A Most Memorable Fathers Day

On a Saturday evening back in 2008, my oldest son, Mario, was asking what I wanted to do for Father’s Day, the next day.

“You’re working,” I said.

“Yeah, Dad, I tried to comp off for you but, apparently, I was the sixth guy to ask.  I was thinking of doing something after I get off work.”

“Well,” I said.  “What I’d like to do most is come to work with you…” His eyes met mine.  “I promise I won’t say anything, “ I quickly blurted.  “You’re the police officer, not me.  I will sit in the seat and be quiet and I won’t say anything and I’ll do whatever you tell me, I swear!”

He looked a bit sheepish, glancing down.

“Who’s your boss?” I kept talking.

“It’s supposed to be Judd, but I think Fallon is covering for him.”

“He won’t mind, I’m sure.  I swear, I won’t tell you what to do or anything.  I’ll be quiet and I won’t talk and you tell me what to do and I’ll do it.  I promise.”  Thinking back on this, I’m not sure he ever said yes.  “What time do you leave?”

“I leave about ten to six.”

“I’ll meet you at my car.  Or should I take my own in case the Sergeant says no?”

He slowly stood up.  “Ok, I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” he said, giving me a hug.

I had been a reserve police officer for ten years.  Obviously, it’s not the same as being a regular officer—and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve climbed into a police car—but I had trouble closing my eyes to sleep that night.  It was already midnight when I decided to take a shower to try and help me relax.  I had my alarm set for 5:20 a.m.  Luckily, the warm shower did the trick and I finally fell asleep.

I awoke at 5:19!  Shower, shave and soon I was waiting by my car.  About two minutes later he pulled around the corner.  “Where should I park?” I asked him.  He told me to park out front of the station, near the North end of the building, and off we went.  He turned onto the street and, though I waited for only one other car to pass before pulling out, that was the last time I saw his car for the nine-mile drive to the station.

I parked out front and went to the side door where I knew he’d pop out.  He met me and we went into the back lot at the station, past the range and gun cleaning station I had used so many times so many years ago.

Trying to Hold it Together

He explained that his unit was in the shop and we were borrowing a  car belonging to someone else .  “At least it’s a new one,” he said to me.  He quickly finished transferring his gear and we walked across the lot to the back door.  I apologize, but I couldn’t help it.  My mind was flooded with memories of the boy who had followed me into this giant police station.  I have no idea what he thought as he followed me through those same doors twenty years ago, but I was already clearing my throat in an attempt to choke back tears as I now quickened my pace to keep up with him.

I did not want him to see any emotion from me.  This one is definitely his father’s son.  He’s always cool as a cucumber, actually much cooler than I ever was.  He appears to me to handle business quickly and efficiently, and does not suffer fools easily.  I had begged him to let me come and ride with him and I was not sure if he was happy to be obliging the old man.  So the last thing I wanted to do was have my eyes tear up with pride before I even got in the back door.

Down the stairs we went to the locker room.  “You want to sit in the briefing room or come and see the naked men?”  Great.  I’m having flashbacks of him as a young teen and he’s taking time from his morning to mess with me.  “I’ll stick with you,” I said.

Old Familiar Places

His locker is just down the row from where mine was.  Mine was on one of the boundary walls and, if I had been sitting at mine, his was down the row to my back.  Across the locker room was the son of a good friend of mine.  I had introduced myself to Alan just a few weeks before and wasn’t sure if he’d remember me.  He did and said, “Good morning, Mr. Kasal!  Riding along for Father’s day?”

“Yes!  I hope I don’t get in the way!”

“I’m sure it won’t be a problem,” he was most gracious.

We moved on to the briefing room.  I know cops sit in the same seat every time.  I’d had my seat, front row to the left.  I followed Mario to his (back right).  That morning I found a spare chair on the back wall and sat down.  I wasn’t sitting more than a minute when Mario’s friend (now brother-in-law!!), Marcus, came in and walked straight to me, extending his hand.  “Good morning, Mr. Kasal.  Father’s Day ride along?”

I stood to greet him and flipped my head towards my son, saying, “I had to beg.”  He laughed.  Soon the sergeant arrived, saw me and laughed.  “Father’s Day?”

“Yep.”

“You couldn’t find a clean pair of pants?”

“They’re jeans!  They’re supposed to look like this!”

