Apprehensions & Convictions

by Mark Johnson

  “They heard the shot and went completely bonkers,” Frank says. “I can’t do anything to settle ’em down.”

  I turn to Brandy and Wesley, who are rocking Frank’s whole car in their hysteria.

  “Shut the fuck up! I didn’t shoot Travis! Settle down or I’ll hit you with the pepper spray!” Then to Frank: “You got your pepper spray, Frank?”

  “I do, Mark, but I’ll be damned if I’monna get it all over my backseat.” Then, to his prisoners, “I tol’ you he ain’t shot Travis! Now settle the fuck down! Detective Johnson prolly saved your boy’s life back there, shootin’ that water moccasin!”

  Frank turns to me, just barely straight faced. “Ain’t that right, Detective? I’monna nominate you for the Lifesaving Award myself.”

  I lock eyes for a moment with Frank, then grin back at him.

  “Awww, that won’t be necessary, Frank. But I ’preciate the thought. Now, let’s get these bozos back to the precinct. I’ll see you there in a few minutes.”

  On the way to the precinct, I make an important detour. I go home and change my pants.

  The Colts have calmed down by the time I arrive at the precinct. Frank has them hooked to the interview tables in separate rooms. Wesley confesses tearfully that all the stuff by the bayou is the result of his and Travis’s methfueled burglary binge. He insists his mama had no part in it, nor did Little Ricky Stedman or any of the other denizens of 3656 Riverside Drive. He puts all this in writing and begs me to tell the DA that he needs drug court, not regular court or jail, that he just can’t kick his addiction without help, and that he’s really not a bad person when he’s straight.

  Brandy is so relieved that I haven’t slain her firstborn, she’s willing to say or do anything. I offer to cut her loose for twenty-four hours to produce Travis for me. If she fails, she goes to Metro as an accessory to the boys’ burglaries, as well as the Hindering charge for aiding Travis’s escape. She swears she’ll find him and drag him to the precinct herself, and I let her walk. I spend the rest of the day processing the recovered property, contacting victims, returning their stuff to them. At home, I tell Nancy nothing about my day and hope Travis is several states away by now, never to be seen around these parts again.

  No such luck. About 4 a.m., I get a call from the precinct. They have Travis in custody and figured I’d want to interview him before they take him to Metro. Dammit, I think, wishing he’d gotten away. No doubt he’s told whoever caught him about my Barney Fife moment.

  “It was a pretty hairy collar,” the officer on the phone tells me. I don’t know him—he’s from the Second Precinct. “Sumbitch damn-near killed Hawkins, in the parking lot of the Tides Inn out there by Highway 90 and Azalea.”

  I didn’t think Travis had it in him. “Really? What happened?”

  “Somebody—I think they said it was his mama—called in a tip that he was at the Tides, so me ’n’ Hawkins go there to pick him up. We ran him first: he’s got active 29s outta Baldwin County for Precursor and Manufacturing—he’s a meth head, y’know.”

  I knew Travis was a meth head but didn’t know he had active warrants. I realize with renewed shame that in addition to my many procedural and tactical blunders on the bayou, I hadn’t bothered to check either of the Colt boys for active warrants. The number and nature of active warrants on a hunted suspect can provide a critical “heads-up” beforehand, indicating how likely he’ll run or how hard he’ll fight to avoid capture. No wonder my Dirty Harry triumph turned sour. No way was I gonna talk Travis to shore, not with active felony warrants on his head.

  “So we knock on the door to his room,” the guy from the Second continues. “This half-naked whore answers, she’s all wasted and tweaking, and she says Travis just left to get some more beer and cigarettes. And we don’t see the car he’s s’posed ta be in, so we figure Mama prolly warned him after she phoned in the tip. We’re about to leave, when who rolls into the parking lot but our boy. We order him to stop and get out, and he just sits there in the car. We approach, Hawkins on the driver’s side, me on the other side with my Taser on him. He’s just sitting there, like, frozen. We order him to turn off the car and get out, but he just sits there like a zombie, lookin’ straight ahead. Finally, Hawkins reaches in to grab the car keys, and he starts fightin’ with Hawkins. I fire my Taser but only one prong hits and it doesn’t do anything. He slams it in reverse and I throw my Taser at his head, but it just bounces off and all of a sudden he’s burnin’ rubber backwards dragging Hawkins with him, his arm all tangled up in the steering wheel.”

