The Sticking Place

by T. B. Smith

  “What’d he say?” Shimmer whined. “What the fuck did he say?”

  “Shut up,” a chorus of voices resounded to drown out Shimmer’s whines.

  Luke thought of Martha and Phillip McGrath, Jr. as he quoted the title character from Richard II:

  Of comfort let no man speak:

  Let’s talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs;

  Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes

  Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.

  Let’s choose executors and talk of wills:

  And yet not so, for what can we bequeath

  Save our deposed bodies to the ground?

  And nothing can we call our own but death,

  And that small model of barren earth

  Which serves as paste and cover to our bones

  Luke looked at Shimmer. “That one’s dedicated to you Mr. Bardolph,” he said.

  A pall of stunned silence followed the speech until Hartson sliced through the tension with a light-hearted, “Jesus, Luke, you’re some kind of a deep motherfucker, aren’t you?”

  Shimmer followed Hartson’s theatrical review with, “What’d he say? What the fuck did the cocksucker say?” Then he turned toward the groupie. “What’s a bardolph?” he asked.

  His question was too late. The groupie was slipping out the front door with Denny’s hand in hers.

  11

  NO ONE CAME INTO SIGHT AS Shimmer and Denny crunched breath mints beneath their boots and stepped over the shattered coffeepots in the 7-Eleven’s doorway. Rolling beer cans collided with smashed Twinkie packages and the officers heard faint whimpering coming from behind the cash register.

  Shimmer un-holstered his blue steel .38 Smith and Wesson and peered over the counter, finding a shivering, Slurpee-drenched clerk sprawled amongst malted milk balls, Jujubes and tattered Penthouse magazines. A topsy-turvy electric fan slapped magazine pages against the clerk’s leg, exposing a random orgy of splayed limbs and lip-parted smiles.

  Shimmer holstered his gun and walked behind the counter. He pinched the clerk’s vertically striped shirt and tugged as a signal to stand.

  “Security guard’s locked himself in the office,” the clerk spat out as he pushed his way to his feet. “Boss hired this punk for security and the son-of-a-bitch hides in the office while I’m getting the shit kicked out of me. He still won’t come out.” The clerk raised his voice to a shout. “I’M DYING OUT HERE, AND THAT SECURITY GUARD SON-OF-A-BITCH WON’T COME OUT TO HELP.” The clerk lowered his voice and took Shimmer into his confidence. “You know, officer, I’m just trying to get through college, working for a lousy minimum wage. Look at the shit I got to take. Some freaking giant beats the piss out of me and ruins my clothes WHILE THE SECURITY GUARD HIDES IN BACK.”

  “What happened?” Denny asked.

  Shimmer shot Denny a look that told him to shut up. The field training office didn’t allow terminations this soon after the academy, but he sure as hell could make his trainee stay out of the way and keep his mouth shut. Not only could Denny not write a report, the way he’d let his roommate act in the One-Five-Three Club ranked right up there with insubordination. Not to mention Denny’s leaving the bar with the cop groupie. Groupies were a side benefit for real cops.

  “The guy’s huge,” the clerk said. “He left out of here about five minutes ago, headed toward the park. He acted real nice until I told him we’re out of corn nuts. That’s when he tore the place up.

  “When you find him, don’t get too close,” the clerk went on. “He’s scary, man. He scared the shit out of that punk-ass security guard, I can tell you that much.” He raised his voice to a bellow again to goad the security guard hiding in the back room.

  “What’s he look like?” Shimmer asked as he yanked out his notebook.

  “You can see for yourself, if you can get him to show his face,” the clerk said.

  “Not him, dummy. I’m talking about the guy who trashed this place.”

  The clerk shook his head in a gesture of disbelief. “His skin’s as white as talcum powder,” he said. “He must have been six-foot-eight, six-foot-nine and dressed all in white with a shaved head.” The clerk thought for a second. “To tell you the truth; he’s a dead ringer for Mr. Clean, only with tattoos on his arms. He’s got a hoop in his left ear and everything.”

  Shimmer put his unused writing utensils away, passed the description on to dispatch and headed toward the patrol car to search for the tattooed incarnation of the Madison Avenue icon.

