Archive for August, 2008
Thursday, August 28th, 2008
I had a DUI last night.
The call was an accident. When I arrived, there was a Grand Prix wrapped around a tree. In fact, the passenger door was smashed into the cab nearly to the midline of the car. There was blood all over the passenger door, dotted by the shimmer of broken glass and smashed plastic.
The occupants were gone. Usually, that means one of a couple of things. Possibly the driver had no license, either suspended or revoked. The driver was on the run from a warrant. Or the driver was driving under the influence. This accident scene – which ran probably the better part of a football field length from beginning to end – felt like a DUI.
As I’m working it, I get a call that the driver and passenger are at a local hospital. I go and the passenger, with a massive head wound, is out cold with the doctors. But the driver is hysterical, on the phone with her mother, and knocking me over with beer breath from probably twenty feet away.
So I got the DUI handled and no one died and everything was fine. Yes, she decided to tussle when she realized she was going to jail (fights are so much easier when your opponent is drunk and having a hard time standing). Yes, she was as profane toward me as anyone I’ve ever dealt with. Yes, she told me that the Constitution said I couldn’t talk to her until she talked to her parents (she’s 18-years old). And yes, she told me that the Constitution said “you gotta let me use my cell phone, bitch,” (I was so tempted to find the Constitution on-line and have her find the phrase ‘cell phone, bitch’)
The point is not that she was drunk, not that she was an idiot who, at 18, had already had a couple of DUIs and who, at 18, immediately mentioned lawyers when I asked her name.
The point is I was excited. When I got called for the accident, I got excited. When I realized it was probably a DUI, I got excited. When she decided she wanted to throw down with me, I got excited.
It occurred to me, as I’m wrenching her arms behind her back and trying to haul her outta the hospital beforeI lost control of the situation entirely, that I am in a fairly perverse profession.
When I have a good day, then by definition someone else is having a shitty day. I loved the high speed chase I was involved in last year. It ended only when the guy who raped his girlfriend and stole her car crashed headfirst into my car. I love going into domestic situations. I love walking into an underage drinking party with 50 or 60 kids all staring at me like I’m…well…the cops. I love it when I’m called to a burglary or a theft and I have to figure out not only whodunit, but wha’happened.
I love all that stuff and that bothers me a little. I should hate all those things. Those are terrible things that happen to real people, not stick figures on COPS or cardboard cutouts on CSI. This is real blood and real teeth on the floor and real contact visits between inmates and their families mere hours before said inmate goes to prison for ten or twenty years.
So isn’t it a little perverse that I love those situations so much? I like to think I have sympathy and empathy and all the rest and that’s what makes me a good officer (and no, I’m not one of those guys who arrests everyone for everything..arrests aren’t the definition of a good copper, I believe), but I also understand that I dig the chaos and madness and that concerns me a little.
Not a lot, not to the point of paralysis, just a little…in the back of my head.
And I’m sure it’ll be in the back of my head tonight when I get called to an accident or a domestic battery or a knifing.
And I’m sure I’ll be breathing fast and heavy as I think: this rocks.
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Wednesday, August 13th, 2008
“But I am assailed with my own ignorance and inability.”
John Steinbeck, “Working Days,” Entry #18, June 18, 1938
“Must get no fatal feelings about it.”
John Steinbeck, “Working Days,” Entry #20, June 20, 1938
I was about eight and a half chapters in when it all fell apart.
Okay, not all. The first thirty words or so of the first chapter were decent. And there were ten or fifteen good words in chapter five. Beyond that….
Honestly, it’s not that bad, but I did have some long hard sessions the last few days where I began to realize the new novel wasn’t working. Not in a mechanical, “Fix this here strut and that back brake and maybe the headlight and ever’thang’ll be good” kind of way, but in a “I’m not sure this thang’s got a engine” kind of way.
Chapter eight felt forced, is the best I can describe it. It felt hollow and forced and entirely superficial. What I came to realize, after much gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair (metaphoric hair, for those of you who know me) was that one character was shouting at me to cut his stage time.
Once I realized that, that chapter came clear. So I set about writing it, happily tapping away until I realized that to do the chapter the new way meant restaging the players quite a bit upstream. That realization forced me to rethink the time line in its entirety.
I had been fixated on this book happening about two months after the first book in the series. Fixated on that because I had a great scene in mind that would happen during a Halloween party in some forgotten tunnels near the jail. Lots of funky lighting – lurid and angled and shadowed and all the things I loved to do when I was doing theatrical lighting – and people in costumes and a hardcore chase of a murder suspect right through the middle.
I got that in my head and couldn’t get it out, which meant I was writing to that scene rather than to the overall story arc. Once I found the balls to toss that scene, then I understood what was wrong with the entire book.
