“Is that the best you can do? My grandmother throws better than that!”
While passersby laughed, Officer Jason Hart pumped a few bursts of water from his “laser gun” at the small boy holding the green plastic ball. The boy giggled and squealed as it sprayed his oversized Relay For Life T-shirt.
“I’d bet you’d pull your grandmother over, whether she can throw or not,” the boy’s dad shouted up to Jason, who was seated in uniform shirt, shorts and sneakers in a perch above the tank.
“I’d pull my mom over!” Jason shouted back. “And your mom, too!”
The father took the last ball. A throw. A hit. And Jason was chest-deep in dirty water.
“Nice!” said Officer Cheryl Lindmann, shaking the father’s hand and stooping down to shake the son’s. “And the best part is, your donation helps us raise funds for research, so that we can arrest cancer once and for all!”
Cheryl was obviously a bit attached to the “arresting cancer” line, but Jason wasn’t going to spoil her fun. She lost her mother to lung cancer just six months before. As he climbed back up to his perch, he took in his audience. Only four people were currently gathered around the police booth. He knew he could do better.
“Five bucks for three balls, give me your best throw!” he called to some onlookers. “For any of you that don’t know me, I’m Officer Hart, and this is my laser gun. And we loooove writing tickets. I hide my vehicle on Arlington and Rose, and bust people right as they pass. Pchew,” he said to a couple walking by, and shot some water in their direction.
Three more people stopped at the booth. A woman approached, smiling right past the purple bags under her eyes, and said, “I think you wrote me a ticket once.” Her face was shielded from the August sun with a denim hat that barely covered her bald head.
Any other time, Jason would have shaken that woman’s hand and told her to keep fighting, but for the next couple hours he had to stay in character.
“Yes, ma’am, I’m sure I did,” he said. “What was it, a hundred twenty bucks? A hundred fifty? Well for five bucks more, you can have revenge. Any of you want to help this lady get me back? I’ve probably written some of you schmucks a ticket anyway.”
“That’s okay, I’ll pay,” said the woman. She reminded Jason of his wife Sheri. She had blue eyes like that, which only looked prettier after her hair had gone.
The woman made contact with the target on her first throw, but it wasn’t strong enough to get a dunk. “Come on!” said Jason, searching for the appropriate insult. “You throw like a… girl.”
The woman grinned and threw harder, sending him plunging back down into the tank amid cheers from the growing crowd.
Jason’s face was dripping now, and he hammed up the moment by thrashing his arms around on the water. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had this much fun. It was the role he was born to play, the role of the Macho-Jerk, Ticket-Happy Cop. He hoped some kernel of who he was might still come through.
It was exhilarating to let his guard down, to be taken by surprise at the sudden whoosh of the trap door flying open and the crash of falling into the tank. At work, he always had to stay one step ahead. It didn’t matter if he was doing the usual traffic stop—there were no “usual” traffic stops anyway. Each time, he had to wonder if the driver had a warrant, if he was in breach of parole, if he was carrying a gun in his glove compartment.
And even for all his vigilance, Jason had still been ambushed by the cancer that ultimately killed his wife.
Now, four years later, he had new enemies lurking in the shadows, loading their guns. There was talk in the city of restructuring the police force, or possibly firing everybody and signing contracts with the county sheriff’s department. There’d been bids, and votes, and secret city council meetings. They’d regret it, he knew, once their 9-1-1 calls could no longer be answered in three minutes when County deputies had to drive in from ten miles away.
And for what? To save money on pensions. That was the latest turn in public opinion, and probably most of the people here, regardless of political affiliation, would vote in favor of it. All his life, Jason had made his integrity a source of personal pride. But the people he served, how quickly they broke their promises.
Well, wasn’t that what life was all about? Life was just a series of broken promises. You could hope for the best, but in the end, everybody lost everything they loved. What good was his retirement to him, when he no longer had someone to share it with?
“Your five dollar donation helps us arrest cancer!” Cheryl shouted at a new wave of Relay participants. Jason wiggled his toes in the water that filled his tennis shoes. His shirt was beginning to cling to him in places around his chest and armpits. He smiled at the lady who had given him this last soaking, and said a quiet prayer that she would make it.
The lady was smiling back at him now. Perhaps she noticed him staring at her, though she didn’t seem to mind. He looked away quickly, taking in the dozen people that were now gathered to watch him get drenched. It didn’t matter what their views were, or how quickly they would give him the boot. Just like every other day, he was here for them. He was here for people like that lady, people like Sheri.
“All right,” he said to the lady. “You got lucky. I’ll bet you couldn’t do it a second time, though.”
“We’ll see,” she said, taking out a second five-dollar bill.
“Put your money away,” he told her. “This one’s on the house.”
