After her scolding at the hands of the young, beige-jacketed man, Lia stooped onto a curb, too fearful to move forward or retrace her steps. She decided she would simply stay put until death or daylight arrived to claim her.
A police car pulled up alongside her, and two cops asked why she was out alone so late at night. It was 5 a.m. and dawn was on the horizon. They coaxed her inside the patrol car, amused by her wariness of them, as she was obviously fearful that they might hurt her. Before crossing back over the bridge to Coronado, where they would safely deposit her home, the two cops—one white, one black, both middle-aged, their tummies burdened by the girth of fast food diets—doted on her like two uncles. After stopping at some twenty-four-hour doughnut place, they’d come out carryi
