Short Story: The Acid Death of A True Cop

[pennywise]

ok, this is part 1. I was gonna write the whole thing and then post it but i forgot how much work that is. So, here is the first half, ending at a reasonable turning point in the plot I think. It's pretty rough, I have made no edits, so feel free to critique. I also made the text a little bigger because it gets hard to read all those tiny words.

The Acid Death of A True Cop​

By pennywise​

Robert Kelly was a cop. He was other things too, but he was a cop first and foremost. He kept his hair cut high and tight. Everything about Kelly was tight, from the muscles of his face to his tie and starched shirt collar to the way he snapped the cuffs on a hype. He liked to lock people up, to put them in chains and barred rooms. It was the only time he felt like smiling, and the grin would shatter his stony face like a brutal slash. If you were locked up by Kelly and you saw that grin you would know that he hated you. He hated what you were, and he probably would have killed you if he could. It was simple for Kelly. He didn’t hate you because you used drugs or because he had some sense of a higher justice, he didn’t even have some vague paternalistic notion that he might be helping you somehow by tossing you into a cell. Kelly hated you because you broke the law, and he was on the other side of it. That gave him power. That was what got Kelly off: the power. By reducing you to some subhuman bit of filth, Kelly could put you on the ground, put the cuffs on you, pound the shit out of you, and throw you into bondage. He could hurt you, and that’s what he wanted. Kelly liked to hurt people. He loved the law, because the law let him do it. He didn’t give a shit what the law said, he would have locked you up if it was illegal to have brown hair or to walk and chew gum at the same time or to be Jewish. Once you were on the wrong side of the law, you became his prey, his to hunt and use as he saw fit to fulfill his sadistic urge. It didn’t even bother Kelly that he often broke the law when dealing with lawbreakers. He was a cop. He was the law. It didn’t matter who filed complaints or how many there were, because Kelly had no problem lying in court. The way he saw it, he was dealing with scum, so no one had the power to call him a liar.

Kelly had killed people before. Some were clean shootings, some were just because he could get away with it. He raped a girl once too, holding the gun to her head and afterwards telling her he would come back and kill her if she ever told anyone about it. He had skeletons, but he knew how to work the system because he was the system. He had the badge. They were just worthless perps. Kelly worked in the Narcotics division. He liked being a Narc, because it was always so easy to find prey. Just pull over any filthy longhairs and toss the car, or throw a dirty nigger up against the wall and dip into his pockets. He could get arrests almost on a whim. He was known and feared by all the players because they knew that Bob Kelly didn’t follow the rules, and he was an evil son of a bitch. Kelly knew it and it pleased him greatly.

Kelly was currently working a sting on a loose confederation of chemists and dealers involved in the synthesis and distribution of various psychedelic drugs in the nomadic hippy world of concert followers. He got his information from some kid who he arrested for pot and then flipped after taking him to an abandoned lot and beating him until he gave up whatever he knew. Kelly had scored with that one. The kid was skinny, white, and not used to having the shit kicked out of him by sociopaths with badges. And he knew things; big things that would bring big arrests. He strung the kid along with threats, coercion, and violence. The deal that Kelly cut with the kid was that once the kid gave up the time and place where a major synth was going on, Kelly would leave him alone. Kelly had been smiling inwardly when he made this deal, because he knew it would get him a major bust, and he had no intention of letting the kid go as a CI. In fact, he planned to charge him as a co-conspirator. The kid was going down with the rest of them, and Kelly thought about putting out the word into the prisons that the kid was a snitch. Snitch’s got hurt in prison, and Kelly wanted the kid hurt. The only downfall was that the kid might not know that it was Kelly who made it happen.

Scared and unaware of his impending doom, the kid made good on the deal. They would be finishing a synth of a large batch of LSD right in time for the start of a tour that would begin with a weekend show by one of the major longhair acts. They planned to distribute the doses to the concertgoers in the parking lot and grassy areas around the venue, and then follow the band and bring their product with them to sell in the towns along the tour route. They worked out of an RV so they could pack up their lab and bring it with them when they followed the band. The kid gave up everything. Kelly knew where the RV would be parked at what time, who would be in it, and what contraband they would have on them. Probable cause wasn’t a problem because Kelly knew he could make that up on a whim and sell it to a judge or even a jury if he needed to. He was set.

