Officer's Discretion
I haven't been updating much here, but I have been writing. I started a writing class through the UCLA Extension program, and it's eating a ton of time. Turns out that writing fiction does not come easy to me (not that writing blog posts is a piece of cake, but at least I can get into a groove when I'm writing this stuff). Maybe that statement is a little harsh... it is possible that week 1's prompt just didn't set up well for me. Or maybe my inner critic gets louder when I'm trying to write from someone else's point of view.
I'll post the story and would appreciate any feedback (aside from grammar-nit stuff), either here in the comments or email/text/in person, whatever. Be specific if you can. Let me know what worked and what didn't. The prompt was to sketch out a character different from myself and have that character go through an important event from my own life. I sketched a young hot Vegas bartender woman (because why the hell wouldn't I?) and had her go through the night I got my DUI. I started by trying to write the piece from her point of view, but I realized I bit off too much. It was hard enough to try to get in the head of a woman character, but it was overwhelming to try to capture her in a high-stress situation. During my DUI, I went through a standard flat-line reaction, understating the entire experience in my own mind. Her reaction was to lash out. I just couldn't get myself into that place in a way that felt real. So I bailed on that piece and wrote from the cop's point of view. That went better, but it came to me very slowly, and I ended up turning in something I consider to be somewhere between first and second draft. It needs work, but I don't know if I'll have the time to add polish any time soon.
I'll withhold specific thoughts about the piece for now so I don't slant feedback. Actually, I will say I fucking HATE the title... it's befitting of a Skinemax softcore porn.
But please do give feedback.
Officer’s Discretion
He looked at her in the rearview mirror... check that, he looked through her in the rearview mirror. He drew in a deep breath and let it out silently and evenly.
"You know, my daughter has earrings like that."
"Oh yeah? Did you ever handcuff her like this?" Shana spit out.
And then, under her breath, “…sorry.”
Another deep breath and Lieutenant Mike Gerhardt breaks his gaze and stares into the deep twilight sky at the neon silhouette of The Stratosphere, the North Star of Las Vegas. You're never truly lost in Las Vegas as long as you can find The Strat. Even though Gerhardt has lived here for twelve years and knows every road, every alleyway, every shortcut, his eyes still instinctually gravitate toward hedonism’s gigantic neon middle finger to the civilized world.
During the field interview (right after her backwards recital of the alphabet went Z-Y-X-W-V-W-X-FUCK), Shana said she was driving home from her bartending gig at The Cosmopolitan’s weekly Saturday pool party. But he didn’t have to ask her to figure that out. Even though she was in simple black t-shirt and jeans, the painfully fake tits and meticulously curled shoulder-length amber hair were dead giveaways that she was Professionally Hot. The $3200 in crumpled, unsorted bills in her purse narrowed her down to bartender, cocktail waitress, or stripper. Anywhere else in the world, that kind of walking-around money might raise an officer’s eyebrow, but Gerhardt knows that thousands of industrious PH women pull down that kind of green by batting eyelashes and smiling over the course of a long weekend in Las Vegas.
This part of the DUI stop was predictable. The volume is going to go up. The voice is going to quiver. The tears are going to flow.
At the end of this little production, she’ll ask for her makeup back.
"I don't understand this! I saw your stupid little thing and it said .077 and the limit is .08. And I walked a totally straight line! Why are you doing this to me!"
"Why did you even stop anyways? It was all his fault! That dumbass in the pickup truck was probably more drunk than me or on meth or something. He slowed down for no reason! And you just let him drive away without even talking to him!"
"How long until I can go home?"
"You're going to give my cell phone back, right? I need to call my friend and I don't know his number! You better give me my cell phone back! Isn’t this against the law?"
Over a decade in this town and 17 years raising his firecracker of a daughter taught Gerhardt a thing or two about teaching lessons to pretty girls who are used to getting what they want. The only thing to do right now is tune out and let her get it out of her system. The fear can only come once the anger is exhausted, and frightened ears can actually listen to what you say. But sometimes he can't get that far into the lesson before he pulled in at the downtown precinct to turn over that evening's detained princess to booking.
