"Tommy"

"Tommy" By Dana Part 2 --------- "Girl, get dressed." But, she was almost already there. "I don't have a brush, but, I have a comb." I reached for my wallet, extracted my license and military ID card. "Cully, oh, goodness. How fast were we going?" She'd included herself at "we." I hated to tell her for a myriad of reasons. "At least 110." "Cully." A sense of calm emanated from her voice. She clutched my hand. "Tell the truth, Cully. Whatever you do." "Yes, Girl. Here he comes." Ah shit, he'd pulled his piece. "Girl....he's pulled his gun out." "Stay calm, Cully. It's a felony. He has to, boy." I rolled the window down. From the driver side rear bumper he shot a beam from his flashlight into the front seat area. "Keep your hands at 10 & 2, Cully." I obeyed. She set hers on the dash. I heard his footsteps. "He's coming up." He stopped just before the door pillar. "Turn it off, sir, left hand...Now. Slow, sir." I obeyed and returned my hands to the wheel. Without the side pipes the silence was deafening. "Just you two, yes?" "Yes, sir." "You're married, yes?" "Yes, sir." "Have either of you been drinking tonight?" "No sir." In unison. "Stationed at Offutt?" "At SAC Headquarters, sir." "Rank?" "Sergeant." "Good evening, sir, Missus." I kept my mouth shut. "Good evening, officer." That voice. "Sergeant, are you out of your mind?" "I need it examined, sir, yes." He holstered it, but, left the leather hook dangle. "I'm going to square the window. Leave all four hands where they are. Is this command fully understood?" "Yes, sir." In unison. "I am Sergeant Tommy Gentile of the Papillion Police Department. My badge number is xxxxxx. He leaned in a bit, spied Girl. "Good evening, Missus, are you married to this man?" "Yes, sir." "Good." "Your driver's license, registration and military ID, now." I started to reach. "No, the Missus. I do not trust you right now, Sergeant." "Girl, in my lap are the ID's. The registration is in the glove box." "Yes, Missus, you may open the glove box." She handed over the three required pieces. He looked it over. I remained frozen. "One-sixteen if you're interested, Culburn." I closed my eyes. "Yes, sir." "Can I trust you two to remain here in this rocket ship while I take care of business, or, are you going to bug out as soon as I sit down in the cruiser. Just the truth, son, Missus." "I promise, Sergeant Gentile. I give you my word." Girl came: "Tommy, may I go back to the cruiser with you? I'd like to explain a few points of interest that I believe may be of importance. I swear to you, Tommy, that Cully will not budge. " "Tommy?" I said to myself. "Yes, Missus. Come along." "Culburn, I'll take you at your word and your wife's guarantee. Remain here. For all of our safety you will leave your hands where they're at until we return. Understand, Sergeant?" "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Before she got out, Girl met my eye and pantomimed her love for me. --------- She sat in the front seat of the cruiser with him. I was heartened that nary back up unit came. I'd pulled off the highway and onto a side road after he lit me up. Few cars came by as I waited. More than thirty minutes later Girl returned alone, with the two ID's, the registration and nothing else. "Cully." "Oh, God, he's going to arrest me." The trembling started up again. "No. No, no, Cully. I fixed it, hon. It's fixed. You're clear. No felony. No misdemeanor. No charges. No fines. No trip to the jail house. No jail time. No information sent over to SAC and your CO." She fell silent. I looked thru the rear window. He hadn't budged. "Girl." "It's not a precondition. It's not like that, dear. It is our choice, Dale. We must believe that in our hearts, all three of us." A buzzing commenced in my head. "Girl." "You'd a done jail time. It's a 3rd degree felony He showed me the radar reading. We'd a been court-martialed." "We" again. The tears welled. "Girl, what? Please tell me." "It's his sector, his alone. It's on the very border with Bellevue." (where we resided) "Nobody comes out here but him unless he calls it in. There is no call into the precinct on this. He never made one. He's the Sergeant. Cully. Listen, baby, he's getting off at the top of the hour. He didn't ask, I swear it. I offered it as an accommodation for all of us." "But, Girl." I couldn't go on and stopped. "He lives a few miles from here, Cully. Those apartments we've seen, you remember, we looked at them even. The Fields. He lives there by himself. He just takes the cruiser home and..." Girl fell silent. Then started back up. "I didn't want to put a time limit on it. Then it's bad instead of something better, I reasoned. I, I,,," She stopped again. I waited and she restarted like a pull cord on a lawnmower had been drawn: "With it this way, we're done...after this. Nothing can happen to us then. I will go with him. I will come back to you." "Girl, he's black." "He's a good guy. He really is. I wanted to be nice to him so it wasn't on a preconditioned basis. It's no good that way, for him, or, us. Do you understand that, Cully? Please think about it in that frame of reality. I'm not doing this just for you, but, for us, and for him. We made a connection. That's why I went with him to start with. That was our only chance. If he goes to that cruiser alone you'd a spent the night in jail, at least a night. The judge would throw the book at us. I can't even imagine what the