Captain Martinez had exhaustively canvassed the chain of command at Central for details about Officer S. Walker. The picture that she formed was of a driven woman with an affinity for beer and Camels, who somehow managed to solve crimes on her beat, and never revealed her informants. She had never worked with a partner, and she lived in a garage. She had an oversized cat and a classic car. She'd been an MP in Desert Storm and had received glowing recommendations from her commanding officer. It was all superficial as hell. Capt. Martinez wasn't fooled. No one in the station house really knew a thing of value about Stephanie Walker, except that she tended to name things.
Steph appeared at 9:00 a.m. and Capt. Martinez casually asked about her ride over. Steph replied that, "Brittanie is fine, thanks". Capt. Martinez did a double take, then asked about Steph's cat, hoping she'd been misunderstood. "Barney the Cat is on vacation," Steph had confided hesitantly, "and will catch no rats this week, only stray puppies under three pounds." The captain had gagged. Steph had said, "Godzoontight". The captain asked Steph about her apartment. Steph had admitted that she loved playing bartender and having her own pumps, gasoline in the front yard, beer in the kitchen. She was buying drinks for herself and Brittanie by the keg, she joked, delivered monthly by the same tanker truck. She saw that her levity had gone over the captain's head. The woman was just staring at her.
There was no way in hell that Capt. Martinez was going to turn Steph loose as a detective. In the end, Stephanie was offered three choices: narcotics, the K9 squad, or the bomb disposal unit. Steph explained that she never took drugs, and Barney the Cat wouldn't stand for her fraternizing with a dog. She chose the bomb disposal unit. She'd always wanted one for her sink. Capt. Martinez shook her head and filled out the transfer orders. She was astonished that Stephanie had survived for three years on street patrol.
"She was a bit slow," Steph had confided to Brittanie on the way home, "I wonder how she ever managed to become a captain."
"Seniority or nepotism," Brittanie the Desoto had replied with certainty, "the last thing society abides is a meritocracy."
Back at home, Barney the Cat had questioned Steph's wisdom in mentioning his vacation, conveying in a glance that it was really none of the captain's business anyway.
"Of course you're right, Barney," Steph had admitted, feeling a bit embarrassed by her lapse, "but I was just trying to hold up my end of the conversation."
Barney had cocked his head and scrubbed his face with a paw. Steph inferred that he suspected the captain would be setting rats loose in the neighborhood while he was taking his vacation break.
"But she's a police captain," Stephanie had objected, though now a bit doubtfully, "and she's a very busy woman."
"Steph, hon, she could be living in her own delusional world," Brittanie had advised seriously, "for all you know, it's just a front and she's breeding thousands of rats at her house in Sausalito."
"You're right of course," Steph had finally conceded, hanging her head, "I'm sorry guys, I feel like I've let you down."
Barney the Cat had climbed into her lap and nuzzled her chin, letting her know that it was ok. "Steph, you have such a good heart, and it's not wrong to give people the benefit of the doubt. Besides, you have Brit and me to look out for you." He winked at her and she smiled.
"I'm so lucky to have friends I can trust," Stephanie had told them emotionally, "I love you both so very much." They had all felt better after a group hug.
The Chinese were sorry to see her go. The night of her last patrol, the tong sealed off the neighborhood and everyone turned out for fireworks, lion dances, and Cantonese buffet. When the fire department arrived because of the detonations, their fire engines sputtered and refused to run. Brittanie spread the word to the ladder company vehicles that everything was under control, because the police were already on the scene. The locals bought off the fire inspector and ladder captain with cartons of takeout food.
When Steph's shift ended at 2:00 a.m., the party ended as well. People cleaned up their sidewalks, and by 2:30 a.m., when the new cop made his first patrol sweep, nothing was discernable. The heads of the tong met with him on the street, and impressed on him that he had a tough act to follow, but if he could keep the rats under control, he'd get their full cooperation. He shook his head and walked off, muttering about the "crazy heathen Chinese". He was a non-smoker. A week later, crime was back at its old levels of three years before. Within two weeks, the neighborhood was desperately fighting an outbreak of rats. At Central, Capt. Martinez briefly wondered if she'd done the right thing. Citizens were beginning to complain.
Steph went back to the Police Academy. At first, she was disappointed that she wouldn't be getting a bomb disposal unit for her sink. When the particulars of the job were made clear though, Steph couldn't contain her glee. Things that went "bang" were a part of the reason that she'd "Gone Army" several years before. Stephanie applied herself completely and amazed her instructors by scoring perfect grades throughout her training. The only down side was the bomb sniffing dog.
Vito the Dog was a gooberhound, part bloodhound and part mutt. Sergeant Stephanie, (now sporting extra stripes, and drawing hazardous duty pay as well as a standard rank increase), was required to bring her "partner" home; ostensibly to bond. She knew it was a bad idea. Barney the Cat took one look at Vito and let out an unearthly squall, puffing up all his fur to appear twice his size. Vito whimpered and peed, cringing in terror. In the blink of an eye, Barney snatched him off his feet, shaking him like a rat, and accusing him of everything from being an illegal alien, to being a communist, to being a pedophile. Steph had finally separated them as Brittanie shook on her springs in hysterics. Vito was blubbering, licking his crotch, and crying piteously. It was pathetic. Steph lit a Camel.
