Skerd- a psycho illogical look into the minds behind the badge

  Over the years, I had the privilege of escorting my beloved wife to several corporate shindigs in the course of her trip up the express elevator to the top floor of an illustrious career. In the beginning, as a newly appointed and clean-cut patrolman, I was always on my best behavior and together the two of us presented a stunning image of a happy, successful couple wherein both parties were obviously dedicated to their respective careers. But it was during my “modified grooming standards” period as a Narc, where my true self, repressed by years of military training, began to emerge and things became a little different. So, dressed to the nines in my best Armani knock off and tackiest Jerry Garcia tie, I'd pull back my “do” into a ponytail and comb the twigs and glazed donut particles from my unruly facial manscape in a feeble attempt to appear more "presentable" and less like a last minute econo-escort my wife had been forced to scoop out of the local soup kitchen.

    Arriving at these "functions", the typical introductions were made and more often than not, a few eyebrows would raise at the Sasquatch in fine couture accompanying my wife. After being assured that I was who "I was", it never failed that someone would ask, “I thought you were a cop?” It was then I was forced to come clean and explain that I worked in Investigations.

       Of course, there were always a few half-hearted laughs and questions as to whether or not I was “packing” to which my canned answer was “I don’t know. Am I?”. Oftentimes, witticisms about “grams and grahams” followed, along with speculations about how my parents must have known what I was going to be when I “grew up”. My standard response to these bits of joviality involved my glaring at them and saying nothing; which achieved my desired result of creating a long, awkward silences.

      But, as I'm sure you can probably imagine, the topic of my chosen profession would lead some people to believe that it was OK to follow up with a “I bet you have some good stories” comment. Not really knowing the folks inquiring, I did what most cops under the circumstances would do and said, “Yep”, leaving it at that.

        After a few drinks I would relax a bit, observing the crowd from my spot in the corner, albeit with only one eye, while trying to keep my professional suspicions about their private lives to myself. Unfortunately, my secluded location added to the “mystery” which in turn drew more attention and unwanted company my way.

       But hey, these were parties right? I was supposed to be “social” and at least pretend to play nice with the other kids. The problem being that “social” usually involves inane chit-chat which, because of my love of all things most consider offensive, I’ve never been good at. Oh well, I do kind of enjoy making people uncomfortable.

          So, as my night of suffering one particular Christmas party   wore on, my wife made the rounds and mingled with the honchos, while I found myself stuck with a group of people doomed to sitting at my assigned table. The more I imbibed in the nectar of an open bar, the more my inner Viking Skald emerged and I boisterously waggled my tongue towards whoever was within earshot. Fueled by a combination of ego and the free, high-octane, jet-fuel I  swilled down my gullet, my bravado sky-rocketed as I dazzled my listeners with epic tales of heroics and feats of daring-do carried out by myself and those of my ilk; feeding off the attentions given me by my private audience of holster sniffers, the likes of which I now held rapt.

          As was the norm, one would be badge-polisher asked, “Don’t you get scared?” .

          “Shure…” I slurred over my fifteenth tumbler of Canadian whiskey, “Anyboody… cop shays… they ain’t never… skerd ist a liar.”

          “Really?” she asked, her big blue eyes suddenly reminding me of the sanitation cookie in the urinal I desperately needed to visit. “What scares you?”

         Looking around conspiratorially, I pushed aside the fronds of the potted palm next to me, peering deep into its container and searching for possible eavesdroppers. Satisfied that the indigenous flora of the banquet hall held no hidden dangers I turned back to my bevy of (but only after several drinks) beauties and beckoned them closer with a flopping hand.

          “Roashes…” I mumbled before my head bounced off a bouquet of poinsettia, festively adorning the tabletop…

          It’s true. And by that, I mean roaches scare the Hell out of me. To this day, if I see one, I will jump up on the closest piece of furniture and squeal until Anita, armed with what must be some ancient artifact fashioned from a piece of magical toilet-tissue, kills and picks up the horrid creature to dispose of properly. Granted, she chases me around the house with it for about an hour forcing me to promise to never again get drunk and flirt with her co-workers, but that’s beside the point. The thing is, I’m not alone when it comes to this particular phobia.

