“On the way back I fogged up and didn’t realize that I crossed the median until I saw the eighteen-wheeler coming straight at us. I jerked the wheel and a tree jumped out at us so to speak. I had my seat belt on, Dad got banged up pretty bad, but Jack went through the windshield. He never had a chance. I know it was my fault. All three of us were in the wrong, but I was the one behind the wheel. Sometimes I pick up the phone, maybe even punch in a few numbers, but I don’t think I could take actually hearing her heart break.”
“You’re not saying anything, Doc,” Steve whispered choking back his pain. “I really need you to say something. Get mad, cuss, hit something, hit me. Do something, please, for God’s sakes.”
Doc pulled his feet out of the water and jammed his socks and boots on. His head was swimming with unwelcome information. Steve stared out at the ebony lake embraced by the night and popped open another beer. Steve had tested the family waters and nearly drowned while Doc refused to budge an inch to save him.
Doc started counting the loved ones who deceived him for fifteen years and ached for revenge. Steve was the only one close, so Doc took his best shot by leaving without a word. Doc risked a parting glance as he started the long walk back to his red SUV at the bowling alley, but Steve was overloaded on family drama and wasn’t looking back.
When Doc arrived back at their apartment, Amelia asked how the reunion went with Steve. Doc summed it up as ‘okay’ and closed the dialogue for the time being. Eventually he relented and started e-mailing his remaining brother without ever daring to approach the subject of Jack’s death.
CHAPTER SEVEN
In time their marriage improved from being intimate strangers to a friendly alliance. Two more daughters arrived before Doc left the military and joined the police department with Gar. Doc knew that the military was a temporary solution on the way to a lifetime of work, although there were no pressing opportunities when his enlistment ended.
At twenty-two Gar was ecstatic to advance from his enlisted career field into civilian law enforcement. He married Millie whom he met while she was tending bar near the base. Gar did not have extensive plans for the future or a list of long-range goals. His measure of success was calibrated by whether he woke up reasonably healthy and happy each day. Not being alone was a bonus, not a requirement.
At twenty-two Doc was too deep into his family to return to school. The three children required a stable home and a reliable income. Doc and Amelia kicked over the idea of moving back to Spokane, but after four years and three kids, civilian Fort Worth was a convenient transition from the Air Force.
Doc felt at home in the law enforcement world. The Air Force prepared him for the uniforms, the rules and regulations, and the paramilitary experience. He was prepared to put down deep roots in the community.
Amelia was afraid of becoming a young widow with three fatherless children, but she understood that there was little choice in the matter. Some men could never survive a lifetime trapped in an office, especially after four years of quasi-freedom from being chained to a desk.
She held out hope that someday Doc would get a college degree so that he could slow down to a normal, conventional life when his body wore out. Doc assured her that education was high on his list of goals; he already had college credits granted by his military tech school and a few credits he could transfer from the police academy. The city’s tuition assistance program created an obligation to continue what he started.
Like most young police officers, Doc and Gar ruled the night, alternating between vigilance, danger and boredom with two weeknights off. As the kids started school, it became more difficult to reconcile home and work. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays Doc seemed to be in Amelia’s way as she prepared for work and dropped the children at school and daycare.
Doc was not a reliable source of assistance in the morning since he rarely arrived home in time to be a part of the morning ritual. He slept late on his weekdays off. On weekend mornings Amelia was a widow while he rested from the previous night’s endeavor. Doc convinced himself that he would have more time for them after he became a detective with better work hours and most weekends off.
Doc worked the north side of the city in his first years on the department. Fort Worth was overflowing with history from the old hanging tree on Samuels Avenue and pioneer cemetery to the rousing Stockyards, transformed from a slaughterhouse industrial site in the early twentieth century into a entertainment complex centered around quasi-cowboy bars and the 1918 Rodeo Coliseum. Every night held the promise of an adventure. Few nights failed to deliver.
The autumn wind was kicking up a bit. Doc considered donning his windbreaker, but the macho inside of him discarded that idea immediately. He tossed his big knapsack of forms and equipment in the passenger seat of his Crown Victoria, did a quick once-around for new nicks or scratches, and settled into the driver’s seat. The last driver left a full tank of gas and set the air conditioning controls just right so a bit of warm, soothing air rushed out the vents as soon as the engine roared to life.
The usual assortment of calls involving drunks, fights, noise and family violence were dispatched in rapid succession until an hour after the bars closed. He was paired with Gar for the first domestic disturbance at the Harding House on the short south side out of their area.
The tall, ornate mansion was a shell of its former grandeur in the past century. It was originally built for a minor oil baron’s son as a wedding gift. For decades glorious dinners and elaborate parties were hosted for the movers and shakers of early Fort Worth. In time the inherited money failed and less than half a century later, the upkeep was unbearable for the aging widow of the heir.
An investor offered a modest sum and the ancient building changed hands. Its huge ballroom and spacious family quarters were walled off to make a dozen small apartments without regard to saving the old mansion’s pride. Like so many of its peers along the shaded street, the house hosted revolving tenants who were not subjected to background checks or second glances from the leasing agents.
