Get caught up:
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Why couldn’t he escape the noise? No matter where he went, in or out of the city, day or night, light or dark… the noise followed him. Some people heard voices; The Banana Man – Mark – he heard noise. In the noise he heard patterns. In the patterns he heard anger. The noise was so angry. It took its anger out on him; it was ever present and painful. He kept moving, from hiding place to hiding place, always in the dark, trying to escape the noise. But it was every place he’d ever found and it kept spurring him to join him in its anger. The pain made him angry. In the end, he embraced the anger of the noise.
Sometimes, when he got enough to drink, the anger would ease a bit; not a lot but enough so that he didn’t feel like he was going to explode. But as a result of the noise-fueled anger or the alcohol filtered anger, he was living with a perpetual desire to lash out; to hurt someone; to make them share his pain. No one wanted to help him anyway. No one cared that he hurt. No one cared that he was in pain. If they cared, they’d bring him his medicine. He could vaguely remember taking the pills. He could vaguely remember the days of lying in luxury, in an air-conditioned house, watching television for countless hours, laughing at silly shows.
But that had been taken from him. Now he lived a life of hide and run and hurt. The Banana Man never realized… wasn’t aware of the fact… he had caused his own change. It was his own fault that he was on the run and hiding. The hurt caused by the noise was a side-effect of the fact that he no longer was on his meds. Anyone who tried to explain that to him would only anger him further. And that would be bad. He spent every waking moment on the edge of attacking anyone he came across. The noise kept him awake way too much and his mental issues were mixing with his alcoholism and both were magnified by the sleep deprivation he was driving himself into. Until he was captured and forced back onto his medicines, he was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.
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Although Max had qualified during the academy, every officer on Oceanside Police Department had to qualify with all weapons at least twice annually. The department training budget allowed for as many as four annual qualifications – suggested at a rate of once per calendar quarter – but the requirement was at least twice annually. The old squad Sergeant, Henry Daniels, hadn’t cared if the officers qualified more than twice a year. Henry always had a hard time qualifying, often taking two or three tries and even then just barely shooting minimum passing scores. The new squad sergeant, Eddie Presser – Max’s senior partner – encouraged everyone to qualify at every opportunity; four times per year and more if they had the time.
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All of Season 2 of The Oceanside Chronicles, including officer survival notes and an alphabetical list of characters can be purchased as an anthology on Amazon.com via Amazon Prime.
http://amzn.to/2duah34
