I went back to work after two more sick days, and just as I’d thought, I got a reception colder than an ice bath in Lake Superior. Some nods, yeah, but no one would look me in the eye. Same guys who used to be all “faggot” this and “faggot” that in the locker room went silent. I had never had many friends on the force. Some guys to drink and sympathize with, but never real friends. And now, well, fuck.
Be careful what you wish for.
That morning, the boss confirmed: yes, I would be partnered with Joel Skovgaard, and we would do a shitty speed trap on Miller’s Hill Road until, I supposed, I had “learned my lesson” (not that anyone actually said that to me). Conveniently, that would also allow Joel to earn enough real cop time to get booted to the next level, thanks to his cheat codes (aka “Daddy”).
My DoubleShots didn’t help keep me awake, and the Arby’s coffee we’d picked up grew cold in the cup holder because my stomach couldn’t hack it. We were tucked between snowbanks on the shoulder. No one in their right mind would speed today anyway, not with all the glare ice, that melting and refreezing and melting and refreezing death trap. Mostly I stared out the front and tried not to sit tensed up all day. Yeah, I didn’t realize at first — every muscle, especially on the right side, the one closest to Joel, tensed as if trying to get as far away as physically possible within the confines of the car. My hands on the steering wheel, aching from gripping too tight. Barely any conversation between us. Then he started snoring.
Come on, I was sleepy myself, shit yeah, but snoring?
“Joel.” Like a shot. Loud and short.
He jolted, hands grabbing the door handle and the dash. Then a rush of breath. “Fuck.”
“Drink more coffee. Hell, drink mine.”
“I’m good. I’m good.”
“Dude …”
Joel scowled and slumped back in his seat, arms crossed. “Don’t even. It’s personal.”
“You don’t even.”
Quiet. I thought he might drift off again. If he did, I’d wake him again. Fuck that guy.
But he cleared his throat and said, “This girl I’m seeing … Robin. Robin Malmon. Like Salmon …”
“Okay.”
“I mean, goddamn, she’s something else. She’s really, I mean. The sex? Like animals. She grunts. She flexes. She demands.”
“TMI, for fuck’s sake. Jesus!”
“Don’t TMI me, Mister Knocked-Out at a Gay Bar.”
Sigh. “Continue.”
He nodded. Used his hands to talk. Like he was squeezing fresh fruit. “But the whole thing has been fuck games, you know? She says she doesn’t play them, but she so does. Her rules, her ways.”
“What does that even mean? Games? Seriously? It’s called getting to know you.”
“Well, according to her, it’s all part of ‘dating’.” He did air quotes. “In dating, there are rules. She knows we all have a list, things that cannot be talked about early on. Things that should be off the table. But she thinks that’s bullshit. She thinks the only way to know if two people are wasting their time with each other is to get it all on the table. And the first thing she needed to know about me was if I had killed people.”
“The fuck?”
“Yeah, I know. That was a sticking point. And not because she is against soldiers killing people. No, she gets it. What she’s saying is, you can’t know a guy, not really, if he’s killed people but hasn’t told you that.”
“Have you?”
“Have I?”
“Killed people, man? Have you?”
He nodded. “I had to. I don’t feel good about it. Don’t feel bad about it either, though. I had to.”
(I didn’t get the truth out of him for months. I had no reason not to believe him.)
Quiet again.
Then Joel said, “I told her that. She keeps pushing. She wants to smash any mask I put on. So we talk all night. We yell and scream, we shut down, we fuck, we cuddle, we yell again. I’m getting, like, a couple hours of sleep. That’s it.”
“What’s her deal?”
He gave me a shitty look. “Careful.”
“What? I can’t call your psycho-bitch girlfriend a psycho-bitch?”
“Goddamn it—”
“I mean, what about her secrets? If she’s digging them out of you, what about hers?”
Big sigh. Was this our fate? Speed trap bullshit with a side of dislike?
I said, “Never mind.”
“No, you’re right. You are. She told me she was married, but she cheated. Married for four years, cheated the last two of those. With a French guy.”
“Jesus.”
Shrug. “She wasn’t happy. But she told me she still talks to the French guy, like, all the time. He’s not around anymore, but only because he couldn’t get a permanent visa. Oh, and she fucked her ex-husband for a whole year after they broke up.”
