by Wayne Zurl
I brought Bitsey along for the ride. I didn’t think her fourteen-year-old kidneys could wait at home while I worked and Katherine attended the car show. She sat in the back seat. The smell from Hardee’s grill put her on alert.
“You think those people play Russian roulette, too?” I said, pointing toward Hardee’s
“Do what?” Junior said.
I thought he missed my point. “Nothing, partner. I was just talking to myself.”
Bitsey put her paws on the seat back and licked Junior’s ear.
“She sure is a cute dog, Sam. How long you had her?”
“She’ll be fourteen in October. When we got her from the pound, she was seven-weeks-old.”
“Got some big ears, don’t she?”
“Yeah, she’s not a show dog. Her ears are too big, her legs are too long, and her tail isn’t docked to a stub. But she’s a tough little bugger.”
“I like her.”
“Good. I think she likes you, too.”
* * * *
Later that morning, as we drove around Junior’s sector checking the commercial buildings closed for the weekend, he asked, “Mind answerin’ a question?”
“After all the time we’ve known each other—you being like a son to me, how could I refuse?”
“Shoot, Sam, we only known each other a couple days. Everybody from New York like you?”
“That’s not your question, kid.”
“No, sir, it’s not. I wanted to ask why you took the chief’s job here in this little ol’ department after workin’ for twenty years in such a big, busy place an’ now bein’ retired so long?”
Junior asked a good question—one I asked myself more than once. I could have given him the short and impersonal answer: I became bored, got tired of spending time around the house and working in the yard, and I didn’t want to devote my time to selling used cars or life insurance. That was only partially true.
I’d gotten a little too obsessive about my wife. Content with the way we lived, I admit having no worldly purpose in my life. So, I looked for a companion to do all that nothing with—preferably a female companion for me to hang around with. I couldn’t think of a better candidate than my wife and couldn’t see why she wasn’t happy having me as her buddy and constant source of entertainment. Perhaps not the most realistic outlook, but that’s what I thought.
Kate, on the other hand, did all kinds of meaningful volunteer work, had her local friends and wasn’t always home when I wanted that female companionship.
Bitsey, my other good friend, fell short in the area of stimulating conversation. So, to prevent harboring resentment at Kate’s absences, I thought finding a purpose would be a healthy thing.
My marketable skills were limited. Being a dashing and heroic police officer once again became the obvious choice. All that was none of Junior’s business, but he deserved a reasonable answer.
“Small departments are good places to work,” I said. “All cops are about the same. They do the same job. Some areas are just bigger and busier than others.” I shrugged. “When I learned about this job opening, I thought getting back into police work might be a good…”
A call on the new cell phone Ronnie Shields gave me, the cell phone I really didn’t know how to use, cut my answer short.
“Jesus!” I jumped. “This damn thing scared me.” I saw the ring volume set on maximum.
On the phone, my wife asked for my presence at the car show quickly. George Morgan intended to punch out a drunk.
* * * *
It took us all of ninety seconds to get there, bounce over the driveway cutout and drive across the flat grass to where nearly two hundred cars were lined up according to marque.
A crowd had gathered at the rear of that large square of old cars. Junior stopped the cruiser, and we double-timed toward the action. I chose one of the wide aisles for our run, past old MG-TCs, TDs and a few TFs. We cut to the right between an MG-A roadster and a similar coupe, picked up another aisle and joined the crowd who had TR-4s on their left and Jaguar sedans on their right.
I saw Kate and Nonie on the fringe of the crowd facing George who had his baseball cap off. His balding head and face shone an unhealthy crimson color.
“What’s going on?” I said, looking closely at George. “Jesus, man, you look like your blood pressure is about to blow.”
Kate answered first, “It’s that old drunk—that idiot over there in the beach chair.” She pointed to a spot down the row from where we stood. “He’s been drinking since he got here and giving everyone a hard time. George only asked him to put the bottle away and sober up. Then he started creating a scene. George didn’t hit him, but should have.”
With George, Nonie, and Kate all talking at once, I learned that the drunk, the club’s past president, Cecil Lovejoy, began drinking early that morning and continued drinking until he became plastered. While sipping his cocktails, Lovejoy yelled at any visitors who got within a few feet of his restored Rolls Royce.