Air Force would have done. We'd be court-martialed. It would kill your father. We'd have to start over. I'd do that. I'll do it now. No problem. I'll go back there and decline it. I'll take the blame and tell him I changed my mind. I'll get the bail money together and we will make our stand. I'm never, ever walking away from you, boy. We started together and we'll go on to the end, together. So help me, God, Cully." The tears were falling freely by then. Girl remained composed. I had no choice. Everything she said was true. "You trust him? He's not a psychopath is he, Girl?" "No, I do not believe so. He showed me pictures of his child, a little boy. He's divorced. She played around on him with another officer on the force. That guy has since left town, but, she won't return to him. It's over. He's devastated, Cully." "Why won't he just let us go then?" "It happened so quick. I wanted to head it off before he made that decision, before he made that call into his headquarters. After that it would've been over, out of our hands and his. I thought I was doing the right thing here. I should never have behaved like I did today." "No, Girl, no." I wasn't having any of it. No. "I was having a great time. We both were. We weren't bothering anybody until I went nuts. A damn miracle I didn't kill us both and anybody else. I'm selling this fuckin' thing! This is not your fault. It's mine. And I have to get us out of it. I'll never live this down if it goes forward. We'll lose our savings, my career. You're right, it'll kill my dad." "How long did he give us to make up our minds?" "It's not like that, Cully. There's no time limit. He's off soon. He's being kind about this, trust me, honey. It's not like what you're thinking." "You'd fuck him wouldn't you? Oh, God!" I wailed, the car windows starting to fog over. "Cully, even if we declined it and he let us go I'd feel terrible. I made a deal, God, a deal sounds so gross, but I did the best I could for us in the moment to keep him from doing it, from doing his job. But, you have to make the choice. I'll back you either way. I did what I could, the best I could. I got him stopped. I made him stop, Dale. He's a nice guy, it won't be the end of the world for me. But, if it's going to be the end of the world for you, your world then you have to tell me that and I won't go, I'll stay here with you all the way. We're young, it won't be the end of us. We'll fight back and we will prevail. A good lawyer and we may even be able to get it reduced to a misdemeanor." My heart clutched and I knew I didn't have a choice. A felony conviction and I'd lose her. I wouldn't drag her thru life with that yoke. No fuckin' way. I saw it clear at that moment. And for that moment, it felt completely right. "Go, Girl. Tell him thank you, that I am eternally grateful. Maybe we're lucky. The Lord saved us from crashing and guided you to our salvation with this man. Oh-my-God-Girl." "Cully, please. don't..." then trailed off. She'd been strong to get us here, on the brink of remaining unscathed. I had to at least match her. I'd caused this situation, this fucking disaster. If I didn't pull it together and stand she'd end up back there in that cruiser begging for me. And she was right if we drove away from him now it'd be a hollow triumph. That was most sobering reality that became more apparent by the minute. She'd gotten him stopped before he got started. I cringed at the thought of her not realizing that and not accompanying him back there at her request. But, it made sense. Her dad was a patrolman for the Cleveland Police Dept. She knew the protocol. "Thank God you went back to that cruiser with him." She clutched my hand. "I'd do anything for you, Cully. You know that. As you would do for me. We were destined to be together, forever." I went: "Girl, go, baby, go on. It's going to be okay. Just promise to call me so I know you're safe and it's not a, a, I don't know, something, bad? Can you do that?" "Of course. I got his address and his phone number right here. He gave me his last rent receipt. He wrote his number on it. Here, keep this so you have the number. Cully, he's lonely, he broke down back there talking about his life. He asked me, he begged me to help him, Cully. He-begged-me." "Good Lord, Girl. I don't know, maybe this was all meant to be." "That's the only answer I could come up with as well." "Call me, please, Girl. I'll be worried sick until then. Please. If I don't hear from you by ten I'm going to this address and bust down the door. Shit, I'll end up in jail anyway. Breaking and Entering is probably worse than Felony Speed. Maybe." "I'll call honey, no matter what. I will, it's going to be okay." "Okay, I'm going to head home, sit down in front of that phone, and wait." "Hold me, Cully." I obeyed. "Tighter." "Let me pull out first, okay? Tell him that. Wait till I'm out of sight then go. I don't want to watch you drive off with him." "I will. I promise." She grabbed her purse, we exchanged (I love you) and Girl was gone. Upon ignition with the side pipes mocking me I made the u-turn. I don't believe it was legal. The fuckin' irony. I didn't look left. And I didn't look in the rear view. Less than a quarter mile down I turned right and back onto 370. Within fifteen minutes I was back in our mobile home, alone. I looked at the clock on the wall. Just a bit past nine. Tommy's shift had ended. --------- (to be continued)