Random Journal Entry

I was finishing up my order of cheesesticks when the cop walked in. Leaning against the door of the pizza joint like a crutch and heavily breathing. The room stopped. He was a young cop, even younger than myself. In his early twenties and with the stock police haircut. The haircut like a burr with the top left just a little long, you know , so they can still be “wild and crazy” on their nights off. His uniform was a mess. Pant legs wet and muddied and his shirt half untucked. He seemed to notice the room’s interest and tried to whip himself into shape, but it was no use. Something or someone had just done this fella over. But what? Maybe he’d got his ass whooped in the parking lot, I thought. Tailed the same “pot heads” too long and they had snapped and beat his righteous ass with a tire iron. But where were the bruises? He slouched into the nearest booth and sat. Still huffing and sweating profusely. “What can I get you?” , one of the workers said. Obviously trying to break the tension. The cop paused for moment. “ A coke “, he snapped. “Nothing to eat?” the worker responded. The cop paused again. Mayeb he just wanted a coke I thought. Maybe, his newlywed wife was one of those “No Sugar” freaks and he’d made a run for it. “Yeah…” he muttered. “ Let me see a menu.” He was starting to get his breath back now and the sweat was drying around his badge. “Rough Night?”, the worker quipped. The cops eyes stared a whole through the employee. “…no..” the cop laughed.

“What happened?” the employee said , trying to keep this conversation friendly. The story that followed was so full of holes that it really even hard to retell. Kinda like a drunk telling you what he did last night. Apparently, The cop had just been in a foot chase. The force had been staking out a known local meth dealer and had attempted several times to catch him in the act. But , they couldn’t. This guy, the meth dealer , knew all the shortcuts, turned quick, ran fast. He apparently had one solid strategy; see a cop, hit the woods and run. No matter where he was. Just get the beretta off the road and start running. Every cop on the force had chased him at some point and lost this guy; the Houdini of meth dealers. The cop even threw in a few jokes about fellow policemen falling over fences that this meth head could apparently jump from a standstill. “ XXXX almost had him once”, he said.” Then the guy just disappeared. This night they had chased the guy over an hour on foot. An hour of constant full speed sprinting through dense and dark forest and they never caught him. They even had flashlights, the dealer was just running blind. But they couldn’t catch him. And after over an hour of chase they just stopped trying. And here he was now explaining all this moments after in a pizza joint. Even telling the story seemed to exhaust him. At the very least it hurt his pride. Cops are typically very full of themselves and I guess , to a certain degree, they need to be. How else can you pull someone over for going 85 in a 25 and ask them with a straight face, “ Do you know why I pulled you over?” It takes a lot of cockiness for the cop gig and this guy was full of it. “He’s gonna be sorry when we do catch him though”. He said as he scanned the menu. “Oh yeah?” asked the worker. “Yeah, he wont be able to run after that. He’s made me run twice now”, the cop seemed to be picturing himself and the rest of the force billy clubbing the guys legs into a purple pulp. “ Is that legal?”, I thought. Of course not, but neither was making and selling meth and really that wasn’t this dealers crime anymore anyway. The dealer’s crime was making a fool out of the cops. This trained, well dressed, wide chested men had been shown up by a 125 pound , long haired methhead. The sentence for that is worse than jail. In a small town like this , business is often conducted that way. You never hear about because it doesn’t make for good conversation in the parking lot after Sunday service. But you know it happens.