I had a DUI last night.

The call was an accident. When I arrived, there was a Grand Prix wrapped around a tree. In fact, the passenger door was smashed into the cab nearly to the midline of the car. There was blood all over the passenger door, dotted by the shimmer of broken glass and smashed plastic.

The occupants were gone. Usually, that means one of a couple of things. Possibly the driver had no license, either suspended or revoked. The driver was on the run from a warrant. Or the driver was driving under the influence. This accident scene – which ran probably the better part of a football field length from beginning to end – felt like a DUI.

As I’m working it, I get a call that the driver and passenger are at a local hospital. I go and the passenger, with a massive head wound, is out cold with the doctors. But the driver is hysterical, on the phone with her mother, and knocking me over with beer breath from probably twenty feet away.

So I got the DUI handled and no one died and everything was fine. Yes, she decided to tussle when she realized she was going to jail (fights are so much easier when your opponent is drunk and having a hard time standing). Yes, she was as profane toward me as anyone I’ve ever dealt with. Yes, she told me that the Constitution said I couldn’t talk to her until she talked to her parents (she’s 18-years old). And yes, she told me that the Constitution said “you gotta let me use my cell phone, bitch,” (I was so tempted to find the Constitution on-line and have her find the phrase ‘cell phone, bitch’)

The point is not that she was drunk, not that she was an idiot who, at 18, had already had a couple of DUIs and who, at 18, immediately mentioned lawyers when I asked her name.

The point is I was excited. When I got called for the accident, I got excited. When I realized it was probably a DUI, I got excited. When she decided she wanted to throw down with me, I got excited.

It occurred to me, as I’m wrenching her arms behind her back and trying to haul her outta the hospital beforeI lost control of the situation entirely, that I am in a fairly perverse profession.

When I have a good day, then by definition someone else is having a shitty day. I loved the high speed chase I was involved in last year. It ended only when the guy who raped his girlfriend and stole her car crashed headfirst into my car. I love going into domestic situations. I love walking into an underage drinking party with 50 or 60 kids all staring at me like I’m…well…the cops. I love it when I’m called to a burglary or a theft and I have to figure out not only whodunit, but wha’happened.

I love all that stuff and that bothers me a little. I should hate all those things. Those are terrible things that happen to real people, not stick figures on COPS or cardboard cutouts on CSI. This is real blood and real teeth on the floor and real contact visits between inmates and their families mere hours before said inmate goes to prison for ten or twenty years.

So isn’t it a little perverse that I love those situations so much? I like to think I have sympathy and empathy and all the rest and that’s what makes me a good officer (and no, I’m not one of those guys who arrests everyone for everything..arrests aren’t the definition of a good copper, I believe), but I also understand that I dig the chaos and madness and that concerns me a little.

Not a lot, not to the point of paralysis, just a little…in the back of my head.

And I’m sure it’ll be in the back of my head tonight when I get called to an accident or a domestic battery or a knifing.

And I’m sure I’ll be breathing fast and heavy as I think: this rocks.

“What the fuck,” the old man said.  “What you stopping me for?  I ain’t done nothing.”

I’d pulled him over, late at night, as he drove away from a bar in one of our small towns on the west side.  He’d been drifting a little bit in the lane.  Probably nothing, but I like to check.  Because sometimes drifting is a sign of drunk driving.  Sometimes it’s a sign of texting while driving (though probably not with an 80 year old man) and sometimes it’s just a sign of shitty driving.

“What I done?  I ain’t done nothing, you son of a bitch.”

I wanted to say, “Sir, you’ve violated the common decency of grammar,” but I thought that would be less than professional so instead, I said, “Well, you were drifting a little in the lanes and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

See, usually when I say that, especially to older drivers, they get all gushy and happy that someone is checking on them.  They know they’re older, they know they might be having a medical problem.  So they are quite appreciative when someone’s taking the time to make sure they’re not…you know…dead.

“I’m fine, goddamnit.  I wasn’t drifting and you know it, fucker.”

“Sir, we can go back to my squad and watch the video, if you’d like.”

“Damn straight.”  But he made no move to get out of his truck.  “What’s your name?”

“Deputy Barker.”

“I’m gonna talk to the sheriff about you.”

“I’ll get you his phone number before we’re done.”

“Goddamnit.  I ain’t done nothing wrong and you know it, fucker.”

“Sir, can I see your license and insurance, please?”

“I ain’t got it,” he yelled, his old man spittle flying all over my face (and making me wonder if he’s got AIDS or Hep C from all the old ladies he’s schtupping with his Viagara prescription).  Rummage, rummage, rummage and out pops his insurance card.

“Sir, this is expired.”

He snatched it back from me.  “I know that, asshole.”

“Well, do you have valid insurance?”

“Do you know who I am?”  Still he yelled and his eyes bugged out and his waddle bounced around and caught the red and blue light my squad car tossed.

“Well, no,” I said.  “Because you don’t have your license.  Now, do you not have it because it’s at home, or do you not have it because it’s suspended?”

“Goddamnit, I’m getting outta here.”