Kelly was not a complicated man. Moralism, empathy, or any doubt about his place in the universe was a foreign thing to him. To Kelly, he was the universe. The heavenly bodies waxed and waned to enrich his avarice, his power, his vanity at the strength he possessed and the glee that he felt when his power was impressed upon others under the guise of justice. When they became subject to him, his power became even more real, more concrete, and his narcissism grew, feeding on itself and pushing him to objectify others to solidify it without end. Kelly was an un-assailed ego, his consciousness never pushed beyond its stark and inflexible borders that fed the machinery of his growing cruelty. It was a consciousness narrowed to the pinpoint of a monstrous egoism.

It was this essential fact about Kelly that must be understood if the series of events that was to unfold is to be understood. It is perhaps something a bit like fate when the course of a life takes a turn that was dictated by the core being of the subject of the event. It is when a thing like this happens that one glimpses the divine comedy and suspects that perhaps the universe has a sense of humor after all.

The night came. Kelly moved through the crowd outside the venue, not trying very hard to blend in. He didn’t need to, as he saw it. He did not intend to trick anyone, but rather simply kick down a door and take what was his with a maximum of violence. Any ruse, therefore, was unnecessary. Not that it would make any difference, he thought. Most of the crowd was too intoxicated to notice his dark presence. They disgusted him. Their weakness, their vulnerability made them deserving of his disgust, his hatred. They could not stand against him.

The air was filled with the pungent aromas patchouli and the sour stink of unwashed flesh. The sun hung low beyond the horizon, creating a soft sunset brilliance of pink and orange hues which gave way to the twinkling starlight of early twilight. The sweet smell of burning cannabis wafted by his nose. A man not far off strummed his guitar and sang a song which Kelly did not know:

When I awoke, the dire wolf, six hundred pounds of sin,
Was grinning at my window, all I said was come on in.
Dont murder me, I beg of you, dont murder me. Please, dont murder me.

A man approached Kelly, asking him if he wanted to “burn.” Kelly gave the man a confused look, at which the man gestured to a rolled paper in his hand and held it out to Kelly. More marijuana, Kelly realized, noticing the aromatic green substance protruding from end of the rolled paper.

“Sure, fuckface,” said Kelly with a malevolent grin.

The man cocked his head quizzically as Kelly swung his coiled fist up and into the mans’ throat. He still looked confused as he fell, then panic took over as he rolled on the ground, clutching his throat and struggling for breath. Kelly watched this detachedly, then kicked the man hard in the spine as he rolled on the ground. He smiled slightly as he did this. Most of the crowd surrounding the incident had stopped and was watching Kelly fearfully. Some hurried away while others seemed frozen in place as if in shock at the sudden violence. The man with the guitar had not noticed and continued to play and sing:

Trouble with you is the trouble with me,
Got two good eyes but you still don’t see.
Come round the bend, you know its the end,
The fireman screams and the engine just gleams...

Satisfied with this turn of events, Kelly adjusted his tie and moved down the line of revelers towards the lighted windows of the R/V with several thousand hits of LSD waiting inside. He reached inside his jacket, searching for the cold steel of his gun as he approached the door.

 

[stonedsublime]

awesome read man, hope you continue!

 

[pennywise]

oh I already have. thanks

 

[MDPVagrant]

Purty good, this cop sounds very evil...

 

[stonedsublime]

come on with chapter 2

 

[pennywise]

Kelly leveled his gun and swung his heavy boot into the door. It gave way with only one kick, shards of cheap plastic flying as Kelly hurled himself through the doorway yelling “FREEZE! POLICE!!” Two people stood frozen in the center of the room. A disheveled man with long hair and several days growth of a beard on his face held a large vat filled with a clear liquid in his hands. To his right was a young woman, dreadlocked and slim, one strap of her dress hanging off her shoulder, exposing her breast. The dopers and Kelly both paused a beat, silent, staring at one another. Kelly’s eyes moved to the exposed breast of the girl. It was a fatal mistake. Realizing the cops’ distraction, the man hurled the vat of liquid at Kelly, hitting him squarely in the face. Kelly yet out a short yell, staggering back in shock at the blow, his trigger finger squeezing reactively, sending a shot tearing through the ceiling with a blistering report. The liquid soaked Kelly. It burnt his eyes and some of it got in his mouth. It tasted bitter and slightly metallic. The man rushed past him out the open door.

