Eyes of the beast

The sun drawing them out; the rats, the roaches, the beasts of humanity. I saw them, looking at me, judging me for judging them, becoming enemies on sight for my costume masquerading me as an image of authority. I saw two young beasts looking for prey, sizing me up, looking for a gun at my waste, searching my eyes for fear. I had none, and I greeted them like human beings but I knew, and they knew I knew, and I pondered this cold earth as I watched them from a distance. It was the look in their eyes, cold, death ensuing, and violent. The Vietnamese here are the victims and they never call the police, they fear retaliation, so much so that they let the crimes slide like a silent rape, they become pregnant with fear and raise the child up as their own so that future generations will inherit this fear. They tell me, the unarmed one, so I can call the police and become the next target. But those eyes, looking at my life like a bloody stake, filled me with rage. They want my life, of trash and defeat, a life I wonder about throwing away each day, they want to take it and devour it in the alley, biting at each other's throat for the biggest take. 

"But not my life God damn you!"

My life is mine to throw away, not yours to take. When I die it will be on my own terms, and I thought of all those fortunate ones with things to lose, with people that love them and lives that matter, and I felt a fire burning, a rage seething through my fabrics out into the air, through my badge sewed to my chest, and I became aware of my own depravity, my own desperation, I realized I was a beast myself, walking the earth like a sad and weak wolf with dull claws and fangs who'd forgotten who he was, and the young beasts saw me as ripe meat. But my claws were there, and my heart's been trained to be cold, like theirs, except I have no pack, I have loyalty to no one, and will devour any man that threaten my miserable existence. I didn't know I valued my life as such, not until I looked into the eyes of a beast.