I’m walking towards the Bon Voyage motel in the Valley. The motel has a reputation as a house of ill repute. Entire apartment buildings along this stretch of the street serve as drug dens. I used to live on this block, and I could have died here, too.

An Los Angeles Police Department cruiser on the other side of the street flashes its lights, cut across four lanes of traffic, and drives up the sidewalk in front of me. The doors fling open and two screaming police officers rush out, aiming their guns at my chest.

It only takes about four pounds of pressure to pull a trigger, firing a gun and sending a bullet into its target. Anyone with firearms training knows that you never place your finger inside the trigger guard unless you intend to shoot. Both cops approach me with their fingers inside the guards, wrapped around their triggers.

One cop screams, “Get on the ground! Now!”

The other cop contradicts his partner’s command, “Don’t move!”

The normal range of my voice is bass. In an attempt to sound less threatening, I raise its octave and make it resonate from my nasal cavity rather than my chest. “Could you make up your minds, please?”

“Put your hands on your head, turn around, and get down on your knees!”

I do.

People walking on the other side of the street look at me and point. Cars slow down to get a better look at me.

A cuff bites into my wrist, my arms are twisted behind my back, another cuff snicks into place around my other wrist. Hands push me forward and I fall onto my face. A knee digs into my back, pinning me in place.

The cop that cuffed me asks, “You have ID on you?”

I measure each word. “In my wallet, sir.”

“Any needles or sharp objects in your pocket?”

“No.”

Hands dig into my pocket and free my wallet. The information on my ID are read off into a walkie talkie.

The cement has scrapped my cheek and it stings. I’m probably bleeding but I don’t dare move. I keep my cheek flush with the sidewalk. At the end of my nose, a colony of ants rips apart a caterpillar that’s too slow to get away. Farther down, a cigarette butt burns down to ash.

After a moment, there’s chatter on the walkie talkie.

A cop says, “This ain’t him.”

The other cop says, “You sure?”

“Yeah, wrong guy. Cut him loose.”

The knee in my back lets up, cuff are removed, and I stand.

Red and the blue alternating lights from the police cruiser strobe across their faces. Their name tags say: Borjas and Madero.

Borjas reads my More Than Waffles t-shirt and says, “I’ve been meaning to try that place out. Is the food any good?”

I don’t respond. My hands are at my side, my is posture is slumped. I control my breathing, and remain still.

Borjas shrugs.

Madero says, “Let’s go.”

They walk back to their squad car with its still flung-open doors.

The first time the cops drew their guns on me I was fresh off the plane, standing at a bus stop in front of the college I was attending.

To the LAPD, because of the way I look, I'm a criminal, ipso facto. Whenever you’re stopped by the LAPD while walking, it’s:

1) “Yes, sir, no sir.”
2) no direct contact.
3) hands out of pockets and no sudden movements.
If you’re stopped while driving, include:
4) hands at ten-and-two on the steering wheel.
5) look straight ahead.
6) do not move.

You must be accommodating to the police while they reach inside your chest, rip out your humanity and dignity--sometimes at gun point--and discard them on the sidewalk, and at the slightest perceived provocation, close the book on your life.

It’s the 21st century, but I don’t feel free...Certainly not free to enjoy many mundane things others take for granted, like an evening stroll without concern of the predators in navy blue enforcing a de facto curfew...Always wondering, Is today the day I don’t make it back home to Amanda? It wears on me day after day, week after week, year after year. Trapped in--and by--my own skin. I want to scream.

“Hey!” I say, “Are you two going to tell me what that was all about?”

The words have left my mouth before I realized I’ve shouted them. I don’t care.

Madero pauses behind the driver’s side door. There’s the LAPD decal with “to protect and serve” printed in cheerful font on the door.

Madero says, “Yeah. My man, you almost got shot.”

He shuts the door. The flashing lights cut off and they speed away.

Eris answers the door after the first knock. Rashes cover her skin and her clavicles jut through the fabric of her dress. She smiles, revealing yellowed, film-covered teeth of a medieval Englishwoman. How the fuck could I have missed these details last week. I didn’t miss them. She’s changed.

She steps aside, allowing me to enter her motel room. Mismatched furniture. Thrift store paintings hang askew on the walls. Threadbare blanket on a mattress. Nicotine-stained curtains, drawn shut. You could cross the room in two paces.

I say, “Are you okay?”

She scratches the back of her hand, then picks at a scab. “Not really. I finally got a scene last week, but Reginald--remember the guy who was taking me around to sets? He has my money and his cell phone is disconnected.

I’m so sorry for having to call you, but I’m all by myself here and I can’t pay rent and I don’t know what else to do.” Her eyes lower to the floor.

Earlier today I did a scene and they paid me in cash. I give the money to her. “This should help for a while.”

Eris looks up at me, smiles and hugs me. “Thank you.”

She falls back onto the mattress, peels her panties off and opens her legs. There are sores around her vagina. “I have an itchy pussy but you can still fuck me. Oh! Don’t worry about the cream, it’s just Vagisil...Do you have a condom?”

I say, “No, I don’t, I just came here to help you. Besides, I know what it’s like.”

She picks at a scab on her inner thigh. “Ha ha, how could you know what an itchy pussy is like?”

I force myself to look at her eyes, not her crotch. “No, I uh...I’ve been in your situation before.”

“I was kidding, Tyler.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Eris says, “I can suck your dick if you want.”

“No, I’m cool.”

She pulls her panties up and folds her hands in her lap. “Can you just...sit with me for a while?”

I’m a fish caught on dry land thirsting for the sea, but there’s a sadness desperation in her eyes. I capitulate and sit on the bed next to her.

“Okay,” I say. “For a little while.”

She stares at her hands. I fixate on a stain on the curtain that resembles a two-headed donkey. Neither of us speaks. Eris places her hand in the space between us, palm up. A clear gesture for me to take her hand in mine. I don’t. She retracts it.

I look to the door. Amanda and I agreed that I do what I must to keep the bills paid, as long as it’s confined to set. Amanda’s trust in me is absolute. God knows, I haven’t been perfect--just being here is a violation of her trust. It feels as though something heavy is hanging from my brow...pressing down upon my shoulders...pushing my face down deep into this sagging, piss-soaked mattress, and each breath is harder to draw than the one before it. A police car passes by the window. Its lights paint the ceiling red and blue as it speeds by. I walk to the door and open it.

Eris calls after me, “You’re the only person in the Valley who doesn’t try to take advantage of me. You’ve got a kind heart, Tyler. You’re a beautiful snowflake.”

The door clicks shut behind me, and it’s all I can do to keep from breaking into an all-out run. In the lobby I pause at a trash can, take a condom out of my pocket and toss it in. At the heart of every snowflake is a grain of dust.