  “Shit! Is Hawkins okay?”

  “Aw, yeah. Arm’s a little sore. Anyway, he drags Hawkins backwards about fifty yards, then puts it in drive. Hawkins breaks free, hits the pavement, and gets off a couple rounds at him as he peels out onto Highway 90, and the chase is on. We had units from the Second and the Fifth chasin’ him all through Tillman’s Corner, out Rangeline Road to Hamilton, and then some a your guys join up around D.I.P. and Gill. I guess your guys knew where he was headed ’cause one a your units was waitin’ for him at a place on Riverside Drive. He drove right up the driveway and surrendered.”

  “Wow. No wrecks or anything? Nobody got hurt?”

  “Nah. But now, a course, he’s lookin’ at Reckless Endangerment, Assault on an Officer, and Eluding, on top a the Meth warrants and whatever you got on ’im.”

  It’s still dark when I pull in to the precinct parking lot about 4:30 a.m. There’s a bunch of guys from the Second and the Fifth standing by the backdoor, smoking and joking and replaying the night’s action with some of our guys from the First. They fall silent and part as I make my way between them to the door. Somebody says, “Make way for Da Man.” There are snickers. “Mobile’s answer to Dirty fuckin’ Harry,” another cracks.

  There’s that damn Clint Eastwood stuff again; I just can’t seem to shake it. And this confirms that they’re on to my delusions of grandeur: the frequent Clint references are not out of respect or admiration but derision. Like the moniker that stuck to me in high school football: “Mad Dog.” I was a mediocre lineman at best: big enough in stature and stamina for the line, and I relished the repeated battering and collision required of linemen, but I lacked the quickness and agility to be a standout. In a one-on-one tackling drill one day, my task was to take down my buddy Gary, a receiver whose fancy feints and footwork had earned him the nickname “Dancer.” I ran at him headlong, apparently growling, they say. (I don’t recall growling—more likely it was mere grunting.) In any case, Gary did one of his signature moves, completely faking me out, and I ended up with a mouthful of turf as Gary flitted gaily around me. Much laughter ensued, and one of the coaches, Mr. Mussing, attempted to quell the guffaws of my teammates by saying, “That’s all right, Mark. Good effort! He doesn’t shrink from contact—he craves the hit! He went after the Dancer like a . . . like a mad dog!” Forty years later, at high school reunions, I’m still greeted by growls and barking and shouts of “Doggie! It’s the Mad Dog!” They just won’t let it go.

  As I make my way down the precinct gauntlet of Dirty Harry jeers and jokes, somebody else says, “Your boy spun quite a yarn about you out there on the bayou,” and there’s lots of yukking it up all around.

  I pause mid-gauntlet and look around at the guys, doing my best to affect insouciance.

  “And y’all actually believe anything that lyin’sack a shit says? Sheesh.” I smile and shake my head as if dealing with pathetic morons.

  Inside, it’s just me and Travis, across the table from each other. He’s looking a bit rough: cuts and bruises color his face and arms. His lip is bleeding. His T-shirt is ripped and dirty and blood spattered. He was obviously “tuned up” a bit when taken into custody, which is de rigueur after a cop gets injured, and there’s a vehicle pursuit.

  I put my elbows on the table, clasp my hands at my chin, and study him. Aside from the scrapes, he’s a healthy, good-looking kid with short, curly blond locks and blue eyes. I know from previous deali
ngs with him that he’s a little smarter than his brother Wesley—harder to manipulate or intimidate. We stare in silence at each other for a long moment.

  Travis breaks the ice. “I’m sorry, Detective Johnson,” he says.

  “For what, Travis?”

  This throws him off, and he doesn’t immediately respond.

  “For ripping off all your neighbors? For letting your brother take the whole rap? For letting your mama go to jail in your place? Which thing are you sorry for, Travis?”

  He hangs his head, mute.

  “Why apologize to me, Travis? It’s your neighbors and your family you should be apologizing to. Or to Officer Hawkins, who you dragged across the parking lot. They told me about that whole thing at the Tides, how you damn-near broke his arm, almost ran him over, the shots fired and the high-speed chase all over town. You’re lucky to still be in one piece.”