George received an extra large ration of abuse when he suggested Cecil stop drinking and find a suitable place to sleep it off. Angry words flew between the two and only ended when Nonie and two men escorted George away.
I looked in Lovejoy’s direction. “Besides being shit-faced, what’s his problem?” I asked. “He looks like a snooty bastard.”
“You don’t know how much of a…jerk he can be.” George wouldn’t swear if a dog bit him in the ass.
Junior stayed busy getting a few versions of the same story from anyone in the crowd interested in talking.
My problem looked simple. Deal with Cecil Lovejoy, a nasty drunk who didn’t work or play well with others and didn’t care if he alienated all the people who attended the car show.
I whistled to get Junior’s attention and waved for him to join me.
“I doubt if our intox friend here has any sympathizers in the crowd,” I said, “but keep an eye on my back while I talk with this asshole.” Junior grinned and nodded. I thought he found my language colorful for the Bible Belt.
Cecil looked to be in his mid-sixties with a very pale complexion. Perhaps it came with being so drunk or he was just one of those pasty-faced guys who always look unwell.
I assumed Lovejoy had more than his share of money. His silk shirt and brown worsted slacks looked expensive, and his Piaget wristwatch must have cost more than a new double-wide. With his face screwed up in apparent disgust, he appeared wealthy and obnoxious. I’d seen that look many times and rarely liked those who possessed it.
A bit flabby, with thinning light brown hair, Cecil slumped in a beach chair next to a folding table and his yellow, forty-year-old Rolls Royce Silver Shadow. On that table, a large, half-empty bottle of Maker’s Mark bourbon, a dinner plate with a mangled chunk of cheese and a bunch of crackers showed me what Cecil had been doing that morning.
I stood over the old coot for a long moment before I smiled and asked, “You drink all that whiskey yourself?”
His flaccid body sagged in the beach chair, making him look like a well-practiced drunk. His glassy, faded blue eyes squinted at me with an unhappy look. Slowly, he shook his head.
I wasn’t sure if he was answering my question or quietly commenting on my outfit. I used Bobby Crockett’s khaki uniform shirt, but in lieu of the issue charcoal green trousers, I wore a new pair of jeans. The old Smith & Wesson revolver hung holstered on my pants belt.
“Who the hell are you?” came out of Cecil as a sloppy, almost liquid question.
“I’m a policeman, Mr. Lovejoy. People here say you’ve had too much to drink. You need to stop drinking now, and we’ll find you a place to sober up.”
“You think I’m drunk, officer?”
My vanity showed when I said, “It’s Chief actually, and yes, you look and sound pretty drunk to me.”
While we spoke, a woman around forty and a teenage boy walked up on my right side.
“Well par-done me—Chief you say,” he slurred, sounding unimpress
ed. “You an Injun chief or po-leece chief?”
He started to stand, but couldn’t negotiate the maneuver. Then he began laughing, either at his razor wit or his rubber legs, and ended up back in the beach chair.
Cecil flipped me a three fingered salute and continued his dialogue, “Yes, sir, Chief, sir. Y’all think I’m bein’ a bad boy? Do ya?”
I ignored Cecil and turned to face the woman.
“Sir,” she began, “I’m Juanita Mashburn, and this is my son, Randy. Cecil is my father. Are you goin’ to arrest him?”
Juanita Mashburn was a good-looking brunette, not someone many guys would do a double-take over, but I thought she looked trim and attractive. She dressed well in conservative shorts and a print blouse and had a nice face. Her son, a thin and clean-cut kid, wore khaki slacks and a blue polo shirt—preppy clothes. She seemed embarrassed to admit the old drunk was her father.
“Mrs. Mashburn, arresting your father would waste my time. I’d rather see him go someplace, take a nap and sober up. You must know someone who owns one of those campers parked over there,” I pointed toward a row of a dozen motor homes sitting not far from the display cars, “who would let him use a bunk for a few hours.”
