clothes in a trash bag.  The cop wore rubber gloves and took each garment out carefully, inspected  it  thoroughly and then tossed it to the ground.  The man watched and then after a while he hugged his knees into his chest and put his head down.

The switching off  was getting old and their seemed to be a lull in the action, so we took time away from the scene and together we moved the desk that was in the way  so we could both see if we crammed our faces together into the corner of the window.

Shit! Something had gone on in our absence, and  I felt foolish for ever having let my attention wander. An officer was holding up a sweatshirt and after a moment the man took it and put it on.

Maybe, at the time of the crime the criminal was wearing a hoodie, and they found it in his stuff and  they want to see if it fits him, you know to see if he’s their guy.
Like Cinderella.
Yeah, only instead of a virgin girl who went to a ball that outclassed her, he’s a criminal just after having committed a terrible crime.

The Perp again sat on the ground hugging his knees, now wearing a sweatshirt.

Maybe he was cold and he complained so they gave him one of his own hoodies to wear.
Maybe.

The cops shuttled back and fourth from the corner where it seemed that they were talking to someone else, maybe the victim, or another perp, an accomplice  or the woman from earlier  the one both scorned and loved.

By and by, all the cops came to the neighbor’s driveway and they stood in a circle around the man. Eight of them, and they stood mostly fists on hips, legs spread slightly, arms akimbo and for a moment it looked as if they were getting ready to do a Rodney King on the man.

Tomorrow… how it all ended.