But he thought things might go better with Shana. The great thing about this part of the job is it doesn't matter who she knows or whether she can wriggle off the hook on the DUI charge. At least for tonight, she’ll be treated like anyone else. A classic PH move is to play the "IKnowPowerfulPeople So YouBetterNotFuckWithMe" card. Other little princesses have threatened him with accusations of sexual assault. He's even been offered a blowjob to tear up a reckless driving ticket (this happens MUCH more often to other guys on the force*, because most Professionally Hot women can pick out an overprotective daddy from a mile away).
Shana isn't following the script if she wanted to push things to those levels. She’s self-absorbed and the array of condoms, spare underwear and prescription Xanax in her purse confess to a wild side, but at least she's drawn some lines in the moral sand that she isn't crossing tonight. And if she hasn't crossed them yet, maybe she won't cross them at all. Her soul might still be intact. There was no evidence of recreational drug use in her purse. The upscale Spanish Trails address on her license could be a shared rental or something, but it’s not impossible that she made a wise investment at the bottom of the tanking Vegas real estate market. The insurance for her newly dinged-up VW Beetle, the gym shoes and yoga mat in the back seat, no priors... he might actually get through to this girl.
Silence in the cruiser now, save for her sniffles. She’s curled up into a ball with her head on the passenger side’s window, staring absently at the sea of taxis and rental cars they’re passing on the I-15.
“My makeup is a mess,” she murmurs.
I would stop crying into it if I were you.
Shana’s shoulders scrunched up and her upper arms clenched her sides tighter (it’s hard to give yourself a proper hug when you trade in the Tiffany charm bracelet for a pair of LVPD cuffs). She was as physically far away from him as she could be. That’s the opening he’s looking for.
“You weren’t supposed to see the readout on the Breathalyzer. But it doesn’t matter. Breathalyzers can only be used to show probable cause. Your blood test at the station will be what actually matters. And even that probably won’t matter because any result between .05 and .08 is left to the responding officer’s discretion. You rear-ended that pickup truck and failed two of the three field sobriety tests, and I can’t, in good consci…”
“That’s total bullshit! I was just in a car accident! You try to, like, stand on one leg or say a backwards ABCs after you a car crash!”
“Shana, you’re not helping yourself right now. Calm down. Here’s what’s going to happen when we get to the station. You’re going to sit in a holding area while I write the officer’s report. Then you will be brought back for chemical testing. Someone will take your fingerprints and…”
“What about my phone call? When do I get my phone back?”
“You’ll get your phone call after we take your picture and fingerprints. But we cannot give you your phone back until after you are released.”
She opens her mouth but thinks the better of it. She brings her lips back together and they form a tight O. Her jaw clenches. Eyes close. Head slowly rocks back and forth. She’s humming quietly, but Gerhardt can’t quite make out the tune. Springsteen’s Badlands, maybe? Can’t be. That’s before her time.
“Look, I know you’re young and pretty and you make good money and life is good, but this is the kind of stuff that starts happening when you spend too much time in these scenes. You start doing stupid stuff and getting in to bigger and bigger trouble. Today it’s a DUI, tomorrow you’re getting in fights. Maybe you start waking up in strange rooms with strange people and you don’t remember what happened the night before. You loan money to the wrong people, you blow through all your money and you can’t make the money you used to make because you’re starting to lose your looks…”
She sits up a bit and puts her feet back on the floor. Her pale blue eyes flash open and drive a frozen dagger into his right temple.
“Stop.”
He pauses. And just as quickly her eyes soften and follow his gaze out the window.
Before he can get back on the rails, she quietly says, “Just… don’t. Don’t say what you’re going to say.”
A minute passes by in silence.
She doesn’t break the silence, she simply unfolds it. “I’m sorry for yelling before. I’m really stressed right now. This is the last thing I need.”
“I think it’s exactly what you need right now.” He loves using that line.
