Another Boring Cop Story: Part 1 by Andrea Langrish Hey, babe. What’s the matter? Can’t sleep again? Do you want me to tell you one of my boring cop stories? That usually works. Scoot over so I can lie down. Okay, so, it’s about 10:30 and I get a call for a 10-96, a domestic at Rolling Hills Estates, you know the trailer park on the southwest side of town. This wife calls in and says that her husband has a knife and is threatening to kill her or himself. Turner and Peyton hear the call too and radio they’re on the way. I pull up in front of the trailer and there are no lights, but I see a curtain move. I radio back to dispatch that there is at least one occupant moving around. In the meantime, tubby Turner pulls in first. He’s got a large fry in one paw, McFlurry in the other and a Big Mac stuck in his mouth. Peyton shows up while Turner is extricating his large body from the vehicle and asks if she needs to get the Jaws-of-Life to get him out. We split up, with Turner taking the front door, me around back and Peyton near the road. I can hear Turner knocking and yelling, “Sheriff’s Department. Open up!” Nobody opens the door, so Turner starts kicking it, but the fat-ass is out of shape and it would have been faster if he’d have body slammed it. He must have kicked it a dozen times before he just gave up and shot the lock off. Meanwhile, I’m walking up the steps to the back door and as I’m reaching for the knob I hear someone running through the trailer toward me so, I jump back and the door flies open and there’s this naked guy with a knife in his hand looking all crazy, with cuts on his arms and legs and blood all over him. I draw up on him and yell, “Don’t move, or I’m gonna blow your fucking head off!” Peyton comes flying around the corner, gun drawn yelling, “Drop the knife! Put the goddamn knife down now!” The guy looks at Peyton and then at me and then — you won’t believe this — but he jumps down the steps and starts running at me. I’m thinking this guy is an O.A.S. for sure. I put my hand on my mace and . . . What’s an O.A.S? It’s an officer assisted suicide — I’ve told you that before. Anyway, let me finish. So, this dip-shit is running at me all naked and covered in blood with his knife out in front of him and I nail him in the face. What? No, I didn’t shoot him! For godsake, I hit him with the mace. Anyway, the guy drops his knife and puts his hands over his face and starts screaming, “Now what did you go and do that for?” Peyton comes running up and grabs this guy’s arm to cuff him, but the guy is all slimy from blood and sweat and Peyton can’t get hold of him to put the cuffs on. Well right about then old tubby Turner comes to the back door, huffing and puffing. He sees what’s going on and his big ass comes barreling down the steps and he tackles the guy. Okay, it was less like a tackle and more like some kind of body-slam-belly-flop thing, but hey, whatever works. While Turner has him down, Peyton and I work on getting the cuffs on him. He was squirming and wiggling around and as I was slipping the cuffs around his ankles, the guy starts yelling at Turner and Peyton, “Hey fat-ass, why don’t you get up and let the lady cop sit on me instead? I think she might like it, wouldn’t you, girlie?” Well, Turner starts bouncing his big butt up and down on the guy until the guy starts screaming, “police brutality” and “I think you broke my ribs” and “I’m gonna sue you all and take everything you bastards own” and wouldn’t you know that Peyton’s knee accidentally slips and rams the guy’s nose while she was getting the cuffs on him and that shut him up pretty quick. Man, did he stink like piss and beer. When we finally get him pinned down, we use Turner’s cuffs to hog-tie him and then toss him in the back of my car and all the time he’s screaming, “I’m gonna kill you! I’m gonna fucking kill you all.” I inform him that now not only do we have to book him on assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct, but we have to add in threatening not one but three police officers and then I slam the car door on his face. The guy passes out on the drive to the drunk tank after puking all over the seat, which means I’ll have to take it in tomorrow and get it detailed by the inmates. The guys at the jail ask me what to do with him since he is naked and passed out and I tell them “He’s your problem now. I’m just the delivery man.” Andrea Langrish is a creative writing student at East Carolina University and lives in Greenville, NC with her husband and daughter. About “Another Boring Cop Story: Part 1” she says “I used the oral style tradition to tell this humorous fictional account from a cop’s point of view. Coming from a family of law enforcers and some law breakers, I have plenty of inspiration for this and more boring cop stories.” Copyright © 2005 by Andrea Langrish. Photo by the author.