"Do, too."
"But you do and say things that make you appear to be a cop, and that fool everybody. For instance, the fact that no one can touch you while you're in uniform."
"That's a safety issue. I'm carrying a gun. People hugging you or even touching you casually could pull out your weapon or set it off."
"Set it off? Don't you have the safety on or whatever so no one gets shot accidentally?"
"You can't be too careful with weapons. Also, when you go to a scene, especially a domestic, suspects want to approach you and get you on their side. You can't let them touch you. You maintain a buffer zone around yourself, which makes you more threatening. It's another safety issue."
"It's a safety issue, and you enjoy being threatening."
We went airborne over the speed bump downtown, but this time I didn't think to wake the dead with my Dukes of Hazzard yell. My eyes were on John.
"I like being respected," he said. "I didn't get a whole lot of respect when I was a skinny high school kid. And I like that people don't question me." He glanced at me. "Until now."
"Why don't you want people to ask you questions?"
"I guess I feel like I don't have very good responses."
"Responses," I repeated. "See there? That's another thing you do. You use words that distance you from what you're talking about. Responses instead of answers. Vehicles instead of cars. Weapons instead of guns. What do you call these?" I touched my jeans.
"Denim trousers."
"What do you call this?" I touched a demure part of my shirt.
"Chemise."
I put my hands up to my face. "This?"
"Visage."
I touched my hair.
He turned off the main road, onto the dirt road through the woods that led to Martini's. Yes, everything in this town was at the end of a dirt road through the woods.
He looked over at me. "Indigo." he said. "Cyan." He glanced at the road in front of him, glanced at me. He reached over and ran his fingers down one of the darkest strands in the back, where I'd used a little purple. "Violet."
The car had gotten very warm. I slipped off my jacket. He gave me one more sideways glance, but I couldn't tell whether it was for my violet hair or my cle**age.
"Hey," he said, "I got the day off—I mean the night off —for Rashad's party."
"You're kidding!"
"Nope. Normally I'd be off Thursday and Friday and come back to work on Saturday. But this week I'll be off Thursday, work Friday, and be off Saturday. Thank you!" He gestured out the windshield as if paying homage to the Powers That Be who let him switch his schedule. And then he turned to me again. "Thank you."
"No prob." Before this, I'd entertained a miniature thought of what might happen if I saw John when my official punishment was over two nights from now. This small thought had not become a large thought because it had no room to grow. Currently John was pouring Miracle-Gro on the thought. I was just getting out the hedge clippers to cut the thought down when he parked in front of Martini's.
The town's only non-country bar was as disappointing as everything else around here. With a name like Martini's, you would expect an upscale place like you'd find at Five Points in Birmingham, with low blue lighting and a mod interior. Well, I'd never seen the inside, but the outside was cement block, and I could use my imagination. They probably couldn't mix a martini. Or if they could, they served it to you in a beer mug.
The gravel parking lot was packed with cars. John parked near the dirt road for quick access if he had to chase a drunk driver. I knew John. But then he sat in the car with the siren still screaming, while the bar's patrons peeked out the entrance and ducked back inside.
"Are you scared?" I asked.
"Of course," he said, watching the entrance. "If you didn't feel the fear, going alone into a bar fight, you'd be stupid. Or insane. Or perhaps just gravely ill-informed. That's not why I'm waiting, though. I'm letting the siren soften everyone up." He reached down and flicked off the siren switch. In the siren's place, a bass line throbbed from the bar. "Back in a flash."
“I’ll go in with you and protect you."
He groaned. "I knew you'd say that. I'm serious, Meg. I can't have you in there. I really don't think anything will happen. If I did, I'd call for backup before I went in. But you never know with that many people, most of them drunk. That's why they had a fight in the first place."
"How am I going to gather material for my haiku?"
"Look, it's dangerous enough when I'm worried about my own safety and the safety of everyone in there. I don't want to be worried about yours, too. It's distracting."
"Just stop worrying about me, then. I can take care of myself."
"I don't want you to get hurt," he said.
"Right. You'll get demoted to jail guard. I'm not buying it."
"No. I don't want you to get hurt." He put his hand on my knee. "Meg, please stay in the vehicle." "Okay."
My knee radiated heat. As I watched him pull himself from the car and walk casually across the brightly lit parking lot, I thought dumb things: I will never wash my knee again. I will never wash these jeans again. I will cut the knee out of these jeans and sew a pillow to sleep on every night, just to have a molecule of him in my bed with me.
He slipped his nightstick from a loop in his belt and disappeared into the bar. The throbbing music stopped.
At least once a night, I watched him walk into danger. With his hand on his nightstick or his hand on his gun. It was like sitting up nights in your trailer, keeping the fruit cobbler warm in the oven, listening to the police scanner.
And I couldn't stand it. I was not cut out for sitting alone and still in the dark, waiting.
I forced myself to stand it. I prepared to wait long minutes before the shot rang out. Or until he staggered out the door with a knife in his back.
There was no wait at all. Almost immediately, people poured out of the bar like they were ants and John had stepped on their bed. Among them Eric, staggering as he led Angie Pettit by the hand across the parking lot and behind a pickup truck. Then the pickup truck turned on its headlights and drove away, revealing Eric's Beamer.
I watched them. The scene registered with me at some low level. Hmmm, what was that drunk wanker doing with the midget?
But any inkling of them was gone the second John appeared in the doorway of the bar, unshot, unstabbed, as casual and composed in his cop-like way as when he went in. I gripped the front of the seat with both sweaty hands to keep from jumping out of the car and running to him.