"Well, hon, do you really want to trust him with your life?" Brittanie the Desoto asked.
"Hell no," Steph replied, shaking her head and thinking of alternatives. Yo Fat-Boy, who owned the illegal firecracker factory, had a dog with a litter of puppies. Maybe she could trade Vito for one of them and train it herself. At least they'd been born knowing the scent of gunpowder.
"What, Michelle?" Stephanie asked, looking up at the author. She was sprawled on the rug with Chelle's cat, Nightshade, one of her long jean clad legs propped up on the sofa.
"I can't believe you thought a bomb disposal unit was for the sink," the author said, stifling her giggles rather poorly.
"Hey, we never had one at home," Steph said defensively. "My mom always said they were dangerous, so how was I supposed to know?" She was standing now, and she'd crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at the author to hide her embarrassment.
Lying on the living room floor with Nightshade the Cat,
Steph remembers her early days with the San Francisco Police; her Chinatown beat, and the Bomb Disposal Unit. It was a happy time, when she lived in a converted garage apartment in Chinatown, with Barney the Cat and Brittanie the Desoto, her first family of the heart.
"Well, didn't you ever read any mystery stories, or watch TV cop shows?" The author asked more seriously. "I'm sure they showed them in some action movies too."
Stephanie looked down, even more embarrassed now. "We didn't have a TV," she said softly, "and the only books I read were for school. My mom wouldn't let me go to the movie theater either, and we didn't have money for it anyway."
"I'm sorry, Steph," the author said, feeling bad now about making fun of her. She looked so sad, and realizing how deprived her childhood had been was kind of a shock. "I didn't mean to make you feel bad, hon. I was just kidding with you. I really didn't understand how hard things were for you at home."
For a long time Stephanie stood, silently remembering the home that wasn't really a home. How hard she'd worked to make up for not having things the other kids took for granted, and always hoping for real friendship. Remembering her heartbreak when she realized that even excelling at school didn't make her acceptable to her peers. She'd been too poor to be popular, and every pecking order had to have a bottom rung.
"I'm…it's okay, Michelle," Steph said so quietly I could barely hear her. She sniffled and darted the back of her hand across her eyes. "It wasn't so bad, really."
"Geeez, Steph, I feel horrible for hurting you like this, I'm so sorry."
"You must think I'm so stupid," Stephanie choked out.
She was fighting to control her tears and I could see it was a losing battle. She was probably remembering all the times that she couldn't go with her friends, or the times the other kids had made fun of her. No wonder she'd left Bakersfield and never wanted to look back. She was starting to turn away, probably intending to go and hide alone in the living room. She'd been alone too much, and now it hurt me to think about it; about her vast loneliness…a cat and a car for a family, making her happier than she'd ever been.
"Stephanie, please…I'm sorry, please don't go."
She was standing, frozen and facing away. I rose and moved behind her, reaching out and softly laying a hand on her shoulder. She was trembling and she started shaking her head "no". I gently turned her towards me, and even then she kept her face turned away for as long as she could. I didn't force her to look me in the eye; I just reached around and pulled her in, hugging her tight. For a few moments she fought, not me, but herself. Then she was sobbing, her slender body shaking, and she buried her face against my shoulder. I stroked her back, her hair, whispering in her ear, "I'm sorry Steph, I'm so very sorry. I wish it had been different for you. I wish you could have been happy."
"I wanted to be," she cried raggedly, exposing so many years of hurting, "I wanted to be happy, but I just couldn't…it was a desert and it was so empty."
I was finally beginning to understand what she meant by a desert. It was her personal symbol for a place, devoid of love, arid of heart, and waiting to dry up a spirit before it could grow. She hated the deserts that were inside and out. She desperately
needed the water of nurturing and the sunshine of love. She was as tender as a cactus flower, as tough as the piňon, and like them both, a survivor.
Stephanie didn't have the opportunity to explore the possibility of training her own dog. By the time she returned to work with Vito, he was completely ruined, intimidated to the point of disassociation, and curled in an unresponsive ball. The shocked kennel master asked what had happened. Steph had informed him that Vito wasn't a team player and didn't get along with her cat. Steph was busted from the search team and relegated to bomb removal.
She reported to the removal unit team leader, a battle scarred, chain smoking Japanese-American named Archie Shimamoto, a Viet Nam vet who walked with a limp. His office was in a Quonset hut at the furthest end of the Police Spec Ops compound, where he couldn't do any damage. Stephanie knocked on the door and heard a heavily accented voice say, "Entah Preees."
She shoved the door open against resistance, the sheet metal dragging on sagging hinges across the concrete slab floor. Too late, she saw a wire pull out of the door jam. Immediately Steph heard the click of an electronic relay, and a box on the desk in front of her began ticking. A digital counter on the top started a countdown from 100, ticking off seconds in glowing red. Wires from the box were stuck into a large blob of C4. Behind the desk sat Archie, in wrinkled black BDUs, furiously puffing on a Marlboro.
