Thinking about those memories had kept me pretty distracted during our run, though I’d followed along with Zahara automatically, so I wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on around us until Zahara slowed to basically a walk, her attention clearly focused on some other people in the park.
Her attention was mostly on a man, a little older, who was yelling at a thin woman who had two young children with her. The woman and her children all looked a little underweight, their clothes thin and worn out, and the woman in particular looked exhausted.
“You and your ilk aren’t welcome here!” The man was telling her in a furious and yet still haughty tone. “You can’t just waltz into the park and steal stuff!”
“We weren’t stealing anything,” the young mother protested, trying to hold her ground, though she looked like she also wanted to curl up into a ball. She kind of reminded me of a hedgehog.
“That’s a likely story,” the man sneered. “I heard you telling them to look around on the ground!”
“That’s for pears,” the woman tried to explain. “They fall off the trees and are left to rot. I thought we could pick up some of the ones that aren’t so bad.”
“See?” The man glared at her triumphantly. “You are here to steal things! You’re here to steal city property! Those trees belong to the city and you’re just stealing the fruit!”
The woman’s face paled a bit. “No, we’re not stealing,” she insisted. “We’re only getting the ones that have fallen already! We aren’t touching the trees themselves.”
But the man was having none of it. “You’re admitting to plans of theft! I’m calling the police,” he announced in his annoyingly entitled tone.
The smaller kid started to cry, both of them clinging a little more closely to their mother, who clearly had no idea what the best response was under the circumstances.
But that wasn’t the case for Zahara. She marched right over and fixed the man with a firm stare.
“You must be a city councilmember,” she stated.
He paused in the middle of dialing the police, confused. “Uh, no, I’m not.”
“With park services then?” She asked, her tone a little harder.
He scoffed in response. “Of course not! I’m not a blue collar worker.”
“Police?” Zahara’s tone was even cooler now.
“What? No! I’m a manager at an office! What is this, why are you harassing me?” He was now offended.
“Well, that’s a surprise.” Zahara crossed her arms and pinned him with one of those looks she usually reserved for the courtroom – or at least her practice courtroom. “Because only city councilmembers can make laws relating to use of public property and only park services has the right to enforce them here in this park, unless it’s a criminal matter, then it’s up to police. Yet you’re here deciding what someone else can and cannot do on public property.”
The man stared at her, fumbling for a response for a moment. “She’s not allowed to steal public property!” He finally shot back. “Besides, it’s none of your business, just keep out of it!”
Zahara raised one eyebrow. “It’s my business just as much as it is yours. Actually, more than. By your own admission, you are a private citizen, unrelated to the city, yet I do work for the city. I actually help enforce those laws. And I happen to know that city ordinances dictated that fruit trees be planted in all parks in the city to help provide for those who might need them and to ensure that all children had access to fresh fruit.” She turned to the woman before the man could protest. “You’re actually permitted to take the pears from the trees themselves,” she informed the woman. “If you need help, ask any of the park services workers – they’re the ones wearing green uniforms. They’ll be happy to get you a bag to help carry them or a stepladder if you need it.”
“Now, listen here, you,” the man began, his face turning red as he looked all heated.
But Zahara wasn’t done with him, turning back with a look that apparently made him feel like a mouse in front of a hawk, because he froze in an instant.
“Illegally interfering with another person’s access to public property is actually against the law,” she remarked, almost as if making an observation about the weather. “And that’s your white car back there, isn’t it?”
He glanced back at it and seemed to want to say no, but he was still holding a key in his hand which was clearly for that type of car and I suspected Zahara had actually seen him exit the car, too.
“It’s parked in a no-parking zone,” she went on, calmly. “Parking there could result in getting your car towed, receiving a fine – oh, and potentially even criminal charges, if an emergency happened and your car was blocking emergency services from access.” She pasted on a frosty smile. “Now, how about you go get in your car, move it somewhere it is allowed to be parked in, and leave this nice family alone?”
The man’s face got even redder, which honestly I didn’t realize was possible. “How dare you!” He raged. “I am a law-abiding taxpayer and you’re threatening me! Help! Police! This person is threatening me!”
A couple of other people in the park looked at him curiously, standing there holding his keys, with Zahara just watching him coldly and the woman and her children uncertain about what to do.
“You don’t belong here, either,” the man burst out at Zahara. “You should be back waiting on tables or something, not disturbing our peaceful park!”
Zahara rolled her eyes. “What, the color of my skin means I must be a waitress? Especially since I’m out jogging, not in my work clothes, so you can’t tell what it is I actually do?” She smirked a bit. “I’m a lawyer for the city, sir. I prosecute people who violate city laws. Like you’re doing right now with your car. And by harassing this woman and her family while they engage in allowed activities. You’re the one disturbing this park with your hate and entitlement. I think I can fairly confidently say that pretty much everyone in the park would prefer you went home, or at least kept your selfish, self-entitled, racist, bigoted opinions to yourself.”
The man looked absolutely flabbergasted that she dared call him out on his being mean, I guess. I was just sitting there, tail curled around my paws, watching while this man looked flustered and started babbling and trying to figure out how to respond, all while Zahara fixed him with a look which practically dared him to keep trying. I knew from listening to her practice for court that she could go on all day giving him a verbal lashing he was in no way prepared for.
I was kind of keen to see it happen, actually. This guy seemed like a jerk. I wouldn’t mind Zahara cutting him down to size a bit.
Unfortunately, a uniformed officer arrived before we got a chance to get to see Zahara turn the snobby man into a complete blubbering mess.
