David was wiggling around in his seat and scarfing down pancakes at the restaurant when Charlie thought of something he might like to do. “Hey, you wanna go meet my friend after this?”
“Who’s your friend? Is it Mr. D? Cuz I already know him.”
“Mr. D? Who’s Mr. D?”
“The old guy from school. He says he knows you. He’s real nice.”
“David, what’s his name?”
“He just says Mr. D. That’s all.”
Charlie scowled a bit. Mr. D? He made a mental note to ask Serena if she knew anything about this Mr. D. fellow.
“What friend?” David asked. Charlie’s thoughts had trailed off and he had forgotten what he was talking about. “What friend, Uncle Charlie?”
“Oh, um, let me call her first and make sure.” He fumbled with his phone until he found the number to the vet’s office. Maggie. He had hardly thought about her since he woke up. Al being attacked had taken precedence over everything else.
“Hello. Main Street Animal Hospital.” It was the girl that worked at the desk, Daphne.
“Hi, Is Dr. Stone available?”
It was only a minute before Maggie answered the phone. “This is Dr. Stone.”
“Hi, Maggie.”
“Charlie?”
“Yeah. I had a really nice time the other night. Thought I’d give you a call and see how you were doing.”
“I did, too. I’m doing fine.” She hesitated just a bit. “It’s been a busy couple of days.”
He was starting to worry a bit. Her tone wasn’t exactly jovial. He had wanted to call yesterday, but he was afraid it might have been too soon. He was worried he’d seem desperate or clingy. Maybe she had wanted him to call. He was suddenly struck with the horror that she may have been waiting expectantly all day for his phone call only to get more enraged with every minute that he didn’t. “Oh. Well, I hope it gets better.”
“I’ll be alright. Just been one of those days. You?”
“Um, kind of a rough morning myself. My partner got hurt at work. He’s okay.” Charlie glanced at David who was playing with the little Smiley’s action figure he had gotten with his pancakes, paying no mind to the telephone conversation Charlie was engaged in. “But I’m watching his son while his wife stays at the hospital with him. Do you think maybe I could bring him by to see the dog?” David’s eyes opened up as big as saucers and his mouth dropped open. Apparently, he had been listening to the conversation.
“Yeah, sure. I was going to take him for a bit of a walk and see how he’s feeling. You want to meet me out? There’s a park near my office.” She answered quickly, but Charlie could sense trepidation in her voice. Had he become the date she wanted to forget? Maybe after the alcohol wore off, she thought differently about the talk they had had. He couldn’t say that he would blame her if she had.
“I know the park.” He blurted out, not wanting to give her a chance to rescind the offer. “Meet you there in half-an-hour?”
“Sure. Sounds good.”
They exchanged pleasantries and hung up. Charlie took David to the front counter where they paid for the meal. For some reason, it was always unnerving to hand over a credit card to a less-than-interested teenager with a giant foam smiley face on top of their head. The frown on the young man behind the counter seemed to be the perfect reciprocal of the smile on his foam hat. The universe must balance. Charlie thought to himself as the young man handed him his receipt and said, “Thanks for coming to Smiley’s, where the smileys go on for mileys.” The teenager said it in perfect monotone and Charlie had to swallow a bout of laughter.
The laugh had nearly escaped him when David looked back and yelled, “Bye, Smiley!”
The whole way to the park, David peppered him with questions. “How big is the dog? What’s his name? What color is he? What does he eat? Does he bite?” The questions went on and on. Of course, Charlie couldn’t help but tease, so by the end of the conversation, the dog had transformed into a purple Chihuahua that fit in the palm of your hand and only ate frog’s toes. David didn’t buy it for a minute. He nearly jumped from the car when he saw Maggie standing on the sidewalk with Tank.
“I knew it, Uncle Charlie, you were teasing! He’s not little... or purple!”