  “I know it, Detective Johnson,” he says to the table, his head still hung down. There’s another long silence between us.

  “Well, sayin’ you’re sorry ain’t gonna fix any part a this mess, Travis. You’re totally fucked. In addition to your Baldwin County meth warrants, and the boat burglaries you did with Wesley—which by the way he confessed to in writing and put you in—there’s all these new charges now, from the Tides and the car chase.

  “And then there’s the little matter of our shared encounter, out on the bayou yesterday,” I say with a loud sigh.

  Travis raises his head and locks eyes with me. “That’s what I meant. I’m sorry for that, Detective Johnson.” His eyes fill up, imploring. “I know I fucked up, but my mama had nothing to do with any of it. And Wesley—it was all my idea. Just put it all on me. I never shoulda hid from you, or started swimmin’ away. And your phone, I’m sorry, Detec—”

  “Yeah, you’re sorry, Travis. You’re so sorry, you gotta tell all those cops out there what happened between us. You’re one sorry motherfucker, Travis. And if you think I’monna listen to any of your whiney bullshit, you think I’monna give your mama or Wesley a break, if you think for one second I’monna say anything to the DA and the judge other than ‘Lock this whole sorry family up and throw away the key,’ then you’re as stupid as you are sorry.”

  I get up, march out of the room, and slam the door behind me.

  A week later, I decide to visit the Colt brothers in Metro. I start with Travis.

  Gone is the weepy supplication, the plaintive apologetics. In full Metro hard-guy mode, Travis swaggers into the tiny visiting room and slouches into a plastic chair across the table from me. I offer my hand, and he shakes it limply, eyeing me with suspicion.

  “How you doin’, Travis? Face is healing up pretty good, I see. Enjoying the baloney sandwiches?”

  He gives me his best hard-guy sneer. “I got nu’n to say to you. I thought it was my lawyer when they said I had a visitor.”

  I ignore his posturing and begin.

  “Sorry to disappoint you. I’m actually here today, not so much professionally, as on a personal matter, Travis. It really doesn’t have anything to do with your cases. I’m not gonna Mirandize you or ask you any questions. It’s just something I gotta do for me.”

  He remains sullen, skeptical, slouching silently across the table.

  “I guess I’m here, really, to thank you, Travis. And to sorta make amends.”

  He cocks his head and narrows his eyes, trying to get what I’m up to.

  “I don’t expect you to understand, or even care, for that matter, but let me try to explain. First of all, I’m not nearly as different from you as I’m sure you think, other’n age-wise. I mean, I’ve had my own bouts with alcohol and drugs, and a few scrapes with the law, too. They always go together.

  “But I managed to put all that behind me a long time ago, with a lotta help. Thing is, in order to keep all that behind me, I gotta do certain things, or I could real easily slip back into it. I gotta be grateful for shit that seems bad at the time—’cause that’s the only way I can learn from it and keep from doing it again—and I gotta keep my side a the street clean, y’know? Admit when I’m wrong, do whatever it takes to set things right again. That’s the amends part, what they call makin’ amends. So that’s what I’m here for today, with you.”

  Travis is listening attentively but is clearly clueless.

  “That day out on the bayou, when I found you in the water behind the sunk sailboat? I gotta tell you, Travis, I felt like Clint Eastwood, know what I’m saying? Know who he even is?”

  He gives the slightest of nods.

  “I mean, there I am, up on that boat, my Glock drawn, and you’re down there in the water and the mud. I’ve already got Wesley and your mama, got all that shit you stole, I’ve got my Glock on you, and, man! It went right to my head. I thought I was supercop! I mean, I was da shit. Wasn’t I, Travis?”

  There’s the tiniest indication of a smile, and he nods again.

  “Problem is, that’s dangerous. It’s dangerous for any cop to think that way. We can get cocky and take stupid chances, make stupid mistakes, know what I’m sayin’? But it’s even more dangerous for a guy like me to get cocky, ’cause I can start to think I’m like ten feet tall and bulletproof, I’m God’s gift to law enforcement. It’s a way all addicts and alcoholics think, unless we learn how to change our thinking. And in my job, if I slip into that old way a thinking, I can get hurt, and other cops around me can get hurt, and even people I’m arresting, or innocent bystanders can get hurt.

