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Full Moon

Bob Strother

    Hamilton County Police Sergeant Deke Spires slouched comfortably in the back row of metal chairs, looking out over a couple of dozen seated patrol officers working the department’s second shift. It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and just over a week to his long-awaited retirement.
    A month before, he had successfully requested a transfer from administrative back to patrol duties. He’d been on a desk the last five years, and contrary to some, who’d never risk going back on the streets so close to retirement, he was truly enjoying himself. He’d been assigned to work as training officer to Jayden Garrett, one of the department’s African-American recruits, fresh from the police academy. Garrett was big, at least six-five, and extremely fit. Thus far, the young man had proven to be enthusiastic, intelligent, and eager to learn.
    Spires’ gaze drifted two rows up and a few seats to his left where an auburn-haired woman sat studying a small notebook. Sergeant Grace Lister, another training officer, had transferred in from Juvenile Crimes about the time Spires made his own move. He’d spoken to her in passing and received polite replies, but she hadn’t seemed open to small talk. It was just as well, he thought. There would be plenty to do after next week, renovating the small cabin he owned on Lake Chickamauga. When it was done, he would sell his place in the city and spend his time fishing and starting on an overflowing box of books he’d promised himself to one day read.
    He was still staring at her when she turned slowly, as if she’d felt his eyes on her. He tried a quick smile and got a barely perceptible nod in return before she tuned back to her notebook. She’s too young anyway, he thought, probably no more than mid-forties. He was sixty-two, twice divorced, with grown kids. But damn, she was attractive.
    The door behind Spires opened and closed and he caught a whiff of expensive cologne.
    “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.” The roll call sergeant strode purposefully to the front of the room and tossed a sheaf of papers onto the wooden podium centered in front of a remote controlled viewing screen. Sergeant Crisp was a thirty year veteran of the force, nearing retirement himself. He had a wide, florid face and a graying flattop, and had become something of a character in recent years.
    Crisp snatched up the remote and began his monologue by posting mug shots of current fugitive felons on the screen, complete with wry comments about each, and the usually serious, but sometimes hilarious nature of their crimes. He then made a series of assignments for specific patrol units, and answered a spate of questions from the attending officers.
    “Before we adjourn, let me mention one thing,” Crisp said. “There’s a full moon tonight—which means there’ll be even wackier than usual things going on out there.” He paused, his eyes full of mischief. “In the interest of livening up your evening and mine, I’m prepared to provide a large pizza of your choosing for the unit with the most outrageous end-of-shift story.” He was interrupted at that point with scattered applause and a couple of hoots. “You can call your story in from the street, or, if you’ve brought in one of the city’s many unsavory characters, you can tell me face to face. Either way, no decision will be made until all units have reported in.”
    He stepped from behind the podium, took a wide stance, and fisted his hands on his hips. “Good hunting, troops. Watch your backs.”
    The officers filed out and headed to the parking lot to check out their units and equipment. Spires collected Garrett and the two men did the same. Spires drove, liking the way the big car felt under his hands—heavy and powerful. He rolled down his window. The afternoon was warm enough, even this late in November, and Spires enjoyed the smells of the city. Earlier in his career, he remembered, it had been the tannery and the steel mills. They were still around, but pollution controls had all but obliterated their distinctive odors.
    Spires glanced briefly at Garrett. “Your academy buddy, what’s his name, he’s riding with Sergeant Lister, isn’t he?”
    “It’s Jacobs, and yeah, he’s training with her.”
    “I guess you guys talk, being from the same class and all. What does he have to say about her?”
    Garrett shrugged. “Not much. She does most of the talking—not the usual bullshit, you know—like she’s teaching a class, he says. But he doesn’t mind. She doesn’t talk down to him or anything and ... he thinks she’s pretty hot looking to be as old as she is.”
    Spires’ gaze shifted back to the young cop. “Uh-huh,” he said.

