by Glenn Wood
'Are you alright?' He yelled.
I told him what had happened and he said we should call for back up. Bit bloody late for that I thought as I trudged wearily back through the river. He took me to the car and told me to stay outside while he called the incident in. Then he asked me to stand in front of the headlights so he could check me over.
'No holes,' he said cheerily when he’d finished poking me.
He informed me this was now a serious crime site and we’d have to do a scene check. I replied that I was feeling a bit shaken up and would like to go back to the station. He said all the other cars were tied up hunting the offenders and we’d have to do a cursory look ourselves. I was in shock and just nodded my head.
The scene search consisted of me tromping around in the river looking for bullets and cartridges. My so-called mate, who had not recently been shot at, made me get back in the water because he reasoned there was no point us both getting wet. How thoughtful.
I was too shattered to care. I was still alive, despite the odds and didn’t really mind what I was asked to do. After ten minutes of fruitless splashing around he finally called a halt to the search, bundled me into the car and took me back to the station.
Upon arrival I was greeted by several other members of my section who at least had the courtesy to look concerned for my health. I was ushered into the tea room and given a cuppa. I don’t drink tea, but it seemed churlish to refuse it after they’d gone to the effort of boiling the water. The cup and saucer shook in my hands.
I had a whole ten seconds rest before my partner came in and told me the sergeant wanted a full report on the incident post-haste. He took my tea and sat me down in front of a typewriter (no word processors in those days). A policewoman from another section who was working with us on swing shift scowled at him then put her arm around my shoulders and told me to take my time. This incident briefly restored my faith in my fellow officers but my newly replenished cheer was cruelly crushed moments later. A cop from the ops room rushed in and informed me that my sergeant had caught the offenders and was bringing them back to the station. I should have been overjoyed, but I wasn’t. It meant I had to face the man who tried to kill me. Suddenly everything became far more real. While the offenders were on the run I could convince myself that the situation hadn’t been as dangerous as it patently had been. With this in mind there was one question I desperately needed the answer to.
'Were they carrying real guns?' I asked. Part of my ability to cope had been to convince myself the gun was a fake. If this was true then my life hadn’t been in danger and the bad guys were just trying to scare me. I didn’t get the answer I was hoping for.
'Yeah, the gun was real all right. Bloody big one too. A 44, the sergeant said.'
Holy Shit. So much for my sanitised version of the events.
Now I was mad. That bastard really had tried to kill me. And he’d tried to kill me with a large-calibre weapon, which somehow made it worse. Jesus! I could have ended up in the morgue, my promising life snuffed out before it had got going.
I thumped the typewriter with my fist, accidentally changing the word balaclava to balaclavaljhkbk/jnbvbhhjkjn. I calmly told the ops guy to inform me when the offenders arrived. At least I tried to say it calmly; instead it came out as a garbled squeak, which I had to repeat so he could understand it, which spoiled the effect somewhat.
I spent a nervous twenty minutes working myself into a state, waiting for the assassins to arrive. I hadn’t planned what I was going to do when they got here but by God, I was gonna learn them not to take pot shots at Constable G K Wood.
When they arrived the watch-house keeper called to tell me Sergeant Nelson had them in the cells. I ran down the corridor to the lockup. All of my section was there but I didn’t care. I had psyched myself up and an audience wasn't going to stop me. The first inkling that something was wrong came as I entered the cell. The prisoners were facing the back wall away from me, their legs spread as if ready to be searched. It was definitely the two guys I’d chased. I recognised their dark clothing. Two balaclavas lay on the evidence table beside them, right next to a large, evil-looking pistol. What struck me as strange was neither of them was handcuffed. It was just a passing thought and I gave it no more consideration. I was too intent on giving the guy who had tried to kill me a punch in the nose. I’m not normally a violent man, but sitting around in the station after the tension of lying in the mud with bullets flying around my ears had pushed me over the edge. I grabbed the big guy’s shoulder and spun him around, my fist drawn back ready to strike. I looked straight into the face of one of my friends from another section. He had a massive grin on his face. The guy I’d been chasing turned around as well: another off-duty cop.
My entire section burst out laughing. I’d been set me up. Unbelievable. It had been Sergeant Nelson’s idea (surprise, surprise). He decided I hadn’t been properly initiated into the police and saw it as his duty to rectify the situation. He ignored the fact that my old section sergeant had already given me the traditional initiation. This had been an admittedly sad attempt to scare me, which involved a guy from my section threatening me at the airport one night. He waved a broomstick handle at me claiming it was a shotgun. I wasn’t fooled. Being set up this far into your career was unheard of, which is why I didn’t smell a rat earlier.
Looking back, all the signs were there: the lack of injury after so many shots (the ‘bullets’ I heard hitting the water beside me were blank cartridges being expelled from the gun barrel); the deviation from procedure by my partner in making me, the victim, search the scene, the absence of shock and panic among my section members, the lack of medical assistance for me and the lack of cuffs on the offenders in the cells. Any or all these things should have tipped me off but I had no reason to believe the situation was anything but genuine. This was the brilliance of my sergeant’s plan. He had completely and utterly suckered me and was enjoying every second of it. The rest of the station was also having a good time and the two ‘offenders’ had a captive audience as they retold the story from the beginning.