He rolled his eyes and started briefing.  I looked around the room.  It’s not possible I ever looked as young as the men now occupying these chairs.

Once briefing was over I asked the Sergeant for the waiver form to sign and we were on our way.

In the car, Mario showed me the release button for the shotgun and we went over its current status in case we came across an unfortunate situation in which I’d have to defend myself.  We left the back lot and went straight to the City Yard and the gas pumps.  Some things never change.

At the pumps, Mario introduced me to another officer.  I wanted to ask if he was connected to one of the famous families in Palm Springs, but he was talking with Mario about a court case earlier in the week so I did my best to remember my promise to my son and kept my yap shut.

Coffee First… Crime-Solving Later!

Once out of the yard I said, “Starbucks?”  He didn’t answer but smiled wryly.  That wasn’t opening my trap!  It was seven a.m.!  I needed coffee!

The downtown Starbucks had a line out the door so we went to the one at the South end of town.  He bought me a coffee and a blueberry scone.  “It’s Father’s Day,” he said to me.

We made our way around town and I listened to the radio traffic and tried to remember as much as I could of the codes and the city’s layout.  When I was lost or confused, I asked who was who or what was what on the radio.  It took only seconds for me to be impressed with my son.  Not that I wasn’t already and not that he hadn’t been an active-duty police officer in this city for more than two years by then.  But forgive me for being a proud papa.  And he just bought me this coffee, so you gotta love the kid!

Our first call of the morning was a burglary in the ghetto section of the city.  Someone had stolen something from an under-construction house.  We drove to the call and were backed by Marcus and his trainee.  As we had done years ago, they still let dispatch know when they entered and exited this area of the city.

We arrived at the house and were met by the owner and her builder.  The house was indeed under construction.  It looked like the house that had stood there before was leveled; it had either burned down or been torn down.  One of the workers had called the builder with the news that someone had stolen something from the house.

I asked Mario if I could get out of the car and he said, “Better standing with me than alone in the car.”

“You don’t think I can shoot a shot gun?” I asked.

“Come on, Dad…” We got out of the car.

I watched as he listened.  The builder explained that he’d had two tubs—one a Jacuzzi—delivered Friday evening and he’d planned on installing them Monday morning.  The huge boxes in which they were delivered were still sitting in the framed bathrooms, but the boxes were clearly empty.

I stood in what was to be the garage as Mario went through the building with the owner and builder.  Two other workers were there; one was sweeping and the other who said he’d called in the crime, was just pacing around, talking to whoever would listen.  For someone who was simply employed by the builder, he seemed to me a little overly concerned

As I stood there, watching my son take notes, the worker told me that he was just walking down the street that morning, going to his friend’s house across the corner of this L-shaped intersection.

“I was just going to Zoofy’s house and I looked across and saw that box open.”  I looked where he pointed but only nodded, not making conversation with him.  He continued to ramble on to no one in particular about who would do such thing and how could they have done it.  I looked at the house to which he’d pointed and then to the open box, which sat back inside the house, deep in the shadows.

Hmmm… How could he have seen that open box from clear over there unless he was specifically looking for it?  Why would he be looking over into the house anyway on Sunday, his day off?  It was possible that he could have noticed the box with the top flapped open, but it didn’t seem right.  And he, to me, seemed a little too concerned for someone who was getting paid by the hour.

I heard the builder tell Mario that it had looked like they drug the tubs out the side door to the back.  I was just standing there, so I followed the drag marks out back.  Marcus was at the back fence talking with his trainee.  He looked at me and I pointed two fingers to my eyes and then made an up-and-over motion with my hand, indicating, “Did you look over the fence?”

He nodded and continued his conversation.  I was thinking that maybe the bad guys lifted these two tubs across two fences (there were two back-to-back) and, perhaps, getting tired, just left them there.  Then I thought, whoops, I am not on this call.  Mario and Marcus are.  Keep your hands to yourself, Dad, drink your coffee and be a civilian rider.

Marcus told Mario, within earshot of the victims, that he was going to cruise the area and look for any signs of the tubs

Mario finished with his notes, gave the victim a card with the report number for their insurance company and nodded to me that we were leaving.  I turned to go and opened my mouth to tell him what I thought about the workers and he said, “Those two workers were a little too concerned about the theft.”  I told him I thought the same thing.  “And how did he see the open box from clear across the street?” he added.

We got into the car as I thought to myself that the citizens of this city were in good hands.

