Re: Brian and Mike
"Three letters for you. P. C. H." Brian replied with a chuckle. "You tellin' me teenagers don't leave the base to take a fast run up the coast?" He made a face. "Big ass SUVs? Zero to sixty in a few minutes? Man, you're killing me. Zero to one thirty in seconds and stopping on a dime. That's what you shoot for, whether you can drive it regularly to the max or not. Let me guess, you're a take it to the dealership when it breaks kind of guy, too, aren't you?"
The grin was back full force at being called insane. "Well, I was a U.C. cop. Certain amount of insanity that goes with that job." It was possibly also the reason he'd been tapped for the heist case. Fearless and good with cars.
"Those options aren't as readily available as they sound. People who might not be able to pay all their bills are still too rich to be eligible for aid. Shelters turn people away because they have to serve psychology up with dinner and require counseling because obviously there's something wrong with the person, not their situation. Criminal background and credit checks will weed out those who aren't worthy enough to get help now that they've made a few mistakes or things got beyond their control. And when employers and aid workers tell you that none of this would be happening if you could just straighten up and learn to take care of things properly, you're either going to sink further because you feel worthless or reject their help because you need to prove to them you're not worthless just because you need their help. Sure, there are options. And those options fail as many as they help, even when they are available, which they're not everywhere because they are finite and there is only so much to go around. So, they have to concentrate on the areas where there are more people. And people slip through the cracks. It's inevitable. And those people end up with nothing but shit choices."
Draining half of what was left of his beer, Brian set it on the ground by his chair. "Where I come from, there are only two ways to get out: criminal or cop. And, no, I don't mean the city. I mean the wrong side of the tracks. As a kid, I took the criminal route. And there were two kinds of cops: the good cops who followed the law, but in spirit because they also understood that the only thing truly black and white was their cars, and the bad cops who knuckled down to the letter of the law and took joy in seeing someone punished to the full extent just as an example. Juvie has a way of scaring you straight, especially when there's one of the good cops offering you a hand up. Wasn't going to be a criminal anymore. So, that just left cop. L.A. was as good a place as any for a fresh start out of the dead end desert town I grew up in."