It happened a couple nights ago. I was sitting on my nice, comfortable couch in downtown Liberty City when I got a call from my brother, Sweet Johnson.
"What's up?" I said.
"Carl, it's Sweet," he said. His voice was hoarse and there was an edge of seriousness in his tone.
"What's up, Sweet? What do you want?"
"Carl...it's moms. She's dead, bro."
After five years on the East Coast, it was time to go home. I stepped out of the airport doors at Los Santos International. A cab pulled up to the side of the road soon after and I got in.
"Where to?" said a very stereotypical-looking Mexican man, peering at me through the rear-view mirror.
"Just drop me off at the Grove," I said, throwing my suitcase into the seat next to me. We started driving.
After a while, I looked behind us and saw a police car following us. After it didn't stop for around ten minutes, I started to get worried. All of my worst fears came to life after about eleven minutes when they turned on the sirens and pulled over our cab.
"Passenger!" bellowed a megaphone from the hands of a tall, black police officer. "Show us your hands!"
Shit, I thought, getting out of the cab and putting my hands in the air.
"Stop. Now get on your knees."
I got on my knees.
"Now down on your stomach." I complied. "Good."
A stout Mexican man through handcuffs over my wrists and searched me, finding and taking a fat stack of my hard-earned money.
"I'll take that, Hernandez," said the original man, taking the money from him.
"Hey, that's my paper, man!" I shouted, trying to grab it back, but the officer yanked it away just in time. "That's my money!"
"This is drug money," said the man, waving it in my face.
"That's my money, man..." I muttered.
"Hey, don't worry about it," said a Caucasian officer coming out of the police car. "I'll fill it out later."
"Welcome home, Carl," said the black officer. "Glad to be back? You haven't forgotten about us, have you, boy?"
"Hell no, Officer Tenpenny," I said, spitting on the ground at his feet. "I was just wondering what took you so long."
"Get in the car," said Tenpenny, grabbing me by the neck of my wife-beater.
"Ease up, man," I said. "Damn."
"Watch your head," he said, slamming my head into the roof of the police car as he shoved me in. "Oops! My bad."
"Get outta here, you greaseball bastard!" yelled the Caucasian officer to the taxi driver, who scurried into the cab and drove away. "Stupid Mexican."
"Fuck you," said Hernandez.
"Oh," said the Caucasian officer, looking embarrassed. "Hey, sorry."
"My bag, man!" I yelled, pounding on the window. "My bag..."
"Shut up," Tenpenny said, getting into the driver's seat and motioning for the other two to get in the car. "All of you." He started up the engine and drove. "How have you been, Carl? How's your wonderful family?"
"I'm here to bury my moms," I said bitterly. "You know that."
"Yeah, I guess I do," he said with a chuckle, like this was all just a big joke. "What else you got shakin', Carl?"
"Nothing," I said. "I live in Liberty City now. I'm clean. Legit."
"No," said Tenpenny. "You ain't never been clean, Carl."
"Well," said the Caucasian officer, pulling out a pistol. "What've we got here?"
"This is a weapon, Officer Pulaski," said Tenpenny, his voice dripping with pleasure. "That was used to gun down a police officer not ten minutes ago. Officer Pendelbury. A fine man, I might add." He took his eyes off the road for a moment and looked at me through the rear-view mirror. "You work fast, nigga!"
"You know I just got off the plane!" I yelled angrily. "I couldn't have shot nobody that quick!"
"It's a good thing we found you," said officer Pulaski, "and retrieved the murder weapon."
"That ain't my gun!" I yelled.
"Don't bullshit me, Carl!" Tenpenny yelled back at me.
"Yeah, don't bullshit him, Carl!" said Pulaski, trying to hide a grin.
"What the fuck you want from me this time?" I spat, closing my eyes and rubbing my forehead.
"If we need you," said Tenpenny, "we'll find you. In the meantime, try not to gun down any more officers of the law."
"You can't leave me here!" I yelled, looking out the window. "This is Ballas territory!"
"I thought you said you was innocent, Carl?" Tenpenny said. "That you don't bang?"
"This is car 58," said Pulaski into his police radio. "WHAT!"
"They won't care how long it's been," I pleaded. "They'll cap my black ass all the way back to Liberty!"
"Officer Pendelbury's down?" repeated Pulaski into his radio. "We'll be right there."
"See you 'round like a donut, Carl," said Tenpenny as Hernandez uncuffed me, opened my door, and shoved me out of the moving car.
I hit the asphalt hard and rolled, having enough sense to duck into an alley to think of a way out of this mess. Luckily, there was a red BMX bike parked directly up the alley.
I jumped on and rode all the way to Grove Street from Rollin Heights.
Who the hell doesn't lock up their bike in the middle of the ghetto?