Left for Garbage

the news every night. She’s been gone a while now, and if it isn’t her, I’m still feeling sick in my heart for whoever this skull belongs to, who’s been missing this little broken person, but I did figure it was her, the baby.
    Who could do such a terri ble thing like this to a baby, treat a baby like a bag of trash? I guess I shouldn’t be asking the question of who, but what can do something this Goddamned horrible, because that person is anything but human.
    So now I gotta call the cops for this pitiful little thing, so I run back to my truck as fast as I can, in spite of knowing that bag’s been there at least since last August when I first saw it. And I knew rushing wasn’t going to help what’s in that bag any, but I was running scared and feeling sick to my stomach, and I guess rushing helped me to deal with not being in this spot alone any longer than I had to be.
    I called my office first. I tell them to make the call to the police, and I specify they better mention the skull I saw. Along comes the same hot-dog deputy who met me there last August, but before he’s gonna make me feel foolish again, I wiped his aggravated smirk off his face with the words, “This time I seen a skull with hair on it in that bag over there you told me to ignore three months ago, Mister Deputy.”
    He looks at me like he knows he’s gotta believe me, but he don’t want to. He tells me not to touch a thing, and I tells him I already know that much - what’s he take me for, an idiot? But I explain I was gonna remove the bag, thinking it was trash, and that that’s how the skull fell out.
    This jackass acts mad at me for that and gets all snippy. But this time I act anyways I want with him right back as I knew this hot-dog idiot will be eating the shit he gave me in August when his boss finds out this is the second damn time I ran into this trash bag, and the second damn time I reported it like a good citizen should.
    This little skeleton head, whoever he or she once belonged to - but I just know in my heart of hearts it’s the Brown baby - could have been brought home for a proper burial months ago if this hot-dog jackass had done his job! And there isn’t no doctor alive who’s gonna be able to make heads or tails out of what happened to this kid now. There’s nothing left, I tell you, nothing but a bag of bones. But that duct tape does tell its own story, I guess, and I don’t think the person responsible for this, if they is ever caught, will be able to talk their way out of the tape very easy.
    Before you know it, all kinds of people are showing , and me, I stuck around to see results, not for any vested interest but because, to be perfectly honest, I was too upset to even think about getting behind my wheel and driving off anywhere. Besides, Officer Jackass had told me to stay put.
    It didn’t take long before the area was swarmin g with all kinds of police cars and so-called experts, and then the news vans and choppers, who must monitor police radios, started showing up in the area, trying their best to get a look-see.
    Yellow tape was put up and you might have thought I found the Holy Grail or something on account of how many people got involved. But everyone allowed inside the tape treaded lightly through the underbrush, looking for piece s the animals might’ve gotten a hold of and scattered, and they were picking up various things, supposed clues and what not.
    They even went and found this old dead rattlesnake which , for some dumbass reason, they treated as a clue and bagged it up too to take in as evidence. Call me an uneducated Florida cracker all you want, but I’m quite sure no snake put that duct tape around that baby’s jaw before dumping her like garbage. An evil person’s responsible for what’s in that bag. I know they have the Brown mother arrested, and if this is her baby, well I’m not usually short for words, as I can talk a dog out of a meat house, but I’m at a loss for words of what I think should happen to her.
    But at that point I was the big focus of attention and I was getting more questions coming at me than a ‘Jeopardy’ marathon contestant. I hope they got the answers right. Well, you know what I mean, I’m saying I didn’t even understand half of what they were asking, but I’m cooperative with everybody and I answered everything they ask, even those curious things being asked that are starting me to thinking maybe I should’ve listened to my old ma’s