    The afternoon was uneventful—a few routine traffic stops, a half-hearted domestic dispute that fizzled quickly, and one truck reported stolen from a used car lot. Spires and Garrett got tacos and Pepsis around six o’clock, and ate at a concrete table on the restaurant patio. It was already dark and the air was becoming colder. When they were finished they disposed of their trash, got back into their patrol unit, and checked in with dispatch.
    “Anything much going on?” Spires asked.
    “Unit Twelve-B-Ten called in about a half hour ago,” the dispatcher said. “They responded to a reported shooting incident at the landfill.”
    Spires signed off and aimed his cruiser toward the county landfill. Ten minutes later, he spoke with one of the responding officers, Patrolman Blake Barnes.
    “It wasn’t as bad as it sounded,” Barnes said. “The night watchman called it in, then switched off the light in his shack and got under a desk. Turns out it was just a couple of boozed-up rednecks in an old Ford pickup, off-roading through the landfill and taking pot shots at feral cats.”
    “They give you any trouble?”
    “Nah,” Barnes said. He gestured to the patrol unit idling just inside the landfill’s chain-link gate. “By the time we responded, they’d run out of gas and shotgun shells. They’re sitting quietly now in the back of our unit rethinking the wisdom of their actions.” Barnes chuckled and asked, “Should I notify Animal Control about these dead animals, or you think we can just leave them out here?”
    Spires narrowed his eyes, scanning the area, but didn’t readily see anything. “How many are there?”
    “About a dozen, but some might be gophers. They’re almost as big as a starved cat and it’s hard to tell ’em apart after they’ve caught a load of birdshot.”

    After Spires and his partner drove away, Garrett asked, “You think Twelve-B-Ten has a shot at that pizza?”
    “I believe Barnes thinks so. But don’t give up. The night is young.”
    Around seven, Spires pulled over a blue Toyota going fifty-five in a thirty-five zone. There were no street lights nearby and Spires flipped on the overhead light. “You want to take this one?” he asked.
    Garrett nodded. “Yes, sir,” and got out of the vehicle. As Spires watched, Garrett approached the driver’s side of the Toyota, shined his flashlight inside, and asked for the driver’s license and registration. Seconds later, headlights loomed large in Spires’ rearview mirror. Then a large SUV rocketed by missing the patrol unit by scant inches. Garrett was not so lucky. The vehicle’s side mirror caught him shoulder-high and sent the young man tumbling to the asphalt.
    Spires leapt from the car and found Garrett clutching his right shoulder, writhing in pain, and voicing a steady stream of obscenities as the SUV careened off into the darkness.
    “Just take it easy, Garrett. You’re going to be all right. I’ll have an ambulance here in two minutes.” Spires helped Garrett to his feet and off to the side of the road. Then he radioed for the ambulance and called dispatch to report an officer injured. He also described the SUV, frustrated he hadn’t gotten the plate number.
    The ambulance arrived just as Spires completed his call, with a News 4 truck riding its rear bumper. He glanced at Garrett, who was now lying supine on a grassy berm. Garrett was still and quiet, and Spires hoped he hadn’t lost consciousness.
    As the paramedics approached, flanked by a local reporter and cameraman, Garrett began writhing again, slapping wildly at his neck and arms, and unleashing another stream of scathing profanities.
    “Jesus!” one of the paramedics yelled as the News 4 camera illuminated the scene. “He’s on a fire ant mound!”
    In less than ten minutes, Garrett had been stripped to his underwear and loaded into the ambulance for transport.
    “Don’t worry,” the reporter said. “We won’t use the footage. I’ll just do an on-scene talking head report.”
    Spires felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see an old man, stooped and bespectacled, clearly in his eighties, standing beside the road.
    “Who’re you?” Spires asked.
    “I own the blue Toyota,” the old man said. “It’s been quite a show. Can I go now?”

