Officer Carl Delevan considered himself an experienced cop, which to him meant that he could reliably place anyone he met into one of three categories: cop, citizen or scumbag. The punk standing at the far end of the BART car was a perfect example of the latter.
Delevan wasn't exactly sure what about the perp irked him more. It could have been his hair, which was thick, black and long enough that Carl had originally mistaken him for a woman, until the man had turned around. Several days growth of beard had corrected that mistake immediately.
Perhaps it was the way he was dressed. Heavy boots, black pants, dark shirt and a long knee-length coat, all of which looked like they had been gotten on discount from Goodwill. Delevan found the coat to be a bit suspicious, it bore a large white patch on the back, covered with a mass of squiggles the chinks called writing. If the man hadn't been white, Delevan would have figured him to be a member of one of the slant-eyed gangs from around Chinatown.
That the guy was a bum, Delevan had no doubt. The long hair, unshaven appearance and worn clothing could have belonged to a Berkeley college student, but Delevan doubted that any of them would be hauling around an Army surplus duffel bag. Delevan hated bags like that, anything could be in them. Guns, drugs, money. The Chinatown chink gangs had proved several times that the cops didn't frighten them.
Having just about reached the point where, for the good of his fellow passengers, Delevan would toss the gink off the train, the car stopped and the doors opened. Several citizens got on, but the scumbag was the only one to leave. Delevan watched him leave though a side window. Good riddance, he thought, a useless waste of skin like that doesn't belong around here anyway.
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