So Much Has Changed

I spent the morning watching him work and being amazed at the technological advances in the units.  I remember my partner telling me that he was being given a hard time because he was suggesting using a laptop computer to type his reports.  He had gotten a memo saying he could “try it,” but that this wasn’t a blanket authorization that he would be able to continue doing so.  It was simply on a trial basis.

Now the City provides laptop computers to the officers and they mount them in their cars.  Instead of sitting there, writing on a pre-printed form, on a clipboard in their laps, they swivel their laptop towards them and clicked on the appropriate boxes, in the appropriate template, filled in the blanks, then type their narratives with MSWord.

Not only that, they could see which calls were pending in dispatch even before the calls came out.  We were driving across town and I asked for a refill on my Starbucks.  He said, “Can’t go that direction right now.  There’s an alarm pending to the South and there’s no one available.  They’re going to send me.”

In fact, he didn’t even wait for them to call him.  He picked up his microphone and told dispatch that since he was in the area, he’d take that alarm.  He told me that he knew the officer in that beat would be tied up on his call for a while and he would check this pending alarm.

I can’t remember now which street we were going to but he said he thought the address was near a certain cross street.  Before I could rack what’s left of my brain, then shyly admit that I could not remember exactly where that was; he’d clicked on his laptop a few times and said, “Yep.”

When he left me in the car to go check the alarm, I swiveled his laptop over and saw that it displayed a map with an arrow pointing right to the house in question.  Why, in my day, you had to know where the streets were, or unfold a map or open a map book and thumb through it, all the while being careful that a brontosaurus didn’t crush your unit while it walked by.

The alarm was accidental and the house was secure.  He got back into the unit and said, with a wry smile “Now we’re near Starbucks.”  Did he take that alarm just to get me near my cup of coffee?

At Starbucks, I ran into an old friend who’d given me my first job in radio nearly 28 years ago.  I dragged him out the door to meet Mario, who had waited in his unit to type some more on his earlier report.  When Mario stood up to greet him, my buddy said, “This can’t be little Mario.  I was just telling your Dad that I remember tossing you into the air and making you laugh.  At least until I tossed your head into the ceiling and you cried.”

I said, “Yes.  That’s what he’d like to talk with you about right now.”

I drank my coffee as Mario patrolled the city.  I tried to pay attention to where we were in case anything happened.  The city has changed in the last ten years.  There are many more streets and developments.

Mario made a few traffic stops and kept an eye out on his laptop for pending calls.

At one point he told me of a game he and his friends play.  My partner, Stu, and I used to play a game we called Land Shark.  We’d sit in the parking lane of a main street and blackout our brake lights.  We’d creep along very slowly and, for the most part, people would ignore our car, thinking it was parked, and they’d speed along or do other stupid things and we’d jump on them before they knew we were actually in our car.

Mario’s game, he explained, was played in a certain area of town, and whoever was playing in the game, had to wait until all players were within that location, and then the first person to find an unlicensed driver got a point.  There were points for felony and misdemeanor arrests and other things.

That morning, everyone was quite busy and there was no one to play with, so we kept patrolling.  On Mario’s laptop, there is an area where the officers can send text messages to each other.  There were all sorts of tones and beeps with which I was unfamiliar.  It was like being a rookie again.  Following one of those beeps, Mario flipped up the cover on his laptop and said, “Cool. Marcus and his trainee are heading over to play.”

A Hot Day In More Ways Than One

We were already Northbound on Sunrise Way and I looked forward to watching them play their game while enforcing the law.  Out of the front windshield, to the West, I saw a cloud of black smoke.  “Mario.  A Fire!”

He looked.  “Probably steam from a vent at the hospital.”  But before I could say that it looked rather black, the amount of smoke intensified and he said, “That looks pretty black.”  He sped up and turned on the next street in the direction of the fire.  Grabbing his mic he said, “58. Any calls on a fire near the hospital?”

“Affirmative 58.  We’re getting several frantic nine-one-one calls right now.”

“It looks pretty bad.  I’m heading there now.”  He flipped on his lights and siren and we cut across the remaining mile to the scene.  He made a fast U-turn across traffic and pulled up on the sidewalk.

The structure was a small, old apartment building—I guess you could call it a duplex—right across from the hospital.  It sat back from the road and what should have been a front yard was a huge slab of concrete large enough for at least ten cars.  The only two cars in the lot were squealing back towards us as people moved them away from the building.