David ran straight to the dog and Maggie smiled as Charlie walked up to her, which eased his mind a little, though she still looked away quickly. The sunglasses she wore made it impossible to read her eyes. He couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking. He hated all the uncertainty there was in dating. The hesitance, the walking on egg shells. “Hi.” He said. He gave her an honest smile. He had almost forgotten how pretty she was.
“Hi.” She smiled back but didn’t let her eye contact linger for very long. “So this is your partner’s boy?”
“Yep. David, this is Dr. Stone. Maggie, David.” With the introductions out of the way, they began to stroll around the park. David was mesmerized by the size of the dog. He walked next to Tank with his arm resting across the dog’s shoulders like they were old friends.
“I had almost thought you weren’t going to call.” She said.
I knew it! He thought. I should’ve called yesterday! “I was going to, but I got busy with a bunch of stuff. Sorry.”
“Oh, no. It’s okay. I was busy, too. No big deal.”
This was not going how he’d hoped. The conversation was forced, uncomfortable. Either something was bothering her or they hadn’t gotten off to as good a start as he thought they had. That was when he caught a glimpse of it. The purple bruise she was trying to hide behind her big sunglasses. “My God, Maggie. What happened to your eye?”
“Oh, this? It’s nothing. I’m just clumsy. I walked into the edge of an open door.”
Charlie stopped walking and stared at her. She took his cue and stopped as well. “Maggie. Don’t lie to me. I’m a cop. I know a door doesn’t do that.” He said, pointing at the mostly hidden bruise behind the glasses.
The surprise on her face was evident and she stammered, looking for some response that would be appropriate, but not finding one. “Well that’s hardly any of your...” She paused. “It’s just…” Her lips curled up as she tried to stop the tears, but they were already on their way, running down each cheek. “No, no, no.” She said under her breath as she tried to hide the tears. She scanned the area quickly and saw a park bench a few feet away. She walked to it, sat down, and began rubbing the wetness from her face. “He’s just… He’s just such a bastard!” She glanced nervously at David, painfully aware of the nasty word she had used. “Sorry.” She whispered to Charlie.
He sat down next to her. “Ex-boyfriend?” He asked. She nodded. “When?”
“Sunday night. After you dropped me off at my apartment.”
He felt the blood drain from his face as the guilt washed over him. “I could’ve stopped it. I could’ve been there.”
“No.” She said. “It wasn’t your fault. What were you supposed to do? Force your way in?”
She was right, he knew it. It wasn’t his fault. It was just chance. “You should file a police report; get a restraining order on him. I know some people at the DA’s office. We could fast-track it and have it in front of a judge in twenty-four hours.” He wondered what he was getting himself into. In his experience, women carried a lot of baggage from abusive boyfriends or husbands. He had seen it so many times. They hate the man one minute and love him the next. Domestic disturbances were some of the most harrowing calls for police officers to respond to because you never knew whether you would be considered friend or foe. Just last week, Charlie and Al had reported to a house where a drunken man had beaten his pregnant wife bloody. She could barely see, her face was so swollen, but the second Al and Charlie started to wrestle with the husband, she leapt onto Charlie’s back like some screaming banshee, clawing at his eyes.
But he wasn’t about to abandon her. Maggie had something special. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but it was there nonetheless. Hiding hi
s nervousness, he gently took her hand in his and looked her in the eye. “Maggie, I want to help you.”
She pulled off her sunglasses, finally giving him a look at the ugly purple bruise under her eye. He resisted the urge to wince at the sight of it. She looked down at the ground and nodded solemnly.
