AUDIO LINK FOR THE BLIND
Why am I so fat? I know why. I eat so much. I move so very little. I guess I should be asking why I let myself get like this. There is a reason I don’t have any full length mirrors on my house. More than once I have shown up at the station and one of the boys has to tell me to zip up. I can barely fit in my uniform much less see my own zipper. I try to blame genetics but genetics doesn’t put pizza in my gut 4 times a week or go on desert binges. Jenny leaving me certainly put the process into over drive but I was already a good 280lbs when she took off. Don’t get me wrong. She was no slouch herself but I had at least 90lbs on her. For a while I would get warnings about letting my weight get too high from the captain. After I added another hot hundo in 6 months I think I am now a combination of a lawsuit and liability. Everyone sues everyone for everything these days. I wish I could say I am self-conscious and that is why I grew my beard. You know, to hide my chins. The real reason is I just stopped caring. Jenny not only took my heart but also my soul. She was everything to me. No. That is also something I wish I could say. She was good enough and put up with my laziness for a while. God, I suck. I think this as I polish off a “big gulp”. I mix diet and normal Coke to make myself feel better. But then I add sugar. One of those strange behaviors that only the obese can understand. Some kind of weird rationalization that you are starting to change. You aren’t. You are fat.
I am not a good cop. Never was. I just wanted to feel powerful. I felt powerless against my appetite and laziness. It made me feel good to have power over people. I never understood “protect and serve”. Well, I guess I mean I never thought about it. That is until I was in court for tazing a kid for mouthing off to me. Like he knew the laws better than me? Like he could quote his rights better than me? I am a police officer. That is something that deserves respect. It turns out he DID know his rights and knew WAY more about the law than I did. Did you know there is such thing as a citizen’s arrest? I didn’t. When an angry mob arrest you for smacking the kid in the mouth with your stick you learn what it is real quick. The only reason I kept my job is because I think people felt sympathy for me as the local news played footage of me sobbing uncontrollably on the ground in my own cuffs as a little girl called me a cry baby. I claimed I was on anti-depressants and it had altered my mood and judgment. They quickly proved that this wasn’t due to a blood test but they did show my estrogen levels were sky high due to my obesity. After that I fell into the groove of just being your average lazy cop. I clock in and clock out. I try to turn the other way if I witness something that will require paperwork.
One thing I am really good at is chasing people down in my squad car. You see, a man of my stature doesn’t do much running. I even get kind of winded when driving fast so I am really good and knowing the shortest route between two points in this town. I am also really good and timing myself coming around a corner so that I will knock down a perpetrator with my car instead of having to chase him on foot. That way I can claim it was just and accident but I know what I am doing. One time a young punk snatched some lady’s purse. I actually saw it happen down the street as I was in my squad car. He ran right towards me. I looked the other way pretending I didn’t notice but people started knocking on my car and pointing at the kid. At this point the kid had seen me and changed directions down an alley. I took off after him. The Doritos I was eating spilled all over me. I wish I could say I stopped eating them during the chase but I didn’t. I came around the other side of the ally in time to see the kid climb a fence. I quickly backed out using only mirrors as I don’t/can’t turn around in my seat. I cut around the block and behind a 7-11. The kid landed on my car as he was coming over the other fence. He was stunned but only for a second. He dropped the purse and ran thinking I wouldn’t give chase which was a good bet but this day was different. I didn’t want to let this one go. Rounding the corner he I saw him jump onto a motorcycle. Some kind of Jap bike. He headed straight for the highway. I disengaged and headed east knowing that the highway simply arched around downtown and he wasn’t going to dare get off at the downtown exits. I crossed town with lights flashing and got on exit 14. I could see him as I headed up the ramp. I keep my spike strip in the passenger seat so I opened my window and hit a quick turn so the force of the turn would allow me to throw them out the window instead of getting out of the car. He hit them going well over 90mpg and that lucky son of a bitch crashed and rolled right into the lake. I threw a flare out the window so other drivers could see the strip and drove down to the lake. “Help! I can’t swim!” he shouted as he struggled to stay afloat. Dammit. What am I going to do? Maybe I could act like I don’t see him. I can’t believe I think like that. Let a man die instead of get out of a car. Jesus! Plus there were people on the bridge shouting at me to help him. I rocked out of the car and got my rope from the trunk. I threw it out into the water and tied the other end around my waist. Once he had the rope I began to pull him in. However, due to the Doritos grease on my hands and general lack of physical ability I found myself fatiguing fast. My solution was to just start spinning and act like a human cord reel. Sadly this worked great and soon he was on shore. He gasped for breath on the shore but recovered quickly. I on the other hand did not recover quickly and was gasping for breath as I had wrapped myself up with rope. He walked over as I yelled at him to stay where he was but both of my arms were clearly pinned. I tried to get my fat, greasy fingers around my gun but instead just pulled it out enough to finger the trigger and shot myself in the foot. This wasn’t the first time. I fell to the ground and flopped around like an out of shape walrus. He looked like he was going to make a run for it or steal my car. I couldn’t tell which. I looked him right in the eye.
“Kid. Don’t do this. Don’t throw this away. This is the precipice where a life filled with pain can only get worse or you can choose a second chance. A chance for change.” I saw his eyes start to water. I saw a young man without guidance, without discipline and who was for the first time hearing the words he had been waiting to hear. What he didn’t know was that I was referring to myself. I meant didn’t want him to steal my car and get me fired throwing my job away. But he didn’t know that as he helped me out of the rope and surrendered. He cried in the backseat of my car as I tried my best to think of a story of how the arrest went down. It turns out someone on the bridge had a video camera so I wouldn’t have to. Once again I was on the news flopping around all fat and sweaty in a knot of my own doing. There was no audio on the video but you could see me talking to the kid and he would for years tell the story of how I changed his life. I became a hero of non-violence. The headline read “Bumbling blob cop ties himself up to arrest street tough with just words.” I was the symbol in town of what a cop should be. This was when Rodney king was still fresh in everyone’s mind. I was invited to speak at schools and give seminars on how we can influence the teens of our community. I turned them all down of course as I wasn’t looking to get off my couch any more than I already do. I thought about how Jenny might see me and I could use her as motivation but as it turns out that really wasn’t motivating. Instead I rewarded myself with a cake. Actually telling myself “I deserve this”. I fail as a cop, get an arrest due to a misunderstanding and have the balls to convince myself I deserve a treat? Wow Frank. You are truly a piece of shit.
Sgt. Frank Molleni
June, 1994