“Now come over here,” Officer Como commanded, pointing down at a spot a half-foot in front of her. “Right here, right now.”
Sunny sighed and dropped her cigarette, not bothering to stamp it out. She acted more bored than anything else. And although she was but a couple steps from the officer, it seemed to take her whole minutes to reach the spot, enough so that I wanted to close the shop and rush out there and shake her to sensibility. But then I’ve always wanted to do that, and yet never have.
“You’re really wasting yourself, you know that?” Officer Como said to her, less angrily than anyone could have expected from her at that moment. “You don’t even know. Others have nothing, not brains, not money, not good looks. They’ve got nothing and they know it and they’re bad. But you have everything going for you. It’s ridiculous.”
“You can’t tell me what I have going,” Sunny answered, keeping her voice low. “So don’t try.”
“I’ll tell you whatever I want,” Officer Como said forcefully, now holding Sunny by the arm. “And you know why? I wouldn’t say a word to you if I thought you deserved it. But you don’t. You drink and you probably do drugs and stay out all night with all kinds of sleazy men. It should make you sick to think what your father must feel, how scared he must be for you every time you leave the house. But you don’t care about that, either. You can’t think about that. All you have time for is being a stuck-up little girl who looks for trouble anywhere she can find it. You’re so damn tough and cool, aren’t you? So you sit on cop cars in your hot pants. Wow, young lady. Big deal. You’re a big deal.”
Officer Como let go of her but Sunny didn’t move. For a moment I was certain that one of them would suddenly reach out and strike the other. There were no customers in the store and so I drifted out to the doorway; a few people were lingering about them on the sidewalk. I was perplexed as to what I should do. It’s a strange thing, to have your daughter being publicly accosted by an officer of the law and to know inside that it’s completely right and warranted, and yet on top of that having the impulse to shield her from criticism and unhappiness, and feeling, too, the purest, unbending aggression toward the officer. All this, I realize, is probably fatherhood in a nutshell, but I’m sure it’s true that for most these instances are what they are, momentary and situational and thankfully rare, and not, as in the case of Sunny and me, our lives’ chronic bout. That day my emotions were running particularly high, I think, because of what was spoken next, by both Officer Como and Sunny, as well as myself.
“What did you say about me staying out at night?” Sunny asked, her voice sounding higher and milder than I’d heard for some years, more like when she was just-arrived, the tone cut-off and vulnerable and like that of anybody else.
Officer Como answered, “Just what the whole town knows.”
Sunny’s face hardened, and she pulled her sunglasses down over her eyes and bent to lift her bicycle from the sidewalk. She began walking away with it, an expensive French racer I had bought for her recent birthday.
“Hey!” Officer Como spoke briskly. “Don’t be running off. I haven’t said anything about our being done, have I? We haven’t finished our conversation.”
Sunny stepped in front of the seat and straddled her bike, not answering the policewoman. There was a peculiar hint of innocence to the stance, despite how grave her expression was, as if she were simply asking the local officer for directions. She was on her bike because I hadn’t allowed her to get her driver’s permit and license, for I was deathly afraid of where she might end up if she had a car. After many weeks of intense arguments she finally gave up and took to riding the bicycle all around town. So much so, in fact, that it was a customary sight for everyone to see Sunny Hata pedaling on her powder-blue twelve-speed, here and there and at all hours of the day and night.
“Why don’t you ask me again what I know about you?” Officer Como said. “Because I’ll let you know.”
“Sure,” Sunny replied severely, sounding like herself again. “Go ahead.”
I was at the door to the shop and as there were no customers on that unusually warm afternoon I couldn’t help but head toward them. Officer Como’s back was turned, but Sunny could well see me. She didn’t give any indication that I was within earshot. She just glared defiantly at the officer without the least expression.
“I hear you’re over at Jimmy Gizzi’s house a lot these days.”
Sunny didn’t answer.
“Jimmy Gizzi. Now there’s a nice young man,” Officer Como said thickly. “Someone worth befriending. Let’s see. What, he’s twenty-five, a high-school dropout, and he’s never had a real job? He used to beat up his mother every once in a while, before God blessed her and she had a heart attack and died. We had to go to the house and break things up. I know he’s been selling pot and speed out of the garage, but I guess these days he’s also scoring coke for rich kids at Bedley High.”
“I guess you know everything,” Sunny said.
“I sure do,” the policewoman answered quickly, stepping closer to her. “I know you’ve been spending some weekend nights there, at his house, for example.”
Sunny glanced at me, as if she were actually uncomfortable with my hearing the disclosure. I hadn’t known for certain where she was spending those weekend nights, though I was confident that it was always with one of her girlfriends in the city. She’d go for trips to Jones Beach or for shopping or just “hanging out” in the downtown Bohemian neighborhoods, and if she was getting into trouble there, too, I hoped it was in the spirit of joyful rebellion and independence and enjoyment with her own set of comrades, which I should be glad to tolerate and understand. But to hear that she was staying in town, with a dubious young man whom she didn’t seem to care to defend, was alarming to me, and even hurtful.
“I know a lot of the people who hang out at Gizzi’s,” Officer Como went on. “I hope you know that some of them are serious felons. They’re not like you. They’re not just there to have fun. It’s life to them.”
“Who says I’m there for fun?” Sunny said sharply. “You think I want fun? You think I’m having fun right now?”
Officer Como seemed surprised by her response, as was I. But the policewoman quickly took back her ground. “Don’t ever talk to me like that again. Don’t ever raise your voice. Do you hear me? I’ll make things miserable for you, I promise. I don’t have to care about you. I can write you off like any other good-for-nothing slut who’s pissing her life away. Your father deserves better. I hear the stories about the parties, from Jimmy himself, actually. He was run in yesterday, as you probably know. He’s out but we’ll get him soon. He’s a little punk who’s in over his head with those brothers from the city. But he had a lot of colorful things to say about you especially. How generous you are to all the guys. What a good sport you are. He said you never get tired.”