Doc and Gar took the steps two by two up to the grand, wide porch with its hand-lathed balustrades. Its expansive polished oak floor and planked ceiling were heaven for party attendees who sat on the big wicker chairs and settees fifty years ago while the band played upstairs in the ballroom. Doc was tinged with sadness as he walked across the scuffed and cracked gray paint that covered the broad oak planks. The rich mahogany and leaded glass front doors remained, but they had not known varnish in decades. Clear glass panes replaced the colored, beveled pieces of glass that had broken.
He followed Gar through the propped front door and up the defiled mahogany staircase to apartment eight. From inside they heard the usual intoxicated fighting between a disorderly couple. The cheap dirty-white interior door was ajar and swung open under the first pummeling thump of Gar’s fist.
“What’s the story here?” Gar demanded. “Let’s see some ID. People are trying to sleep.” The burly man with bulging eyes and a balding pate stopped in his tracks and introduced his driver’s license from his frayed cloth wallet in the back pocket of his ragged painter’s pants. “Step into the hall with me, sir.”
The routine was to separate the combatants, listen to conflicting stories and decide who had the most viable story and who went to jail. Doc stayed with the much younger woman in the room as Gar and the male disappeared around the corner into the hallway. She provided her information orally as she claimed to have no identification, but Doc trusted her for the moment. She looked a bit older than Doc and Gar with the skin and complexion of a long-time smoker. She seemed well-versed at handling the police.
“So what’s going on here tonight, Dolly? Is that your real name or a nickname?”
Dolly assured Doc that it was her real name. “Me and Aaron have been married for years - common law. He’s got his good side, kind and gentle, but the booze turns him mean. I can handle him though, been doing it for years. He’s just blowing off some steam and then he’ll
settle down and go to sleep.”
“Are you hurt?” Doc inquired.
Dolly brushed her swollen right cheek with the back of her hand and lied. “No, no, he didn’t lay a hand on me,” she replied in a practiced voice. She knew that any other response would evoke an arrest.
“Looks like a pretty fresh bruise to me,” Doc remarked.
“I’m a bit clumsy. It was dark and I got that bumping into the bathroom door.”
“Looks like an impression of knuckle to me.”
“Are you calling me a liar? I didn’t ask you to barge in here and you can just leave,” she countered.
Gar poked his head in the door. “Got anything, partner?”
“Coming up empty,” Doc replied. He turned back to Dolly. “One of these days you won’t be able to handle him and he just might kill you. It starts with the verbal abuse, then he uses you for a punching bag - you lose a couple teeth, get a broken finger or collarbone - and each time it gets worse.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“We see it every day, ma’am. Never gets better.”
“Are you married, officer?” Doc hesitated before shaking his head in the affirmative. “Then you know that marriage is hard work. You have to be patient and forgiving. You have to be loyal to the people you love, no matter what,” Dolly explained.
“Then I guess you’re not going to cooperate with us tonight, so I suppose we’ll be seeing you again real soon.”
Dolly scurried to the apartment door as Gar released Aaron back into the room.
“I guess love wins out,” Gar laughed as he and Doc stomped down the stairs and out the leaded glass doors to their marked cars. “My dad used to say that love is like ethics, Doc. We all like to think we know it when we see it, but none of us can really put it into words and most of the time a cheap imitation can pass for the real thing.”
Doc thought that was a great line. It was clever, yet dead on target for so many relationships. He could never quite explain his feelings for Amelia. Was it trust, obligation, friendship, emotional need or simply the ordinary pairing that befalls young couples? If love meant having a choice to stay or leave, he could find the courage to leave. His own father left him behind. Doc had seen many other men leave families behind. If love meant fulfilling a commitment to the lives he created and living up to his promise to Amelia, he definitely had an investment, but was a generic emotional investment all there was to love? He was afraid that he would either never find love, or that he had found it and discovered the experience sadly lacking in satisfaction.
“Hey, Donkey. Millie sent lunch with me because I have no money. You coming out to the levee to eat tonight?” Gar questioned.
“I’ve got three kids who can strip a refrigerator like a school of piranhas,” Doc replied. “‘Course I brought my lunch.”
With the solitude of O-dark-thirty at hand, Doc and Gar were cleared by the dispatcher to head off to lunch. They raced down the dirt utility road, over the crest of the levee wall and down into the long gully between the riverbank and the levee wall. There was a great clearing about a quarter mile down the road with a terrific view of the downtown office building lights.
It was quiet on the levee as opposed to all-night fast food and convenience stores where strangers would suddenly remember that they needed a report on a lawnmower that was stolen a couple weeks ago or a gang sign tagged on the alley side of their garage over the weekend. The police officers didn’t begrudge the reporting needs of the nocturnal natives, but an uninterrupted half hour away from the fray was not too much to ask.
“So why did you suddenly take to calling me Donkey, Gar?”
“It was Millie’s idea. She thinks you’re a modern day Don Quixote, so I shortened it to Donkey.”
“You’re all heart.”
“No problem.”