It took Kelly only a moment to collect himself before giving chase. Even though he was uninjured, rage boiled inside him at the perp who had thrown the vat. He meant to kill him if he could. The man had gotten a good lead, but Kelly could still see him moving through the crowd at the end of the thoroughfare that ran along the edge of the shantytown that had formed around the concert venue. Running down the grassy strip, Kelly felt an odd sensation move through his body. It was like a rush of cold energy, similar but distinctly different from the adrenaline he felt when he was in action. It was like cold fingers tracing lightly over his skin, a cool caress starting at the back of the neck and vibrating in waves throughout his body. Many of the concertgoers would have recognized it as the body load that sometimes appears during the come-up of an acid trip. Although he didn’t know it, Kelly had been soaked with better than a quart of pure LSD-25. It had absorbed through his skin, his eyes, his stomach, and it was working its way into his brain like an icy auger.
The crowd had grown thick. Groups passed back and forth across his path, and he pushed them roughly, straining to gain ground in the pursuit. Kelly noticed a slight distortion of his vision as he followed the distant figure of the running man. It was as if things had gained a thin sheen of light that appeared from nowhere and flickered faintly as if from a great distance. Kelly cursed inwardly. The perp must have hit him with some precursor chemical which was now irritating his eyes, he thought. But as he moved through the churning crowd it became worse. Light seemed to come from everywhere, flashing blue and green off the faces in the crowd like the flashing reflection of discolored police lights. Kelly continued to chase the dwindling outline of the man, dropping behind as he grew increasingly disoriented. The lights continued to intensify. Along the horizon line behind which the sun had set, a crimson aurora now danced and pulsed like a beating heart. Strangely, Kelly felt as if he could feel the flux of the lights’ energy beating in time with his heart in his chest. He stopped, his breath heavy not from the exertion of the chase but rather from a rising sense of crippling anxiety. Something was wrong.

The sounds around him began to have a strange echoing electronic quality, as if they were being filtered through a reverberating PA system. He could faintly hear a strange kind of off-time music overlaid by voices chanting some incantation that he could not discern. He stood quite still, trying to place its source. It seemed like it was coming from his own head. Kelly turned his concentration inward, having now almost totally forgotten the chase he had begun. Listening intently to the sounds which seemed to emanate from some forgotten corner of his mind, a voice rose from the din. “Robert…” it said in a harsh whisper. Kelly gave a visible start. The voice sounded like it was being broadcast directly into his brain by some powerful transmitter. “Robert…” it continued, “We are Legion, Robert.”

“No,” said Kelly. He spoke this aloud. “No, you aren’t real.” His chin dropped and he put his hands to his temples as if by clutching his head he could wring the voices like water from a sponge. He began to shake.