“Watch that guy!”  I yelled to Mario who was already leaning on his horn.

The car stopped and we got out of the unit and I ran to keep up with him as he hurried towards this burning building.  And it was burning.  Thick, black smoke roiled into the hot, clear sky.  I could see gigantic flames inside the apartment and they were already leaping five feet above the roof.

Coming towards us were four adults, two of whom were each carrying a small child.  Mario yelled, “Is everyone out?!”

“Si, si.  Everyone is out!”

At this point, a portion of my brain, one way towards the rear, realized that I was about to follow my son into that raging building.  Whenever someone asked me why I chose to volunteer as a police reserve, I always told them of my Dad and Grandfather who were volunteer firemen.  How I’d never have gone into a burning building, telling them facing bad guys with guns was much safer.

Mario is a police officer.  He will do what it takes to save an innocent life.  I am a fat, lazy, old bum.  What the hell was I doing running into a burning building?!!  Not thinking was the best answer I could come up with.

While more of my mind filled with this and other idiotic questions, Mario kept doing his job.  He ran to the adjoining apartment and pounded on the door.  This pounding, in fact, jarred me from my perplexed thoughts and I focused again on the emergency before me.

“No one is in there!  No one lives there!” the people shouted to him.  With a flash of relief crossing his face, he came back towards the cluster of people and me.

The father was throwing a towel around his bare shoulders and was moving towards his flaming apartment.  Mario grabbed his arm and gently spun him in the opposite direction.  “No no no… the fire department is coming right now.  You stay out here.”

The father was in tears and the rest of his family and friends were crying and shaking.

Inside the apartment, things were starting to pop.  Mario began shepherding the family away towards the street.  Without thinking, I joined him.  Inside the apartment was a loud, ripping explosion.  He and I instinctively ducked our heads and looked back.  Through the door we could see flames curling upwards.  They were rolling towards the ceiling just like you see in the movies.  You could feel the heat from thirty feet away.  We made brief eye contact and continued moving everyone back to the sounds of approaching sirens.

The father, who was visibly shaken, reversed directions and ran past Mario.  Mario caught up with him at the front door as the man had grabbed for a plastic bucket, which had been filling with water at the spigot just outside the front door.

Mario pulled him back and yelled at him to stay away until the fire department got there.  I felt compassion for this man, as what little his poor family had was going up in flames, but there was little a bucket of water could do at this point and he was much more important to his family than any objects they’d lose today.

The family went to their cars and as I moved to the street, two more of those loud, ripping explosions followed in quick succession.  And flames of greater intensity followed each.   Neither of us was close enough to the other to say what our expressions did.  What the F%#@ was that?! Another unit was arriving just ahead of the fire engines.  Mario was on the other side of the lot, going, I later found out, to direct the officer to block all traffic coming from the North.  I yelled to him and he looked.  I pointed to my nose, then to the ground, letting him know that I would be standing at the corner of this building out by the street and not to worry about me.

He nodded and kept going towards the street, while I looked back to the building to see the father running back towards the fire to grab that plastic bucket of water.  “Mario!” I yelled through cupped hands.  He turned to me with a look of frustration.  I thought you were going to leave me alone, DAD! He saw me pointing towards the front door and the father who was now standing in the doorway of a nearly fully engulfed building.  I saw his eyes flare and he began running towards the man.  I lost site of him as a fire engine bounded to a stop in the driveway between us.  I craned my neck and moved towards the fire to see Mario grab the father by the arm and yank him away.

Now Mario has always been a pretty cool kid.  When he gets mad, he gets quieter.  I can tell you honestly that I have never heard him yell.  Over the sounds of a raging inferno, of explosions, of sirens, both in the lot in which we stood and approaching from the distance, with a fire truck in between us I heard Mario screaming at this father.  “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!!?  I TOLD YOU TO STAY WITH YOUR FAMILY!!!! NOW GET OVER THERE!!!!!”

They emerged to my site at the rear of the fire truck.  More trucks and firemen were arriving and running across the lot between us.  Though I could not hear what he was saying, I saw Mario yell to the other officer, I’m sure it was about redirecting traffic.  He stood back and let the firemen do their job, which they did in a remarkably brief amount of time.  It seems to me that in seconds the smoke was turning white and I could no longer see flames.