“Is everything okay here?” The woman officer asked.
“Oh, Officer,” the man started to say, then swung around to face her and paused. I got the impression he didn’t much care for the fact that her skin was the same color as Zahara’s, or maybe he just didn’t like a woman officer, but either way, he was a lot less happy once he actually saw her than he initially seemed.
Then he managed to pull himself together. “This person threatened me!” He pointed at Zahara, then on to the family, “and these hooligans are trying to steal public property!”
The officer nodded respectfully towards Zahara. “DA Thorn.”
“Officer Dell,” Zahara responded. “Nice to see you again. Thanks for coming when I asked.”
I didn’t see her call, so she must have texted or something while I was busy watching the man before Zahara stepped in.
The man’s face paled a bit when he realized Zahara and the officer knew each other – and that the officer clearly did know that Zahara was a city attorney.
The officer turned towards the woman. “What’s the problem, ma’am?” She asked in a gentler tone.
“We weren’t stealing anything,” she responded instantly, a little more high-pitched as she held her children protectively, “we were just going to get some pears off the ground, that’s all!”
“Oh, don’t do that,” the officer responded immediately. “They’re going bad if they’ve fallen, most likely. Get the ones off the tree. Oh, hang on, I’ll call one of the park services guys to come help you, he’s tall and can reach the higher branches.” She flipped on her radio and barked something in it, then, when it went silent, she turned her attention towards the man who was looking decidedly more uncomfortable.
“Now, sir,” she said with a too-polite smile, “what was this about stealing and threatening people?”
The man tried to stutter out an answer, but abruptly gave up when he caught the hawk-look from Zahara again.
“I’ll just be going then,” he muttered under his breath. “It’s clear this place is no longer safe for law-abiding citizens.” Then he marched off towards his car, refusing to look back at us.
“Hold on just a second, sir,” the officer said as he unlocked his car. “Is that your car?”
Too late, the man remembered what Zahara had said about parking there being illegal, and now he was caught all-too-obviously in control of a vehicle parked illegally.
The officer gave him that too-friendly smile again. “How about you give me your keys and your driver’s license? We’re going to have a little talk.”
He briefly attempted to bluff his way out of it, but caved as she calmly started just marching him towards the curb, not listening to a word he said.
Zahara turned back to the mother and children. “The park services guy is over there,” she nodded towards a tall man in a green uniform headed in our direction. “He can help you with the pears, but here.” She pulled out a business card and scribbled something on the back of it – I was kind of surprised to see she still carried business cards and a small pen even while jogging, but then, Zahara was nothing if not prepared – and handed it to the woman. “That’s the name of a shelter that may be able to help you. They offer services to families, in particular, and will help get your kids into school if you need it.”
The woman clutched the business card tightly. “Thank you – thank you so much,” she whispered.
Zahara gave her a smile, deliberately softer so as not to scare her as much as her normal, sharper expression might. “I’m sorry you had to deal with someone like that. Do you need help with the fruit? Or do you want me to call the shelter for you? My car isn’t nearby, but I can get it if you need a ride over.”
The park services man arrived then, eager to help once he knew what the woman needed, and when he heard from Zahara that she might also need a ride somewhere, he offered to take her because apparently the shelter was on the way to his home.
“It’s okay,” Zahara murmured softly the woman where the worker couldn’t hear, “he’s a good guy. He’s dating Nina, the officer who came up to help us, and he won’t hurt you. It’s safe to take a ride with him.”
The woman threw her a grateful look and then also accepted the help getting the pears out of the tree. I even climbed up to the higher branches to try to get some the man, whose name was Roger, had trouble reaching, so by the time we were done, we had a couple bags’ worth of pears for the woman and her children.
I didn’t miss that Zahara slipped her some cash as she headed off to Roger’s car, but then, once she was certain the woman was in good hands and on her way to a shelter so hopefully she and her kids could have more than just pears for supper, Zahara resumed her jog. A little slower, a little more thoughtful, but she didn’t say anything for the rest of the run.
When we got back to the car, though, she groaned abruptly. “Jerks like that make me so mad. I want to just wring their necks. Coming across a man who’s harassing a poor family just because he can?” She shook her head, annoyed. “Sometimes I want to use magic to shut people like him up, really scare them, but I know that’s not the answer. Part of why I decided to become a lawyer was so I could deal with people like that without violence. It’s just infuriating that people can’t be sympathetic at all. What that woman needed was help, not being called a thief. She’s doing what she can to make sure her kids have food, for crying out loud. What kind of selfish moron wants to tell a woman like that that she’s not allowed to feed her own kids?”
She went on, grumbling and pissed off, apparently just needing to rant about her annoyance over running into the man.
I, however, was proud of her. She reminded me of my own mom, getting mad at someone for being a jerk, but handling it without violence anyway. Not to mention, she’d done so expertly in my mind, and then to top it off, she’d helped make sure the family would get to a shelter where they could hopefully get more help.
I interrupted her tirade by rubbing my head against her shoulder, purring.
She paused and looked at me for a moment. “You’re happy, huh?”
I nodded and purred some more.
She held out her phone for me and let me tap out a simple message.
The message seemed to surprise her, because it make her face break into something softer for a moment. “You’re – proud of me?” She repeated, clearly surprised but touched.
I nodded and rubbed my head against her shoulder again.
“Huh.” She gently rubbed my cheek. “Not the response I expected, but I’ll take it.” Then she sighed a bit and straightened up. “I guess we should be getting back before Amelia gets too worried, huh?”
I sat back in my seat, curling my tail around my paws, and happily settled in for the ride home.
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