      Case in point. While executing a search warrant at a particularly repulsive residence, I, along with another officer who just so happened to share my fear of the devil’s land-shrimp, had the privilege of clearing out a water damaged closet full of mildewed clothing. Peeling back the top layer of clothing from a pile, we were both horrified to see approximately one billion, three foot long German (probably Nazi) cockroaches with huge fangs. As the roaches launched an aggressive counterassault against us, I was overcome and fainted in fear, but not before seeing my fellow officer point his M-4 assault rifle at the floor, screaming in an octave far beyond that which I would have imagined him capable… Due to my feeble condition however, I can neither confirm nor deny that said officer may have even popped off a few rounds into the tenement building floor.

          Thankfully, at least for the purpose of this story, roaches are not the only monsters lurking in the dark and unexplored recesses of your average cop’s mind. You’d be surprised what some guys are afraid of. There’s the standard Acro and Hydro phobias that many people experience. A few of the superstitious ones have Phasmophobia while those prone to playing the numbers suffering from Triskaidekaphobia. One clean freak I knew suffered from Mysophobia. And of course there’s the Homophobia that many of those too-tight shirt wearing cops who doth protest a little too much, exhibit…and you know who you are (wink!).

          Take, for example, one of my old law enforcement buddies who suffers from an debilitating fear of reptiles; which, living in Louisiana, you might suspect is somewhat of an predicament. In a place where a good portion of our reptiles grow upwards to ten feet, it’s a safe bet to assume that one might encounter at least a smaller variation thereof at least once in one’s life. And if you take into consideration the physical size and renown bravery of this particular cop, it makes for two, very funny stories. The first of which goes a little something like this (more or less):

          I was a bright eyed rookie, just cut loose from my training officer and willing to do whatever it took to prove my mettle to my fellow officers. No crime was too petty as I considered dealing with the simplest of violations to be but added fuel for the forge of justice that burned beneath my badge. Armed with an education from the prestigious LSU law enforcement academy and a newly purchased utility belt from which hung a collection of the latest and greatest, crime-fighting accessories known to man (sans a grapnel-hook), I was ready for anything and everything. I thought.

          One afternoon I was parked in an open lot, struggling to figure out how to operate a ten year old patrol car with my bright and shiny, four-foot long Monadnock baton shoved through its holster across my midsection, when the call came in from my patrol sergeant. Battling to remove the handle of my nightstick from where it had wedged between the spokes of the steering wheel, I grappled with my lapel microphone, entangling myself in its cord but eventually managed to key up to answer in an anxious tone.

          “Go with 411's traffic.”

          “411, meet me on the river road in front of the grain elevator. I’ve got something to show you.” my sergeant advised.

          “Roger that Sergeant,” I replied, grateful to be personally acknowledged my supervisor. “I’m en route to you sir and might I say that I look forward to working with you, sir.”

          That sounded smooth right?

          “Just get over here Rook,” Sarge said. “And don’t run code either,” he added just as my hand reached to activate my lights and siren.

          Aw man…

          Three heart-beats later, after power-sliding into a spot behind Sarge’s vehicle, I fell out of my vehicle after tripping over the six D-cell flashlight still securely fastened in its belt ring on my side. Adjusting myself, I stood tall before my supervisor and awaited his orders.

          His eyes immediately went to the array of gadgets I proudly wore around my waist.

        “You know, you can take those things out when you’re driv… never mind,” he said with a shake of his head as he closed his eyes. “Look, I’ve got a special assignment for you Rook.”

        A special assignment? For me? Oh man, this was what I’d been waiting for. What could it be? Maybe we were about to serve an arrest warrant for a dangerous fugitive. Or maybe…just maybe, we had some “grey” assignment where we had to take out an untouchable kingpin in a plan that only certain officers would be privy to and only the most trusted men could be depended upon to carry out.

