When Max burst through the door they both leaped to their feet. Max kept going. He didn't lose a step or slacken his stride. When I saw that he wasn't going to stop at conversation distance, I quickly sidestepped and turned
so that I could watch Diesel out of the corner of my eye while focusing on his cousin.
Max stopped maybe an inch from Diesel. Then he said, very slowly, “When you accepted my offer, you enlisted in my own personal Marine Corps. This is not going to be your air-conditioned, goat-fucking, Starbucks coffeeâdrinking army of one that you are accustomed to. You will not make decisions until I think you are ready to. You will do what I tell you, when I tell you. You bring nothing to me that I cannot replace. You will leave any attitudes, thoughts, or beliefs that are contrary to that behind you. Do you have a problem with that?”
“No, sir!”
“What about your sheep-fucking cousin? I want to hear him.”
“No, sir!”
“Good. This is going to be your only chance. You want to step outside with me? Maybe both of you?”
“No, sir!”
“I didn't hear you, sheep-fucker.”
“No, sir!”
Interesting. I saw a bead of sweat form and slowly drip down from Diesel's hairline. I looked at Hawk and grinned. He stayed stone-faced. I don't think he liked me.
“Good. Because if you ever decide to question my or Gardener's authority, you will be shot on the spot.”
Max held eye contact for a couple beats more and then stepped back. He kept stepping back until he was almost at the door. He stopped and said, “Gardener.”
I may suck at social situations but I lived for this. I grinned at them and said, “Care to try your luck, gentlemen?”
They did. If it had been just Diesel, nothing would have happened. Hawk didn't know any better, or he was pissed enough to think he could beat me. They went for their sidearms.
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They simply did not understand. I lived for this. While I worked on the farm, digging holes or whatever, I practiced in my head. I would take a break every hour or so and practice for ten or fifteen minutes. Every other hour I changed my reps. I practiced my draw standing, sitting, sideways, basically every position I could think of.
After dinner I would sit on the porch and listen to the conversations until there was about thirty minutes of daylight left. Then I would go down to the berm and shoot fifty rounds. I practiced with the Ruger and the Navy revolver. The kids came with me. They would sit about ten yards behind me in a row: Woof, the boy, and the girl. They would clap when they felt like it, and Woof would bark.
I shot at playing cards, the thin edge turned to me. My goal was to split the cards six out of six times at ten feet. I had six broomstick-size pieces of wood with laundry clips attached to them. Each one held a card. With the Ruger I could slice four out of six on average. With the Navy revolver I had hit six out of six twice now.
One evening Night got pissed at me: “You are freaking obsessed with those guns! What the hell is the matter with you? Why can't you ever give it a rest?”
I didn't know what to say. I thought she knew. “Because . . .”
“Because is not a fucking answer!” she screamed.
I shrugged and told her, “Because I want to live so I can come home to you every night.”
She stopped and gave me the strangest look, then rushed into my arms and cried and cried. I will never understand women.
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So they went for it. I had my gun out, cocked, and pointed at Hawk about the time he reached the butt of his weapon.
“Bang!” I said. Then I pointed it at Diesel. “Bang,” and grinned at him.
They froze and slowly moved their hands away.
“Care to try for two out of three, gentlemen?”
Both of them shook their heads.
Max laughed. “Okay. Are we done sniffing each other and growling? I hope so. We have work to do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
We spent some time talking about patrol schedules, and Max gave us his Five Commandments:
You will not steal or extort money from the citizens of the town, or from strangers passing through, for your personal use.
You will be polite.
You will not verbally or physically abuse anyone in public.
You will not take shit from anyone in public while in uniform. This includes your mom, wife, and pastor.
In any situation involving a local and a stranger, you will take the local's side over the stranger's.
He added, “For God's sake, try to use some common fucking sense.”
Then he handed each one of us a small spiral-bound notebook and a pencil. “Use them. I will be looking at them. I want each man who goes off watch to update the incoming watch on what happened, how it was handled, and anything else of interest. I don't want to be surprised, and I don't want any of you surprised. I want to know
about strangers as soon as you know, especially if there is more than one of them.”
He paired me with Diesel for the next three days. He told him, “I want you to show Gardener as much of the town as possible in those three days. I want you to knock on every door and introduce yourselves. Talk to the people. Find out if anyone is really hurting. Do they have any special needs? How do they look? I want to know every crazy and near-crazy in town. I want to know who is really hungry.”
Diesel asked what I was thinking: “Why?”
From the look Max gave him, I was glad I hadn't asked.
“Because if they are starving, we want to get some food to them,” Max said. “Same thing if they need medical attention. From now on these are our people. I expect them to be treated as such.”
He went on. “I also want to know the address of every house you think is vacant. We're going to have to go back later and check each one of them.” He didn't wait for us to ask why. Instead he kept going. “Think about it. We don't need fire hazards. Plus, we might find some useful stuff that's been left behind.
“Hawk, you have the night shift for the next three days. Here's what I want you to doâ” He paused and looked at Diesel and me. “Okay, you two, hit the streets. Gardener, I want you to come and talk to me before you go home.”
I nodded. Since he was my ride back to the farm I thought that was already the plan. Instead I replied, “No problem, Chief.” I turned around and hit the door before anyone could see my grin.
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Diesel and I started walking side by side. It was hot out. The sun hitting the concrete sidewalk bounced back hard. We didn't have official shirts yet, but we had badges. I pinned mine to my belt loop for that Fed look. Diesel followed suit.
I decided to reach for new levels of maturity. I was on a roll. Hell, I hadn't shot them. “You know the town,” I said. “Where do you want to start?”
“I don't know. I'm thinking we do the better neighborhoods first.”