Nearby, a young girl, dressed in the loose, flowing clothing popular among the crowd drawn by the concert scene, noticed the apparently distressed man standing alone with his hands wrapped around his head. He looked oddly out of place, dressed in slacks and a sports coat, older, with a clipped militant look and bearing. Despite the incongruity of this figure in their current setting, the girl recognized the anguished look on the mans face. It looked like he was having a bad reaction to some drug, maybe a bad trip.
Concerned for the man, the girl walked over to him and laid a hand on his arm. “Are you alright?” she asked. Feeling the girls hand on his arm, Kelly looked up into her face. It was a girl, but something was wrong with her face. Her skin, filled with the mysterious lost light that illuminated his twisted perception, was waxen, and had patches of what appeared to be reptilian scales, dry and flaking like the shedding skin of a snake. As Kelly struggled to comprehend what he was seeing, the strange visual distortions that had heretofore only complimented his normal perception of the world shifted, blossoming into a horrible new reality that he had never seen in waking life. The girls face underwent a ghastly transformation. The skin rotted like a time-lapse film, years of decomposition occurring in an instant. The flesh became sallow, stretching and melting from the face, turning to dust in some places and blowing away as if in a strong wind. The eyes rolled out of the sockets and down the face, oozing and leaving a mucous trail. The figure reached up with a bony hand and plucked an eyeball from its bloody cheek, holding it out to Kelly as if on display. As Kelly stared at the eye, and as the eye stared deadly back at him, the girls utterance was to Kelly’s ears not a concerned inquiry, but a bellowing scream that seemed to roar from all levels of the auditory spectrum, wavering from a rumbling bass to an ear splitting shriek. “TU EST INANE!!!” it screamed in its many voices, fanged teeth gnashing and spraying foul spittle, “AMPLECTOR AB MACHINA!!!” Kelly stepped back from the nightmare voice. It spoke Latin, but Kelly was dully shocked to realize that he could understand it. “You are the void,” it had said, “welcome to the machine!!” The monstrous apparition grinned at him widely, showing rows of razor teeth interlocked in a grisly jagged pattern, gleaming with viscous saliva. Kelly was terrified, perhaps more terrified than he had ever been in his life. Surely the beast meant to kill him, stripping his bones from his flesh and feasting on them raw. It was then that he looked down and saw his gun in his hand, and remembered that he was a cop, that the cold steel in his fist gave him the power to kill as well. He raised the gun and pointed it at the monster.

The girl saw the man look down and realized that he was holding a gun. It’s brushed metal barrel gleamed dully in the diffuse light from the small portable lights and campfires of the surrounding shanty town. “Oh my god,” she screamed, “he’s got a gun!!” The man raised the gun and she was suddenly looking into the dark point of blackness that was the rifled barrel of the pistol. “No, please,” she began to beg, “Please don’t shoot me!! PLEASE DON’T SHOOT ME!! PLEASE DON’T SHOO – “ Her voice was abruptly cut off as Kelly fired, his 0.45 slug smashing into the delicate face. The bullet made a small hole as it entered and exploded out the back of the skull, mushrooming in a fountain of blood, brain matter, and small bits of bone from the face and cranium. Muzzle flare illuminated the murder scene in a stark moment of flashbulb insanity, the girls dead face frozen in cold terror, Kelly standing dazed, unnaturally erect, confused, frightened, a wounded animal that has turned to fight. The girl was dead. Blood flowed steadily, pooling irregularly in the soft lushness of the green summer grass.

Kelly looked at the monster on the ground. It thrashed and writhed, clawing its face and drawing fresh rivulets of blood. Then became still, no less horrible but most certainly dead. Kelly noticed that the monster still had the blond hair of the girl from which it had transformed. Suddenly he became aware that people were looking at him. He could feel their eyes boring into him like nails into his flesh. He looked up to find a sea of gleaming red eyes staring at him as he stood over the body of the monster he had killed. His throat constricted, making him gag. He felt faint. Panic welled up inside him like rising bile. They were all monsters, he realized. The kid had fooled him, drawn him to this unholy place to be slaughtered like a lamb by this mob of otherworldly ghouls. They were everywhere, their red eyes burning in the night like coals. He could smell them, their stink like the reptile house of a zoo. Some clawed and stomped at the ground, raising dust which swirled and circulated in rising eddies created by some convective force that he could not feel. Still the strange light on the horizon pulsed, also redly, and things gleamed with an otherworldly shimmer which originated inwardly. Kelly looked at the ground. Shadows and light seemed to swirl and dance with alternating importance, drawing his attention to them intermittently until it created a morphing effect which gave the terrain a liquid quality, the shadows repeating and multiplying into infinity so that it was impossible to tell where the ground and sky intersected. The voices continued in his head like a Benedictine chant broadcast across the fabric of time, filling him with a certainty that the cosmic glue that held the universe together had broken, shattering the walls between dimensions, creating a tear in reality through which Hell now leaked in a horrible osmosis. Kelly began to scream.

