“Have I told you to fuck off lately?”
“Yeah, couple times.”
“Good.” Then Jeff added, “Brother, you need to go see someone before this shit kills you.”
“I’m working it out… it’s getting better.”
“You say so.”
Jeff was with Thorpe when he first met his wife, and he’d tried to be with him as much as possible ever since her death. The chance meeting occurred seven years before. At the time Thorpe was twenty-eight years old and enjoying the bachelor life. He’d been on the force for several years, had not yet been promoted, and was working as a Strategic Oriented Police Officer (SOPO). There were six SOPOs assigned to Gilcrease Division. SOPOs were selected because they demonstrated a proficiency at tossing shitheads in jail. Their assignment: put out fires across the city; if a particular area experienced a high amount of violence or drug trafficking, it was the SOPO’s job to come in and quell the criminal element. Tulsa police officers generally operate solo but because of the inherent danger of their assignment, SOPOs worked with a partner.
One Saturday night in August, Thorpe and Jeff were patrolling outside a downtown Tulsa nightclub—the site of several late-night shootings. They were conducting checks on a couple of pedestrians dressed out in gang colors, when Jeff observed two ladies exit an adjacent bar and head toward a parking lot. Thorpe noticed Jeff’s attention shift and followed his partner’s gaze. Even at fifty yards, both officers could tell the women were attractive, attractive enough that both Thorpe and Jeff forgot the term “officer safety,” distracted by four sauntering, slender, white-stocking-adorned legs. The gangbangers could have clubbed both officers over the head like baby seals had they wanted. But their attention had also been drawn to the women. It must have been quite a sight: two uniformed officers standing next to a couple of dressed-out “Red-Teamers,” all four of them drooling on themselves like best friends and fellow deviants.
The ladies walked west down First Street and rounded a corner heading north into a darkened parking lot and out of sight. Thorpe was returning his attention back to matters at hand when he observed two men across the street near where the women had passed. One of the men elbowed his buddy in the ribs and nodded in the direction the women had gone. The men began to follow. Thorpe looked at Jeff and could tell by the look on his partner’s face he shared the same concern. Jeff returned the I.D.s to the bangers, and both officers jogged toward the area where the women and their stalkers had disappeared.
When Thorpe rounded the corner, he saw the women near a red BMW. One of the men was just catching up with the women from behind. He estimated the guy to be about five-ten, a couple hundred pounds, and highly intoxicated. The man, doing his best impersonation of a drunken ninja, snuck up behind the nearest woman and lifted her black pleated skirt. The woman spun on her attacker and attempted a wide, right-handed slap, but Drunken Ninja was sober enough to catch her right wrist with his left hand and push her up against the car. The two drunks then began saying things only inebriates think are clever. The second, smaller man began maneuvering toward the other almost equally attractive woman.
Thorpe had come up behind Drunken Ninja, who had a hold on both the woman’s wrists. The woman caught the movement and glanced over her assailant’s shoulder at Thorpe. The man, a little sharper now because of an adrenaline rush, recognized someone must have been standing behind him. Drunken Ninja stepped back with his left foot, spun, and took a right fisted swing that began somewhere near the Canadian border. Instead of backing away from the telegraphed punch, Thorpe stepped into and underneath it, driving Drunken Ninja’s body over his shoulder. Thorpe lifted the man off the ground and had him draped across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Though not taught in any respectable martial arts dojo, it’s a move handed down from every father to every son, a move to use on your buddies when you’re horsing around, especially effective when they’re drunk. It’s not a practiced law enforcement tactic, for good reason, but Thorpe was showing off a little. He gave the drunk a “helicopter ride,” spinning him rapidly through the air.
Thorpe released the man mid-flight. Drunken Ninja was unable to activate his landing gear and skidded across the lot via his stomach and forearms. And, just like any self-respecting drunk, Ninja stood to address the threat. Unfortunately for him, his world was spinning out of control and he couldn’t keep his feet. Drunken Ninja began staggering to his right, and instead of just falling down (and saving himself further embarrassment), he picked up speed as he tried to stay upright. He took several sideways running steps before plowing headfirst into the tailgate of a blue, Ford F-150, knocking himself unconscious.
The woman in the skirt had just been in tears but began laughing as she looked down on Drunken Ninja, who emptied his bladder through his jeans onto the gravel lot.
Before long, all those still conscious were laughing—even Drunken Ninja’s drunken sidekick. When the amusement faded, his lady in distress, Erica, looked up at Thorpe, and he could see it in her eyes: she was enamored.
One week later, he picked up Erica for their first date. For the occasion, she wore a white lace cami with plunging neckline and bare midriff. Her long legs blossoming from a short skirt, she looked, smelled, and oozed sex. The date began with dinner and drinks before Erica suggested going to a large country and western bar located near the center of Tulsa’s city limits. Not fond of crowded bars he couldn’t resist the prospect of slow dancing with the beauty seated next to him; her toned legs presented a convincing argument. Shortly after, Thorpe found himself on an overflowing dance floor with Erica pressed against him. The couple lasted all of two songs before he invited her back to his place. By the time he turned the key to his apartment and pushed open the door, they were pulling at one another’s clothes. The two fell into the apartment and a lovemaking session. They never made it past the front room.
After their first date, they began seeing each other regularly, but not exclusively. Sex was the glue holding the relationship together. He didn’t know if Erica had fallen for him but knew she at least had a deep infatuation. Sometimes he wondered if she wasn’t just attracted to the potential for violence she had witnessed when they first met. Some women craved that. Everyone has seen them—the woman with the fashion model looks hanging on the arm of a Kid Rock lookalike. One thing Thorpe knew for certain; he wasn’t in love with Erica. In fact, he’d never been in love with any woman and had his doubts whether he had the capability.
A couple of months after their first date, Thorpe decided he’d better call off the relationship. Prepared to break the news to Erica, she had a surprise of her own; she was pregnant. They’d been careful, but these things have a way of happening. Erica seemed genuinely happy with the prospect of motherhood, and after the initial shock, Thorpe did his best to appear optimistic. Raised to accept responsibility for his actions, and though today’s experts would probably discourage marrying because of an unexpected pregnancy, Thorpe felt it was the only thing to do.
Erica came from money—old money. Her father, Phillip Hessler, made no attempt to hide the fact that he disapproved of the man who’d “knocked-up” his baby. He had higher aspirations for his daughter. Thorpe figured the man had hoped for an Ivy League investment banker as a future son-in-law, not some knuckle-dragging civil servant with a gun. The two married in a large downtown Methodist church with Erica clearly showing in her white wedding dress. When the father gave his daughter away, he did so with a glare that should have burned a hole right through Thorpe’s rented tuxedo. The relationship with his in-laws would never improve.
Thorpe, in the delivery room on the night Ella was born, didn’t experience any of those overwhelming emotions other fathers describe when excitedly recalling the births of their children. He made sure he said all the right things and smiled on cue. Two days later, mother and child came home to the apartment. Erica didn’t feel well, and Thorpe was burdened with the majority of childcare. One short week of tending to Ella—the diaper changing, the bottle feedings at 3 a.m., the standing over the crib to make sure the baby still drew breath, the worrying that comes with caring for something so small, fragile, and, yes, precious—had broken Thorpe down.