          “Yes sir, Sergeant sir. You can count on me for whatever the mission at hand might entail,” I said with a shrewd wink. “Whatever, it might entail.” I added and winked again just to be sure he saw it.

          “Y-y-y-eah, right,” Sarge said with a sideways glance at me. Turning away he walked up the side of the levee and stopped about ten feet from the top. “You ever seen one of these?” he asked as I got closer.

          “One of these” was a four and a half foot long alligator.

      “Yes sir,” I replied, “That would be Reptillia Crocodyllia Alligatoridae of the Mississippiensis family, or as it’s more commonly known, an alligator. Granted, I‘m not up to speed on any particular legal statues surrounding the species, but I have seen Animal Planet a time or two.”

       Sarge blinked and shook his head again. Apparently he suffered from dry eye syndrome or some other optical aggravation and I considered offering him some Visine. But before I could, he jutted his chin towards the reptile and said, “HQ is still trying to get a hold of Animal Control but so far they haven’t had any luck. Being that its so close to the dock’s access ramp we’re gonna catch him.”

          Now it was my turn to blink at him. “Um, okay. How are we going to do that?”

          I can’t be sure, but at the time I could have sworn I saw the hint of a twinkle in Ol’ Sarge’s dry eyes when he said, “I’m glad you asked.”

          He then went on to explain that he would get the alligator’s attention using an old Cajun trick that had been passed down through his family for generations. (When I asked what the trick was he explained that I was a Yankee, so I wouldn't understand.) Once Sarge had the Gator’s interest, I was to jump on it’s back, slap down on it’s snout using an open palm strike (for my fingers’ sake) and grab it by its “beak” so that he could tape its mouth shut.

          “You think you can handle that Rook?” he asked.

        Wait a second… I might have been a rookie, but I wasn’t stupid. So I asked, “Without trying to sound insubordinate sir, but due to your experience in these matters, why I can’t tape it’s mouth shut after you grab it?”

          Sarge looked back at me and said, “Because it’s my tape.”

          Hmm, that was logic I couldn't argue with. So I said, “Okay.”

          “Okay?” Sarge asked, one eyebrow raising.

          “Yeah, okay. I’ll do it.”

         “Really?” Sarge looked me over. “I mean, I’ll go get the tape.”

          Sarge walked down to his patrol car leaving me to stare into the black eyes of one of God’s most ancient creatures. As I looked into those onyx orbs I searched for a mental connection to the prehistoric beast and projected what I hoped was a non-threatening intent into its brain.

          When Sarge returned he spun a roll of duct-tape on one finger and positioned himself in the alligator’s line of sight. “No turning back now,” he said, “You’re sure you’re ready to do this?”

          Taking a deep breath I psyched myself up and then bobbed my head. “Yep, let’s do it.”

          “You’re sure you’re ready?” he repeated.

          Again I nodded my willingness.

          “I’m serious, I’m going to get his attention now,“ Sarge said and I could hear the uneasiness in his voice which I assumed had something to do with him preparing to invoke some voodoo ritual used to tap into some cosmic force… after all, those types of things are not to be taken lightly. But for the life of me, when he began moving side to side in front of the alligator’s face, I don’t recall hearing any chanting and I don’t remember seeing anything that looked particularly mystical or voo-dooie at all. In fact, he just seemed to be hopping from foot to foot and waving his arms.

          Hell, I could of done that.

          But whatever it was Sarge did must have worked because the alligator spun around in true alligator fashion to follow his movements. The Gator hissed as his mouth opened wide to reveal a soft-white palate and rows of equally white, but not quite so soft looking, teeth.

       Seizing the opportunity, I leapt onto the Gator’s back, slamming my palm down onto its snout as Sarge had showed me while squeezing the lizard’s lips closed with all my might.