  “So, as embarrassing as that thing turned out to be for me that day, ’specially after you blabbed it all to the guys I work with, I gotta thank you for it, Travis. It was painful but necessary, to remind me not to take myself too damn seriously. We call that Rule No. 62. We’re all a little safer, and I’m hopefully a little wiser because of it.”

  Travis keeps his eyes fixed on mine, lowers his head a little, arches his eyebrows in a quizzical stare, and doesn’t utter a word.

  “Now, as far as the amends: don’t get your hopes up. All those charges on you are stayin’ on you, and between Mobile and Baldwin County, you’ll probably be going to Atmore for a spell. Nothing I can do about that, even if I wanted to. And I don’t. Because that’s not any harm I did. You did all that to yourself and to your victims, of course.

  “But in spite of all this—I could be wrong—but I think you’re probably not that bad a guy, Travis. You just act like one because a your drug habit. Mosta the people I arrest are addicts and alcoholics, no different from me, except they can’t or won’t stop, so they get caught doing stupid things against the law because they’re too high to see how stupid it is, or because they’re so desperate to feed their habits they take stupid chances, or because they been doin’ so much dope for so long they’ve just fried their brains stupid, and they don’t even know right from wrong anymore. But I don’t think you’re there yet. I think that if you could just stop it—and if I can, anybody can—you’d likely be a decent, law-abiding citizen. Like regular people, with jobs and houses and families.

  “So I want to say to you that when you get out, if you wanna kick, and stay kicked, I’ll help you do it. There’s meetings, and programs, and people more your age I can hook you up with if you want. And I’m sorry I never said anything to you about this before now, before everything got so serious.”

  I push my card across the table to him. On it I’ve already written my private cell number. Travis picks it up, studies it in silence.

  “Good luck, man. I hear they got meetings up there, inside. You should try a few, see if it makes any sense to you.” I get up to go and offer my hand again. Travis rises and shakes it for real this time, with a firm grip.

  On to Wesley, the youngest Colt. It’s his first time in big-boy jail, which is a world apart from Strickland Youth Center.

  I’m doubting I’ll ever get a call from Travis, but Wesley’s a little younger, a little simpler, a little softer than his big brother. I’ve had more contact with him than with Travis, becaus
e Wesley’s still more of a criminal amateur. Most of Wesley’s ventures into criminality have been petty crimes of opportunity: shoplifting, grabbing a pack of cigarettes and loose change out of somebody’s unlocked car, stealing a friend’s video games. And I’ve already broached the subject with Wesley once before, suggesting to him that his regular buffet of Lortabs, Adderall, Xanax, weed, meth, crack, and fruit-flavored Mad Dog 20/20 might have something to do with his poor judgment, lack of criminal success, and resulting frequent contact with police.

  Wesley seems genuinely surprised and happy to see me. He affects none of Travis’s tough-guy veneer. He couldn’t pull it off even if he tried, though. He wears his hair short except for a long lock combed straight down in front like goofy Beatles bangs, and he has a spray of freckles across his cheeks. If Travis looks like Wally Cleaver trying to act like Eddie Haskell, then Wesley is definitely the Beave.

  I touch on many of the same points with Wesley that I did with Travis. He seems genuinely surprised to hear of my own checkered past and readily agrees that his main problem is getting high.

  But then his face clouds over.

  “Thing is, Detective Johnson, I don’t think I can ever kick. You know my family. Everybody does whatever kinda smoke or pill there is. I mean, even my Grandma—she’s hooked on her prescription Oxys. ’At’s why she keeps puttin’ us out, ’cause we all keep stealin’ her Oxys from her. Me and Travis and Candy been doin’ it since I was in kiddiegarden. We’d do whatever shit Mom an’ ’em left layin’ around the house. Drain the last little bit a warm beer outta the bottles, smoke up their roaches in the ashtrays, eat whatever pills they’d leave layin’ around. I’m a born addict. I ain’t got a chance, Detective.”

  “But it runs in families, Wesley. Almost every alcoholic or addict has other ones in his family. I got it on both sides, I’m pretty sure. What about your dad? Is he still around?”

  “Him? What about him? You’ve seen him. He’s a fuckin’ retard, Detective. I mean, I know he can’t help it, but that’s what he is and I’m gonna turn out just like him!”