“They have more shade?”
He grinned. “Yeah. Plus, who knows? Maybe we'll get invited in for cookies and iced tea. That sure isn't going to happen in Trailer Town.”
“Look, Diesel, I'm sorry if you caught the blowback from what happened that day.” I bit off what I really wanted to say, which was
Hey, asshole, they wanted to kill me. Get over it.
He waved it off, literally. “Like the man said, it's history. We need to cross the street here. There is a path behind the old auto parts store that puts you out on the street.”
He started telling me about what used to be in the empty buildings we walked past. “I never understood why anyone wanted to start a gallery or a coffee shop here. But I tell you, it sure brought in a better class of women. Even better was, when it went sour, you didn't have to worry about their cousins, brothers, and uncles.”
“Yeah. I got a feeling that not only am I going to need a mental map of the town, I'm going to need one for all the relationships and family trees.”
He laughed, genuinely, “Just assume we are all related somehow, and you'll know all you need to know.”
The first house looked vacant. Dead lawn. Dead vibe. I wrote it down. I thought about asking Diesel to do it, but I knew who was going to be getting the information, so I did it. My guess was Night would be updating her maps over the next few days. We rattled the doorknob. It was locked, and I peered in through the window. Empty.
“You know who lived here?”
“Naw. Most of the people I know live near or in Trailer Town. People my age, when we were getting out of school, they usually got out of town. We couldn't afford a house here and we couldn't afford one wherever we ended up.”
The second house looked occupied but no one answered.
“You think they're at work?”
I looked at him and laughed. “Yeah, right.”
I realized we were going to need to make up some fliers. Let people know we weren't there to serve papers or evict them. The suburban setting was beginning to lull me into complacency. “Look, Diesel. When we walk up to these doors, I want us to approach as if there is a crazy on the other side with a shotgun in hand and a belief that we are coming to evict him.”
“Yeah, makes sense. How do you want to do it?”
“I'll knock on five doors. Then you knock on five. The other guy will hang back at an angle to provide support. You know, just in case the door explodes. Watch the windows, too.”
“I know, I know. I've done this before.”
I just stared at him thinking,
Why do people have to make everything so complicated.
I waited until he looked
away. My glow from being so mature earlier was rapidly dissipating.
The next house looked empty, too. “Sweet Jesus. Anyone still live in this town?” I rattled the doorknob. It was unlocked. I looked in the window. I could see some furniture, but the house had that empty feel.
I opened the door and the stink hit me. I turned around and gave him the hand sign DANGER without even thinking. God bless military standardization. He knew the sign, and I saw his body language change.
“I think the place is clear. I'm going in.” He nodded and jumped up on the porch with me. I went in first. Nothing. I yelled, “Hello! Police!” Still nothing. I did it the way Max had taught us. Diesel had been to the same school, which made it fast and a lot easier.
We found the source of the stink in the kitchen. Whoever had lived here had left their dog behind. It had died of thirst, probably trying to get to the sink. I don't know. I hoped they had stuck around. I would like to talk to them.
We backed up and out.
Diesel said, “Assholes.”
I nodded thinking,
Hey, the first time we actually agreed on something. We both dislike dog killers.
“We are going to check upstairs and the basement. God knows what else we will find.”
“Probably grandma,” was his reply. It was almost funny.
We didn't find grandma. We didn't find much of anything. I noticed that out here in the country, the houses seemed to remain in the same state the owners had left them. No trashing of the property or stripping of the appliances.
The owners just decided one morning to load up the car and go somewhere else.
These people had forgotten the family dog. I saw evidence of kids, so I wondered what they had been told. Something like, “Sorry, son. Rover is going to stay here and watch the place for us” or “Someone is going to come by and take care of him.”
I don't know why it bothered me so much. It wasn't like I didn't know firsthand how a lot of them would discard their own kids if they felt they needed to.
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A couple of houses later, someone actually answered his door. He was a white guy, tousled hair, stained T-shirt. He hadn't shaved for a few days. When he opened the door, he just stood there blinking at us like we were apparitions.
We were a little off-balance ourselves. Since finding the dog we were a bit edgy. I think we would have been quicker to respond if a shotgun blast had greeted us. So we all stood there for an awkward couple of seconds, staring at each other.
“Can I help you?”
Diesel was doing the door knocking at this point, so he got to answer. “Hello, sir. We are from the local police and, um, we are new, so we, um . . .”
“I know you,” the man said. “You're Frank's kid.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Come on in. Don't mind the mess.”
His front room was a disaster. Clothes lay wherever he had tossed them. Shoes were scattered across the floor. Dirty glasses and a bottle without a label sat on a side
table next to his La-Z-Boy recliner. The room didn't smell too bad, always a plus.
“So how's your dad? I haven't seen him in months.”
They spent a few minutes chatting about Diesel's father, and what a shame it was that the town wasn't what it used to be, but that he had heard the fishing was good.
“And who's this?” Meaning me, of course.
“This is Officer Gardener. Officer Gardener, this is Mr. Morris.” We shook hands and said our howdies.
“He's on the police force with me. We are walking around and introducing ourselves, seeing if folks need anything. Seeing if there are any problems.”
“When did we get a police force? I thought they left town because they didn't like getting paid with promises.” He thought that was pretty funny.
“Yesterday.” I decided to join the conversation, mainly in the hope that I could bring it to a swift end.
Jeebus, if everyone who answered the door took this long to get to the point, it would take us a month to do this. Of course, then I had to answer where I was from and listen to him tell me about his cousin Mel who had taken the family to Northern Virginia to look for work six months ago.
Did I know him?
Yep. This was going to take a while.