People in the crowd had heard the gunshot and stopped almost as one. They saw the man with the gun standing over the body of a young girl whom he had apparently killed. The man was screaming. Then, almost at once, everyone began to run.

Kelly screamed as the apocalyptic realization which had consumed his mind strained the brittle seams of his sanity, creating currents which the rigid structure of his ego would not long withstand. He couldn’t hear his own screams, was not even aware of his screaming because it came from the primitive center of his psyche, a pit of his darkest fears which writhed like a bundle of snakes and was exposed as the layers of his mind were peeled back like the skin of an onion. Fear and loathing and panic consumed him now, and he saw the demon crowd churning and howling before him. He began to run. He began to fire his gun.

People ran in all directions from the man who had gone insane. He fired wildly and indiscriminately into the crowd. People fell under his hail of bullets. A young mother and her child fell dead with their hands still entwined. A teenaged boy lay lifeless, his legs wildly askew as he dropped mid-stride. An old man had a heart attack. Foam dribbled down his chin. Chaos and death surrounded Kelly as his gun spit shell after shell from the chamber in sizzling arcs of acrid smoke. The barrel belched fire in strobe-like burst of murder most foul as he ran through the fleeing crowd with bulging insane eyes fraught with nightmare visions.

Kelly screamed and wept and breathed ragged breaths of fear as he killed. Monsters everywhere, running with claws bare and shining, smelling of rot, all shapes and sizes. Some looked like obscenely mutated animals, their faces bearing pig snouts and horns which grew randomly from the face and head, waving insectile appendages and running on feet of cloven hooves. Others were humanoid, oozing putrid fluids, their skin and flesh sloughing off the bones, lurching zombie-like and groaning, eyes like black beads. Free-floating forms of flowing lights floated like poltergeists above the crowd, morphing, joining and separating like amoebas, moving inexorably toward Kelly, who fired his gun empty at them, screaming incoherent threats.

What was left of the mind of Robert Kelly knew that the rest of him was fading. All the parts whose sum equaled the truth of the power-mad cop were being stretched thin like taffy by the chemical which hummed in his blood, his ego reduced to dust. He could no longer quite remember who or where he was, reduced to a bundle of reactionary animal impulses, his mind a blank slate. All that existed for him now was the fear. He could be sure of nothing but the fear. His body felt strange to him. It was constricting, imprisoning, his clothes like bonds tied tight to ensnare him. He pulled at his shirt, pants, undergarments. The crowd had receded, leaving bodies in their wake, and Kelly stood alone, naked, shivering. He looked down at his body. It felt like his clothes. A frame, an artificial shell, a prison. He wanted to escape, needed to escape, or the monsters would get him. The fiends would return now that he no longer had the death-dealing instrument, and they would tear him apart, rip open his chest and his skull and eat the soul that was trapped within. He knew there was only one way out. Destroy the body. Free the soul. Let it float off into the night like smoke from a fire. A fire. A fire and a body and a soul. Put the fire on the body and the soul would burn off like smoke. He had to set himself on fire.
There were many campfires in the campground. They burned lowly, unattended, surrounded by the leavings of the deserting crowd. Kelly saw a can of gas next to one of the fires. He walked over to it and poured some on his naked body. Things breathed around him. The fires hummed, sung in low voices like prayers, speaking a siren song. Kelly let his eyes rise to the sky. The stars swarmed and danced and swelled, calling him. Slowly, he stepped into the fire. Flames danced around his feet. Distantly Kelly could feel pain, but it came from a far off and unimportant place. Then with a whoosh and a rush of warm air, the flames bred with the accelerant that covered the naked and shivering figure of the former predator and engulfed him.