So I restaged it, restructured it, and that was a good thing. Once I get things rewritten upstream, I’ll be able to keep moving downstream and should finish the final two-thirds in a couple months.
And chances are I’ll find a way to use that chase scene anyway, if not in this book, then the next.
It is a lesson Ed Bryant taught me long ago and that I had simply forgotten: don’t be scared to toss it all out. Don’t be scared to toss an idea or a chapter or some bit of brilliant writing. If it’s not working, then it’s not working, regardless of how well it’s written.
So I tossed and now we’re cooking with Crisco, as my third grade music teacher used to say. We’ll see if there’s enough Crisco to get through the entire book.
Actually, given my heart history, perhaps I should shy away from Crisco and use extra virgin olive oil or some shit.
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Friday, August 8th, 2008
“What the fuck,” the old man said. ”What you stopping me for? I ain’t done nothing.”
I’d pulled him over, late at night, as he drove away from a bar in one of our small towns on the west side. He’d been drifting a little bit in the lane. Probably nothing, but I like to check. Because sometimes drifting is a sign of drunk driving. Sometimes it’s a sign of texting while driving (though probably not with an 80 year old man) and sometimes it’s just a sign of shitty driving.
“What I done? I ain’t done nothing, you son of a bitch.”
I wanted to say, “Sir, you’ve violated the common decency of grammar,” but I thought that would be less than professional so instead, I said, “Well, you were drifting a little in the lanes and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
See, usually when I say that, especially to older drivers, they get all gushy and happy that someone is checking on them. They know they’re older, they know they might be having a medical problem. So they are quite appreciative when someone’s taking the time to make sure they’re not…you know…dead.
“I’m fine, goddamnit. I wasn’t drifting and you know it, fucker.”
“Sir, we can go back to my squad and watch the video, if you’d like.”
“Damn straight.” But he made no move to get out of his truck. “What’s your name?”
“Deputy Barker.”
“I’m gonna talk to the sheriff about you.”
“I’ll get you his phone number before we’re done.”
“Goddamnit. I ain’t done nothing wrong and you know it, fucker.”
“Sir, can I see your license and insurance, please?”
“I ain’t got it,” he yelled, his old man spittle flying all over my face (and making me wonder if he’s got AIDS or Hep C from all the old ladies he’s schtupping with his Viagara prescription). Rummage, rummage, rummage and out pops his insurance card.
“Sir, this is expired.”
He snatched it back from me. ”I know that, asshole.”
“Well, do you have valid insurance?”
“Do you know who I am?” Still he yelled and his eyes bugged out and his waddle bounced around and caught the red and blue light my squad car tossed.
“Well, no,” I said. “Because you don’t have your license. Now, do you not have it because it’s at home, or do you not have it because it’s suspended?”
“Goddamnit, I’m getting outta here.”
But he made no move to drive away. I think even he knew that would ratchet up his night in a really bad way.
“Fucker,” he added.
At that moment, my professionalism slipped…for just a second. “Wow, you’re quite the little asshole, aren’t you?”
But rather than yell back at me, he stared, like he’d just been slapped. “What?”
“You’re mean.”
“I am not.”
“Well, you’re being mean to me.”
“I am not…fucker.”
“Sir, have you been drinking tonight?”
At this point, I knew he wasn’t drunk, though I was fairly certain he’d had one or two. I asked because it’s part of my standard patter and because – in this one case – I thought it would be fun to poke him with a stick.
“Drinking? Goddamnit. Why are you – ”
“Sir, have you been drinking?”
“Well…yeah…I have. I had a couple of beers.”
“Okay, well that’s not too bad. I don’t think you’re drunk, I just thought you might be having a medical problem.”
Then he laughed. I know, I know, surprised me damn near into a second heart attack. Laughed and while it was a weak, mean old man’s laugh, it seemed pretty genuine. “I farm 700 goddamn acres and that ain’t killed me. I don’t think no beer’s gonna pro’ly gonna kill me, either.”
No, I wanted to say. What’s going to kill you is when your wife and kids get together late one night while you’re sleeping and run a sword straight through your black little heart…that’s what’s going to kill you.
So I an a check on him and got one of our business cards, upon which I put my name and the Sheriff’s phone number.
“All right, sir, I think we’re done.” I gave him the business card. “Call the Sheriff and set up an appointment. I’ll come in and the three of us can watch the video of this entire encounter.”
He laughed again and tore the card up – carefully depositing it in his truck rather than on the highway – and said, “Naw, I don’t need that. Thanks for watching out for me…fucker.”
Then he stuck his hand out and I shook it and he drove off and I stood on the side of the road, like a retard, confused as to what had just happened, and thinking, Man, you just can’t make this crap up.
I then immediately wrote it all down ’cause you know it’s gonna be in a book someday. Guy’ll probably want royalties, too…fucker.
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