          “What the fuck are you doing?!?” Sarge screamed at the top of his lungs.

          “Tape…” I yelled back as the gator flailed and lashed the inside of my legs with its tail, “Use.. tape!”

          Sarge, now fully roused from his voodoo trance, slid across the grass on one hip and ended up next to me, ripping a strip of tape off the roll which he then used to secure the Gator’s mouth. Once that was done, we pulled all four of its legs back and secured them so that he looked like a scaly, apprehended suspect.

          Sarge rolled over onto his back, looked up at me and said, “I didn’t think you were really going to do it.”

          “What?!?” I asked. “But you said we had to catch it.”

          Sarge then led me down the side of the levee to the trunk of his car where he produced a long piece of PVC pipe through which ran a length of rope with a loop in it. Essentially a home-made version of those things a dog catcher uses when, say, he doesn’t want to get bit. The rope was long enough so that when the alligator started his roll, whoever was holding the device could let out slack, allowing the alligator to wrap itself up in a nice, tight little bundle. Needless to say, I acquired one of my own soon thereafter.

          “So why the Hell didn’t we use that?” I asked, all etiquette now officially out the window.

          “I planned to. But, like I said, I didn’t think you’d actually jump on the damn thing. You are one crazy son-of-a-bitch, Saturley.”

          It took everything I had not to punch him in the mouth.

         But this post is supposed to be about what scares us, so here’s the part about phobias. As we struggled to carry the Gator down the levee, I spotted another patrol car pull in behind mine. It belonged to one of three officers in our department with whom I was truly impressed; “Larry”, from my earlier piece “Rougarou in Boots”.

          “Larry” unfolded his huge frame from his vehicle and looked over the roof at us. “What are you guys working?” he asked.

          Being the fact that “Larry” is a big guy and due to the weight and violent movements of our bound Gator-friend, I figured I’d recruit him to help me get the overgrown lizard into the trunk. But when “Larry” stepped around the side of the my car and saw me holding the Gator, his face turned white and, doing a perfect about-face, he spun on one heel, slid back into his car and sped away without another word.

          But it wasn’t until after this next incident that I understood why.

         A few years later, “Larry” (okay, I’m done with the quotation marks) and I were working together on the rural side of the Parish which meant we had a bunch of free time on our hands. We spent most of the day patrolling our respective sides of the district but regularly met up for lunch and a little, unsanctioned, target practice.

          The location of our picnics and improvised shooting range was an illegal dumping ground at the end of an old country road. You know the type of location I’m talking about, the kind of place where neon-green liquid oozes from strangely marked barrels and runs off into ditches and creeks. The type of place where people go in the dead of night to toss out lice infested mattresses, burn stolen cars or drop off old refrigerators with body parts inside. In other words, the perfect place for the local fuzz to pop off a few caps on a slow day.

          So there we were, loading magazine after magazine of rounds; flipping paint cans into the air, key holing shots into rusted Amana logos and seeing which propane tanks or gas cans we might make blow up. (Can you believe we actually got paid for this shit?). The contest was neck and neck, for Larry was as good a shot as anybody I’d ever met and eerily calm under pressure. After a particularly heated competition where we did our best to recreate the events surrounding the 1934 massacre of Bonnie and Clyde on an old panel van, I turned to my trunk and prepared to reload another mag.

          That’s when I saw what I, at first, believed to be a tree branch, devoid of leaves and which, interestingly enough, seemed to be undulating across the road. Upon closer inspection I realized that it was, in fact, a very, very long snake about the thickness of my wrist and nearly spanning the entire width of the dirt road. At seeing its size, my first thought was that there might actually be some validity to the rumors of nuclear waste being dumped at the site. My second and what I, at the time, considered to be a far more rational thought was to catch it; so I went in search for something to pin it with.

          About that time, Larry had ceased-fire and turned around to see where I had wandered off to. Seeing me dragging a stick out of the brush he asked what I was doing.

