Meltdown

by Ed Van Cise

The thick wooden front door creaked softly as she pushed it closed. She let a curse escape her lips as she quickly slipped off her shoes, glancing up the stairs hoping she hadn’t been heard. As she tiptoed up to the bedroom, she stripped down to her underwear and tossed the clothes gracefully into the hamper. She slid into her silk nightgown, tying her long brunette hair back with a black satin ribbon. As she slid her long, tan legs quietly under the white satin sheets, she smiled to herself. She had again successfully snuck back in after a late “business meeting;” her sleeping husband was no more the wiser. She thought better of putting her arm around him. He seemed to be sound asleep with his back turned to her. She settled down for a nice quiet night’s sleep. As she drifted off to sleep, her husband opened his eyes slightly and smiled to himself. He slowly wrapped his fingers around the butt of the revolver under his pillow…

Across town, a young minister was giving the closing blessing to his Baptist congregation. Tonight, he felt, had been an especially vibrant and exciting service. Surely he had made a difference in some lives today! As the congregation began to sing, dance, and clap the final hymn, none of them were aware of the wooden cross out in front of the church that had just been set ablaze…

A bright red BMW Roadster raced up the side of the San Fernando Valley, going over twice the posted limit. Several times the driver almost caused oncoming traffic to have to veer over the edge of the cliff to stay out of the way. Red lights flashing, a young, blonde California Highway Patrol officer set his eyes on the BMW’s tailpipe and gunned his motor. No way was he going to let this one get away. After another twenty minutes of fast pursuit and three more near-lethal accidents, at the top of one peak, the BMW finally pulled over. The CHP officer quickly pulled up behind the Roadster and called his status into the dispatcher. His partner had stopped to assist one of the motorists who had been forced off the road earlier – he was all alone. Slowly removing his service pistol from its holster, he carefully and purposefully strode up to the driver’s door. The officer never had a chance. Waiting for him was a sawed off twelve gauge double barrel shotgun. The first round was fired at the officer’s chest and most of the shot was stopped by his Kevlar vest. The second round went straight into the now prone officer’s face. He didn’t live long enough to realize what had happened, only long enough to feel the searing pain. As he took his last breath, the Roadster sped off, the driver laughing manically…

*****

Jon Baker jolted out of bed, head and body sweating profusely. He grabbed his alarm clock and cursed loudly.

“Four a.m. and it feels like a sauna in here,” he muttered. He sighed, flipped back the bed sheet, swung his legs over the edge of the bed and slowly stood up. As he slowly jerked his unwilling legs and body out into the hall, he rubbed his sun-leathered face to try to get the sleep out of his eyes. He walked over to a panel behind which his apartment’s air conditioner lived. The fan was not spinning. Again cursing under his breath, he walked over to the thermostat and turned the dial to full cold. The two-bedroom flat was not filled with the muffled sound of cold air rushing to take away the heat. The A/C had crapped out, for the third time this month. Knowing that management was dealing with quite a few of his neighbors who had the same problem, Jon placed a call to the night service to ask the maintenance man to come fix the thing again. With luck, it would be fixed by the end of his double shift today.

“Well, I know Central is air conditioned, I may as well head in and start some paper work. Maybe Sarge’ll let me go home early.” More likely, he thought to himself, Sarge’ll just thank me for my dedication and not even offer to give me comp time for it. Heading for the bathroom, Jon slipped off his socks and slid off his boxer shorts. He tossed them at the hamper, but instead they landed next to it – with most of his other dirty clothes. He stepped into the shower, hoping for some respite from the heat.

“This is not going to be my day,” he sighed as he turned the water to full cold and got nothing except water fit for a whirlpool.

Fifty minutes later after a very short shower where only the essentials got washed, a quick breakfast, and a twenty minute hunt for his last pair of (for the most part) clean uniform pants, Jon was sitting all alone in the briefing room working on reports that his partner, Ponch, should have done two days ago. Jon spent his first hour at Central filling out various forms and drinking two cups of vending machine coffee. As he was dutifully noting why he and his partner did not think a driver with a 1.5% blood alcohol content should be driving, the hallway became twice as bright. Jon looked at his watch; it was six o’clock. The hallway lights were set on a timer. Someone in Sacramento thought it would be a money saver to turn off half the lights at night when only half the people were in the building. The janitorial staff had not been contacted for their opinion before the legislation was passed.

Ten minutes later, fellow officers began to file into the briefing room. The room slowly filled up with the bubbling noise of a half dozen scattered conversations. No one said much to Jon as he continued to fill in the appropriate lines of the form. At 6:18, as usual, Ponch dashed into the back of the briefing room, stealing a look up front to make sure Sarge hadn’t shown up yet, and slid into his seat next to his partner. At 6:20 the door at the front of the room opened and Sergeant Getraer entered the room. Carrying his thick, black briefing binder, he strode to the wood podium at the center of the room. The Sergeant’s black boots shown brilliantly, having just recently been polished. His graying hair was set precisely and his solid, worn face was fixed with a grim expression. The officers immediately noted Sarge’s subdued tone and the sporadic conversations quickly dropped to a few whispers, and then silence. Without his usual, “Quiet down, listen up!” the briefing started. Sarge opened his binder and sighed.