It was probably about noon or one o’clock and the temperature was already about 105 degrees.  I moved over to stand next to Mario’s unit because it was parked on the sidewalk under a huge eucalyptus tree.  In no time the firemen had the fire out and were investigating and cleaning up.  I looked around and, for the first time, noticed all of the people who were across the street, having gathered to watch the fire.

There were at least four large engines that responded and various other cars and trucks.  Later I learned that the chief on the scene estimated the loss at about $10,000, but that was about all the place was worth.  I think this family lost everything they had.  From the tangle of people running to and fro, I look up to see a fireman approaching me.  As he takes off his helmet and mask, I see that it is Rich, and dear old friend who has been a fireman with the City for more than 20 years.  In addition to his high-risk profession, he volunteers as a reserve police officer with the City.  We served together years before.  In fact, he was there before me and continues to volunteer his time.

He smiled and we shook hands.  “I was talking to Mario and he said, ‘Go look who’s standing next to my unit!’  Are you spending Father’s Day with him?”

“Yeah, I thought it would be fun.”

“I think it’s a great idea,” he said.  We chatted for a few moments and he had to get back to work.  The problem with unraveling all of those hoses and pumping water through them is that you have to dry them out and roll them back up again.

I Didn’t Talk to the Media!

As the fire department cleaned up and some engines started to leave, the family huddled in one of the cars in the parking lot.  I stood under the shade of a big tree near Mario’s car.  A woman approached me.  I immediately recognized the note pad she was carrying and knew she was from some media outlet, probably the newspaper.  She asked if I was the apartment manager.

I told her I was not and she told me that the family had told her that the property manager had another apartment under his care and had offered it to them so they’d have a place to live.  I told her I’d seen him and would direct her to him if I saw him again.

She wandered off and Mario approached me.  “Hey, the Desert Sun reporter wants to interview the manager about him letting the family stay in another apartment for free.”

“OK, Dad.  I’ll send him to her if I see him.”

A few minutes later I saw Mario jovially pushing the guy towards the reporter.  They were still behind some vehicles, out of her line of sight.  “OK, but you come with me,” the manager was saying to Mario, pulling on his uniform.

Mario was laughing saying, “No way.  She said she wants to talk to you.  You go over there…  Ma’am!” he called and got her attention. “This is the manager!”

Mario spun on his heels and went back to the cluster of firefighters as they continued rolling hoses and investigating the apartment.

I was standing within ten feet of the interviewer and overheard the manager saying, “Sure, I have a few other vacant apartments and they’ve already paid rent for this month.  They’ve got nowhere else to go so I have no problem letting them stay in one of the others.  It’s no big deal and it looks like they just lost what little they own.  But I tell you this, the real hero here is that officer.  His name is Mario.  He saw the smoke and got here before people were even calling 911.  He got all of the people out of the apartment before the fire department even arrived.  The police officers in this city are heroes and Mario deserves all the credit for rescuing this family!”

I’m standing there thinking that Mario is not going to like this development and they turn to me.  “Excuse me, Sir?  Do you know Mario’s last name?”

“It just so happens I do,” I say.  I spell it for them and step back.  If he knows I gave up his name, he’s gonna thump his own father.

The manager finishes up with the reporter and she hovers around, waiting to see if she can talk to Mario.  I see him walking towards me and quickly move to intercept him.  She can’t see me doing so, but I hold my hands up in front of my chest, indicating I want him to slow down.

“What,” he said flatly.

The first words out of my mouth are, “The manager gave you up, not me.”

He lowers his gaze and again sighs, “What.”

“He told her you were the first on the scene and she wants to talk with you.”

He looks me dead in the eye.  “Shit.”  He walks towards her and I retreat back towards the car.  She begins with her questions and I am now standing behind her, listening.  “The manager tells me that you saw the flames from clear across town and were the first one here.”

At that point I begin backpedaling and holding my palms down in a don’t-tell-her-about-me motion.  He doesn’t take his eyes from her, but I know he can see me.

“Well, I was one of the first people to spot the smoke…” I caught the hint of a wry smile and I knew that was his little dig at me, letting me know he could have given me up if he wanted to.   But he instinctively knew what I knew.  If she found out that I am on a civilian ride-along for father’s day and then finding out that I used to be a reserve, a whole feature could be launched about legacies and son-following-father and me changing his diapers while on patrol.  That, of course, never happened, but you know how reporters are with embellishing a story…

Mario made a few more comments saying that the family was already exiting the building and he did nothing more than be the first on the scene and they had already called 911 by the time he got there.  She thanked him and he walked towards his unit, giving me a head motion indicating we were done.