          “Getting a stick,” I replied.

          Larry, in turn, indicated that he could see that much. He then inquired as to why I sought the aforementioned stick. To which I replied, “To catch that,” and pointed at the anaconda crossing the road, I assume, in search of the proverbial chicken.

          The color drained from Larry’s face, but I shrugged it off thinking it simply radiation sickness from the toxic dump; besides, I had much more pressing business to attend to. As I neared the serpent, my branch stretched out before me, I asked, “Any idea what kind it is?”

         “I don’t know. And I don’t care,” was Larry’s stern response. “Just kill the damn thing.”

          Hearing this, my curiosity was piqued. Forgetting the snake a moment I turned and asked, “Why’s that?”

          Larry did not respond. He didn’t have to, for I could tell by the way he was gripping his rifle that he was not, in the least bit, comfortable with the situation. Then it dawned on me. It seemed that, quite by accident, I had stumbled upon the chink in Robocop’s armor, the kryptonite for this particular Superman, the… well, you get the gist.

           And that gist was downright wonderful.

          “You’re afraid of it,” the magnitude of the situation turning my question into an awed statement.

          “I’m not afraid of shit,” Larry responded a little too heatedly.

          “You are, you’re scared of that snake,” I stated now as a matter of fact. Turning back to the reptile I ensured that it had not slithered off too far and then turned back to my partner.

          “Oh Larrrry,” I said, feeling my diabolical amusement rising in crescendo, “If I catch it, do you want it?”

          “I you catch it, I will shoot you,” Larry stated evenly.

          From the tone of his voice I could tell that he meant it, but at this point I was willing to take the hit just to watch him squirm. I took another step closer to the snake, trying to get a better look at it’s head to determine if it was a viper or not.

          “Do you think it’s poisonous?” I asked over my shoulder. Oh, I was loving this.

          “Dude,” Larry began, as he inserted a fresh magazine and chambered a round, “seriously. If you get any closer to that snake I will shoot you.”

          “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I said as I inched the tip of my stick closer to my prey. Because of the way the shadows of the trees lining the dirt road moved,  I couldn’t see any distinguishable marks on it and I couldn’t really tell if it had a triangular head. I was captivated by the size of the thing and my heart pounded with the knowledge that I now had live ammunition to use against my friend and with my own uncertainty as to whether or not the thing I planned to grab hold of was deadly.

          The tip of my stick quivered as it drew nearer to the snake, closer, closer…and then the slithering monstrosity spun on itself in a flash, and its head grew to the size of a dragon’s as it reared back to display two sharp teeth and a cotton white mouth. I jerked back as quick as I could, but I knew this was going to end up being one of those “oh shit” moments of which I was so familiar with.

          But at the exact same time that the snake attacked, a shot rang out and I felt the bullet whiz past my left leg, right before the snake’s head blew apart. At hearing the second shot I figured I might have pushed Larry a bit too far and he went ahead with his threat to shoot me just for good measure. After bracing myself for the inevitable pain of a bullet smacking into my ass, I felt another round zip past and was relieved to see that, once again, the shot struck the snake; cutting it in half as it was curling upon itself in its serpentine death throes.

         “Humph, guess I just saved your life again,” Larry said in his usual emotionless voice while flipping his weapon onto safe and walking towards the rear of his vehicle. 

          I tried to say “thanks” but all that came out was a haggard “whew”. I was definitely going to have to check the contents of my pants the first chance I got, but I couldn’t let Larry know that. Looking back towards our earlier makeshift targets, I whipped up one of my customary, flippant comments, “Good thing it wasn’t a paint-can attacking me.”

          Larry returned his rifle to the trunk and closed the lid. “Who said I was aiming for the snake?” he asked as he opened his car door and slid behind the wheel.

          I initially scoffed in my assumption that he was simply delivering a snappy comeback; but, and with a sudden chill that ran up my spine, I realized he had been grinning as he spoke and that grin was enough to scare the hell out of me.