FROM Strand Magazine
THE NIGHT I WENT to work, I gathered up my reporter's notebook and heavy purse and then went to check on my husband, Peter. My sweetie-pie was sitting up in bed, his left leg in a cast. The bruises about his eyes were beginning to fade, though they still had a sickish green-yellow aura. The television was on and a cell phone was clasped in his right hand.
"You doing okay?" I asked.
He grinned, his teeth showing nicely through his puffy lips. "Like I've been saying, as well as could be expected."
I kissed his forehead. "You okay moving around by yourself?"
"Of course."
"Good," I said. "But you be careful. You go and break your other leg, that means you're stuck in bed. And I don't think this whole 'in sickness and in health' covers bedpan duty."
He moved up against the pillows, winced. "You could have warned me earlier."
"But you wouldn't have listened."
"And why's that?"
"Because you're madly, hopelessly, and dopily in love with me, that's why."
As I headed out Peter said, "Erica? Be careful."
I hoisted my heavy purse on my shoulder. "Don't worry, I will."
And then his face darkened. "One more thing. Sorry I got dinged up."
I shook my head. "No time to talk about that."
I blew him a kiss, which he pretended to catch and slap against his heart with his free hand.
My sweetie.
Cooper, Massachusetts, is one of the largest and poorest communities in the commonwealth, and I drove this warm May evening to one of its three police precinct stations. In the station's lobby the hard orange plastic chairs were filled with residents-most didn't speak English, yet they were busily arguing with each other or with the suffering on-duty officer behind a thick glass window. When it was my turn I said, "Erica Kramer, I have an appointment to see Captain Miller."
The harried officer looked happy to confront an easy issue, and in a manner of minutes I was taken to the rear of the precinct station. Captain Terrence Miller sat me down at his desk and passed over a clipboard with a sheet of paper.
"Look that over, sign at the bottom, and you'll be on your way," he said. Miller looked to be on the upside of fifty, with an old-fashioned buzz cut and a scarlet face.
The paper was a release form stating that one ERICA KRAMER was going to accompany OFFICER ROLAND PIPER as part of a civilian ride-along program, and that by signing said release form, myself and my heirs promised never, ever to sue the city of Cooper if I was shot, knifed, killed, mutilated, or dismembered. I scrawled my signature on the bottom and passed it back.
He checked the form and then he checked me. I knew the look. I had on black nylons, heels, a short denim skirt, and a one-size-too-tight yellow top. He seemed to consider what he was doing, and said, "Well, I guess I'll bring you over to Roland."
"Thanks," I said, grabbing my purse.
Officer Roland Piper was even older than his captain, and in his crinkly eyes and worn face I saw a cop satisfied with being a cop, who didn't want the burden of command and was happy with his own niche. In the tiny roll-call room Roland looked me up and down and said, "All right, then, come along."
We went out to the rear of the station, where a high fence surrounded the parking area for the police cruisers. I followed Roland, he carrying a soft leather carrying case in one hand and a metal clipboard in the other. He was whistling some tune I couldn't recognize and he unlocked the trunk of a cruiser. There were flares in there, chains, a wooden box, and a fire extinguisher, and Roland dropped his leather case in and slammed the trunk down. Then he went to the near rear door, opened it up, and lifted the rear seat cushion, looking carefully in the space behind the seat. He pushed the seat cushion down and closed the door.
He looked over at me. "If you're ready, get aboard."
I went around to the side and got in.
Roland ignored me as he opened up his clipboard and took some notes. Then he turned on the ignition, flipped on the headlights, tested the strobe bar over the roof of the cruiser-the lights reflecting on the rear brick wall of the police station-and flipped on the siren, cycling through four different siren sounds.
"Everything looks good, sounds good," he said, backing up the cruiser. "Thing is, you test this stuff every night. Don't want to find out the sirens or lights don't work when you need them."
I opened up my notebook, scribbled a few lines. "Why did you open up the rear seat?"
He nudged the cruiser out into traffic. "Checking things over. Sometimes perps, they get arrested, even with their hands cuffed, they can dump stuff back there. I don't like stuff dumped in my cruiser. Don't like surprises."
We were now out in traffic. He picked up the radio mic, keyed it, brought it up to his mouth, and said, "Dispatch, Unit 19 out and available."
He looked over to me. "Got that? I don't like surprises."
I made another note.
"I got that," I said.
I looked at the dashboard clock. It was 8:02 P.M.
We went through about a half-dozen blocks before he spoke up. "All right. Why me?"
"Excuse me?"
He made a right-hand turn, past a row of old three-decker homes-the last one on the end a burned-out shell. "You heard me. There's about sixty or so cops in the department. Why me?"
"Because you've been here the longest," I said. "With a halfdozen citations for bravery and excellent police work. I thought you'd be an interesting human feature story."
"You writing for the Cooper Chronicle, then?"
"No," I said. "I'm freelance. I've done articles before for other papers in the valley, but I thought maybe I could interest Boston magazine, or even the Sunday Globe, in your story."
"Hah," he said. "That'll be the day."
We went on for another couple of blocks. He said, "You want to know the deal?"
"Sure," I said. "What kind of deal is that?"
"Deal is, I didn't have to have you with me tonight. Captain couldn't force me. And if he did, I could tell you nothing at all. But you see, the department's getting a new allotment of cruisers next month. I made the deal with the captain. I put up with you and your dumb questions, I get the best cruiser. No more riding along in this six-year-old deathtrap."
"I don't do dumb questions," I said, my hands clasping the notebook tight.
"Huh? What's that?"
Now it was my turn. I said sweetly, "Officer, you heard me the first time. I don't do dumb questions. You're good at what you do, and I'm good at what I do."
He looked at me, scanned my legs, and offered me a thin smile. "All right. Point taken. Just so there's no misunderstandings, there's two rules."
"Go ahead."
We stopped at a traffic light. A group of kids in Red Sox jerseys were on the street corner. When they spotted the cruiser, they faded into the shadows.
"Rule one: you don't get in my way. You stay behind me, and if I tell you to stay in the cruiser, by God, you stay in the cruiser. Rule two: no questions about my personal life. I owe you and the taxpayers of Cooper eight hours a shift, forty hours a week. What I do on my own time, what hobbies I got, hell, who or what I like to date, none of your damn business. Got that?"
"Sure," I said. "Got them both."
The light changed and we moved ahead. And he looked at my legs one more time and said, "You really thought dressing up like that was a good thing for a night like this?"
I flipped a page of my notebook. "Here's a rule for you, officer. No comments on how I'm dressed. You got that?"
Another thin smile. "Gotten."
We rode around Cooper for a while, in an aimless pattern that I was sure was anything but. The radio crackled with different calls for other units, and I said, "Why have you always been a patrolman? Why not try for a promotion?"
He waited a few seconds and said, "Why put up with the aggravation? Same streets, same crime. You're a patrolman, you're responsible for yourself. You become a sergeant or a detective, then you got to manage people. Ugh. I have enough problems keeping myself in line. Hate to think of doing that with other people."