Once inside the car I said, “Thanks.”  He just smiled.

Just Observing

For the rest of the day I managed to keep my mouth shut.  That’s not to say we didn’t talk and he didn’t answer my questions about changes in procedure since I was there ten years ago.  I just mean I did my best to not blurt out any help to him when he was performing his duty.

Then again, sometimes it just slipped out.

We were traveling southbound on Indian Canyon at some point in the day.  I can’t remember the infraction now, but he was making a traffic stop on someone for some violation.  The vehicle slowed and pulled to the right, then made a right turn on to Tamarisk to come to a stop.

As the vehicle turned, Mario was picking up the mic to call in the stop.  I—obviously without thinking—blurted out, “You’re on Tamarisk!”   Before the words were even out of my mouth I was gripped with fear that he had keyed the mic and dispatch heard me telling my son what he already knew.

I did sheepishly looked at him out of the corner of my eye to catch his sideways glance back at me that said, “Ya think?” with more sarcasm than his words could have ever said.

Sorry! It just blurted out…

The Button on My Hip

I managed a few other goof-ups during the day.  I laughed out loud once as he got back into the unit and I reached for my left hip to turn down the volume on my radio.  He asked why I was laughing and I told him that, back in my day, no one had those microphones that they have now.  They are a microphone and speaker that the officers attach to their portable radios and, via a long, curly cable, they clip it to the epaulette on the shoulder of their uniforms.  They can just reach up and key the mic and talk, without having to remove their walkie-talkie radios from their belts.  And because there is also a small, built-in speaker, they can keep the volume low and have it clipped right there next to their ear.

Those were just becoming available as I was winding down my volunteer career, so I never had one.  When we got out of our unit for a call, we turned on our Walkie-talkies and turned up the volume so we’d hear it from our hips.  Then we always turned our walkie-talkies down or off when getting back in the car so it wouldn’t feed back when the car mic was keyed.

It was just an old habit.  As I got back in the car, I turned down my walkie-talkie so my partner or I could use the radio to give the disposition of the current call.  It was just an old habit that I did not know I still had until he sat down and reached for the mic, and I instinctively reached for the now-non-existent radio and for a pre-Alzheimer’s instant wondered where I’d left it.

He chuckled politely at my explanation and we went on with the day, him performing his duty and me turning down imaginary knobs on my left hip, most of the time with him none-the-wiser.

At Least It’s Cool Inside

In the afternoon he got a call of someone at the hospital with a gunshot wound.  We hurried to the ER.

Upon arrival, he discovers that the victim is a teenage boy and the wound is from a pellet gun.  I’m standing out in the hallway, talking with a nurse.  It had to be one of his friends who shot the boy.  I say, “When we shot at each other with BB Guns, we had the guts to pick the BB out and keep our mouths shut.”

The RN told me he agreed, but said, “This one’s in pretty deep.  Probably couldn’t get it out and made up a story about getting shot by someone else.”

Mario came out and talked to the nurse, then came over to me.  “Bull s%$t story.  He was standing at the corner and a “dark car, with tinted windows” came up, fired three shots and drove away.”  I raised my eyebrows.  “Oh, yeah, “ he said.  “I’m just giving him a few minutes to think about what story he really wants to go with and I’ll go back and talk with him.”

The nurse then told Mario that the kid had told him earlier that there had been two shots.  “See?” he said, and went back in to the exam room.

I waited in the hall, every passing doctor and nurse asking me what I was doing there.  Each time I explained that I was with that officer and was waiting for him.  They left me alone without incident.

Mario came back out of the room.  “Well, it’s a bit different now.  He was standing at the corner and the car came by and he got shot.  Then he went home and his parents told them that they would not help him.  So he went over to his friends house and his buddy realized the severity of the wound and thought they’d better bring him to the hospital.”

“Now what?”

“I’m going to call the watch commander and see if I can make this an incident report because I know he’s lying.”  After the call he comes back to me.  “He said I have to make the kid tell me the truth or I have to do a full report.”

He walks into the room, behind the curtain and talks with the kid.  As he’s doing so, the kid’s mom, who had earlier been called by hospital personnel, shows up and goes into the room.  Mario meets her as he’s coming from behind the curtain and they have words.  While this is going on, the nurse I had been talking with earlier, stops to talk with me again.  “Anything new yet?”