But he made no move to drive away.  I think even he knew that would ratchet up his night in a really bad way.

“Fucker,” he added.

At that moment, my professionalism slipped…for just a second.  “Wow, you’re quite the little asshole, aren’t you?”

But rather than yell back at me, he stared, like he’d just been slapped.  “What?”

“You’re mean.”

“I am not.”

“Well, you’re being mean to me.”

“I am not…fucker.”

“Sir, have you been drinking tonight?”

At this point, I knew he wasn’t drunk, though I was fairly certain he’d had one or two.  I asked because it’s part of my standard patter and because – in this one case – I thought it would be fun to poke him with a stick.

“Drinking?  Goddamnit.  Why are you – ”

“Sir, have you been drinking?”

“Well…yeah…I have.  I had a couple of beers.”

“Okay, well that’s not too bad.  I don’t think you’re drunk, I just thought you might be having a medical problem.”

Then he laughed.  I know, I know, surprised me damn near into a second heart attack.  Laughed and while it was a weak, mean old man’s laugh, it seemed pretty genuine.  “I farm 700 goddamn acres and that ain’t killed me.  I don’t think no beer’s gonna pro’ly gonna kill me, either.”

No, I wanted to say.  What’s going to kill you is when your wife and kids get together late one night while you’re sleeping and run a sword straight through your black little heart…that’s what’s going to kill you.

So I an a check on him and got one of our business cards, upon which I put my name and the Sheriff’s phone number.

“All right, sir, I think we’re done.”  I gave him the business card.  “Call the Sheriff and set up an appointment.  I’ll come in and the three of us can watch the video of this entire encounter.”

He laughed again and tore the card up – carefully depositing it in his truck rather than on the highway – and said, “Naw, I don’t need that.  Thanks for watching out for me…fucker.”

Then he stuck his hand out and I shook it and he drove off and I stood on the side of the road, like a retard, confused as to what had just happened, and thinking, Man, you just can’t make this crap up.

I then immediately wrote it all down ’cause you know it’s gonna be in a book someday.  Guy’ll probably want royalties, too…fucker.

(with background music by the Louvin Brothers…appropriately enough because today’s is about tractors)

The First Time

She said the tractor was driving along the road.  Not just anyroad, but a road nearly 30 miles from the Sheriff’s Office.  She said the driver was weaving all over the road.  She said he might be drunk.  Thinking this might be a DUI with a fun little twist, but less than an hour from going off-duty, I jumped in the prowler and headed out. 

Thirty miles.

I didn’t drive crazy.  It wasn’t an accident.  There were no shots fired or knives plunged into someone’s chest.  Just a crazy farmer’s kid, driving drunk on Keystone Light or Boone’s Farm wine and taking Daddy’s tractor for a spin.  But then our lady called back and said it was no longer on the road.  Now the tractor was in a ditch.  It was at a strange angle.  It was running.  The driver was no where to be seen.  Maybe he was caught under the mowing deck.

Now I ran quick.  Lights.  Sirens in the intersections.  Heart rate up a bit.  Skin a bit sweaty.  Got there as quickly as I could, thinking about first aid and compressions and rescue breaths and all that other first responder stuff.

Now…understand that I don’t know anything about tractors, or even farms.  I grew up in the city.  Milk and meat and corn all come from Safeway or Albertson’s, not Joe’s lower 40.  But even with my limited farming experience, I can see the obvious.

The tractor was in the ditch.  It was at an odd angle.  It was running.  But there was no mower deck and there were no left-over pieces of a farmer’s son.

And it sure as hell hadn’t been driving down the road.  It had been there for a few hours at least, using the power drive on the back to run a pump that was pumping out flooded land.

Oh, yes, I had some choice words for our intrepid caller.  See, frequently we have people sex up their calls to get us moving more quickly.  Either she did that or she was a complete idiot with zero common sense. 

Either way, I checked the area twice for dead or drunk people, found none, and went home. 

 

The Second Time

Not my shift, but the same song, new verse.

 

The Third Time

Ditto.

 

The Fourth Time…Sixth Time

The Tenth Time…Twentieth Time…Four Hundred and Eighty Seventh Time

Ditto ditto ditto.

 

The Last Time

This time the call came through 911.  It was sexed up again.  Crashed and probably dead, with body parts probably everywhere and maybe drugs and probably even weapons of mass destruction!

My shift, but not my call.

Knowing what was what, because we’d done this 9,528 times, the responding deputy finished up something else first.  The dispatcher, a part timer, got a little nervous and asked a couple times if he was going.

"Thirty miles to a call we’ve been on a hundred times?"

"But this is a different location."

True, but all the calls had been within a couple miles of each other.

After the deputy left, the dispatcher looked at me and said, "Well, if he is caught in the mower deck, we won’t need an ambulance by the time he gets there."

"We’ll need the coroner," I said.

"Hell, no, we’ll need a squeegy."

Hmmmm…that was much funnier in person than it is on the cyber page.  Ah, well. 

And just so you know, the guy wasn’t dead.  In fact, there wasn’t even a guy.  There was just a tractor…and a pump.

And an annoyed deputy.