Kelly held up his hands and watched them as they burned. He felt nothing. His chest hitched and strained, his body fighting to stay alive, to breath, pulling fire down into his chest and lungs, and he burned from within as well. He watched his hands burning, and again looked to the sky. The stars swirled and pulsed in a great cyclone, planets and galaxies clustering in clouds that spiraled toward the center of the celestial storm. In the center was a great eye, devoid of light, an inky blackness. It stared at Kelly and Kelly stared back, and it was then he knew that the eye of the storm was the great void which existed at the center of all things, an entropy against which all things fought. The hard essence which he had fostered and fed with his cruelty drew him like a lodestone toward the void, each action and thought adding mass which drew him steadily deeper, riding the currents of the impersonal machine of reality. Kelly burned, screaming, and the void laughed as it always does, imprinting the acid death of a true cop on the infinite universal fractal and moving on. And on. And on.

 

[stonedsublime]

Wow that got intense quick.

I knew the cop was going to get dosed.. however I thought this was gonna be a "realizing the error of his ways" type thing.. lol I was wrong. Great writing though! Great short story. Two thumbs up!

 

[pennywise]

Thanks for reading. Glad you liked it.

 

[drew345]

cool story I liked it.

 

[brainslookfunny]

so raw and real
i also didn't expect him to die yet
but i was glad when he did

at the end i kept thinking
oh he didn't really kill anyone this was all just a trip
hah guess not

excellent

 

[New]

That was insane. Just...a pleasure to read.

 

[not_broken_420]

That was great! It surprised me. I thought he would have some great realization and become a good person or something..haha

 

[B9]

I enjoyed that well written.

 

[Max Power]

I'll be the only honest one, I didn't like it at all.

 

[pennywise]

Sorry to bump this too, but I am considering a massive rewrite and maybe submitting it for publication just to see what happens, and I was hoping someone could give me some substantive criticism that I could take into account when editing. For real, all negative comments welcome and wanted.

 

[L2R]

okay, nice idea, but there were some aspect i thought you can do much better.

generally speaking, it reads like a simple druggie's vengeance fantasy, and as such, it does a disservice to users imo. it had no objectivity at all, and the universe portrayed is very 2 dimensional. very black and white.

despite this, you write very well. you're verbiage is clever, your imagery clear, and the (solid) ideas are there.

the idea i really like is not developed much at all. that is the corrupt cop's demon wrestling as a result of an accidental dose. i mean, it's the clear premise but the method you have used, that is using broad stroke, rather than specific instances doesn't "flesh it out" enough in my opinion.

i'd also flesh the protagonist out much, much more. in that he does all of these horrible things, but why? no one does these things just by choice. no one is that evil. there must be an insecurity or event that created that monster.
i reckon once these things are expanded on, then there will be plenty of stuff that can come back around on him during his bad trip.

also, the trip itself is very one sided. bad trips do have times of respite. also, you have missed the opportunity to build upon the horrors and pleasure of time dilution.

smaller notes:
-i don't think a cop as ignorant as that would know what a precurser chemical was, let alone one's effects in someone's eyes.
-no cop would approach such a big bust, with the probability of many people involved on their own (other cops would make an excellent element to his bad trip imo)
-the snitch, a teen busted with some pot, would very much unlikely know about any travelling labs. (some more investigative work to get to the result would help the plot imo)

i particularly really dig:
-the legion reference
-the latin spoken
-the void reference

 

[pennywise]

generally speaking, it reads like a simple druggie's vengeance fantasy, and as such, it does a disservice to users imo. it had no objectivity at all, and the universe portrayed is very 2 dimensional. very black and white.

i'd also flesh the protagonist out much, much more. in that he does all of these horrible things, but why? no one does these things just by choice. no one is that evil. there must be an insecurity or event that created that monster.
i reckon once these things are expanded on, then there will be plenty of stuff that can come back around on him during his bad trip.

I can see where you are coming from, but I sort of disagree. However, I do think that you make a good point, and that this point of criticism is useful, but let me explain why I disagree first.