“Mario’s in trying to get him to tell the truth now.  I think that’s his mom, there.  I’ll bet you guys have as many stories as the cops do,” I say to him.

He laughs, agrees, and proceeds to tell me a few.  One of them involving someone Mario had brought into the ER the week before.

Mario finishes with the mom and comes over to us.  “OK,” he says.  “He told the truth.  One of his friends shot him with the gun.  He went home and his mom and dad told him they were stupid for shooting at each other with guns.”

“Don’t they know how deep the pellet is?” I ask.

“Well apparently he fails to mention much detail.  Just that he’d been shot in the side.  I don’t think they knew how deep the pellet was or maybe even that the pellet was in his side.  He decides not to push it, fearing he’ll get into trouble and he goes back over to his friend’s house.  They then decide that the wound is serious and concoct their story and the friends drive him here.”

I smile at the nurse who gives me this just-another-day-in-the-ER look.

I ask, “What did the mom say?”

“Oh, she said the same thing.  I asked her what happened and she told me he came home and said his friend shot him with a pellet gun and she told him that was a stupid thing to be doing.  She had no idea of the severity until the hospital called.”

The nurse laughed and left us with the admonition to try and stay cool.  “Are we done?” I asked.

“Oh, no.  I just need to go to the waiting room and talk with his friend.”  At least he’d get to have some fun, I thought, as he walked through those doors.  And at least I got to stand in the A/C for the past hour!

Mario came back.  “Fun?” I asked.

“His friend said, ‘We were standing on the corner and this car comes up and fires three shots!’ I stand and wait for him to finish and give him a long look.  ‘Not the Bull s%$t story,’ I say, ‘The truth.’ And the kids says, ‘Oh.  We were playing with pellet guns and I shot him…’ Come on, let’s get out of here.”

We leave the hospital and cruise to a shady spot while Mario types the report information into his laptop.

Awhile later he gets a call of someone fighting at a house across town.  I keep my yap shut and ride along, being the quiet observer I promised to be.  We’re coming down the street and looking for the address.  As he reads one aloud, I yell, “It’s the next one!”

As I shrink back into my seat, cringing slightly, I see him glance at me out the corner of his eye.  He says nothing audible, but the look has “no s%#t, Dad” written all over it.

Other units are arriving and the boys—perhaps I should stop referring to them as boys—quickly resolve the dispute and lead one of the arguers, in handcuffs, to Mario’s car.  While Mario finishes getting a statement from another of the people involved, I do my best to joke with the other officers, trying my best to remain one of them and not the incredibly old father of one of them.

I have friends who have retired from a lifetime of police service.  I was a reserve for slightly less than ten years.  I, twelve years later, still miss it.  The camaraderie, the brotherhood, and the work.  As I stood there with these young men, trying to cling to my long-vanished youth, I wonder how my friends who were real cops are faring in their retirement

We transported the suspect back to the station and, as we approached the rear gate I said the coded phrase that I thought he’d say over the radio to let them know he was there and to open the gate and the gate to the jail.  He, very politely, corrected me.  Instead of saying we were there and wanted in, the code I had said to him was that we were on our way back and wanted in.  Not bad for me to remember that closely from ten years ago.  And nice of him to not rub my slight error in my face.  Not that he would have treated his dear old father maliciously.  But he could have teased me about it, as I would have done to him.  I guess he remembered it was Father’s Day.

Seeing A Few More Old Friends

He let me off at the rear door so I wouldn’t have to walk in through the jail and I waited for him in the report-writing room, just off the jail’s internal entrance.  There I found my friend, Barry, who is one of those retired officers I just mentioned.  There he was, in uniform and I inquired as to why.  He explained that the retirement system let retirees work 960 hours per year in a related field.  So, he put in his time as an officer, working at the airport.

As Mario walked towards us Barry said to me, “Out for a ride-along for Father’s Day?”

“Yes,” I said.  “I promised to keep my mouth shut.”

“But you didn’t, did you?”

Mario smiles and turns away.  I met Barry’s smile and said, “I tried.”

He patted me on the shoulder as he passed, “Once a cop…” and left me with that compliment.

There are some officers who do not like to have reserves ride with them.  It’s OK with me.  Some people are used to working by themselves.  Others don’t want someone to see them screwing off.  But I won’t mention any names here.