Doc had read Cervantes’ tale of the errant knight in high school and was not impressed by the comparison. “Don Quixote was suffering from degenerative brain disorder to put it into modern terms. He was an old coot who lived in a fantasy world with his trusty steed, Rocinante. He defended the honor of Ducinea, a lady of questionable reputation, and followed the code of knights errant in sixteenth century Spain.”
“Didn’t get any of that, Doc, but the part about living in a fantasy world, and that’s you.”
“And how did Millie figure this out? Did she read the book, see the musical or just listen to the music?”
“Just listened to the music, I guess, Doc. Reading’s overrated and we’re not the musical kind of people.”
A pause to work on sandwiches and soft drinks interrupted the conversation.
“Okay, Gar. Getting back to the fantasy world charge.”
Gar cranked it up a notch to get on Doc’s nerves. “You live in your own world where, although the weather is probably pretty nice most of the time, you think you’re superior to everyone else. You believe that someday you’ll wake up and everything in your life will suddenly be perfect, just like you. You’ll have the perfect job, the perfect wife, the perfect family, and you’ll believe it’s all because you deserve it.”
“And this is Millie’s opinion?”
“Don’t kill the messenger, Doc. I wouldn’t mind vacationing for a couple weeks in your fantasy world.”
“You might tell Millie to read the book. It’s actually a parody of the knights and chivalry literature of the time - their version of trash novels. There are a couple of reasons why I’m nothing like Don Quixote. One, Donkey Hotey, I mean the Don, was locked up by his relatives after they burned all his knight errant books to keep him from wandering off chasing his imaginary quests. Two, the Don had a sidekick, Sancho Panza, who was even more gullible than you are, Gar. The little guy believed every word out of the Don’s mouth. Who would that be in my case?”
“I believe every word out of your mouth, Doc.”
“Seriously, idealism is a lofty goal. The magic of Don Quixote was that he was pure of heart.”
“I’ll tell Millie that the comparison came to a screeching cardiac arrest.”
“I’m not pure of heart?”
“Nah, you’re self-centered and largely oblivious to the needs of others, Doc, but we all love ya.”
“So she didn’t read the book, just listened to the music?”
“Great songs, Doc. Great songs.”
Not all night shifts were notable, but many times Doc felt that his presence changed the course of another human life. Some calls could be handled efficiently with minimum involvement. Some calls begged for a piece of his heart. There were times when he remained silent when he should have spoken up, and there were times when he spoke too freely to remain aloof. Professionalism was the art of knowing when to make a difference and when to let the chips fall where they may.
Doc was sent on hospice call at four-thirty in the morning instead of being cleared for lunch. He knew that by the time he finished the call, it would be too late to eat. His heart was set on a hamburger and French fries rather than some little old lady or little old man who kicked the bucket at such an inconvenient hour. He hated the thought of being stuck in a stuffy assisted living facility apartment for whatever time it took to contact the medical examiner’s office who would not be sending out an investigator anyway.
He knocked softly at the plain beige door emblazoned with a water-colored picture of a Christmas wreath signed with four grandchildren’s names. This would not be one of the grandchildren’s merrier Christmases. Mrs. Dowd was all of five feet tall and thin as a rail with soft white hair hanging down over the back of her wooly pink sweater.
“Thank you for coming, officer,” she greeted. “I’m so sorry to bother you at this hour.”
Doc was always amazed at the calm demeanor of those left behind in hospice deaths. They greeted him at the door like a guest and asked him sit down, offered him tea or coffee, then reminisced about the deceased until the callback from the medical examiner’s office to authorize pickup of
the body set him free again. It was an easy call with a fast, short report. The awkwardness disappeared after several episodes.
Doc checked the bathroom floor where the deceased met his Maker in a massive coronary. The paramedics had already covered his frail body with a sheet. Doc returned to the living area with its small flowered couch, his and hers recliners, and television set against the wall across from the recliners.
Mrs. Dowd began to get up from her smaller recliner, but Doc waved her off. She settled back in the green stuffed chair with her wicker bag of knitting equipment at the ready on the floor beside it. She motioned for him to settle in the late Mr. Dowd’s cracked brown leather recliner with the imprint of years of sitting pressed into the cushions. It was akin to the feeling of whistling in the graveyard; Mr. Dowd probably read his magazine or newspaper or watched television in that very chair in the last dozen hours. Doc was encroaching on the late gentleman’s personal space, but Mrs. Dowd insisted.
“Mr. Dowd, my late husband, and I haven’t lived here long. We used to have a big house in Rivercrest, but it was just too much to keep up anymore with just the two of us. Do you know the Rivercrest area, young man?”
Doc had a feeling that the conversation was going to take some patience. “Yes, ma’am, I’ve worked that area. It’s a very nice neighborhood.”
“Yes, it is. We lived there off and on for fifty years. Raised our children there. Did you see the picture on the door when you came in?”
“Very nice, ma’am. Your grandchildren?”
“Great-grandchildren, actually. We have four of them.” She thought for a moment and added, “I guess I will have to get used to saying that I have four great-grandchildren now. That sounds so strange to my ear. After sixty-four years together everything changes in the twinkling of an eye. You can’t imagine.”
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