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cut it."
    Vicki had every intention of ignoring him.

    "Pity that your tight little ass is gonna be wiggling its way somewhere else."

    And then again. ...

    He laughed as he saw her reaction and continued to laugh as she crossed the parking lot to stand in front of him. A jock in his younger days, he had the heavy, bulgy build of a man who'd once been muscular, his Blue Jays T-shirt stretched tight over the beer belly he carried around instead of a waist. He was the kind of laughing bigot that everyone tends to excuse.

    Don't mind him, it's just his way.

    Vicki considered those the most dangerous kind but this time he'd gone beyond excuses. He could complain about people not being able to take a joke all the way to court.

    "What's the matter baby-doll, couldn't leave without a good-bye kiss." He turned to be sure the two men still sitting by the building appreciated the joke and so missed the expression on Vicki's face.

    She'd had a bad night. She was in a bad mood. And she was more than willing to take it out on this racist, sexist son-of-a-bitch. He had a good four inches on her and probably a hundred pounds but she figured she'd have little trouble dusting his ass. Tempting, but no. Although her eyes narrowed and her jaw clenched, years of observing due process held her temper in check. He's not worth the trouble.

    As she turned to leave, Harris swung around and, grinning broadly, reached out and smacked her on the ass.

    Vicki smiled. Oh what the hell....

    Pivoting, she kicked him less hard than she was able on the outside edge of his left knee. He toppled, bellowing with pain, as if both feet had been cut out from under him. A blow just below his ribs drove the air out of his lungs in an anguished gasp and given that she resisted stomping where it would hurt the most, she treated herself to slamming a well-placed foot into his butt as he drew his knees up to his chest. Then she grinned at his buddies and started home again.

    He could press charges. But she didn't think he would. He wasn't hurt and she was willing to bet that by the time he got his breath back he'd already be warping the facts to fit his world view - a world view that would not include the possibility of his being taken down by a woman.
    She also realized that this wouldn't have been the case if she still carried a badge, police brutality being a rallying cry of his kind.

    You know, she shoved her glasses up her nose and ran for the bus she could now see cresting the Eglington Avenue overpass, / think I could grow to like being a civilian.

    The euphoria faded along with the adrenaline and the crisis of conscience set in barely two blocks from the bus stop. It wasn't so much the violence itself that upset her as her reaction to it; try as she would, she simply couldn't convince herself that Harris hadn't got a small fraction of exactly what he had coming. By the time she was fighting her way to the back of the Dundas streetcar in an attempt to actually make it off at her stop, she was heartily sick of the whole argument.

    Violence is never the answer but sometimes, like with cockroaches, it's the only possible response. By physically moving two semi-comatose teenagers out of her way, she made it out the door at the last possible second. Harris is a cockroach. End of discussion. It was too damned hot to deal with personal ethics. She promised herself she'd take another crack at it when the weather cooled down.

    She could feel the heat of the asphalt through the soles of her sneakers and, walking as quickly as the seething crowds allowed, she turned up Huron Street toward home. Dundas and Huron crossed in the center of Chinatown, surrounded by restaurants and tiny markets selling exotic vegetables and live fish. In hot weather, the metal bins of food garbage heated up and the stench that permeated the area was anything but appetizing. Breathing shallowly through her mouth, Vicki could completely understand why the wer had hurried out of the