The Raid

            We were only minutes from completing (and being paid for) the most momentous job of our lives:  packaging and distributing 250 kilos of cocaine to dealers across the region.  This order was our ticket to the big leagues: we would be feared.  We ran our packaging operation out of a small dilapidated house in the worst neighborhood in town.  Our job was to package the cocaine into bricks to give to our dealers, who would then sell small amounts to anyone and everyone who wanted coke.  The amount of cocaine that we were working with was 250 kilos—enough to put everyone involved in the operation away for life without parole.  But we could only think about how much money we were going to make on the deal.  There were five of us in charge of packaging and we were each standing to make $40,000.  Why would we risk life without parole for $40,000?  Because, in our minds, we were invincible.  None of us had as much as a parking ticket on our record.  There was no way we would ever get caught.  Not in a million years. 

            Thoughts of invincibility were shattered as the front door came crashing in.  “D-E-A!  Everybody on the ground!” shouted a burly voice.  I heard the back door being kicked in.  Our house was being breached from all directions!  We were being assaulted by a small army of agents carrying automatic weapons and wearing bullet-proof vests embroidered with the letters “DEA.” I dropped the brick of cocaine in my hands; it exploded when it hit the tile floor, momentarily filling the air with a cloud of the substance.  A surge of adrenaline caused my mind and heart to race.  I was desperately trying to find a viable escape route.  My heart was going to explode. 

            This could not have been happening!  Not to me!  I should not have even been there! I should still have been working as a waiter on the South side of town.  How did I even end up there?  My goddamn cousin!  My cousin was the one who had gotten me set up with that gig in the first place.  It was his fancy suits and super-charged car that had caught my attention and made me ask where he got the money to finance his opulent lifestyle.  He told me that if I wanted he could set me up with a job packaging cocaine for his crew, as he described it, an up-and-coming operation that would soon become a major player.  How could I have refused the money that he was offering?  Surely I could not have subsisted on my minimum wage job as a busboy.  I wanted what he had:  money, respect, and power.

I franticly dashed through the 15-foot-long, tiled main hallway to the back of the house.  There was a muscular, 6-foot, white DEA agent gripping his automatic weapon on the other side of the room standing under the doorway that leads to the bathroom, but I ran so fast past him that I could not have been more than a blur in his peripheral vision.  I bolted through the back exit and into the backyard, where four equally large agents were stationed to catch anyone who might be lucky enough to make it outside.  Lucky for me they were preoccupied by Angel, who had the same idea as me.  Angel was lying prostrate in the grass with his legs spread, elbows angled outward, and hands interlocked on the back of his head.  Three of the agents were standing over him with their weapons pointed at him; the other had a walkie-talkie in his hand and was apparently putting word out that one target had been neutralized.   I was spotted by one of the men standing over Angel, who immediately pointed me out to the other agents.  Two of the men pursued me; the other two remained with Angel.  Only twenty feet separated me from life without parole. 

My mind agonized over the thought of life without parole.  The thought of spending the rest of my life locked up was too much to bear.  I pictured what my life would be like in jail.  I would spend my first few staring at the wall of my cell, thinking of how to break out.  After a while, I would realize that I will never be able to escape, and despondently I would break down in tears.  I would join a prison gang for protection and get tattooed from head to toe.  I would eat prison food for the rest of my pathetic life.  I would wither and die in prison.  The death penalty sounded more appealing.

There have been reports of people experiencing super-human strength when in extreme situations; unfortunately for me, I saw no improvement in my speed.  I ran as fast as I could through the yard, ducking to avoid the empty clothes line.  My jump barely cleared the two foot fence that envelops the house.  I ran to the right of the house along the sidewalk, attentively inspecting the distance for obstacles that might impede my escape or assets that might abet it.  The distance between the agents and I was narrowing—quickly!  The sound of their feet beating against the pavement was growing persistently louder.  I was doing everything in my power to keep my lead on them, but they might as well have been marathon-running Kenyans.  Though we could not have been running for more than a hundred yards, my lungs were on the verge of collapse.  But I could not stop—not for a second!  I persevered through the pain in my body.  My pursuers were tenaciously hell bent on sending me to jail.  Much to my dismay, I was merely postponing my imminent arrest. 

I am under the impression that the agent who tackled me either had neglected anger issues, especially hated criminals, or both.  If there had been a camera present to record that feat of athleticism, it would have ended up on Sports Center.  I could hear how close the agent was, so I was trying to brace myself for anything, but I was certainly not prepared to be taken to the ground that violently.  He tackled me straight to the pavement.  My skin was torn from my body as I received a lesson on friction.  I did not dare resist when he was handcuffing me;  in fact, I was in such shock from the pain of skidding across the pavement that I could not have possibly resisted.  As I was read my Miranda rights, the faces of all the people that would be devastated by my imprisonment flashed through my head.  I felt no physical pain, only emotional.  I saw the faces of my mother, father, and sister.  My aunts, uncles, and cousins.  My grandparents.  I would forever be a convict, a disgrace to the family name.  My family would visit me in prison, mourning over the loss of their only son.  I would look deep into their eyes and weep.  The death penalty sounded appealing.