Ramos had never seen nor smelled anything so bad in his entire life.  He tried to play the tough cop, joking with the other cops at the scene; hanging around waiting for the EMS crew to arrive and declare the body “officially” dead so that they all could

leave.  Ramos remembered hoping that the smell wouldn’t get into his brand new uniform.

            “Holy shit!  That fucking guy’s dead!  Dead!  D. O. Fuckin’ A!”

            EMS had arrived and Nance had been able to pronounce the person dead from a doorway more than fifty feet away.  She and her partner came pushing an ambulance gurney with a large, vinyl zippered bag on top.  A carry-case of equipment rode along on top of the bag.  Both EMTs held their noses.

            The two technicians halted when they reached the body.  The flies, fat with eggs, buzzed angrily at being disturbed.  From the river outside came the cries of gulls and the long, low sigh of a ships horn.

            Nance reached into the case and pulled out a large pair of shears.  She looked around for confirmation.  A detective nodded and waved his hand non-committedly.

            “Cut ‘im down,” he said.

            Nance nodded and walked around the suicide, kicking aside the old wooden milk crate he’d used to launch himself on his short trip through space.

            “Aw-w-w, I hate this shit,” she said eventually as she straightened her shoulders.  “C’mon man.”  She motioned to her partner who by this time had backed away a considerable distance from the scene.  Nance grew annoyed.  “C’mon man,” she repeated.  “He’s too high up off the ground.  One of us is going to have to hold him while the other one cuts him down…”  She snipped at the air a few times with the shears to make her point.  “…And I’ve got the seniority.”

            Her partner visibly turned several shades of gray before retching and fleeing from the warehouse through its open doorway.  Motes of dust danced in his wake.

            All of the cops laughed, including Ramos.  In fact, thinking back, he may have laughed loudest of all in an attempt to “fit in” with his fellow cops—and maybe to keep from following the EMS guy’s example.

            Nance looked around at the cops gathered there like onlookers at an outdoor mime show.  Her hair was longer then, her shoulders not as broad…she looked more feminine.

            Her shoulders sagged.  She knew she wasn’t getting any help from this bunch.  She sighed, lifted her shears, and moved closer to the insect-ridden, decaying husk of what was once a human being.

            “Probie, help her out.”

            All eyes turned to look at the uniformed officer who’d uttered those words.  Sergeant Liszt was a grizzled veteran of both the NYPD and the Marine Corps.  His white hair was cropped into a severe crew cut, and his blue eyes stared directly at Ramos.

            “Go on rookie, hold that DOA while it gets cut down.”

            Ramos felt his face blanch.  Those blue eyes bored into him like twin lasers.

            “You’re a cop, right?”

            Ramos straightened his shoulders and slowly joined the EMS lady at the body.  He faced her and noticed that, despite the strong lines of her face, she was really quite attractive.  He also noticed how her breasts strained the buttons of her uniform shirt.

            “Hi,” Ramos mumbled.  “How ya doin’?”  The smell was much worse this close to the body and Ramos tried to keep the bile from rising to this throat.

            “A lot better than this guy,” she answered.  The left corner of her mouth curled up into a half-smile.

“My name’s Eddie,” Ramos said as he stuck out his hand.  The EMS lady gripped his hand so hard the knuckles cracked.

“Okay officer, I’m Nance.  Let’s get this done.”

She let go of his hand and turned again to face the corpse.  Ramos turned too, albeit much more slowly.  A slight bump or an almost non-existent breeze started the dead man slowly twisting at the end of his rope made up of knotted up plastic bags and discarded neckties.  Ramos pulled on his new leather gloves, his cop gloves, and edged closer to the body.  He noticed that his fellow officers were now very quiet, studying him.  Great.

Ramos shuffled around the corpse in much the same way Nance had done earlier, trying to find some vantage point, some area of better leverage…but in the end, there was only one thing he could do.  He wrapped his arms around the dead man’s rotting legs and lifted.  He felt some of the corpse’s flesh slide up with him in wide ribbons that clung to his uniform like dirty rags.

Ramos wound up pressing his face into the dead man’s belly, his chin in what was left of its crotch, to better balance the dead body.  His hat now sat askew on his head, trapped between the corpse and his ear.  Finally, Nance cut him down.

Because of the smell, the other officers refused to let Ramos ride back to the precinct with them in a patrol car, so he hitched a ride with the corpse in the back of the EMS van. 

‘He shouldn’t mind the smell so much,’ reasoned Ramos glumly.