“I do, sir. Daddy’s been in this club for over twenty years, and he knows most everybody. Mr. Jordan over there…he’s a nice man. He’ll let me take Daddy to his RV.” She sounded hopeful.
Juanita turned to her son. “Randy, run over there, and ask Mr. Jordan if we can use his motor home.”
I winked at Junior who now stood close to Lovejoy.
Cecil looked up at my partner and said, “Oh, got yerse’f reinforcements, huh, Chief?”
“Just a little help, Cecil. You don’t mind if I call you Cecil, do you?”
“I don’t give a flyin’ hoot what you two call me. Piss on both o’ ya.”
“Alrighty then. I love a man who lets you know where you stand. Officer Huskey and I will help you up, and then we’re going to walk over to your friend’s motor home. Not going to fight us, are you?”
“You got he’p from my little daughter and her candy ass son. I got no choice, do I?”
Cecil slumped further into his chair. I didn’t feel sorry for him.
With considerable effort, we helped our ‘dead weight’ to his feet. Comically, he wobbled and swayed and then attempted to regain a little dignity by sprucing up his appearance. He fumbled hopelessly, trying to put his shirttails back into his pants.
Junior and I held Cecil by the arms and helped him walk. Juanita followed in close support. Randy walked about fifty-feet ahead of us next to a chubby, middle-aged man holding a ring of keys. Mr. Jordan, the RV owner.
“I like you, Chief,” Cecil told me. “You piss me off, but I still like you. You a Cherokee chief?”
“No Cecil, I’m a full-blooded agnostic.”
“Ah, sure, I thought you wasn’t from around here.”
All that bourbon had made Cecil as sharp as a balloon.
Darnell Jordan opened his big RV to a very drunk Cecil Lovejoy. Jordan and Juanita tucked Cecil into a queen-sized bed, took off his shoes, and both may have prayed the old boy didn’t vomit all over the sheets. Cecil blacked out the minute his head hit the pillow.
I thanked Mr. Jordan, Mrs. Mashburn and young Randy for their help and asked them to confiscate Cecil’s bourbon for safekeeping. Junior and I walked back through the rows of classic cars.
Kate, George and Nonie all sat in a patch of shade next to the Morgan’s ‘65 Triumph Spitfire. George’s usual color had returned, and I assumed his blood pressure had dropped back to normal. I introduced Junior to everyone and asked him to make a field report using George as the complainant.
After my partner completed the paperwork, I offered to buy lunch. I marched my troop of five over to a mobile eatery called Buddy’s Barbeque. We all enjoyed hand-pulled, smoked pork sandwiches, hush puppies and iced tea. I really wanted a large cold beer. Cecil did a good job stressing my patience.
At 1 p.m. Junior, Bitsey, and I hit the road, the tranquility of Prospect once again restored to normal.
* * * *
Later that afternoon Junior parked the cruiser next to a bank, shaded by the drive-up window’s cantilevered roof. We sat for a while watching the traffic go by. Junior drank from a bottle of Mountain Dew, I sipped a Diet Pepsi, and Bitsey ate a hot dog from the Git n’Go convenience store.
A ratty, two-tone blue ’64 Chevy pickup drove by slowly. Intermittent puffs of white smoke belched from two rusty tail pipes. Thirty years ago, I would have stopped the driver and written him a summons for emitting noxious vapors. I took another drink from my Pepsi and looked into the cab. What I saw almost made me choke on my soda.
I swallowed and coughed. “Jesus Christ, did you see those two?”
Junior laughed. Bitsey let out a single bark.
“What species are they?” I asked.
The two men in the pickup looked like leading characters from a documentary on Neanderthals. They both sported full beards and long straggly hair. One—the younger I guessed—wore his hair in a ponytail. The other one, who drove without a shirt, had hair everywhere—wild, blowing in the wind coming through the open windows. One talked; the other smiled. Both were shy a few teeth. They looked very unclean.
“Oh shoot, they’s just two o’ the Minton brothers,” Junior said. “Cloyd, he’s the oldest. He’s drivin’. The other’s named Normal. He’s the youngest o’ the family. They’s eight in all. They’re good boys. Don’t cause much trouble ‘cept when they fight ‘mongst theirselves.”
