September 30, 2008
“Want some help?” my partner asks.
I decline. “It’s Scotty. I’ve dealt with him a million times. I’ll be fine.”
Scotty is in his ex-girlfriend’s parents’ front yard. He’s drunk. They want him removed. Scotty is always drunk. Or high. He’s done jail time for all kinds of penny-ante bullshit behind being drunk or stoned.
But he also had a four year prison drop for burglary.
He’s not even 25 years old.
The call is in one of our smallest towns. It’s less a town than a collection of houses built around a tavern and a railroad junction. It’s eight or ten miles from the jail and I’m in no great hurry. When I arrive Scotty will be, as he so often is, unconscious from booze or heroin or ganja. I’ll get him into my car, call his mother – who has enabled his alcohol and drug use for most of the previous ten years by saying law enforcement is out to get him – and get him home. I’ll write a report, finish the last few minutes of my shift, and go to bed.
I park and approach the house. I don’t see him but think he’s probably in a bush. Or under a car. Or curled up on the back porch.
When I’m twenty or thirty feet from the door, the girlfriend’s mother bursts out. She’s crying. “He’s in the house! He beat up my husband!”
I swallow and radio for back up.
“He’s got a knife. He’s threatening to kill everybody.”
*****
Part 2 Monday
