5

 

 

Sean finished with me and put me in a small patient room with an ice pack. I alternated between pressing it to my lip and the top of my head. Officer Lee returned a couple of minutes after that with a cup of coffee. I recognized the paisley design on the cup immediately. Some things don’t change, and apparently cafeteria cups are one of those things.

She set the cup on the counter behind her, and took out her pen and notepad. “Tell me what happened,” she said. “Slowly this time, and try to make sense.”

I swallowed thickly, took a deep breath, and gave her my account. She listened without interrupting this go round, only making an occasional note. When I’d finished, she asked a couple of clarifying questions, then put her notepad away.

“Now what?” I asked.

She pulled out a beige card and wrote a number on it. I knew without looking that it would be the report number for this incident. She handed it to me and told me anyway.

“Why do I need this?” I asked. “Did you arrest the guy that hit me? Or the person who crashed a bottle over my head?”

She shook her head. “No one knew the other party you were fighting with, and he was gone by the time I conducted my investigation.”

He slipped out the back, Jack, I thought. I also remembered what I was pretty sure had been the bartender’s voice yelling, “Get him out of here.” At the time, I thought he meant me, but now I wondered if he’d been talking about the other guy, wanting to get him out before the cops arrived.

To Officer Lee, I said, “He’s probably a regular. Someone should have known him.”

“No one recognized him,” she said.

“Bullshit.”

“That’s what all the witnesses said. They all also agreed that the fight was mutual.”

I thought about arguing the point, but since I couldn’t remember what I said to the guy, I didn’t have much of a leg to stand on. “What about the bottle?”

“No one saw who was responsible for that.”

“Of course not.”

“I asked everyone.”

“I believe you. What about the bouncer, then? When he threw me out, I landed on my head and lost consciousness again. Does that strike you as reasonable force?”

She looked at me for a long moment, then slid her pen back into the shirt pocket. “Here’s what I’ll say, Mr. Kopriva. You were drinking in what is essentially a neighborhood bar. Most of the patrons are regulars there. You are not. By all accounts, you drank heavily for several hours. According to the bartender and other patrons, when the other party sat down next to you at the bar, you began haranguing him with insults.”

“Haranguing him?”

She shrugged. “The bartenders word, not mine.”

“Awful poetic word for a bartender.”

“Either way, he said that you started in what could be described as playful but pretty quickly graduated to obnoxious. That’s why the guy punched you.”

“Because I deserved it.”

“In a word, yes.” She waited a beat, then went on. “Whoever hit you with the bottle probably did you a favor, too.”

“A favor? How’s that?”

“Because the witnesses I talked to said you were about to seriously hurt the other party. Inflicting that kind of injury would have landed you in jail for a felony. Instead, you’re at the hospital with a bloody lip and a bump on your head.”

I ignored her analysis. “But no one knows who the other guy was? Or the person that hit me with the bottle?”

“No.”

“And you believe them?”

“No.”

That stopped me for a moment. “So…”

She shrugged. “I can’t make them tell me the truth, sir. It’s a neighborhood bar. They look out for their own. And you’re a stranger to them.”

I nodded slowly. It was slowly sinking in. “I suppose I am. And that’s not likely to change, either, since I’m Eighty-Sixed.”

“True,” she allowed.

“So based on all of that, I’m guessing you’re going to write a half-page report on this and that’ll be the end of it.”

She nodded, her eyes still appraising me.

“Fine,” I said.

I’d been mad at the time, but now the tiredness sank into my bones and the alcohol was starting to fade. I realized what she said was true. I probably deserved to get punched, and the bottle smasher probably kept me out of jail by stopping me. And the bouncer? In his mind, he was just taking out the trash.

“Anything else?” I asked.

She shook her head. Then she picked up her coffee and turned to go. As she reached the door, I stopped her.

“Officer?”

She turned, and gave me an impassive look, waiting.

“Thanks,” I said. “For trying, at least.”

She nodded, turned to go, then stopped again.

I thought I knew what was coming, and I waited for it with some small measure of dread. But she surprised me a little.

“Cop or criminal?” she asked.

I feigned confusion. “Come again?”

“You know too much about the system, and the jargon. Only cops and experienced criminals have that kind of knowledge.”

“You’re right,” I said. “What did your computer check tell you?”

“That you’ve been arrested twice. Charged, and found guilty, once.”

“I pled guilty,” I corrected. I doubted the distinction mattered to her, but it was important to me. “To a misdemeanor.”

“It’s still a conviction,” she said.

“So I’m a criminal, then.”

She nodded once, then shook her head. “But you don’t sound like a criminal. Outside of the bar, and here in this room, you sounded like a cop.”

I stared at her for a long while. It’d been a while since I’d come across a cop who didn’t know me or my story, or at least one who wasn’t able to put the two together. Strangely enough, it was a little refreshing. I almost smiled.

Then I realized it wouldn’t last. She was smart. She’d dig a little deeper or ask around, and then she’d know, just like the rest. And she’d come to the same simple conclusion about me. Hell, it was probably still the right conclusion.

Finally, I said, “I’m sitting in the ER with a concussion from a bar fight. I got my ass kicked and no one is going to answer for it. So what does it matter?”

“Everything matters,” she said quietly, and left.