“Hey,” he said, “you know this isn’t your fault, right? This happens all the time. Nice girl meets a nice guy. Things go well for a while. They get comfortable, and all of a sudden, things change. He gets pushy, controlling. Wants to know where the girl is all the time. Gets mad when she even talks to another man, no matter how innocent that talk might be. Eventually he follows her around, spying on her, hoping he can catch her with someone else and dole out some of his own brand of justice. When that doesn’t happen, he gets drunk and doles it out anyway. Men hit women to make themselves feel bigger. They want to feel superior, in control. But deep down inside, they’re just sniveling little cowards.” Charlie could feel his anger starting to rise. The heat crept up the back of his neck and he knew it was a good thing the “ex-boyfriend” wasn’t there with them now, or he’d be hard-pressed to control himself. He thought of Raffi, the little boy he had befriended in Afghanistan, and the boy’s father. The squeals of terror the man made as Charlie beat the truth out of him. His shame was suddenly like a lead weight around his neck, dragging him down deeper into the crushing abyss. Even if he and Maggie fell in love, could he ever really tell her the whole of the story of his time in Afghanistan? He thought not. It was hard enough for him to believe he had been capable of those terrible things. To ask someone who wasn’t there to understand would be lunacy. Until you are faced with the life or death horror of war, one can never truly understand.
“Uncle Charlie, look! He sees a squirrel.”
Somehow David had taken the dog’s leash and he was standing a dozen feet away with the loop around his wrist. Tank stood frozen, eyeing the squirrel. “David, let go!” Charlie yelled, but it was too late. The dog bolted after the squirrel and yanked little David along behind him, dragging him through the thick grass.
Charlie and Maggie were yelling, running after them, calling to the dog to stop. But there was something in the air that seemed out of place. Amidst all the yelling, he heard laughter. It was David! He was laughing while the big dog dragged him. For a while, he was on his stomach, then the dog took a hard-right turn and David rolled over and over, finally being dragged on his back, but still giggling. The dog finally stopped under a big elm tree, barking up at the squirrel that chattered down at the dog from his lofty sanctuary.
When they reached David, he was laughing uncontrollably, his little face flushed red.
“Are you okay?” Charlie asked him, but he already knew the answer. The giggling boy soon had Maggie and Charlie laughing together. Finally, the dog not wanting to be left out, stuck his big muzzle in everyone’s face in turn, wanting to know what all the fuss was about. The tension from the previous conversation washed away and Charlie thought he was laughing in the park with the only woman in the world that could make a black eye look good.
“Oh, David, look at your clothes. Your mom is gonna kill me.” David was covered head to toe in grass stains and mud.
“Why don’t you guys come back to my place. I can get those stains out and you can jump in the bathtub, little man.” At that moment, Maggie had the loveliest smile Charlie had ever seen.
“I’m glad you know how to. I’m terrible with clothes.” Charlie said. “I washed my whites with my darks until I was twenty-five.”
She chuckled and grabbed his hand. “Thank you. I’ll do it.”
“Do what?”
“The restraining order. You’re right. It’s not going to get better. I need to file a report.”
Charlie nodded and helped both of them up off the ground and together they walked back to the vet’s office and upstairs to Maggie’s loft apartment.
Back at Maggie’s apartment, she cleaned and dried David’s clothes while Charlie got him washed up in the tub. Charlie was sitting on the couch, absent-mindedly watching a special news report when she came in from the laundry room in the back of the apartment.
“Yeah, do you believe that?” She asked.
“Believe what?” He asked, half-lost in thought.
“That news report you’re watching. I read something about it the other day. They say that world-wide, missing persons reports have sky rocketed over the last five years. I guess they’re four or five times higher than normal. Scary. Where do you think they all go? I mean, you’re a cop, have you guys noticed that?”
“Hard to say. Maybe the other guys have. I’ve only been a cop for a couple years.” He tuned in more closely to the news report and listened to the staggering statistics. “Over a hundred thousand last year alone? That doesn’t even seem possible.”
“I know, right?” She said as she handed David his clothes. “Off to the bathroom with you, David. Get dressed. And then I have to get back to the office. I have a few appointments this afternoon.” She smiled at him as he grabbed his clothes and bolted for the bathroom. Then she eased down on the couch next to Charlie and sat surprisingly close. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but will you take me down to the police station this afternoon and walk me through the process? I’ve never filed a restraining order before.” She said with a chuckle.
He smiled. “Of course. I’m still on administrative leave, so I don’t have too much going on.”
