Almond Joy
readtime ~8min
Been seeing flags hung at half mast more and more these day, and I guess that makes sense. I don't mean to sound like a pessimist, I just think when you have a specific kind of experience it's the way you tend to see things. I've been a cop, for what, damn near 30 years now. It'll be 30 next June. Signed up right after they handed me my diploma and never looked back. I can't deny that there are a few bad apples, but speaking from my own experience, most cops are decent enough folks. I think what people don't realize, and what most of us don't like to talk about too much, is how we see the things most people don't. It’s a job not everyone is capable of doing. Some guys drop out in under a year, and none of us can really blame him. Being a cop can fill your head with some heavy shit. Most of us don't like talking about the things they're trying to forget.
Best way I can describe it is by saying most calls are like meals. You might be able to recall the specifics for a couple days, but after enough time passes it's just something you ate once upon a time. Of course, there are some meals you remember for months, or even years after you've had them. Usually it’s because it was a damn good meal and you're glad you ate it. With calls you remember, it's the opposite more or less. The first call I remember, really remember, was about a couple of kids coming home from prom. This stupid kid drinks a bit too much and gets brave because he's a stupid kid, and ends up spread out on the highway like butter on toast. And of course, he takes his date with him. Back then I was a stupid kid too, meaning I was just a few years older.
I showed up and end up having to make the report. I lost my dinner on the side of the highway, and a couple of the senior officers took a few jabs at me. Making jokes about me losing my appetite. Back then I didn't understand it. Why they were making jokes, I mean. Nowadays it makes sense. Because often times it's a choice between laughing or crying. And when you've spent enough time on the force and watched people you shared a car with eat their own guns, often times it makes a hell of a lot more sense to laugh.
When I think about it about it now the images of the two kids isn't quite as clear as you might think, and maybe that's for the best. Like any memory there's an idea of what you remember, and the reality of the way things were. What I do remember, clearer than any memory I've had, is the sounds the girl's mother made when she showed up to the scene of the accident. Sounds like that you don't forget. Sometimes when I'm alone I can still hear it. That night I picked up the bottle and never managed to find a way to put it down.
Some cases just get filed in that part of your brain where the bad things you want to forget go, and that's all part of the job. It's what you know you're signing up for without knowing what you're signing up for. And that's fine. I've made as much peace as I can with it. Every now and again you get a call you wish was picked up by someone else. You see something that gets stored to that bad part of your brain. Something that reminds you why you picked up the bottle in the first place.
In the force we have this thing called the "Almond Joy Theory," for when things happen that you can't quite explain. Almond Joy used to have this slogan that went "Sometimes you feel like nut, sometimes you don't." It's something we used to say to make each other laugh, because that's what we did when we needed to. Calling perps "Almond Joys," you know?
I got call on the radio, and what I'm supposed to do is head over to this address to investigate a domestic dispute. A domestic dispute is the words they use. So I buckle up, and my partner buckles up, and what we do is we head over the address they tell us to check out. All of this is protocol right? We head over, take some notes, and every once and awhile we have to put someone in handcuffs.
We show up to the house and this lady comes running out the door, and she's going on out about this and that, and how about this son of a bitch had it coming. And did I mention, this woman, she's covered in blood. She's wearing this white dress with this big red spot on it lookin' like the damn flag of Japan. And her face is splattered with the stuff like someone had been swinging a brush dipped in red paint at her. And all of this looks pretty bad, so what I do is I tell my partner⎼⎼who by the way isn't even out of the car yet⎼⎼that he needs to stay with her. Take a statement, and that'll I'll go inside to see what’s what.
I got inside the house and the place was more or less a pig sty. There were old plates with rancid food on them, and it stunk bad enough to gag a maggot, and I'm already starting to piece together what happened. A domestic dispute, right? Wife gets upset at the husband and does something stupid and now we're here trying to figure out just exactly what that stupid thing was. I walked around, took notes, and surveyed the scene, before I turn into the kitchen and see the husband.
By the time I got there the flies had already found him. He had a hole in the side of his head the size of a dime and he's lying in this growing puddle of blood right there on the ground. His mouth was hung open like he was about to say something. Little rivers of blood are streaked down the side of the wall above the stove, and there were these fresh groceries just sitting there on the counter coated with blood.
In the corner of the room was the daughter. She's no older than six or seven years old, and she just stood there staring at what used to be her daddy. And if she was feeling any kind of way she ain't showing it. She just stood there staring dead eyed at the body, and the puddle of blood, and when the puddle got close enough, what she did was she took a step back.
The first thing I did is get her the hell out of there, because that's something she doesn't need to have in the bad part of her brain. I picked her up, and get her outside, and I try tried talking to her, only she’s not saying much which given the circumstances, who can blame her, you know? And my partner and I call for backup, and the backup comes, and we put up the tape, and they're taking pictures, and so on and so forth.
What my partner tells me is that the wife came home with groceries that the husband told her to get, and he decided to get a mouth about the milk. Because, as she told it, he wanted regular milk and what the wife bought was almond. So he started slapping her around, which of course, she's used to and started calling her bad names that I don't quite feel like repeating, and when the daughter came into see what the commotion is about he started giving it to her too. And of course, this had been going on for years, and of course she had never said anything because she's so afraid of this man she loves for some reason.
But now it’s different. Because now it’s about her child who⎼⎼despite everything⎼⎼is the only person she loves more than him.
So what she did is she ran upstairs for the pistol, and when she came back down she put a bullet right in his skull. And of course, the daughter saw the whole thing. What my partner told me is that she did this to protect her, because beating them isn't the only thing he was doing to them, of course. And what? We're left with no other option but to put her in handcuffs and throw her in the back of the car. And neither us blamed her, but of course, we couldn’t say that.
And now this little girl, who woke up in the morning with both parents, is going to bed that same night with no parents. Meanwhile, I got one of the deputy's in my ear talking about how he can't wait to get home to get himself a drink, and of course I hate myself for agreeing with him. So what we do is we make jokes.
Because often times it's a choice between laughing or crying.
So what my partner said to me is if his wife brought home almond milk, he figures he would have shot her first. And what I said back is there's no use crying over spilled milk.