It' s tearing me up!

Here's installment 11 of Wasted Miracles.

Chapter 3
Joe the Cop had once been shot at by a drug dealer. The bullet had missed him by a country mile--the dealer was 16 and had never done this before, the gun was a Saturday night special with a bent trigger--but Joe believed to the depth of his soul that the event had traumatized him. First, it wasn’t supposed to happen in McLean, Virginia. Rich people lived in McLean, not wannabe rapper scumbag asshole drug dealers. The fact that the kid was the son of a prominent lawyer proved to Joe beyond a doubt that the world in general and Northern Virginia in particular were going to shit. Second, the gunshot had been unbelievably loud; and third, he could have been hurt. He cited these three reasons whenever someone asked him why he had such a virulent hate for controlled substances and the people involved in their trade. He rarely mentioned to anyone save Colin that he had himself been addicted to such substances for seven years before kicking, and he never mentioned to anyone at all that, when the kid had fired the gun, Joe’s bladder had failed and he’d soiled his pants.
Now he sat on the couch in Colin’s apartment, a carton of milk in one hand and a box of Dunkin’ Donuts in the other.
“So, no,” he said, “the scum hasn’t been identified yet but who gives a shit? He’s dead. Another point for the good guys, one less scumbag for us to deal with.” He smiled, bit down, licked crumbs from his lips. “And you know what? I still get a little jolt of satisfaction when that happens. Hits me right here,” he patted his stomach.
Joe the Cop had the Metro section of the Washington Post opened in front of him. There was a three-inch story in the local news column about the body of a man that had been found shot twice, stabbed several times, his face smashed and unrecognizable. The body had been discovered near the National Zoo in Rock Creek Park by the closed-off exit that led to Klingle Road where the rich people lived. The man’s name was withheld, the paper said, until next of kin could be notified.
“Didn’t bother to hide him,” Joe said, “and there was one tiny little gram of happy dust on him.” He took a bite, added with his mouth full, “Sort of like saying, `Yoo hoo! Message for the scumbags!’”
He drank milk out of the carton, burped. “Did I ever tell you about my master plan?” He looked at Colin who nodded.
“Lots of times.”
Joe the Cop ignored him. “You give ‘em all guns. Every one of ‘em, small, big, young, old. Just empty all the armories, give ‘em all the ammo...”