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Showing posts from September, 2020

Ch 9: End of Shift

Officer Ferrell parked his car at the far end of the looping driveway where school buses arrive for end of day pickup. A half dozen of the yellow transports sat waiting with engines running as the final bell rang. A few minutes earlier and Tom would have been spared the indignity of passing students as he made his way to Dean Reynolds office, the northern most in the front hallway of the school. Ferrell hung back to allow the rush of students to exit the building. Several of the inmates, as Tom called them, circled his squad car hooting and whistling, casting taunting looks his way, running their hands over its gleaming surface. Tom leaned his head toward his shoulder mic for effect, mouthing a few unspoken words to a nonexistent recipient. He glared at the teens threateningly as if calling for backup. The stunt worked. They laughed and spat on the sidewalk as they sauntered away. Pete Reynolds had been reduced to human residue over the twelve years he had been Dean of Students at Mana...

Ch 8: September

Tom Ferrell sat in the comfort of his air-conditioned cruiser monitoring traffic at the unregulated corner of Gulf Coast Vista and Palm Harbor Drive. His thoughts wandered from the parade of elderly drivers passing cautiously out of the school zone to dreams of his own retirement and hopes that he would eventually get there. His reputation for requesting backup since the latest Maynard incident was not a source of pride, but it seemed that stories of officers being ambushed just short of their farewell party were speaking to him from the evening news with greater frequency. Back in Illinois during September he would have spent Saturday afternoons on the couch with a light comforter lovingly placed over his legs. His dog nestled in the folds at his feet would listen with one eye open to the sounds of Dorothy cooking in the kitchen. Up north it would be a time for chili simmering on the stove, a gas stove, not one of these infernal electric fire hazards. Hopes and dreams. Shorter days an...