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100 degrees in the shade and some smart ass reporter’s frying an egg on his car hood. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have cited him, but it was hot—and I was hot and besides, the reporter had snarled traffic with his stupid prank. The town of Fair Haven pays me to be a police officer, not a martyr—anyway, anger has its privileges in a dog bites cat bites rat kind of way. 

Katie had bitten my head off that morning. 

Sure the air conditioner had quit and our teenagers were cranky from cabin fever, but still… I couldn’t shake the image of her black curly bangs plastered to her forehead or the desperate look in her eyes. I left without breakfast—fled to the sanctuary and quiet of the air-conditioned patrol car. I grabbed a coffee and donut on the way in and then proceeded to bite everyone’s head off who got in my way.

*It sure is hot*.

Waves of heat rose from the pavement and shimmered in the bright morning light. I drove through the downtown, with the young housewives masked and out in force, pushing strollers and arguing with whining kids. It seemed everywhere I turned the asphalt was simmering and people along with it. The town had turned into a surrealistic  Dali landscape of melting clocks.

It was getting to me—the blaring horns, the impatient shouts and the incessant crackle of static over the radio band. It was a delirium like the cacophony of madness—only I was not mad, just tired and fed up—and my day had just begun. 

 *10-15 Foodland Market Vine & Main*

Oh great—I hated those calls.

*Car 1050 on it.*

I turned on the siren and flashers and accelerated out of the snarled mess. Within minutes, I pulled into the supermarket lot and parked the cruiser.

Blaine Nitey met me just inside the doors. He was wearing a ridiculous gas mask and. goggles.I didn’t like Blaine—nobody did. I always called him Percy—partly because of his prissy ways and mostly because every second word out of his mouth was per se—a kind of intellectual affectation, or Blaine’s idea of the aforesaid. Should have been a lawyer rather than run the family business. Who knows what prompts some peoples’ choices.

“What’s up, Blaine?”
"Whup, whu up, wh whup..."
"Take off your mask, Blaine," I say with patience I can't believe I have left.
He nods like a bobble head and complies.
Beads of sweat are standing out on his forehead and the white circles under his eyes are more pronounced than Trump's

He's relieved to have the restriction lifted, if only temporarily.
I'm stifling the desire to give him a time out sitting in my cruiser—it's a temptation, but I pass.

“Hey, Jake—we had an altercation—well, it wasn’t an altercation per se—more a kind of blow up.”
“Oh yeah? What’s the problem?”
“A customer and my stock clerk. Seems they were arguing over a pricing error—well, not an error per se—we check our prices everyday and—” 

“I get the picture.” I cut him off or I would have lost it on him. I don’t like prissy and I had no patience for Percy’s verbal tics.
“So, where are they now?”
“The customer’s a woman—she’s in my office—Len went home.”
“You sent Len home?” I frowned.
“Well, I didn’t send him exactly…”
I held up my hand. “Where’s your office?”
“Up there.” He pointed to a small, glassed-in room up a short flight of stairs.


“Do you want me to come along?”
I could have told him what I wanted him to do, but restrained myself.
“No, you wait here. I’ll handle it.”
I turned and quickly walked away wanting no more aggravation or clarified per se’s.

When I opened the door, my breath caught—Irene Cody, the Mayor’s wife was sitting hunched over, quietly weeping. She looked up when she heard me come in.

“Hello, Jake.”
“Irene—I didn’t expect to see you.”
She gave a short, cynical laugh, “I’m sure you didn’t.”
I walked over and pulled a wooden chair from behind the desk and sat down beside her.
“Are you okay?”
“Not really.”

Irene and I dated in high school, but when she met Tom, that spelled the end of our brief affair. Tom was already earmarked as most likely to succeed, and succeed he did—he went into politics and eventually became mayor. They married and adopted an older girl and then later had twins. I took a road more traveled and ended up here—sitting beside her—the wife of the mayor.

“Don’t look so surprised,” she said, “I didn’t shoplift or assault anyone.”
“What happened.”
“I really don’t know.” She was looking somewhere deep inside her as if the answer was located there.

“You got into an argument with Len?”
“Oh, him—” as in that ass—that’s what she really meant to say. I had to say, I agreed. I’d probably whup him good if he got in my way.
“No, it wasn’t that. I just kind of had a meltdown I guess.”
She looked like she was going to cry again. 

“Look,” I said helplessly, fishing in my pockets for a Kleenex.
She read my intent and reached into her purse to pull out a tissue and pulled out a photo along with it. It fluttered to the floor. I reached over and picked it up. It was a school portrait of Callie, her oldest, all airbrushed and glossy. When she saw it, she started to cry again.

“It’s okay,” I told her, but of course, it wasn’t. “Is Callie okay? —I mean, nothing happened to her, did it?”
“She ran away.”
I stared at her helplessly.

“One day we woke up and she was gone. It’s been two years today, Jake. Two years. Do you understand?”
“She’s only seventeen,” I said stupidly.
She looked at me as if I were slow.
“I can’t take it any more. I want to die.”
There are no words to tell someone whose daughter has fled. 

“C’mon,” I said, “I’ll take you home.”
She followed me out to the car.
Tom was waiting for her at home. He nodded to me, put an arm around her and guided her in. I went back to the patrol car, sat and took several deep breaths.

I don’t cry and I have no idea what good it does—maybe it helps Irene, maybe her pain—I don’t know. All I know is I kept seeing this image of Katie in my head—her hair plastered to her forehead and a desperate look in her eyes. 
 
The town of Fair Haven pays me to be a policeman, not a martyr—but it’s 100 degrees in the shade and everything’s coming apart…

 Including my world.

<br><br><center>© 2020, John J Geddes. All rights reserved</center>

<br><br><center>[ Photo](https://images.app.goo.gl/xDxwB2NTBB7t2V6i6  ) </center>
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