“No, it’s not. You don’t know me, officer. You give me some lecture about how I need to straighten up and fly right, like there’s something wrong with being a bartender or something. Like I’m some out of control train wreck because I had a couple drinks at work and got in a little accident with that douchebag. You don’t think I have eyes? You don’t think I see what happens to girls in this town? I worked my ass off to get away from home and make it out here. I’m sorry I’m not a doctor or a lawyer like you want me to be, but what’s so terrible about taking it easy for a little while and, like, making some money and having fun for a little bit while I’m still young and figuring things out?”
He waits a beat. “Yeah? Having a lot of fun right now?”
Shana sighs and leans back against the door. The last two minutes of the ride pass by in silence.
In his station’s garage, Gerhardt opens the door and reaches in to help Shana out of the cruiser. Before he can reach in to help, she pulls herself out and up to her feet. She pins back her shoulders and lifts her chin. Only her running makeup suggests that she has been crying. As he closes the door, she tries to start walking toward the entrance, but Gerhardt snatches her arm. She flinches, pauses, and submits. They walk.
Outside the holding cell, Gerhardt finally frees her from her handcuffs. She rubs her wrists without looking down.
Despite the t-shirt and jeans, Shana is overdressed for the holding cell. Far from the glitz of The Strip, the holding cell at the old downtown police station is a throwback. The metal bars have been exchanged for a new high-density composite door and plexiglass windows, but the dank concrete, the dingy and dented metal benches and the unmistakable smell of urine are all holdovers from the Late Mob Era of the 70s and 80s. Shana’s new pals are three vagrants (two of which are sleeping) and a larger Latina girl with a black eye who doesn’t look a day over 16. Later in the evening, the cell will mostly be filled with other drunk drivers, as the downtown station is the central chemical testing facility for the city, but most people in Vegas are just getting started drinking at 9pm.
Meanwhile, Gerhardt disappears behind a partition across the station to start filing the report at his cluttered desk. He absently gnaws on a cold Snickers bar and checks his cell phone as he settles in to his chair.
Text Message from Rachel Gerhardt:
I told kaitlyn it was ok for her to stay at sophies house tonight
He replies:
I thought we grounded her?
Gerhardt starts the painstaking process of hunting and pecking his way through typing the report. He curiously walks over to the partition every few minutes to watch the princess go through processing. He strategically times his coffee run to talk to Deputy Coulton, who just finished her booking.
“Hey, Frank, did you happen to catch who she called?” Gerhardt asks.
Coulton chuckles. “Dialed the wrong number… even gave her two tries. Don’t matter though, she said she had enough cash on her to post bail herself. God bless Las Vegas, ey?”
“I thought that might happen. Pity for her she never told the arresting officer about posting bail. I’m just about to put all her personal items into evidence.” Technically, he’s correct about this. The arresting officer decides whether personal items remain in booking or if they get kept as evidence. But evidence almost never gets checked for standard DUIs.
Coulton laughs. “Jesus, you sick fuck. You’re going to make that piece of ass spend the night in CCDC** over a .08?”
“Trust me, she could use it. It’ll be good for her.”
“What about me, Mikey? I’m the one who has give her the bad news and deal with the shit fit she pitches.”
Gerhardt grins and pats him on the shoulder as he walks back to his desk. “Trust me, rook, it’ll be good for you, too.”
The next half hour passes by quietly. Gerhardt hears the buzz of the holding cell door opening and watches Coulton walk in to deliver the bad news and prepare the two women for transfer to CCDC. Gerhardt moves over to booking to get a better view of Shana’s perp walk. He cocks his ear to listen for the inevitable shriek of disbelief once Shana learns she can’t post bail and has to spend the night in an orange jumpsuit. But the shriek never comes.
In fact, he doesn’t hear another sound until the cell door buzzes and Coulton escorts Shana and the Latina girl out of the cell in plastic handcuffs. Far from outraged, Shana looks puzzled. She ten steps out the door before she looks up and sees Gerhardt with his arms folded. Shana searches his eyes for an answer to her question, but the answer is the sly grin that he allows to creep across his face. She’s ten paces away from being out the door when she puts it together. She lets out a quick laugh through her nose, looks him in the eye and shakes her head slowly as she's led out the door.
* This is unsurprisingly effective when done correctly
** Clark County Detention Center
Posted with Blogsy
posted by Doug Meyer @ 9:58 AM
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