  Denny trotted along behind him.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Shimmer asked, and his trainee actually acted like he didn’t get the question. Judging from his expression, he thought he was going with Shimmer to look for Mr. Clean. He even started opening the door.

  “I need you to stay here and get started on the report,” Shimmer said.

  An obvious question hung painfully in the air between them. Standing with one foot in the car and the other on the concrete, Denny finally put words to it, his posture representing the limbo of his situation. “Why do I have to stay here?”

  Shimmer exploded. “You just don’t get it, do you? You think you can let your friend treat me like some kind of pussy and then come to work and act like it’s all good.”

  “I didn’t let Luke do anything,” Denny said. “He doesn’t listen to me. You can’t hold me responsible for him.”

  “It don’t matter what your pal says anyways. You haven’t finished one decent report since you started,” Shimmer said. “What matters is that you learn to write reports and do what you’re told, which is to stay here and get started on the paper work.”

  Shimmer decided to omit the outrage over his trainee’s leaving with the groupie. He’d said too much already about being pissed at Luke. It was best to focus on Denny’s job deficiencies.

  Denny’s face actually shot back an expression that said Shimmer wasn’t being fair. Damn straight he wasn’t being fair. The world wasn’t fair.

  12

  SHIMMER REMEMBERED THE LOCAL HISTORY class he’d taken at City College. That fiasco happened a while ago, back when he tried learning about the humongous park in his area. Back when he actually tried fitting into the department’s new community policing philosophy to maybe get promoted to sergeant. Before they screwed him over when he tried for detective for the third time.

  His unspoken admission actually hurt his gut as he neared the middle of the original thirty acres of Balboa Park where Kate Sessions had built an “experimental nursery” in 1892. Kate Sessions was an amazing woman. She’d persuaded the city council way back then to grant the land use and water privileges necessary for the nursery’s success. Then she dynamited the hard-plant earth, moved the dislodged rocks herself and hauled the water in, using barrels and horse-drawn carriages. Her agreement with the city meant annually ground planting a hundred trees of varying species where she chose, in addition to three hundred trees in planters where city officials decided.

  A portion of the results of her efforts loomed as a stand of coastal Sequoias standing watch over Mr. Clean as he knelt by a circular sidewalk. The once idyllic nursery had morphed into “Queen’s Circle,” a trick-turning business locale for cross-dressing hookers. The queens serviced customers who knew they were men, but pretended to believe they were women. The queens pretended not to know their customers really wanted sex from men, and police officers feigned ignorance of the whole thing to avoid harassment complaints. The magical illusions would have made Harry Houdini proud.

  The breeze whipped through the trees, separating the leaves enough to let moonlight peek through. Shimmer eased the front wheels over the curb and onto the curving sidewalk, barely making out a voice above the wind blowing through the open window.

  “I couldn’t find your corn nuts,” Mr. Clean said. He tipped forward on his haunches, talking to an attentive squirrel whose tail twitched in the beams of Shimmer’s head lamps. “I stopped at the store, but they were out. I’m sor
ry.” He stretched a trembling palm toward the squirrel. The animal sniffed and recoiled.

  Shimmer called, “I got Mr. Clean in Queen’s Circle,” into his microphone as he lit up his spotlight. He pushed the car door open and stepped onto the slippery grass. “Get me some cover here fast,” he said as Mr. Clean stood and turned toward him.

  Shimmer snatched his wooden baton from its plastic holder at the bottom of the door and barked out his orders. “You’re under arrest. Turn around. Now! Put your hands behind your back.” He expected resistance; a raging, braying, cursing and fighting crazy man. He got acquiescence.

  “Yes sir,” Mr. Clean said as he turned to put his hands behind him in the reverse prayer position. He’d obviously been handcuffed before.

  Shimmer noted prison tattoos along the lengths of Mr. Clean’s massive forearms as he moved forward. He was barely able to ratchet his cuffs one click around the giant’s massive wrists as Mr. Clean stood perfectly still. Shimmer put his prisoner behind the cage and put a “code-4” out over the radio to call off his cover units. “I’ll take my 1016 back to the 7-Eleven for follow up,” he told the dispatcher.

