Off Duty

Off Duty

By Mike Roop



Barry waved his clipboard wildly. “Go on, I'll catch up!”

Thomas Page ran down two flights of stairs, taking the steps two at a time. Behind him he heard Barry Wallace huffing and puffing, taking the stairs one at a time, his department issue shoes clunking loudly on the wooden steps. Soon that sound faded away as Thomas outdistanced his older, somewhat heavier, partner. Thomas was glad he wore his running shoes today; on Warrant Days he always wore running shoes because of times like this. There's always at least one guy who tries to make a run for it. Sometimes they manage to get away, but not often.

Thomas hit the sidewalk at the bottom of the stairs in a full out run. Ahead he saw the back of his quarry, one Martin Delaware. Mr. Delaware was in violation of his probation and a warrant was sworn out for his arrest and appearance in court one month hence. Thomas did not know what Mr. Delaware had done to violate his parole, and he didn't much care. His job today was to serve the warrant and take the subject into custody.

This was the seventh warrant Thomas and Barry had served in the last twenty-four hours, and they had twenty-four more hours to go on this particular shift.  Warrant Days came along about every three months. Whenever the backlog of unserved warrants piled up high enough, the department would organize a joint task force with the county sheriff's department to go out and serve as many warrants in one weekend as possible, in time for the quarterly court success reports to be filed on Monday.

Thomas grabbed the radio on his lapel, “Suspect heading south on Bertrand towards Washington.” He almost did that without sounding out of breath as he ran. Almost. He began to get a stitch in his side.

“Copy that,” came the crackling response. “Redirecting Patrol Seventeen Bravo.”

As Thomas ran he thought about the new recliner in his house and a six pack of beer. Off duty, he thought, if I can just get there. But all thoughts of off-duty vanished as he saw the patrol car swing onto the street up ahead of him, pulling even with the vanishing Martin Delaware.

Mr. Delaware, clearly an Olympic-level track star, saw the car and immediately ran down an alleyway too small for the car to fit down. Thomas saw the patrol car swerve to the curb and a shock of bright yellow hair jump out in pursuit. Thomas kept running and caught up at the alley and saw the other officer running into the gloom. He paused for a moment to catch his breath, leaning on the open door of the patrol car.

“Another one got away, huh?” the driver said, leaning over and blowing cigarette smoke up at Thomas.

Thomas was still catching his breath as he looked down at the source of the comment, “Shut up, Briggs.”

“Don't worry, Sam should be able to catch him. He's pretty fast, too.”

“Uh-huh.” Thomas grunted in response and turned to head down the alley. A few steps in and he saw blondie, otherwise known as Sam Waters, come jogging back up. Thomas looked at him. “No?”

Sam shrugged. “Sorry, man, there's a whole ton of people exiting the theater over on Market. He's a slick one.”

“Greased. Tell me about it.”

The two of them walked back to the sidewalk. Barry was pulling up in their unmarked sedan, parking behind the patrol car. He got out with the clipboard and sat on the hood sun glinting off his bald head. Thomas watched the front end suspension drop three inches. Barry flipped a page on the board. “Okay, so no Delaware?”

“Nope,” Thomas said. “No Delaware. Who's next?”

“Let's see...” Barry looked around at their location and then back down at the list. “We can try for Walker comma Steve, Bell comma Jerry, or Harris comma Eustice.”

“Eustice Harris?” Sam laughed. “That guy’s parents didn't like him much did they?”

Briggs had gotten out of the patrol car and joined the group. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit another one. “So fellas,” he blew some smoke, “we have time to get some burgers and brews?”

Barry shrugged. “Not off duty yet, Jim. And even then, no.”

“Duty shmooty,” Briggs said. “Warrants will still be there in an hour. Or two.”

Thomas looked from Briggs to Barry. “Are you ever off duty?”

Barry looked up from the clipboard. “No, can't afford to be. Been on the job for over twenty-five years. I don't ever feel like I'm off duty.”

Sam shook his head, his blonde hair flipping out of his eyes. “That's crazy. When I clock out, I'm done.”

Barry looked at Sam then over to Briggs, “You teaching this rookie all your bad habits? Way to go, Socrates.”

Thomas grinned at Barry's joke. Socrates, accused of corrupting the young.

Briggs just blew smoke Barry's way, but a breeze carried it away before it reached the elder officer.

“I prefer Nietzsche,” Briggs said. “And I'm always off duty, even when I'm on the clock. This cruiser is a chick magnet.”

Barry sighed as he flipped the pages down on the clipboard. “Jerry Bell, 415 Greenleigh. Let's go.”

“Want us to shadow in case this one bails?” Briggs laughed.

“No thanks, it's just a traffic warrant,” Barry said. “Come on, Tom.”

“Later, gentlemen,” Thomas said. He joined Barry in the car and the two watched Briggs and Waters climb into the patrol car and peel away into traffic. Thomas sighed heavily. “Sorry, Barry, I lost him.”

“Yeah, I know,” Barry said. “He'll show up again sometime. We'll get him eventually.”

“Briggs ever get written up for that stuff? The long lunches, the drinking?”

“He gets slaps on the wrist occasionally, but never enough to make him change his ways.”

Barry started the car and waited for an opening to pull into traffic. Thomas glanced at him. “So do you really feel that way?”

“Huh?”

“About never being off duty. Or was that just for their benefit?”