I was ridiculed for my slow exit from the car. The cop I chased across the field told everyone about my ‘stop or I shoot’ gambit, which brought the house down. He then claimed he had to keep slowing down so I could keep up with him, which I hotly disputed. There was much merriment expressed at the description of me lying face down in the mud while being shot at and my partner found it hugely amusing that I was willing to trudge around in the river looking for cartridges after the event. Of all the incidents this was the most damaging, as it illustrated how gullible I was.
However, I did come out of the initiation with some unspoken kudos (at least that’s how I like to remember it). I hadn’t freaked out under fire, I displayed courage by climbing the river bank to see where the offenders had gone after they had shot at me, and I had been prepared to smack them in the nose for daring to use me for target practice. All in all, I could have done worse and I think it made me a more accepted member of the section.
Once everyone had finished laughing at me, my sergeant took me aside and assured me there would be no more initiations so the next time someone shot at me it would be for real. How comforting. He then gave me an hour off to go home, have a shower, change my uniform and calm my shattered nerves. Wasn’t that good of him?
Mr Helpful
Carey listened to my initiation tale with growing fury. She was incensed and was ready to go to the station and punch my sergeant in the nose. I was impressed by her indignation and had half a mind to let her take a poke at him. Knowing my sergeant, he would have thrown the book at her. She settled for giving him a withering glare whenever she set eyes on him. She went about making me feel better by fussing over how courageous I’d been. Then she called the other girls around so I could retell the story. There was much oohing and ahhing and the more I repeated it, the braver I became. By the time Quentin heard about it, I was catching bullets in my teeth and disarming the offender by bli
nding him with an accurately thrown mud ball. Even he was impressed by my fearlessness and appalled by the police’s callous behaviour.
Sheep wasn’t. He thought the police had played a brilliant trick and found it hugely amusing. Incidents such as this were the things that made flatting with an unlucky klutz like me bearable.
My Gonzoness may have been irritating at times but it was never boring. I was in fine fettle later that month at a good friend's wedding.
The groom’s name was Shane but in those crazy days of ridiculous nicknames, he was known as Wolf. I’m not sure why. He was not predatory and didn’t look canine in appearance, nor was he a loner. It was one of those nicknames that people pick for themselves, where the criterion for selection is that it sounds cool. These are the best kind of nicknames to have, as other people are less generous when bestowing monikers upon you. For example, no self-respecting male would saddle himself with a name like Peewee but there are a few of them about.
Some people don’t need nicknames to be humiliated by: often their parents have selected a real name at birth that will ensure ridicule for life. I once arrested a man whose name was Dwain Pipe. I’ve also come across a Christian Church, a Bob Down, a Wayne Kerr and a Sherry Bottle. My all-time favourite is that famous man of religion Cardinal Sin.
Wolf however was sticking with Wolf even if the rest of us kept referring to him as Shane.
He was marrying a lovely girl called Sharon. She had been a friend of mine for some time and had been in the same teachers’ training college intake as Quentin. They were a fun group whose main aim in life was to survive their late teens with physical and mental well-being in complete disarray.
As with any close knit group of friends there was bound to be someone you fancied the knickers off, but knew it was never going to happen. In my case this covered any female who showed even a passing interest in me. That’s a lie; they didn’t need to show any interest; if they were a living, breathing female that was enough. Not that I ever did anything about these fantasies, as Carey would have removed vital parts of my anatomy with a carving knife. Parts I was still using and hoped to continue utilizing for some time.
Sharon was a living, breathing female and right from the start I harboured impure thoughts about her. We met pre-Shane and pre-Carey, so it was okay. Not that she would ever have known what I was thinking, because I was woefully inept around women and even worse at reading those bloody annoying female signs they put out.
To let Sharon know I fancied her, I rode out to her parents' farm on my father’s Kawasaki 100 motorcycle. This was a clear indication of longing because her family lived miles away and a journey of any distance on my under-powered trail bike was a major undertaking. Especially as I hadn’t managed to save enough money to get a full helmet and travelling on the open road wearing a half helmet equalled a face full of bugs. This was my undoing on my one and only trip to Sharon’s place. Three quarters of the way through the journey a wasp flew into my face and became wedged between my cheek and the edge of the helmet. It was several minutes before I could pull off the road and rip the helmet from my head. The wasp spent this time stinging me repeatedly on the cheek. When I finally arrived at Sharon’s place I looked like a less attractive cousin of the elephant man. We spent a fun afternoon putting ice on my badly swollen face and picking bugs out of my hair. Any chance of romance had been squashed as flat as that wasp was once I’d got my hands on it.