“Good morning, everyone,” he started. With a fake half-smile, he added, “This morning has started off wonderfully. You’re all going to be very busy today, probably for the rest of the week. Last night our wonderful city experienced 26 homicides, 4 suicides, and the disappearance of 5 persons – all young females. As I am sure you are all aware, a CHP officer was murdered in the Valley and another downtown. Three disruptions linked to racial tension also occurred – a bombing of a black judge’s home, a cross burning at a Baptist church, and a fire at another church downtown.”

As the sergeant continued detailing the number of other various thefts and crimes that had occurred since the end of their shift yesterday, the officers dutifully wrote everything in their log books.

“Now, as the middle of the year has come and gone and the rates of every type of crime has increased, Sacramento wants us to get more involved in some of these not-so-highway related incidents. So, I have assigned each of you to three cases I want you to be involved in, report on, and keep me informed about. I know for some of you this isn’t exciting, and it’s not catching speeders on the freeway, but then Jim, God rest his soul, would tell you that that’s not exactly safe either. I’ll hand you your details on your way out. For God’s sake, be safe out there. The funeral dates should be set later today, I expect any of you not on duty to attend. Now get going.”

*****

Eighteen hours later, hands wrapped around his third cup of vending machine coffee for the evening, Jon stared blankly at Ponch. Ponch just stared back, each man thinking the same thing in his own way. Jon broke the silence.

“Let me see,” he started, “today we got to help investigate why three white teenagers would think it would be funny to build a cross and burn it in the front lawn of the local black church. When we asked them why, they said it was because they saw it on a movie over the weekend and it had looked like fun. We asked the parents what they thought and they blamed the cable company for showing a movie like that in prime time and then blamed Hollywood for making the movie. When asked about why the parents weren’t curious about their kids building the cross, the parents had thought the children were just very interested in religion. One dad even helped cut some of the boards.”

“Then,” continued Ponch in a somber monotone voice, eyes staring at the same cold coffee cup he’d held onto for the last hour, “we got to help LAPD search for clues as to why someone would open fire on a fellow CHP officer. Thankfully they had removed the body by the time we got there, but there was so much blood on the pavement I can’t imagine what he must have gone through. Not allowed to think about our fellow CHP officer, his wife, or his three kids, we dug through weeds looking for stray shot, tire tracks, and anything that might help us find this guy. Of course, he’s probably sold the car by now and ditched the plates. Whoever did this is probably back home bragging to his buddies about it right now. ‘One less pig,’ they’re saying. I just hope Jim didn’t suffer.”

Jon sighed, took a swallow of coffee and blanched. His cup was cold too. As he ran his fingers through his sandy brown hair, Jon continued, “I can’t decide which was worse, working under LAPD who graciously let us hunt through the grass for clues to the cold murder of a fellow CHP officer, or having to try not to get underfoot of the detectives investigating the murder of that poor girl.”

“True, true,” Ponch replied. “Why did we have to go to that one right after lunch? I spent half the time trying to convince my stomach to keep those four tacos down.” He tried to smile at his attempt at a joke, but the memories of what they had seen earlier were too vivid. “At least with that one, we know who did it and why. I mean, ‘You’ll never cheat on me again bitch,’ written in blood across her bare chest pretty much spells it out.”

“Well, that and the fact that the guy was still sitting in the room, laughing with his fingerprints all over the gun when the cops arrived. But still, I think that case is the most curious. I mean, how can people be so angry, so malicious, and so evil to kill their own spouse in cold blood – no matter what she had done. This world is continuing to take things into their own hands more and more. I don’t even agree with ‘An eye for an eye,’ let alone ‘A life for an eye.’ Why do I even want to help these people when every call for help could really be someone planning my last few minutes?”

Ponch sighed, then slowly stood up and clasped his partner on the shoulder. “Come on, buddy, we better get going, we’ve only got 8 hours before we have to be back at this all over again tomorrow.”

Without saying another word, Jon stood up and both men pitched their coffee cups into trash can already almost overflowing with half empty cups of coffee.

*****

Even before pushing the door open, Jon knew what was going to happen. He took one last breath and stepped into his apartment. As he feared, he instantly started to sweat. The AC was still broken and was likely going to stay that way for at least a couple more days. Flipping his gun belt onto the couch, Jon went and opened all the windows of the apartment, hoping to exchange some of the hot air inside the apartment for some of the hot air outside. Too hot for sheets or pajamas and too tired to care, Jon stripped down to nothing and lay on the bed, knowing it would be a short sleepless night.

Across the way, a young lady with a telescope clapped her hands in glee – another night of broken AC and open windows. It would be a wonderful night to view her favorite young, buff, CHP officer. Across town, shots rang out as two young children were killed in crossfire from a gang shootout. As Jon lay naked on his bed, sweating in the oppressive heat, he thought to himself, “Maybe things will be better tomorrow.”