Life Hacks/Tell Patricia to keep the kids back
“Hey,” you call back over your shoulder, “could you keep the kids back? My sister’s running up here and I don’t want any of them getting involved.”
“Uhh… yeah.” She says in a low breathless voice that relays her displeasure at how this has all turned out.
“Daddy..” Billy croaks in a weak voice that contains a lot of conflicting emotion.
“Come on.” Patricia says in a commanding tone as she pulls him down the steps to intercept your sister.
“Fucking bastard.” Billy’s dad growls from below you. “Why you gotta do this in front of my boy!?”
“Hey, you’re the one who chose to come attack me,” you say, “I was just defending myself.”
“Bull shit!” He says, “I’m a cop! I’m the law here.”
“Heh, well just see how far that gets you once your buddies show up,” you counter, putting him into another fit of grumbling as he turns his head to stair at the metal of the next bleacher bench up.
Down near the bottom row of benches, Patricia catches Roni as she tries to run up, stopping her with a gesture. “What’s going on?” She asks.
“It’s Ok,” Patricia says, “some other police officers are going to be here in a little while and break this up.”
“Your brother’s gonna get arrested.” Billy says, but there is a wobble to his voice that tells you he is plenty aware that is not how things are going to go down. He is just telling himself that to comfort himself.
“Nuh uh!” Roni responds, “my brother didn’t do anything wrong!”
“My daddy’s a police officer and your brother got in a fight with him!” Billy says, “he’s… he’s not sposd-ta do that...”
“What’s going on?” Roni asks, nearly in tears. It just breaks your heart to hear her like that. You want to go down and comfort her to assure her everything is all right, but you have no choice but to keep holding on to shit-for-brains up here till his buddies come to haul him in. You hope Patricia is up to the task.
Patricia lets out a gentle sigh that you are able to pick up due to your enhanced hearing, and then pauses for a while to consider her words. “Well,” she says, “there are certain things that even police officers are not allowed to do. It is called an abuse of authority. Billy’s dad was doing this, he abused his authority to try to say that you were not allowed to play baseball with your friends.”
“What!?” Roni responds.
“That’s not fair!” One of the boys says from the other side of the fence.
“Yeah! He can’t do that just caus he’s a police man!” Another kid says.
“So, anyway,” Patricia continues, “him and your brother got into a fight after that, and your brother called for some other police officers to come and help so that they can tell him that he is not allowed to do that even if he is in the police.”
“Good!” Roni responds, “I hope they arrest him!”
“They can’t arrest him!” Billy says, “He’s in the police!”
Well, it seems like they are settling down. All that is left to do is wait. It is amazing how long 2 minutes can be while you are holding someone in a submission hold just waiting to have someone come to relieve you. From your vantage point, you are able to see the squad car pull in to the parking lot, and you see the officers get out. They certainly seem to take their sweet time casually strolling up to where you are, almost like they are enjoying the sunny weather along the way, although you are sure most of that is just your perception as you just want them to get here faster so that you can be relieved of this unpleasant job. When they finally arrive, both police officers stop at the bottom of the bleachers to talk with Patricia. Great. More waiting, meanwhile the police officers are in ear shot and visual range of what is going on. Well, you reason they probably want to get a good idea of the situation before approaching the troublesome individual(s) involved in the incident so that they can act appropriately, but this still is rather annoying for you. Finally, the male officer begins to walk his way up the stairs, but then his female partner holds him back.
“Hold on,” she says, “I think I want a piece of this guy.”
“You can have at him later,” the male officer says. “We don’t know what might happen if he goes flying off the handle, we got a park full of innocent bystanders here.”
That’s the wise choice, you have to admit, although you really do wish she had been the one to come up and put this misogynist in his place, you would have laughed your ass off. The heavy tromping of the officer’s steel toed boots make their way up the aluminum frame bleachers, and he eventually reaches where the feet of Billy’s dad are sticking out into the Isle.
“Well well, officer Richards,” he says, “I might have known." and then, "I got this from here,” he adds on, directed at you.
What do you do?
- Let go and go down to Roni
- Let go and stay up here
- Demand that the officer take the gun and tazer from Billy’s dad first
