Coquille, Oregon, March 1996 continued…
The Ides of March had been friendlier to me this year than the last. Although the ice had thawed somewhat with Kevin before he left for Portland, he was now gone completely, and I consequently got elevated in my job. The workload was intense to begin with, but it helped that I was already comfortable appearing before King Henry from back when I was in the Juvy Court. The underlying office tension from the previous dust-up between Kevin and me also began to subside the more I worked with the D.A.’s office staff. Without anyone dissing me, they were allowed the opportunity to start to get to know me and work with me, untainted. While it would be a while before it got warm, the chill had at least left the room.
Just like when Chuck left, the first thing to happen on the Monday after Kevin left was the dash to grab his office gear that was better than the crap you had. The chair and desk were claimed by Ted immediately. His file cabinet was scarfed up by Chloe, along with his stapler. Others grabbed whatever goodies could be found. I’d seen this government employee scavenger hunt a few times before, while working at the Child Support Unit and when Chuck had left. Government employees – back then, anyway – didn’t get many office upgrades or new equipment to work with very often, so when somebody left the job and cleared out their personal belongings, the government-owned shit that remained was up for grabs to the first comers. And they grabbed embarrassingly quickly.
My relationship with Selena took off fast even though our time together was limited by my workload. We got in a date or two during the weekdays, depending on my trial schedule. Most of our time was spent together on the weekends. She wasn’t moving in by any means – it was rare for her to spend the night – but our attachment to each other grew with each time we were together. Our relationship was moving fast because Selena was completely enthralled with me and because I let myself be open to it for the first time, ever. I had my share of fuck-buddy girlfriends, one-night stands, and a few less-serious relationships over the years with various women when Tami and I had been apart, but NEVER did I actually consider the possibility of a long-term relationship with them. Any of them…because I just knew that Tami and I would be together again, and none of them would ever compare. Now that Tami was functionally dead to me and out of my life forever, I finally let myself explore what might be with someone else…
Except that bitch wasn’t completely out of my life, not yet. I say that for several reasons, but the most glaring at the time was the recurrence of the random phone caller from Hell who had been tormenting me for years. You see, starting around the time of my break-up with Tami in my second year of college (we’ll get there in another chapter), some person… individual… cretin… asshole… douchbag… cocksucking piece of shit lowlife fuckstain sister-raping mother-fucker…started making random phone calls to me at all hours of the day. It started with night calls, like 2 or 3 in the morning. It’d be ring, ring, ring, forever until I picked up or the answering machine picked up. If it was the answering machine, the fucker would just call back, usually until I picked up. And when I would answer, it was complete silence on the other end, every time. No sound, not even the sound of someone’s breath, but there was no question that some living busted hemorrhoid of a human was definitely on the other end of the line. Occasionally, after I would go on long cursing threatening rants of how I wanted to find and murder the fucker slowly, the line would quietly go dead.
These calls were mostly at night, but they happened during the day on weekends, too. I got sooo tired of that harassment. And yes, dear reader, we had “*69” service to find out who just called you. But there was also “*69 blocker service” that prevented me from ever getting a return number. Worse, these calls followed me wherever I moved over those years, usually by about a month or so. I had a lot of moves, too. It even happened when I spent periods living with my parents, although those calls were fewer in number (felt like someone just checkin’ in, right?).
I confronted Tami on those calls the first time we reunited, and every other time we reunited. She always swore up and down that it wasn’t her. Or later, her husband. During the stretch of time that she was married and secretly talking to me (about two and a half years), she still swore that those calls weren’t from her. Or her husband. But they never happened when she was with me. Now the calls were back after she left, “coincidentally” starting about a month after I got “dear John’ed” by her.
My only solution some nights was to unplug the phone line. Those calls really got under my skin…and gee, now that Tami was gone, the phone calls were back. Amazing how that worked…
I previously described the office “L” layout because it frequently occurred that us prosecutors would wind up in the bottom of the “L” talking about cases. Or talking to the secretaries about this and that. Or just talking shit with each other. It was a natural place to congregate because the attorney’s offices lined the outside of the “L,” grouping them closer together at that point, with the biggest office in the corner for Peter. The interior of the “L” also housed three secretary cubicles. What would start out as a question about law, or a case, or procedure, or whatever, would end up in a ten-minute bullshit session, cutting in and out from serious legal talk to the latest pop-culture nonsense. You know, water-cooler talk, but a bit edgier due to the nature of the hellscape we waded through daily. Dark humor abounded.
“What does a girl say on her first date up in Powers (it was a very small town out in the hills of Coos County)?” Ted asked one morning when the bullshit was flowing.
“I have no clue,” I replied.
“No Daddy, it hurts!” Ted replied, laughing pretty hard.
Sandy laughed and blurted out, “Sick!” The other secretary present just rolled her eyes and kept on with what she was doing.
I chuckled and shook my head in disgust. Laugh or cry, right? “Looks like you’re catching on to your new job,” I said.
“Yeah, I heard that one from Dave (Sgt. Dave Sheffield, the Oregon State Police investigator who was assigned to our office),” Ted said as his laughter faded. “Hey, I got a video to show you. This one is totally messed up.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Well, it really is like road rage by a cop after an attempted DUII stop resulted in a short chase,” Ted explained. “Come into my office and I’ll show you.”
Ted explained that the alleged defendant was weaving all over the lane and he hit the gas as soon as the police lights flipped on. It turns out he was wanted on a felony warrant, so he took the cop on about a five-mile chase. Two other police cars joined in the pursuit. When the defendant saw he had driven into a dead end, he stopped his car and surrendered. After being placed in handcuffs and while being read his rights, the dashcam video from the police car showed a second officer bound into the scene to grab the defendant and slam his head into the police car. The original arresting officer and a third officer went to pull the aggressor cop away from the defendant, but not before the cop nailed the defendant with a clean fist to the side of his face.
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