I understand that the character and the plot do seem sort of "2-dimensional" as you put it, but I think that it is actually representative of the way that things are. While I am a big believer in gray areas, and the idea that there are more than two sides to any issue, I think that cops in general really are two-dimensional in character. They really believe in good vs. evil, that there are "good guys" and "bad guys," and that things are black and white. Moreover, I think that this kind of philosophy is twisted by them, in that they manipulate it to their convenience, so that they are always "the good guys," even when the things they do are reprehensible. I think that they do this because it allows them to be power-hungry bullies while still believing that they are morally right. By casting the people they brutalize and lock up for non-violent crimes such as drugs, or petty victimless crimes, or even innocent people, as "the bad guys," they justify treating them as less-than-human. This is a conclusion that I have reached from my own experience, as well as hearing and reading about the experiences of others, and analyzing the behavior and statements of cops. Thats why I have no problem representing the cop in the story as the monster he is, and why I imply that he got what he deserved. It's also why I had him kill himself. He kills himself because if someone else killed him, it would justify the way cops treat people, where killing or imprisoning someone is ok because "they deserve it because they are the 'bad guy.'" In the end, his death doesn't support that idea because no one kills him for what he has done, he kills himself for his own selfish reasons (he believes he is saving himself).

I do like the criticism, however, because you pointing out that he appears too one-dimensional shows that I haven't done a good job of communicating that he is supposed to appear one dimensional, that his flatness is intentional. I need to find some way to explain that more clearly. I was thinking maybe a conversation with the kid he busts. It would add some dialog and also give me a chance to clear up how the kid knows about the lab (which you point out in the quote below, and I agree was kind of a lazy move on my part)

-the snitch, a teen busted with some pot, would very much unlikely know about any travelling labs. (some more investigative work to get to the result would help the plot imo)

the idea i really like is not developed much at all. that is the corrupt cop's demon wrestling as a result of an accidental dose. i mean, it's the clear premise but the method you have used, that is using broad stroke, rather than specific instances doesn't "flesh it out" enough in my opinion.

I think you are right here. I should explain how the trip affects him on a personal level beyond simply scaring the crap out of him and driving him insane. It would add some depth to the story, and make it less of a hack job where i push the message through bluntly and in only a few lines at the end in a "broad stroke" to use your term.

also, the trip itself is very one sided. bad trips do have times of respite. also, you have missed the opportunity to build upon the horrors and pleasure of time dilution.

I definitely am going to work something in about time dilution. I understand what you mean when you say the trip is one sided, but I don't think it would serve the story much to add any pleasant elements to the trip. I am more concerned with how the trip affects the story than offering a fair and balanced representation of an LSD trip. I know that for a lot of us here at BL, it isn't in our interests to represent drugs as having only negative effects, but I hope you all can let me slide just this once .

-no cop would approach such a big bust, with the probability of many people involved on their own (other cops would make an excellent element to his bad trip imo)

Once again, you help me by pointing out where I need to explain better. I didn't want other cops with him because they would obviously stop his mad rampage too early. But I think I can explain that away by saying he was alone because he really didn't have a warrant and was not following proper procedure in any way, and planned to lie in his report and in court, and as such couldn't have other cops with him.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read my story and make your criticisms, lefty. They were extremely insightful and helpful. This is the kind of discussion is exemplary of what I would like to see more of in words. Thanks for your positive comments as well. I really can't thank you enough.

I think I remember reading in some other thread that you wrote a story as well, so at some point in the near future I am going to respond in kind and read and comment on your story as well.

Anyone else care to share their own comments, on either the story or the criticisms that lefty raised? Pretty please with a cherry on top?

 

[eckofire]

boy that story was intense. it seemed like the trip kicked in for him within like 10 minutes. would this happen with a large dose of acid? or would it still take an hour?

i felt bad for the mother and child that got shot.

 

[L2R]

I understand that the character and the plot do seem sort of "2-dimensional" as you put it, but I think that it is actually representative of the way that things are. While I am a big believer in gray areas, and the idea that there are more than two sides to any issue, I think that cops in general really are two-dimensional in character. They really believe in good vs. evil, that there are "good guys" and "bad guys," and that things are black and white. Moreover, I think that this kind of philosophy is twisted by them, in that they manipulate it to their convenience, so that they are always "the good guys," even when the things they do are reprehensible. I think that they do this because it allows them to be power-hungry bullies while still believing that they are morally right. By casting the people they brutalize and lock up for non-violent crimes such as drugs, or petty victimless crimes, or even innocent people, as "the bad guys," they justify treating them as less-than-human. This is a conclusion that I have reached from my own experience, as well as hearing and reading about the experiences of others, and analyzing the behavior and statements of cops. Thats why I have no problem representing the cop in the story as the monster he is, and why I imply that he got what he deserved.