“You see that movie, It’s Complicated?”
Joel smiled. He didn’t often. “Complicated can be fun.”
“Or not.” And then I thought about why I’d said that. I would’ve loved uncomplicated. I cried at night for uncomplicated.
“Dude, you don’t get it. You have to be there. You have to feel it. Just when I don’t think I can go any more, she gets me hard again. I don’t know why that is, but, I’m telling you …” He shook his head.
Guy flew past in a Honda CR-V way too fast, sloshed us. Radar said “TOO FAST!” I started the wipers. “Wanna?”
Joel punched the roof. “Go go go!”
So we went.
We nearly died twice catching up to the CRV. I’ll stand by that story.
Not a guy, but a woman. Young woman. Barely stopped talking to take a breath, blamed everything but her shitty driving (while applying lip balm), even blamed us for “picking” on her when everyone else was driving just as bad.
I didn’t care. I just listened to her haranguing me out there in the chill, while cars flew past — best time to speed is when the cops have already stopped someone — mud and snow flying, grit flying, couple of assholes honking horns. Joel leaned against the back of the Honda, shielded from the wind. This girl, begging, then accusing, then flirting. I figured just out of college, maybe a year, wishing she was still there.
I had already handed her the ticket. I didn’t know what I was waiting for. I closed my eyes, intending for it to be, what, a blink? But I kept them closed. I took a noseful of icy air. Let it out again. She had stopped talking. I opened my eyes again, saw that her lips were open and she was looking me up and down. I just shrugged at her. “Okay.”
And I walked away.
I could do that.
I was in the car before Joel. He dropped into his seat and said, “Well, that was nice.”
“I did my job. The rest was a waste of everybody’s time.”
“Mostly mine.”
Another noseful of air.
The woman in the CR-V was beginning to pull away.
I said, “Weren’t you supposed to be observing? Weren’t you supposed to have my back, rather than ignore me?”
“You think I wouldn’t?”
“I’m supposed to be training you. God knows you need it.”
“It was a fucking traffic stop.”
“You don’t even know how to do one of those.” I flicked the lights and siren, caught up with the woman. “And one day you’ll be a fucking Captain or some shit, soon from what I hear, and at least I can say I taught you to make a traffic stop.”
The woman braked hard and I stopped inches away. Threw the car into park and left the sirens and lights on as I opened the door. “Come on, let’s do this.”
“Fuck’s sake, Manny. Leave it alone already.”
“No, seriously, get out and do this.”
He crossed his arms and looked out the passenger window. I could already hear the woman shouting, leaning out of her open window and straining to keep her head turned my way.
I said, “Get out here and do your goddamned job before I taze your ass.”
“You know they record us? They can hear you losing your shit. You’re so fucked right now.”
“Get. Out.”
He shook his head, but he did it. He got out of the car and walked around to meet me. I stepped up to the CR-V and said, “Let me have that ticket I just wrote you.” She looked confused, then reached over to the passenger seat for it. I took it from her and tore it in two. “I apologize, but I forgot that my training partner here was supposed to write the ticket instead of me. So we’re going to call it a warning instead, okay? No fine. But let’s go through the routine again. Okay?”
“Oh. Okay.”
I took a step back and very primly, very Downton Abbey-like, waved Joel towards our victim. “Officer Skovgaard? Please.”
His cheeks were the purple of bar fights.
But he did it.
License, registration, proof of insurance.
Informed her of our reasons for stopping her.
Gave her a warning. Of course, he had to go back to “check” on her DL. He had wanted to skip it, but I shook my head. “Not officer thinking, young man. Play it for real.”
By the time the CR-V drove away, I was sure Joel would never be my friend. Never regale me with stories of his psycho-bitch girlfriend again. No war stories from the desert, either. No, none of that. Our shifts would be hours upon hours of loathing, silence, looking for the slightest of reasons to make stops, so we could empty the car of the toxic air between us.
We both dropped into our seats.
“Faggot” he said.
“Daddy’s favorite mistake,” I said.
He pounded the roof again. He left a dent.
I pulled out of the parking lot, knowing I was in for a load when the shift was over, if not sooner.
But I still said, “Daddy’ll write a check, the dent goes away.”
We made three more stops before it was time to call it a day. Two tickets, one warning, and who the fuck cares?