Shane obviously fared better (having the advantage of not possessing a face like a plate of mashed potato during dates) and was going to lead the fair Sharon down the aisle in little over a week’s time. I was invited to the wedding as were Carey, Sheep, Sheep’s girlfriend, Quentin, Quentin’s flat mate Lindsay and his partner. The nuptials were to take place in New Plymouth and we decided to get motel accommodation as that would be more fun than staying with our parents. Carey was the exception to the rule. She wasn’t going to stay in a motel with me in the same city as her parents. I didn’t argue. I was more scared of them than she was.
On the Friday night before the wedding, we decided to do what young males have been doing since time immemorial: we were going to have a quiet night in and discuss personal growth. After that we decided to get drunk and try and find naked women to ogle. The groom’s night was arranged for the night before the wedding and the girls begrudgingly agreed to keep out of the way. Carey insisted on confiscating my car and car keys. Like I’d do anything stupid!
With the party well under way and most of us happily under the influence we decided a great way to get even drunker, faster, was to drink beer in the motel’s spa pool. Normally this would have been against the rules but fortunately stag night parties are exempt from all rules, especially if one of the party members is a policeman. In we piled, buck naked, sweating, drunk and having an underwater farting contest. It was lucky the girls weren’t around as we were at our irresistible best and they’d have had trouble keeping their hands off us.
After twenty minutes of hard core bubbling and drinking Shane left to go to the toilet. I was impressed as urinating in the pool would have been the blokey thing to do. Disgusting but blokey. While he was away we decided to put plan B into action. As we didn’t have a plan B we quickly came up with the idea of handcuffing Shane naked to a parking meter outside one of New Plymouth’s busiest night clubs. There were some logistical problems to the plan, like how were we going to get into town, but we soon nutted them out. One of us hadn’t been drinking - I don’t remember who so it obviously wasn’t me - and that person snuck off to get his car ready. I excused myself soon after Shane’s return and went to get my handcuffs, which were in my motel unit. Never leave home without them. The car owner and I arrived back at the pool at the same time. We ran into the room yelling: 'Guy’s. Come and have a look at what’s going on out here, you’ll never believe it.'
Our cunning ruse worked a treat and the lads streamed out of the pool wearing just towels. Shane stared at the patently uneventful motel car park wondering what the hell was going on. He took one look at the grin on my face and the handcuffs in my hand and the penny dropped. He spun around ready to run but it was too late - he was surrounded, half-naked intoxicated men closing in on him from every angle. Before he had a chance to move he was grabbed and bundled unceremoniously into the car. Several of his ‘mates’ sat on his chest in the back seat.
Our chauffeur drove us to the centre of town, parking just outside the aforementioned night spot. We spilled out of the car dragging the almost hysterical Shane with us. He was begging for mercy but his pleas fell on deaf ears. He should have known better; everyone knows that members of a stag party show the same capacity for mercy as a Sicilian gangster. Within seconds I had one handcuff snapped on his wrist and the other attached to a nearby parking meter. Just as we’d finished cuffing him a large group of women came out of the nightclub. Naturally we called them over and in a move of utter callousness whipped Shane’s towel away from him. It was a beautiful moment, listening to Shane abusing us as he contorted to cover his wrinkly privates with his one remaining free hand.
We sat back and laughed until our ribs ached. The girls were good sports and after they’d had a bit of fun with Shane they took pity on him and pleaded for us to let him go. Shane was shaking from the cold night air so we relented. We tossed him his towel and Quentin asked me to remove the handcuffs.
There was a moment of silence as I considered the request. I wasn’t debating whether to release Shane, hell no. I was wondering how I was going to free him as I’d left my one and only key on my car key ring which was at Carey’s place with my car.
I gazed dumbly at the guys. Quentin and Sheep immediately looked at each other and Sheep slapped his head with his hand. Shane looked at me nervously.
'Come on Gonz, a joke’s a joke.' he said, trembling both from the cold and an impending feeling of doom.
I explained the situation in slow measured terms and to his credit he took the news well. Sure, he was going to kill me
when he got free. That was a given, but I figured the blows wouldn’t be too bad as he’d be weakened by hypothermia by then. Shane suggested someone drive me to Carey’s to get the keys. For a second - just a second mind - I thought selfishly of myself. I wondered aloud what would happen if I knocked on Carey’s parent’s door at two in the morning, drunk and half naked, and asked to see their daughter. One look from Shane convinced me their wrath would be less than his, which would in turn be considerably less than Sharon’s if the wedding had to be called off due to the groom catching pneumonia. That clinched it. A woman scorned may have hell’s fury, but a bride scorned makes the seven levels of Hades look like a trip to fluffy bunny land.
Ten minutes later I was knocking on the ominously dark front door of Carey’s parent’s place. I was alone because Sheep refused to get out of the car. Carey’s dad answered the door. He was less scary than Carey’s mum and much more likely to be amused by my predicament. He laughed so hard he woke up the whole house. Carey’s mum came out to see what was going on. She didn’t find the situation anywhere near as funny and glared at me in silence while Carey was fetched. Carey was also less than impressed she warned me in thinly veiled tones what would happen if Shane missed the wedding. I was left in no doubt as to how deeply in the crap I was. Carey’s mum was still glaring silently, which was causing one of my eyebrows to twitch, as Carey fetched my keys.