    Spires followed the ambulance to the hospital, got a report from the attending physician, and then headed back to the police station. On the way, he called the News 4 offices, and then stopped off there briefly. At the station he found Sergeant Crisp in his office, and slumped down into one of the visitor’s chairs.
    “How’s Garrett?” Crisp asked.
    “He has a dislocated shoulder and about a million fire ant bites, but he’ll be okay. He’s a good kid.” Spires placed a film cartridge on Crisp’s desk. “Culver over at News 4 got this on tape. It’s been edited for family viewing.”
    Crisp’s flat screen TV came to life showing a mostly shadowed roadside with what appeared to be a large dark lump lying on the ground. Suddenly the lump began to flop like a fish on a riverbank, and Garrett’s wails of anguish flooded Crisp’s office: “Oh, mother-bleep, oh, you god-bleep sons of-bleep, oh-bleep me! On the screen, Garret struggled to his feet, twitching like a palsied dancer. “What the bleep-bleep is happening to me?”
    Crisp and Spires chuckled softly at the rookie’s outburst, then watched silently as the paramedics stripped off Garrett’s dark blue uniform and loaded him into the waiting ambulance.
    Crisp darkened the screen. “I feel sorry for the kid. If it’d been a civilian, preferably a felon, that footage might’ve got you two a pizza.”
    “He’ll be out for at least a week,” Spires said. “I guess he and I have taken our last patrol together.”
    “It’s too bad what happened,” Crisp said, “but it could have been worse, could have been you.” Spires got up to leave and was almost to the door when Crisp added, “Oh, by the way, a woman called in a while ago, said she thinks she hit a bear over on Baily Avenue. Said, ‘you know they’re coming down from the mountain now that we’ve encroached on their environment’.”
    “We were on Baily when Garrett was sideswiped.”
    Crisp nodded and tapped a pencil on his desktop. “The timing’s about right, too. I got a unit checking out her car right now. I’ll let you know.”
    Spires continued down the hall, thinking that Garrett had looked a little bit like a bear doing that awkward dance—a bear being electrocuted.
    On the way to his office, Spires passed the booking area where a beefy young man sat solemnly on a bench, head down, with a high school letter sweater draped over one knee. Looked like an offensive lineman, Spires thought. Probably from Central High, judging from the school colors, although the sweater was so badly stained, it was hard to tell. Grace Lister stood nearby at the booking counter talking to one of the department’s civilian employees.
    It was already almost end of shift, so Spires spent an hour or so writing field reports and packing up a few personal things, getting ready for his last week on duty. When he eventually left, he was surprised to find Lister also on her way to the parking lot. In the month he’d been on patrol, he had hoped for just this opportunity, but without success. She looked even better in street clothes.
    “I thought you’d already gone,” he said as they walked together toward the rows of parked automobiles.
    She glanced at him with a thoughtful expression on her face, like she was really seeing him for the first time. “I worked out in the weight room for a while. I usually do.”
    He told her about Garrett, then asked, “The high school kid I saw in booking, was he one of yours?”
    She smiled then, the first one he’d seen from her.
    “That was my ticket to a large pepperoni pizza, mine and Jacobs. But I let Jacobs take it home to his wife. I’m watching my calorie intake.”
    “Why?” Spires asked.
    Lister didn’t answer, but the remark won Spires another smile. Instead she said, “Northgate Mall had a Thanksgiving promotion going on, getting ready for Black Friday. They called it the Northgate Thanksgiving Turkey Trot. The idea was that the Central High football team would start at one end of the mall and race to the far end, each team member carrying a live turkey.”
    Lister stopped at a late model Chevy truck and threw her gym bag onto the front seat. “The kid’s name is Elroy Franks; he’s a second-string offensive tackle. Anyway, his turkey got over-excited during the run and shit all over Elroy’s brand new letter sweater. In retaliation, Elroy stomped the turkey to death in front of a couple of hundred onlookers, a bunch of them kids. We brought him in mostly for his own protection. There were a few ASPCA hard cases in the crowd.”
    Spires laughed and shook his head. “I’d buy you a pizza myself just for telling me the story—or a salad, if you’d rather.” The words were out before he realized it. He steeled himself for rejection.
    Lister looked at him for a long moment. “I hear you’re retiring at the end of the month.”
    “Yeah, got a cabin on the lake, thought I’d do some fishing.”
    “I do a little fishing, myself,” she said, opening a lock box behind the truck cab to reveal an array of spinning rods and reels, tackle boxes, and other assorted gear.
    He leaned in to look at the equipment, his shoulder just touching hers. A fine mist had crept in during the night, silvering the pale disc overhead and coating the truck’s windows with moisture.
    “Maybe,” she said, “you could invite me up sometime. I do make a pretty mean salad.”
    He nodded, thinking it was indeed a night for strange occurrences. His grateful grin matched her now mischievous one. “Yeah,” he said, maybe.”

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