Just then, David burst out of the bathroom with a flourishing ‘Ta-Daaa!’ “I’m ready, Uncle Charlie!”
Charlie agreed to stop back around four o’clock to take Maggie to the police department, he and David bid farewell to Tank and the two of them walked out to his car.
“Uncle Charlie?”
“Yea?”
“Are you gonna tell Mom about the dog dragging me? Cuz I won’t say anything if we can go to Jumbo Burger for lunch.”
“What?” Charlie smiled. “Wonderful! Blackmailed by a seven-year-old! That takes the cake!”
“Okay, we can get cake, too.” David said very matter-of-factly.
After lunch, he dropped David off with Serena. Al was awake and talking, though he was in a lot of pain. But it gave Charlie a good deal of comfort to see his partner smile. Leaving the three of them to talk, he drove back to Maggie’s office to pick her up.
He and Maggie were driving towards the police department when something caught his eye. The front window of a small convenience store was shattered and the sign in the window next to it said, Sorry, we’re closed. But all the lights were out inside. It struck Charlie as odd that the store would have been broken into and the owner was nowhere to be seen. He shrugged it off. Maybe the owner was on vacation and didn’t have an alarm on the place, or… oh well, it didn’t matter. Still…
Shortly after that he saw an abandoned car with its trunk open and slowed to look inside. Even the roads were eerily devoid of traffic. A short distance further and he noticed a gas station owner busily boarding up a busted door. The man stopped and eyed Charlie as he drove past. Charlie noticed the tell-tale bulge of a gun tucked in the man’s waistband.
Maggie noticed his concentration and nudged him. “What’s wrong?” She asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”
“But?” She asked again.
“You ever hear of the broken windows theory?” He asked.
“No.”
“It’s a labor-intensive form of policing. Basically, the theory is to sweat the small stuff, like broken windows, graffiti that wasn’t there the day before, abandoned cars, that kind of stuff. It’s a lot of work, but it strengthens ties to the community and gives the criminals more to think about.”
“And?” She asked.
“Well, I’ve seen two broken windows and an abandoned car in the last mile and a half. And this isn’t even the rough part of town.” He sat for a moment more, thinking. “Would you mind if I made a quick stop somewhere? It’ll only take a minute.”
> She nodded and Charlie pulled off the main drag and drove towards the highway overpass in the distance. A few minutes later and they were stopped in front of a hundred or so makeshift shelters tucked haphazardly under the highway overpass.
“What is this place?” Maggie asked.
“Bum Town. At least that’s what we police officers call it. A few years back, the Mayor made a big push to get them out of the parks and many of them collected here. They give us information when they can and we keep a helpful eye out for them. No one knows what happens on the street better than the people that live there.” Charlie reached into the holster he kept hidden around his ankle and drew out his .38 Special, causing Maggie’s eyes to widen. “Don’t worry. It’s just in case.” He said as he lifted his shirt and tucked it in under his belt for easier access.
“In case of what?” She asked.
“Most of the homeless are good people stuck in bad situations, but there are a few that are a little off their rockers. Wait here.” He got out of the car and walked towards the chaos of cardboard boxes and old plastic bags that made up the majority of the sleeping areas in Bum Town. A few of them had slabs of scrap corrugated aluminum to shelter them from the elements, but those few were clearly a luxury. What little there was of an aisle way was cluttered with trash and debris. But what was missing was what gave Bum Town its name. Charlie scanned the area but couldn’t find a single person.
“Hello!” He yelled and waited for a reply. When none came, he yelled again. “I’m a police officer and I just want to talk to someone!” He paused. “Anyone?” He waited again for a reply but the only thing that came to his ears was the reverberation of his own voice off of the mighty cement pillars that supported the highway above. He went back to the car and climbed into the driver’s seat.
“What’s wrong?” Maggie asked him.
“They’re all gone. Every one of them. Like they just up and left. It doesn’t make any sense.”
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