  As Shimmer eased into the driver’s seat, dispatch asked him to switch to a tactical frequency for another unit. “Hey John, you sure you’re okay,” Hartson wanted to know. “I’m only a couple blocks away. I could meet you at the 7-Eleven and my trainee can help out with the paperwork while I keep an eyeball on the 10-16.”

  “Nah,” Shimmer said, trying to hide his surprise. “This guy’s a pussycat. Besides, I can keep an eye out while my trainee attempts to do the paperwork.” He wanted to be sure anyone who’d switched over to eavesdrop on the conversation wouldn’t miss Denny’s report writing struggles.

  “Okay, meet me at Johnny’s in a couple hours for some foot patrol though,” Hartson said. “My trainee could use the exposure.”

  The last thing Shimmer wanted was to see Hartson’s whack job of a trainee again, but the field training office would definitely frown on his refusal to participate in the training.

  “Hey, I got to know something,” Shimmer said to Mr. Clean. “You went berserk in that store, smacked the shit out of the clerk and scared the crap out of the security guard. You don’t deny any of it, do you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Your tattoos tell me you’ve seen the inside of more than one prison and you’re half off your nut judging from what just happened in the circle. Yet you did everything I asked you to. How come you gave up so easy?”

  Mr. Clean’s voice rang with sincerity. “Officer, I’ve been in and out of jails my whole life. The first time the cops busted me I called the officer a pussy. ‘Just take these cuffs off,’ I told him, ‘and I’ll kick your ass.’”

  Mr. Clean settled back in his seat, sucked in a deep breath and looked out the window. “That was a big mistake on my part for sure. He took me behind a warehouse and put his gun, badge and stick in the trunk. Then he unlocked my cuffs, just like I asked him to. He didn’t raise his voice or nothing. He just spoke like a gentleman. ‘Now’s your chance, son,’” he told me. “‘Go ahead on and kick my ass if you can.’

  “I clocked him square on the chin and he just sort of stepped back a little bit like he hardly noticed. Then he beat me near to death. Afterwards he told me he represented every policeman in the world and I shouldn’t ever talk to a policeman like that again.

  “Sir,” Mr. Clean continued, “I never have since, and I never will again. Whenever I see a policeman now, I just sort of get my right mind back and do what I’m told.”

  The news gladdened Shimmer’s heart and he muttered a silent prayer of thanksgiving to his anonymous benefactor as he jerked to a stop in the 7-Eleven’s parking lot.

  A banty-rooster security guard strutted in front of an ice machine and announced that the clerk was in the bathroom. “You know, Officer,” the guard said as he stood tall on his toes and looked behind the cage at the cuffed prisoner, “I got me a black belt in Tang Soo Do. Truth is, I could’ve kicked his ass easy. But I didn’t want to get the owner sued. A security guard hurts somebody these days—you know how it is. The asshole’d probably end up owning the store.”

  Shimmer kept his thoughts to himself.

  “The clerk doesn’t get it. He thinks I was scared, but I wasn’t scared. I just didn’t want a situation where I had to hurt some crazy bastard. If you talk to my boss, you be sure and tell him I was looking out for his interests. You know how it is?”

  “I think I get the picture,” Shimmer said.

  13

  HARTSON AND LUKE STOOD IN THE PARKING LOT behind Johnny’s Restaurant. Johnny’s, a pedestrian all-night diner, catered to downtown’s night-time clientele of hookers, pimps, topless dancers, sailors, taxi drivers and police officers.

  Hartson sipped oily coffee from a dirty Styrofoam cup, rested a worn heel against the front bumper and waited for Shimmer and his trainee to show up for their round of foot patrol. “Listen, Luke, I’m telling you, ninety-nine percent of success in this job is getting along with your superiors,” he said. “Whether you like it or not, as long as you’re a trainee, Shimmer’s your superior and you better make up to him.”

  Luke groaned. “He’s such a little nebbish,” he said. “Can’t I just avoid him?”

  “A nebbish? Never mind. No, you can’t. He could be your next training officer for all you know. You think you’re hot shit out here because you’re big and tough and you’ve read a few books, but I’m telling you, you’ll never make it if you can’t get along.”

