Day 858: 5 Minute Freewrite: Tuesday - Prompt: peacock

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Commissioner Scott of the Big Loft, VA police came to work in no sweet mood on Friday morning.

Holding both offices of commissioner and chief was stressful enough, but dealing with people who thought that made you doubly their slave was even more tiresome.

Mr. Perseus Slocum was one of those people. The president of the Skyview Neighborhood Association was proud as a peacock and with about as much sense, given his penchant for talking down to people who he thought didn't measure up to him even after his entire neighborhood no longer existed. The Ridgeline Fire had leveled a lot of things, but he didn't know it.

He still didn't know after he had tried it on Mayor Garner, and Donald Lee Garner Jr. had shown his Lee side and said that if Mr. Slocum and the rest of his fellow homeowners didn't comply with his orders for the next week, they would wait until the end of his term -- 21 months later -- before the city lifted a finger to help them rebuild, including critical infrastructure.

Still furious from his defeat there, Mr. Slocum had rolled into the commissioner's office, hoping to take charge of him.

“We of the Skyview, Starview, and Blue Ridge neighborhood are deeply opposed to 60,000 people who have no real connection to anything in our neighborhoods having free access for an entire week, so we demand that there be appropriate police presence to protect our property and control the mob.”

Commissioner Scott refrained from even trying to explain … everyone who had relatives among the more than 12,000 dead in the Ridgeline Fire had a real connection to the site, but he knew Mr. Perseus Slocum only looked at money connections. Instead, he just asked a question.

“What would you say the value of the properties are now, as compared to before the Ridgeline Fire?”

Mr. Slocum's face turned as red as a beet at that.

“Because, you know, we can't operate on 'because I said so' kinds of police movement,” the commissioner continued. “The 60,000 relatives of the 12,000 Black and Latino servants that died up there might feel threatened by an overly aggressive police presence, and you know the city can't afford even one more lawsuit.”

“You mean to tell me that you give more weight to the whining and bullying of the n****r children of slaves and to wetbacks than to me and those I represent?” Mr. Slocum thundered. “Are you that weak a White man as that?”

Commissioner Scott held his temper.

“I can count, Mr. Slocum. You don't pay my salary. You haven't been involved in locking down the city last week. You and yours have nothing but the ashes of your homes to bring to the table on this matter in terms of tangibles – you are completely dependent now on the city and its tax base, and the county and its tax base. Cut that however you want, but 39 percent of all of that is Black, and three percent is Latino. They have decided to have real power now, and all you bring to the table is a tradition of power that has been gone for a century and a half. For tradition's sake you want me to involve my department in a great show of force to remind these grieving families of who is boss – but Mr. Slocum, you ain't that boss.”

Mr. Slocum stood up and cussed Commissioner Scott all the way out. The commissioner only smiled at the end.

“Get out of my office, Mr. Slocum. Don't ever think you'll ever have enough influence in this city to be worth my time, ever again.”

Photo by Tj Holowaychuk on Unsplash



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2 comments
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Thanks for this excellent freewrite!

I (@felt.buzz) do love your stories. Did you used to watch Are you being served? there was a Mrs Slocum in that and a Captain Peacock. I wonder if your subconscious was at work!

Did you know we run a Freewriters community https://steempeak.com/c/hive-161155/created

You can join it and post directly to it, or use hive-161155 as the first tag. It is also a handy place to find the daily prompt, contests and competitions and other freewrites!

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Yep... used to watch it and you just explained a mystery to me!

I know about the community ... just waiting on everything to come out of beta and kinks to get worked out, and also to see how posting to the community affects readability on other tags. Just found out yesterday that if you post to the community you have to resteem to your own blog ... a two step-process of simple steps, but another layer of complication. I may start using the hive tag in March... I'll be starting my second year here, so, time for new adventures!

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