So I’m out the other night serving papers. It’s part of what Sheriff’s Offices do: serve official court papers. Warrants and body attachments and summonses(es)(es) and various official whatnot.
Sometimes those papers are divorce papers and sometimes those papers are summons’ for paternity tests.
Knockknockknock
Guy comes to the door. “Yeah?’
“Good evening, I’m looking for James B – ”
He stares at me and I can see the wheels turning. He’s thinking, should I lie? Should I tell this copper he ain’t here?
Quickly, I say, “I just need to give him this paper. No biggie.”
When I see people edging into panic, I’ll let them know there’s nothing to panic about. I try to diffuse the situation with a joke or a shrug and snarky comment about too many court papers. It usually does the trick.
“Oh,” he says. “That’s my brother. Hang on, let me get him.”
“Good enough,” I say.
And then I wait. It’s dark and cold but the wind’s not bad. And then I wait some more and I’m thinking: the house ain’t that big. It’s not like you had to go to the North Forty to get him. And I wait some more, and now I’m listening for voices around the side of the house. Maybe he thinks I’m lying and he’s slipping out the backway or something.
Then an attractive woman comes to the door, trailed by a sweet-looking five or six year old.
“Hi,” she says, “I’m James B’s wife. Can I help you.”
I almost choked.
See, the paper I had wasn’t an arrest warrant or court summons or notice of a lawsuit.
Can we say ‘P-a-t-e-r-n-i-t-y?’
Not for child support, but a paternity test. To decide if James B – was actually the father of a kid born last May. See, the mother, according to the court papers, wasn’t sure if the babby daddy was James B – or some other dude.
Ouch.
But not fatal. I’ve dealt with stuff like this before and it’s been awkward but not terrible because the wives/girlfriends/current baby mama had gotten the paper in the mail and knew what was up.
Uh…yeah…not this time.
As I was getting her information for the court worksheet, she read the first page.
I have to give her credit, she kept her composure pretty well. Her breathing sped up, her eyes grew, her hand clenched the paper. She didn’t yell, didn’t scream, didn’t blast into the bedroom with a butcher knife, ready to Bobbit him. But when the little daughter asked a question about Sponge Bob Square Pants or some shit, Mama did almost come unglued.
It was pretty obvious Mama didn’t know there might be another Mama.
And while it was sort of humorous, it was also painful. I could, through the expressions and micro-expressions on her face, see her entire marriage begin to crumble. She hadn’t been expecting anything like this. Even if she’d had suspicions that her husband was flinging his seed elsewhere, she probably didn’t let it crowd the front of her brain. Now this thing was shoving its way into her life…and at the hands of a deputy, no less.
“Is there anything else?” she asks, her voice only barely controlled.
“No, ma’am, that’s all I need.”
“Thank you.” Her grin was more gritted teeth than anything, but again, I’ll give her credit for trying.
“Thank you. Have a good – uh…bye.”
And I was gone.
I called the local PD and told a friend of mine to watch the address for a while because I was pretty sure there was going to be a domestic of some sort. It was funny and we joked about the wake-up call he was going to get and everything was fine, but it was still tough.
There was still that hurt wife and a little girl who was going to have no idea what the hell was going on.
Interestingly enough, there actually was a domestic a few doors down from that address just a couple hours later. But I never heard a peep out of that address.
So either he took the ass-chewing he probably deserved, or she straight up killed him and we won’t find him for a while.
Either way….