“No, I don’t think that.”

“Yes, you do, muthafucka. I ain’t stupid. Just cause you didn’t go in the service you think you better than me.”

“That’s not true, Otis.”

“You callin me a liar, muthafucka?” he said, rushing at me, slamming me into the wall and setting off the alarm. For the instant I was pressed against the wall, hate spit out at me from his eyes like darts. Then we stumbled and tripped our way out of the building, hunching into getaway profiles and hoisting our legs chin-high up Tenth Avenue until a police car pulled alongside of us.

“All right, you two, hold it right there,” came the voice of one of the cops over a loudspeaker on the top of the patrol car. On the roof the red and white of a beacon chased each other in a circle as the two cops emerged from the car. They were huge hulks in blue uniforms, lumpy from overcrowded pockets. As they moved closer, their white faces showed the strain of fatigue. One stayed back a few feet while the other walked right up to us. Both had their hands within short reach of their guns.

“What’s the hurry?” the closer one to us asked.

“Well, Officer, it’s like this,” Otis said, “me and my friend haven’t seen each other in a long time, and we were reminiscing about the time when we used to run the mile relay in high school. My man here was third and I was anchor man. So when you saw us, we were reliving the hand-off-on-the-gun lap.”

The cop turned around and looked at his partner, who shook his head. Turning back to us, he said, “You expect us to go for that?”

“It’s the truth,” Otis said.

“It may be but it ain’t good enough. You see, if you’re a cop in the streets everybody’s got a story for you. If you hear good ones, this ain’t a bad job. So we bust people according to the stories they tell. If you can’t tell a good story, you got to take a bust. Based on that first story, you two ain’t doing too good. That’s the way it is. It’s our asses if we work a whole shift without making any busts and don’t have any stories to show for the time. Most cops would rather have the stories. It makes our job easier and a lot more fun…

“But times have changed. People seem to have lost the knack for talking their way out of trouble. So we got to make more busts. It’s a shame cause cops in every precinct in the city are starving for good stories… Now, I got a proposition for you two. We’re almost at the end of our shift and we’re tired. But we ain’t made a bust all night. You two fit a lot of descriptions and we could take you in just on that. But we’d rather hear a story. A good one this time.” Otis started to speak. “Unh, unh,” the cop cut in, “I want to hear from you this time,” he said, pointing to me.