I envisioned a brawl among the family of those creatures and thought they might beat each other with sticks and bones.
Sounding confused, I asked, “The youngest is named Normal? What the hell did the other seven look like when they were born?”
Junior just smiled.
Bitsey finished her hotdog and stood up between us. With her feet on the seat back, she licked Junior’s ear again. They did like each other.
The Minton brothers made me laugh, and I thought they paled next to some of the hard cases I had dealt with in the past. I didn’t know they were just a pleasant diversion before we got down to serious business.
Chapter Six
We spent the next couple of hours cruising the sectors. We met with Bobby Crockett and later, with the only other member of Prospect PD close to my age, Vernon Hobbs.
In his mid-fifties, Vern was the shortest cop I’d ever met. He had enough grizzled, gray hair to look older than me. With thirty years of police work under his belt, I learned how much he loved his job.
“You may think this town looks like a quiet place,” he said, “but lemme tell ya, half the sumbitches in Prospect cause trouble. Give yerse’f a li’l time, and ya’ll think hangin’ is too damn good fer’em. Ain’t that right, Junior?”
My driver started to speak when Vern took that obligation away from him.
“Course it’s true,” he said. “I been livin’ here all m’ life and worked right here more’n thirty years. I know these people. Know almost every damn one of ‘em.” He nodded curtly to punctuate his last statement. Officer Hobbs had spoken.
I began to feel just as I did in the late 1970s when I served as a road sergeant. I remembered the old days, police cars parked door to door, information disseminated to the troops, individual bitches listened to and handled with a smile. After getting promoted to sergeant, I broke my neck to get back into the detective division, but as I thought back, I liked working in uniform. Some people spent their entire careers in patrol—it wasn’t a bad life.
* * * *
Just before the four o’clock shift change, as Junior and I drove around town, the dispatcher’s voice broke a temporary radio silence.
“County dispatch to any Prospect unit for a 10-17 drunk and disorderly at Howell’s Pub. One victim with minor injury. Your subject’s still at the scene.”
Junior grabbed the microphone from the dashboard before I could reach i
t. “Dispatch, this is five-oh-one. That’s my sector. I’ll respond and handle the paper.”
“10-4, five-zero-one,” she said, and then asked, “Can I get a unit to assist five-zero-one?”
“Five-zera-six, Dispatch.” I heard Vern Hobbs voice. “I jest gassed my car, and I’ll respond from the municipal buildin’—I’m two minutes away.”
“10-4, five-zero-six.”
The dispatcher acknowledged Vern’s transmission and, without skipping a beat, went on to send a Rockford PD unit to verify the return of a stolen bicycle.
And so, Saturday became our day for drunks. I thought Bobby Crockett would roll on that one, too. Most cops love bar fights.
Junior turned on the flashing blue lights and drove toward the bar. Heading away from the town square, we passed the Prospect City Park with its ten acres of wooded real estate, softball and soccer fields, picnic tables and a recreation of the 18th century McTeer’s Fort.
I looked up at the sky as we drove southwest on a road with only a few vehicles in our way. Junior hit the siren and passed them quickly.
The bright blue sky of morning had changed to gunmetal gray in the northwest over Knoxville and Oak Ridge. I hoped the forecast of a twenty-percent chance of rain hadn’t changed. I wanted my wife to put up the top on the Healey, get home safely and have a cold drink waiting for me as soon as we wrapped up the miscreant at Howell’s place.
“Looks like it might rain,” I said.
Junior looked over at me for a second. “Yup, it might could.”
He pushed the horn button. The siren yelped, and he passed another car.
I hadn’t been to a good bar fight in more than twenty-five years. I’d be a little out of practice, but it didn’t sound like a first-class donnybrook with a bunch of ironworkers slugging it out against members of the local stonemason’s union. Only a wimp would worry.
Vern arrived first and waited the few seconds it took for Junior and me to pull into the parking lot behind him. Bobby drove up on our bumper. Between us, we had almost seventy years of police experience. I looked from one to the other and got three slight nods. We all knew what to do. I led my troops into the pub.