Authors: Bernard Schaffer
And not just any cop. A brand-new rookie at a different police department making starting salary and taking his place at the bottom of the barrel for seniority and vacation.
None of it seemed fair.
If a plumber works for a company he doesn't like, he can just go be the same plumber somewhere else,
Frank thought. It was the same for accountants, graphic designers, and any executive in the private industry. Not for police officers. No other police department in the country would offer him a highly-coveted position like detective or sergeant, not when they had their own guys sitting around knifing each other in the back at every chance in the hopes that they'd be promoted. You can be the most qualified, certified, experienced cop in the world, but you're stuck in the place you work at forever.
Unless you feel like starting over,
he thought.
Or, you are a chief.
How convenient. The fucking chiefs can go wherever they want, and normally for more money.
He was two days into his vacation. Two days closer to either having to man up and quit or go back and suck it up. He'd looked into getting his CDL. First year truck drivers made a whopping thirty-five grand a year and were away from their families six weeks at a time.
He pictured his little girls waving goodbye to him from the front porch as he pulled away in his big rig.
Daddy didn't like the mean men at his work, honey, so that's why he missed you growing up. What's that? You're pregnant at fourteen and love the way heroin makes you feel?
Frank picked up his phone and called Marcus. "I'm in.
Send me all the reports and I'll help you however I can."
"
They'll be delivered to you tomorrow,
" Marcus said.
"This kid's a good egg, Frank. You won't regret it."
"A good egg who deals drugs," Frank sighed.
"Just because that's what they're charging him with doesn't mean it's true. Do you need me to tell you how much sloppy police work is done on a daily basis? Look at it as your chance to clean up your own house a little."
Frank laughed, "You're a silver-tongued bastard but you don't have to spin it for me, Marcus. I'm betraying my own kind. That's just how it is."
"Sounds to me like they did you first."
Frank said he had to go as a
bell sounded and a flood of children burst forth from his daughters' school. He got out of car and stood by it, trying to pick them out from the sea of brightly-colored schoolbags and squealing, high-pitched voices. All of the other parents seemed to know what to do, but Frank was helpless, feeling like a discarded sandwich in a field overrun by fast-moving ants. Some of the damn elementary school students were almost as tall as he was.
Finally, he turned around and stepped onto the front bumper of his car and then onto the hood, standing up straight and waving his arms, throwing up a flag in hopes that his crew would spot him. He ignored the perplexed stares of the other parents and the amused laughter of the kids. He wanted his daughters and that was that.
Devon came charging across the school yard toward him, calling out, "Dad! Get down from there! What are you doing?"
"Trying to find you and your sister," he called down.
"You're in the wrong spot. Get down and I'll go find her."
"Okay," he said. She was mad, he saw. Embarrassed. A few minutes later Frank saw both girls coming back toward the car and he reached down to scoop
Cory up and kiss her on the face. "Hi! I'm sorry I wasn't where I was supposed to be."
"That's okay," she said. "Were you really standing on the car?"
"Yeah. See the footprints on the hood?"
"Cool!"
"Can we just go?" Devon whined.
Frank put
Cory in the back seat and buckled her in, then raced around to the front of the car. "How was your day, guys?"
"Good," they both said.
"Did you take any tests?"
"No," they both said.
"Did you learn anything good?"
"No," they both said.
Frank waited for the long line of cars to wind their way out of the school's lot. "Did any ucky boys try to ask you on a date?"
"No
, dad. None of the boys in our class are interested in that," Devon sighed.
"Yeah!"
Cory shouted. "Brett told me he loves me and wants to get married but I told him we can't."
"That's right you can't," Frank said. "Because boys are ucky."
"No, because I'm marrying Jamal!"
Frank looked in the rearview mirror
at them both and said,
"Jamal?"
"She loves Jamal,"
Devon said. "He's all she talks about."
"Jamal," Frank said quietly. "
So…is he nice?"
"Yeah,"
Cory said dreamily.
"Good." He nodded and said, "That's the most important thing. So, what kind of work does he do?"
"He doesn't work, he's in school."
"And he doesn't work? By the time I was your age, I was already a doctor."
"No you weren't," Devon said, rolling her eyes.
"Sometimes we play doctor,"
Cory said.
Frank's head shot up and he instinctively stepped on the brake
so hard his car's front end dropped. "With Jamal?"
"With all of us. At recess we all play animal doctor and take care of all the animals in the zoo."
"Oh," Frank said, rubbing the side of his temple. "Right. That's a good game. Listen, do you guys want to go get ice cream before practice?"
"Yeah!" they both shouted.
"Sounds good." He turned on the radio and tried to stay quiet for the rest of the ride.
The food court entrance at the mall was packed with teenagers who'd just let out from school and were standing around smoking and laughing to one another. Frank picked Cory up and carried her and held Devon's hand as he navigated them toward the door, trying to steer out of the way of any puffs of smoke. He heard a couple "fucks" and "shits" littering the air around the kids, the same way discarded cigarette butts were tossed carelessly on the sidewalk as they walked.
He kept his head down and tried to not make eye contact with any of the teenagers, practicing what it would be like to not be a police officer any longer.
I'm just a regular person going into the mall,
he thought.
I am going to ignore it and just keep moving.