Barry smiled in a fatherly way. “Honestly? Yeah. People know me. Neighbors count on me if there's trouble. Stuff like that.”

“Man,” Thomas said, “most days all I can think about is clocking out. Vacating the mental premises, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Barry shifted in his seat a little and looked at his younger partner. “You been on the job, what – five years now?”

Thomas thought for a moment. “Give or take, I guess. Yeah.”

“I remember nights, coming home at two in the morning, completely burned out.” He sighed heavily. “Janice would be waiting up for me, every time, with a plate of warm cookies and a glass of milk. She’d listen to me rant and rave and vent my frustrations for an hour, all the while refilling my glass and switching out the empty plate for a full one. And at the end, you know what she’d say?”

Thomas just looked at him, biting back a comment about diabetes.

“She’d say thank you. ‘Thank you for doing your job, Barry.’ And I’d look at her smile as she reached over and patted my hand. And over time I realized that I didn’t need to hear that, but it sure was nice to hear it. So what can I tell you, kid? I can tell you this. Thank you for doing your job.”

“But I messed up today.”

“Yeah, it happens. But that doesn’t mean we give up. That doesn’t mean we get to check out. People don’t always tell us thank you.” He glanced out the windshield and back at Thomas. “Why did you become a cop?”

“Because I washed out of boot camp.”

“So why did you want to join the Marines?”

“To serve my country. To help people.”

Barry smiled. “So that’s really why you became a cop. To help people. If you couldn’t do it in the military, you’d do it elsewhere. Did you expect people to thank you for being a Marine?”

“Well… I don’t guess so.”

“And did you expect a lot of downtime while being a Marine? In a warzone, you think you could afford to check out? Mentally vacate your premises?”

Thomas thought about that for a few moments. “No.”

Barry smiled and patted Thomas on the shoulder. “Then you got it easy here, kid. You get to go home and watch TV and drink some beers when this shift is over. Right?” Barry finally slid the car into traffic.

“Sure,” Thomas said, feeling his recliner and a six-pack call to him. “Sure...”

Twenty-five hours and ten successfully served warrants later, Thomas found himself standing in line at the grocery store a mile from his house in the suburbs. He had a six-pack of beer in one hand and a half-gallon of milk in the other. He had left his department issue jacket in the car along with his radio and sidearm. He had clocked out, and was in the process of mentally vacating the premises. His body was barely staying vertical.

Ahead of him in line was the obligatory overloaded cart with screaming baby and whining toddler in tow behind a harried young mother who also looked ready to pass out. Thomas tried to smile at the baby and the toddler in turn, hoping to quiet them down, if only for his own sanity, let alone their poor mother's. The screaming died down just long enough for Thomas to overhear the man in the front of the line.

“Just gimme what cash you got in the register, now. Hurry.”

Thomas leaned to the side a bit to get a look at the cashier, who immediately locked wide eyes with him.

Crap, Thomas thought, I'm off duty now. He shook his head slowly, hoping the cashier understood. Just give him the cash, he thought, you're insured, just give him the money.

“No,” the cashier told the man. Thomas closed his eyes and shook his head. I didn't mean don't give him the money, he thought, I meant don't involve me. My brain is fried and I feel like I’m underwater. Thomas sighed out loud and cleared his throat.

The man up front turned and looked at him, waving a gun. “You shut up, fool. Wait your turn.”

“Officer Page,” the cashier said. “Thank you for stopping in.”

Thomas almost dropped the milk and beer. The man with the gun said, “Officer?”

“Yes,” Thomas finally spoke up, “but I'm off duty. I don’t even have my sidearm, okay? Relax…” He slowly raised the six-pack and the milk. Can I throw them at him? He thought. No, won’t do any good. “See? If you just leave now, don't hurt anybody, you can forget that I’m here. Okay? We never saw your face. Right?” Please, he thought, just leave. I'm off duty. No one gets hurt.

The woman between them was frozen stiff with her baby in her arms now. She looked at Thomas wide-eyed with fear and panic. The toddler was still whining for a candy bar.

Thomas played the scene out in his head several times with different endings. He knew he was tired and slow. If the thief would leave quickly, no one would get hurt. Guys like this usually didn’t want any real trouble, they just wanted cash.

If he wanted trouble, he wasn’t sure he could get the others out of harm’s way. They were all clustered between racks and checkout counters. Bad things would happen that Thomas just couldn’t do anything about.

The man with the gun seemed to consider all this before looking at the cashier and growling. “Just give me the money and then I'll go.”

The cashier looked at Thomas and Thomas just nodded. “It'll be okay, just do as he says.” I know what he looks like, I’ll file a report tomorrow, he thought. Just go.

The cashier opened the drawer and handed the man wads of cash, which was promptly stuffed into a pocket. “Smart man,” the thief said. “Bye-bye now.”

The man turned and ran for the door, but immediately plowed into someone else walking in. The two collided and hit the floor like something out of a Three Stooges movie.

Thomas dropped the beer and milk and sprinted up an adjacent, empty checkout line. Thankfully the gun had skittered away in the collision. Thomas immediately knelt down and restrained the thief, who was now whining like the toddler. Thomas looked over at the man who had unknowingly thwarted the criminal's escape. “Thanks for the assist, sir. This man just robbed the store.”

The man sat up, rubbing his head. “No problem, man, I think I'm-” Martin Delaware met Thomas Page's eyes with a look of shock and despair.

Thomas just smiled.