And, as a Reserve, you learn to know your place.  Yes, you are out on the street, risking your life; and the average citizen cannot tell you are a volunteer.  And most officers realize what you are doing and are glad to have backup standing right there next to them.  Many of them began their careers as reserve officers.

One of my dear friends, Dan, tells a story of how having a reserve with him caused a bad guy to decide not to pull a gun.  The bad guy, he said, was going to shoot him but figured he couldn’t get two cops.  Dan graciously says that having that reserve with him saved his life.

But events like that notwithstanding, you’re still never quite a real cop.  And though you can feel that no one really ever appreciates the sacrifices you make to volunteer your time, you still have to remain humble and, once in awhile, let the guys know that you know you’re JAFR (just a f%#king reserve).

But when an officer the caliber of Barry pats you on the shoulder as he passes and refers to you as a cop—an officer like him—it’s a subtle compliment I’ll remember for a long time.

As Barry leaves the room, the sergeant enters and comes straight to me.  “Did you talk to the media?”

Uh oh, here we go.  “No, Bill.  It was the apartment manager. I swear.” I quickly say.

Mario hears the exchange and says, “I met that guy on another call and he remembered me.  He’s the one who talked to the paper and gave them my name.”

The sergeant starts laughing.  “It’s on the front page of the Desert Sun’s website.  It says you’re a hero!”

Mario’s head drops to his chest.

I look on one of the computers and see that there is already a short story on the Sun’s website that tells of the burning apartment, the homeless family, the kindness of the apartment manager and that Mario got there before the fire department.  It’s short and not too embarrassing, but it does quote Mario as saying that he arrived on the scene before anyone called 911.  That wasn’t the case, or what he actually said, but it made, I assume, for a better story.  I told you reporters embellish.

Mario is going ahead with the booking process for his jailed suspect and I head home to get ready as he and my other two kids and granddaughter will join me for dinner and swimming.  I give my boy a hug and thank him for the day.  I stop in the watch commander’s office to shake hands with the sergeant and thank him for letting me come along.  “No problem, “ he says.

As I walk across the clerk area to the front door he calls after me.  “Next time wear slacks!”  I shake my head and head home.

In the pool that evening, I relate the burning building story to my daughter and some other people in the pool overhear.  As they glide through the water towards us, Mario and I tell the story, from our own perspectives, each teasing the other in the process.  But, as the other residents listen in, I do catch his here it starts glance.

He says that he knows, with the article already on the web, that soon people will be saying he rescued drowning babies from burning buildings.  I admonish him to remember to add, as others tease him, that he rappelled from a crashing helicopter while under gunfire from rebel insurgents.

Soon the other people in the pool begin with their stories of the time they had to call the cops or saw an accident or witnessed a hold-up.  It always happens.  When you’re at a party and someone finds out you’re a cop, you have to hear of every harrowing experience they had or how every time they were stopped for speeding or running a red light, the cop was wrong.

I’m sure the same thing happens to lawyers with people wanting free advice on their divorce or the neighbor’s dog crapping on their lawn.   It probably happens to doctors with people wanting them to step into the kitchen to look at a boil on their ass.  My friend, Manny, used to tell people he was a mortician just so he didn’t have to hear cop stories.  He said that no one wanted to talk about dead bodies.

Sure enough, Mario told me that, at briefing the following morning, the sergeant for that shift was looking over the sergeant’s report from the previous day and stopped.  Looking up at Mario he said, “It says here that you’re a hero.”

“He put that in the daily log?” Mario asked.

He looked back to the sheet and read, “Mario rescued a family from a burning building and he is a hero.”

One officer says, “Yeah.  It was amazing.  I saw the whole thing!”

Another officer chimed in, “Yeah, Sarge.  They’ll be writing songs about him!”

All in all, Mario took it in stride.  He has no trouble re-rationing the stuff when the others have some ribbing due them.

For you, this may not seem to be such a special Father’s Day.  But for me, watching my son and his friends do their jobs efficiently, professionally, and, if you’ll forgive a father’s pride, heroically; it was a Father’s Day I will not soon forget.  I know I will not be able to convey to my son how much it meant to me that he let me come with him that day.  My hope is that he will realize it someday when he watches his son at work.

God bless the men and women of our police and fire departments and our armed forces.  May He watch over them as they watch over us.