It was a skill he would have to hone, he knew. The same way he'd have to slow down when he drove and make sure to really stop at every stop sign. Soon, he'd no longer have a magical piece of tin in his wallet he could wave at any cop in the world and receive fraternal greetings
instead of a massive fine. Soon, he'd be just another person without the obligations or permissions that came with being police.
Maybe I'll smoke weed,
Frank thought.
It looks like fun.
Frank got the girls through the front doors of the food court
and he set Cory down and took a deep breath. "Okay," he said. "You want Dairy Queen or a sundae from McDonalds?"
"Dairy Queen!" Cory shouted.
The little one yanked on his arm to pull him toward their kiosk and Devon sighed and said, "Fine, whatever."
Frank stopped Cory and looked at his older daughter, "Where do you want to go, hon?"
"Does it matter?"
"Does everything have to be difficult? I'm trying to have a good time with you guys. This isn't a major decision."
"Can I get a fruit smoothie at the yogurt place?"
"Yes," Frank said. He dug into his pocket and handed her a ten dollar bill. "Just stay where I can see you, okay? We'll meet you over there."
Devon took the money and thanked him and he watched her move by herself toward the line for the yogurt place. "Come on, dad, come on," Cory repeated over and over. Frank was looking at the mall's janitor standing by the bathrooms, a dark-skinned, younger man who watched the people milling around the food court. The man nodded at Devon as she passed.
Serial rapist
,
Frank thought.
He works here during the day and at night he snatched joggers off the street and drags them into his white van and he rapes and kills them.
An older man in a
dark gray business suit was standing in line in front of Devon. He looked back at her, and then up to see if there were any adults with her.
Pedophile,
Frank thought.
When he gets drunk at night he perps on his step-daughter but her mother won't listen to the child because she's too afraid it might be true.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
Frank thought.
The world is not filled with maniacs and child molesters. Look at all these people in the food court, going through their daily lives happily oblivious to all of the madness probably happening right next door, if not inside their very own houses. What is that like,
he wondered?
To not know the disasters that lurked around every turn and the horror people are capable of?
I want to be one of these people,
he decided.
Happily oblivious.
The weed will probably help with that.
He looked back and the janitor had pushed his cart into the bathroom to clean it and the businessman in front of Devon was innocently ordering a strawberry smoothie and not paying her any attention. Frank picked up Cory and carried her to the Dairy Queen register and let her order whatever she wanted. He kept on carrying her even as she tried to balance the tall ice cream cone in her hands and keep the drops of vanilla from leaking over the sides. "Let me help with that," Frank said, taking a bite out of the
ice cream.
Cory tried to wrestle his face away and Frank managed to sneak another bite in as he crossed the food court toward Devon. She'd reached the register by then and Frank was too busy trying to keep Cory from sticking her ice cream cone in his eyes to notice the woman standing
directly behind Devon. As he came up to the front of the line he saw her from the corner of his eye, seeing the large shopping bags she was holding, seeing her long, flowing skirt and tight lycra tank top that showed off the sumptuous curves of her chest and hips. A light dusting of glitter covered her arms and the feline angles of her eyes widened as Ophelia and Frank looked at one another. "Hi," Ophelia said.
Devon turned around and looked at Ophelia with a cocked eyebrow, trying to figure out who her father was speaking to, but Cory was more direct, grabbing Frank's face with her sticky, wet hand and saying, "Who is that? Daddy, who is that?
Who's the pretty lady?"
"This is daddy's friend from work," he finally said.
"That's right," Ophelia nodded. "So these are your little girls?"
Cory said hi and Devon waved lazily as she took her change from the cashier and picked up her smoothie with both hands. "Come on, Cory. Let's go sit down," she said.
Frank sent both the girls over to the nearest table and stuck his hands in his pockets and backed away slightly, forcing himself to not embrace her. Ophelia looked over at the table where the girls were sitting and said, "They're gorgeous."
"I know," Frank said. "Everyone says I'm in so much trouble in a few years."
"You have no idea."
"Listen, I've been going through some things. Some really major things. I'm sorry I fell off the radar."
"Okay," she said. "I was wondering."
His strength and resolve to do better was a massive dam that kept the roiling waters of his instincts firmly at bay, but by the second as he looked at her, the struts and rivets holding the dam together began to shudder. Water began trickling through the cracks in the walls. "Do you want to try and get together for coffee?" he said, knowing he shouldn't, saying it anyway.
Ophelia looked back at Devon and Cory, smiling at the way the little one's feet kicked in the air as she ate her ice cream. Devon turned her head slightly to look back at the two of them. "
Your older one knows something," Ophelia said. "You don't think she does, but she's a lot more intuitive than you think."
"We're just two people from work talking to each other," Frank said. "What's there to know?"
"The whole time we've been together you've done nothing but push and pull your way in and out of this relationship. I don't know what you're running from, but now I can see what keeps you. You know, my dad left when I was Devon's age," she said. "Now look at me."
"
Look at you? What do you mean look at you? You're an amazing person. Don't say that."
She
smiled bitterly and decided she no longer wanted the smoothie or to be in the food court any longer. She picked up her bags and said, "You're just a man, Frank, and men are dumb, I should know. So I'm going to make the decision for you. Go take care of those girls. Forever."