  Luke sipped his coffee. “I don’t think I can do it,” he said.

  “Getting along with Shimmer isn’t a suggestion,” Hartson said. “It’s an order, and it’ll show on your evaluations if you can’t get it done.”

  Luke contemplated the chilly reality. “I’ll make nice,” he said. “But I don’t like sucking up to jerks.”

  Hartson laughed out loud. “You better find another line of work then,” he said. “Sucking up to jerks is in the job description. Besides, Shimmer isn’t a total asshole.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute,” Luke said. “I’ll follow orders, but don’t go expecting me to buy that line of crap.”

  Shimmer’s car came into view before Hartson could answer. It turned past a trio of high-coiffed hookers and lurched to a stop in the parking lot. Shimmer pushed the door open and jerked a metal five-cell flashlight from between his legs. The door fell shut behind him as he made a production number out of ordering Denny to stay in the car to work on reports.

  Denny shrugged as Luke looked in his direction for an explanation.

  “T.D., my man, what’s on the agenda tonight,” Shimmer said.

  “Contacts,” Hartson told him. “My trainee’s got to learn to generate numbers and nobody’s better at that than you.”

  Luke nearly gagged at Hartson’s effort to curry Shimmer’s favor. It mattered not at all that the effort was intended for his benefit.

  “I’m with you,” Shimmer said. “There ain’t none up on your beat, that’s for sure, and besides, it’s about time we started living up to Farnsworth’s anthem.” Luke knew Shimmer referred to a crotchety senior officer who constantly sung out his defiant credo against the department’s conversion to Community Oriented Policing at line-up.

  Shimmer did his best imitation of Farnsworth’s deep belly laugh as he started imitating the anthem in a stilted reggae rhythm. “If it don’t recap on your journal, mon, and it don’t fuck up somebody’s day, mon, don’t bother with it mon.”

  Luke didn’t bother to laugh. “The instructors at the academy told us numbers don’t matter anymore,” he said. “Don’t you Neanderthals know the department’s moving in a new direction?” Luke didn’t really understand the friction between the brass and the work-a-day street cop, but he did know community policing loomed as the wave of the future for the San Diego Police Department.

  It was more than Shimmer could stand. “You’re too stupid for words,” he said. “Sergean
t Biletnikoff wants us humping our butts, putting people in jail and writing tickets. If he says to kick ass and take names that’s what we do, or we get shitty evaluations. That’s the real truth about the department’s direction. And another thing, those morons in the corner pocket sitting behind their fancy desks and kissing the Mayor’s ass think the sergeants are buying this C-O-P crap. Numbers don’t matter no more? BULLSHIT! You don’t know it’s bullshit because you’re a make-pretend cop who can’t even make a decision without Hartson’s go ahead.”

  Luke had dived head first into a thick soup without even knowing he’d been teetering on the edge of the bowl, but he had no idea how to retreat. Offense was the only tactic he knew. “You guys are refusing to change, and if you don’t get with the program pretty soon, trainees like me will pass you by.”

  “We better get with the program?” Shimmer sputtered. “You better do what you’re told and shut the fuck up. You don’t even know how to stay alive out here, yet you’re trying to tell us how to do our job?”

  The air between them simmered with a nearly palpable tension. This was normally the time for Hartson to come to Luke’s rescue, but instead he rhythmically tapped his flashlight against an open palm and advanced toward his trainee. “The brass don’t know shit about what goes on out here,” he said. “They didn’t teach you that at the academy did they? If you’re so smart, tell us how we can write tickets to everybody on the beat like Sarge wants, then rap on Granny’s door for tea and crumpets like the brass wants. Granny’s likely to show us the ticket we wrote her and shove it up our ass. Besides, I got ‘Pill Hill’ for a beat and, in case you don’t know it—which I’m sure you don’t—on the graveyard, all I got up there’s Balboa Park, closed-up medical buildings and an occasional dirtbag pushing a shopping cart. The only numbers up there are in the park, but I can’t go to the park because of the complaints I’d get, which means I have to poach downtown to fill my journal. But, if Sarge wants to, he can write me up for being off my beat which all adds up to me being screwed. See what I mean?”