"Oooooo, yu gotta ninety second reft, hotta cheeks," he pronounced while squinting at her through Hirohito glasses, "enda then we goah boooom!" He glanced pointedly at the box and giggled.
This sick fuck's crazier than we are, Steph's forebrain and midbrain protested, as she quickly moved forward and examined the bomb. Finally, she eased the wires out of the C4. The readout continued counting down. Steph ripped a detonator cap off the ends of the wires and dropped it into the ashtray. Archie grinned at her, taking off the glasses. The counter reached 0 and nothing happened. Steph sighed in relief.
"Very good, hon," Archie said, no trace of an accent evident. Stephanie looked at him.
"Every so often I have someone panic because the situation is too strange," Archie explained. "They run out, the bomb goes off, and I fire them…send them back to patrol or administration…whatever." He said, absently waving a hand, (he was missing two fingers), before gesturing to a battered recliner in the corner and offering, "have a seat."
It turned out that, after surviving classified duty in the corps, Archie had gone to work for Yo Fat-Boy, but an accident at the firecracker factory had left him minus several fingers. Using preferential hiring statutes, he had applied to the Police Academy as a partially disabled minority. When he proved that he could handle a handgun by holding it inverted and squeezing the trigger with his pinky, he passed the physical requirements. He had been hired easily, and eventually came to head the bomb removal team. It was fine with him. He still loved things that went "boom", and the others left him alone. They thought he was crazy, a perception he actively cultivated, so no one complained that he smoked on the premises. He offered Steph a Marlboro; she declined and lit a Camel. They found that they got along well.
Eventually, Steph and Archie socialized. He lived in a series of railroad cars, welded together and placed on blocks overlooking the bay. One car held a full bar and a karaoke machine. He kept an ostrich in the yard to chase away trespassers, and had a pig named Mattie for a pet. When Steph visited, Barney would spend long hours talking with Mattie, (whom he characterized as a brilliant lateral thinker), while Brittanie sat in rapt attention as the railroad cars described the California of the 40s and 50s. Their conversations were often interrupted by Archie and Steph, drunkenly scream-singing karaoke.
There were several evenings when Steph arrived to find that Archie had invited guests. His company invariably consisted of two late middle-aged men, who Stephanie instantly pegged as ex-military. Nam vets like Archie, she thought, judging by their age. On their first meeting, Archie introduced them as Billy Jack and Billy the Kid. He was dead serious.
"You can't ask them anything about what they did in the war," he told her, "that's all still classified in a file labeled 'Cambodia'. It's 'don't ask, don't tell', once again. You know the drill." Steph only managed to learn that Billy and Billy were in engineering.
The four became the best of friends. If Archie had been a woman, he and Steph would have soon become much more. Sometimes, Archie would pocket secondary charges from their jobs, and then Steph and Archie would drive Brittanie into the desert to picnic and explode the devices. For two years, Steph learned everything about the removal and destruction of explosive devices, from the master craftsman of the trade on the West Coast. As always, Stephanie became very good at her work. It was September of 1997.
Archie prepares to test Steph's concentration while disarming a bomb, mid-1996.
As often happens with people who live on the fringe, it is only the hand of fate that can bring them down. It was a clear early fall night. Archie was lying in bed, looking up through his sunroof at the stars. Mattie was asleep under the front stairs, and the ostrich had its head buried in the side yard. The 271-pound iron meteorite came down smack on the 500-gallon propane tank adjacent to the railroad cars. There was nothing anyone could have done. The explosion flung the 40s era coaches off the cliff and into the bay. Nothing remained except a few pork chops, (the other white meat), and a scorched ostrich steak, (the other red meat). Stephanie was heartbroken.
"Oh Brittanie, why him?" Steph sobbed, the tears rolling down her cheeks as they drove home after the memorial service. "He was my only human friend."
"Sweetheart, there's no reason for things like that," Brittanie the Desoto softly replied, "and we all know what a fucked up place the world is." Brit would miss her friends too.
"I know, Brit, I know," Steph had agreed as she pulled off the highway, "I don't feel too good." She barely made it out the door before losing her lunch. "It could have been us."
Barney the Cat looked at Steph as she stood shivering and spitting to clear her mouth. He glanced at Brittanie, whispering that maybe they should get rid of the gasoline pump in the front yard. Ever the pragmatist, he'd snatched the ostrich steak and dragged it into the bushes…neither he nor Mattie the Pig had appreciated the ostrich's elitist disposition. She had been a meal waiting to happen. Barney had found that she tasted like puppy.
The Bills had been present at Archie's memorial ceremony. It had been military standard. Just before Archie's empty show coffin was laid into the grave, Billy Jack stepped forward and draped it with a unit banner. It was one that Stephanie had never seen, and later she discovered, one that she could find no record of. On a field of red, below the gold emblem of the corps, and superimposed over the flaming bomb that denoted ordinance, there was a small rendition of the atom. There was no unit number.
"Keep in touch, hot stuff," Billy the Kid whispered to her, before the Bills left the service in their black Humvee. It would be years before Stephanie saw them again.