Aside from our disagreement about the nature and causes of monster cops (which is fine), from a dramatic stand point, your point, i think would be significantly enhanced with at least a little precursers to the results of the bad trip. A dominating parent, sibling or spouse may come into play. This guy has to have a fear, whether it be sock puppets, kittens or god. Now God would be an ideal one, since you already worked in the latin and demonic fate later. Make this fellow God fearing to begin with, and those would make much more sense.

It's also why I had him kill himself. He kills himself because if someone else killed him, it would justify the way cops treat people, where killing or imprisoning someone is ok because "they deserve it because they are the 'bad guy.'" In the end, his death doesn't support that idea because no one kills him for what he has done, he kills himself for his own selfish reasons (he believes he is saving himself).

When i said vengeance fantasy, i meant from an audience's perspective rather than another characters. The current feel, to me at least, is that the reader should enjoy witnessing the horrific fate, relishing every moment. The vengeance lies with the reader, and so while that remains, many of your potential readership, who don't share your seeming hate for the boys in blue, would be put off.

I do like the criticism, however, because you pointing out that he appears too one-dimensional shows that I haven't done a good job of communicating that he is supposed to appear one dimensional, that his flatness is intentional. I need to find some way to explain that more clearly. I was thinking maybe a conversation with the kid he busts. It would add some dialog and also give me a chance to clear up how the kid knows about the lab (which you point out in the quote below, and I agree was kind of a lazy move on my part)

Yeah this could really use some more dialogue. Have some of that read between the lines stuff going on would be sweet bro.

I understand what you mean when you say the trip is one sided, but I don't think it would serve the story much to add any pleasant elements to the trip. I am more concerned with how the trip affects the story than offering a fair and balanced representation of an LSD trip. I know that for a lot of us here at BL, it isn't in our interests to represent drugs as having only negative effects, but I hope you all can let me slide just this once .

No worries. Just consider your target audience.

Once again, you help me by pointing out where I need to explain better. I didn't want other cops with him because they would obviously stop his mad rampage too early. But I think I can explain that away by saying he was alone because he really didn't have a warrant and was not following proper procedure in any way, and planned to lie in his report and in court, and as such couldn't have other cops with him.

I see your dilemma here. You really need a strong reason to have him there alone. Perhaps in his spare time he's a hunting freak. And finding out about this outdoor event and being hyped up by guerilla warfare literature/propaganda, he decides to rambo the hippies. I dunno. Maybe he wants to go to the party in his own undercover mode to bash heads and steal drug cash to teach them a lesson. He can't be there officially alone. He can't make any arrests alone. He can't, as a cop go there and shoot anyone alone. These all weaken the plot significantly imo.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read my story and make your criticisms, lefty.

You're very welcome dude.

This is the kind of discussion is exemplary of what I would like to see more of in words.

Me too!

this is why i'm a strong supporter of the idea to merge words with the hotly debated "arts" threads. That way, the arts get a place of their own outside of SO, and words gets more traffic, and by people who are willing to spend a little time and patience to read something longer than a haiku or fortune cookie fortune

I think I remember reading in some other thread that you wrote a story as well, so at some point in the near future I am going to respond in kind and read and comment on your story as well.

If you can find the short ten minutes or so (at most) to read them, that'd be sweet. I actually have a few shorts in here, but no one, EVER, comments.

I hope my advice doesn't come across harshly. I don't mean it that way. I like your writing a lot. I just think you can get more out of it.
but i may be wrong

 

[L2R]

boy that story was intense. it seemed like the trip kicked in for him within like 10 minutes. would this happen with a large dose of acid? or would it still take an hour?

Stronger doses come on faster. What this guy got was ridiculously strong, and especially during cardivascular workout, like the run he was in. It would have hit im real quick.