It was 10:46 PM, Tuesday night. The still streets were illuminated by the silver moonlight and the rows of lamps slowly burning sodium gases. A sense of calmness surrounded the suburban city of Folsom that night, making the area almost unusually quiet compared to usual weeknights. On the hills flowered with affordable tract house, the two of us patrolled throughout the night in a white, unmarked Crown Victoria. I rode shotgun, and between my legs was an actual locked 12-guage shotgun. The weapon was loaded of course, in the event of a fallen officer, the passenger of the squad car could unload the shotgun at the suspect, giving them a new reason why crime doesn’t pay.
The driver of the vehicle was a officer of average build and size, with short peppered-black hair and a stubbly face. He wore a blue Hawaiian-style shirt and beige Dockers. Although his wardrobe did not consist of typical detective attire, his selection of clothing did give the impression that he was no ordinary citizen.
“So what kinda music d’ya listen to?” the detective asked me while fumbling with the car radio with his right hand. He turned the knob to 98.5 and gave me a facial expression saying “Is this okay?” I nodded slightly and he turned his full attention to driving through the neighborhood.
“It’s usually a little bit more exciting than this on your average Tuesday night. But this is Folsom. We don’t have the crime that the big cities have to deal with. Plus, with the prison and all, we’ve got cops driving through the city twenty-four seven.”
From the way he looked through the windows and windshield, one could tell he was no stranger to cautiousness. His eyes were sharks, stalking at suspicious people as prey. He didn’t give the attention most drivers give to the road, a blank stare into whatever lies affront. He watched, examined, and logged into his tiny notepad which protruded from a suction cup sticking to the bottom of the windshield. Trying to read the scribbles on the notepad proved to be futile, since the writings appeared as foreign as an unknown language.
“I didn’t always want to be a cop. When I was younger, I lived with my mother, two brothers, and my sis in a small apartment in Chicago. We were as poor as one could get. My mother collected welfare check and got extra cash from the many boyfriends she let ‘sleep’ over. She would get drunk all the time, and for awhile she was heavy on snorting cocaine.”
“My brothers, they were both twins by the way, they both wound up in jail by the time I was fourteen. I remember my mother taking us to the local corrections for boys to visit them. One of them was stabbed to death or something while in jail.. It’s kinda fuzzy because I was so young at the time, plus my mother didn’t inform me much about the details. The other one got his brains blown out during a botched armed robbery attempt. I know he was my brother and all, but you don’t go sticking a loaded gun in the face of an armed, militant convenience store clerk. Besides, I never knew them. They were stupid and ignorant. They deserved to die.”
“Now my sister, Laura.. I can somewhat remember her.” he muttered while pinching his chin, “She was very kind, that’s all I can recall. She was sweetie until she started doing crack. She killed herself at sixteen. My mother said it was depression, but I knew it was the damn drugs. They kill everybody. No good at all.”
The detective broke the conversation abruptly by grabbing the police radio microphone and speaking to the dispatcher.
“133 dispatch. Radio check.” he blurted into the ribbed teardrop-shaped microphone.
“Dispatch to 133. Radio check 10-4. Bored?” buzzed the police radio.
“That’s affirmative. My ride-along’s asleep at the gun.”
“Fire it. The blast should wake him up.”
My ears perked up like a dog acknowledging a whistle. The detective glanced at me smirking, assuring me that they were only kidding.
“10-4. He’s awake now.” He replied as he placed the microphone back on it’s special hanger, “As I was saying.. oh yeah, my family, well you don’t want to hear about that. Besides, the last of my family I knew was my mother, and I haven’t spoken to her since I ran away when I was sixteen.”
“Call it a broken home. I called it hell on earth. When I turned sixteen, I had finally grown tired of the drugs and the crime, so I ran away and lived with a friend I had met in school. He was clean until two months after I moved in, so I eventually joined the Army. Military life was a bit difficult for me at first since I was a bit of a rebel myself. I had done drugs and stolen things, and now I was having to live a life of strict discipline.”
He stopped for a moment. I had assumed that he was signaling the end of the story. He then rubbed his belly with his right hand.
“Hungry?” he asked me, “I’m starving.” I affirmly shook my head again, and we then drove the squad car up and down several blocks until we arrived at a McDonald’s.
“Cops usually get food for free. I don’t know why. I mean, we get paid for being police. But the polite thing to do is to just take the food and thank them for their generosity. One time I insisted on paying for my food and the manager got angry with me. He said if I didn’t take the food for free, he’d ban me from entering the place. People can get really touchy when others don’t accept their gifts.”
“Detective work is more than this. Most of my time is spent in my little office going through mountains of paperwork, making phone calls, filling out reports, secretary crap, you know? This right here is the fun part, actually cruising around town looking for trouble. It’s also the most dangerous part of the job. You can’t get shot while sorting files. You can here.”