Chapter 6 - Dressing-down

I sat at my apartment, looking through my mail. Bill, bill, bill…. Not much to look forward to. I stood up and walked to my purse, pulling out my checkbook. Three checks left. Not only that, but I hadn't subtracted from my checking log for a long time. I wasn't even sure if I had enough money to cover all my new bills.

Tonight was going to be a long night. I'd decided that I wasn't going to call Thaddeus Harris. The fact that he was never intending on telling Commandant Lassard about the mountain-from-molehill lie about the fish bothered me to no end. As… intriguing as I thought Lieutenant Harris could be at times, my feeling of overwhelming pity for Lassard was stronger. Lassard was so… innocent, so… nice. Not calling Harris would make it easier for me to "confess" to Lassard on Monday about the fish and hope that he'd feel better and change his mind about retiring. Frankly, Thaddeus Harris didn't deserve to be commandant.

I took out a pad of paper. What would my story be?

I was cleaning the office as punishment for back-talking Harris. That explained the reason why I was able to get in the room. As I was cleaning the room, I accidentally knocked the fishbowl off of the desk. I searched the room and found an extra fishbowl. As I was fetching water for the extra fishbowl (and throwing away the pieces of the old one), I came back to find that Birdie was dead. I panicked, stuck him back in the fishbowl, locked the room from the inside, pulled the door shut, and left in a hurry.

But then, how would that explain Harris's lack of turning me in? Eh, I wasn't going to think about that right now. It would be good enough to take the burden off of Commandant Lassard's shoulders.

Eventually I found the nerve to walk over to my answering machine, which showed a big red "3." Huh. That was a surprisingly high number of messages for a week. Maybe Tony had changed his mind about accepting the Corsica back. I wouldn't be surprised.

"April, this is your mother," the message from Monday began, "Did you go to court for the car? I haven't heard from you about it. How did it turn out? I'm assuming well enough, being as you still have your telephone service. Does the academy run all week or do you come home on evenings? When you get a chance, you should call back. Your father and I haven't seen or heard anything from you since you were in the hospital. We didn't want to bother you at the academy, so we haven't stop—"

She'd spoken too long and the machine had cut her off. I smiled. I guess all that time of not talking to me had been above and beyond what the answering machine could handle.

The second message came on, having been left on Monday, and I guessed that it was my mother before it even began playing.

"April, this is your mother," it said. "Apparently I went on too long. I'm assuming the academy goes during the week, because I haven't heard from you yet. Does it go during the weekends too?" An awkward pause. "Alright. Call me back when you get this message. There's something important I have to tell you about."

I hadn't expected the third call to be from my mother, but it was. It had been left on Tuesday.

"April, this is your mother," it predictably began. "Angie doesn't know your address so I wanted to get you the message in some way. She and Larry are engaged. They're having a little get-together on the 15th—not this coming Saturday but the next one, beginning at noon. It's at your dad's country club."

Ugh, Dad's country club. I rolled my eyes. It wasn't actually his, but he was a member. Surely he got a steep discount on this "get-together", being a member and a Carnegie and all. Maybe they hoped he'd leave them money from our family estate and were busy kissing his ass in the meantime.

"I think it's been at least a year since you saw your sister," my mom's voice continued. "You know, you should make an effort to come, April. She doesn't want any gifts, so don't write it off just because you have no money. Okay, bye, before I get cut off again."

Great. How the hell did they expect me to get to this engagement party, anyway? Surely they knew by now that I'd returned the car to my ex-boyfriend. I walked back to my tattered couch and sat down, leaning back on the cushions. I had barely gotten to know my younger sister Angie when I was young—she was the baby of the family and at least seven years younger than me. Of course, after my parents had had me, they'd immediately jumped into having my brother and then waited a good couple of years to enjoy him before having Angie. I'd been officially passed up by a woman who wasn't even in her thirties yet. Her fiancé Larry Allen made plenty of money but I knew nothing about what he actually did. Even so, she'd snagged him and I could barely handle a relationship with a significantly older and recently demoted police officer. Nah. Not only would I not be calling Harris, but I wouldn't be going to my sister's get-together.

I picked up a piece of paper and wrote myself a reminder to buy Angie a card.


I couldn't remember how wonderful it was to sleep in, but it was a Saturday totally free of the academy and everyone in it. I would have slept until noon, had it not been for the obnoxious continual buzzing of my apartment's doorbell. I sighed as I pulled myself out of bed, wiping the crust out of my eyes as I walked towards my apartment's door. Why couldn't I have an intercom in my apartment so I wouldn't have to physically see whoever was there? Ugh.

Who would be bothering me at this hour? I doubt Mullers would purposely wake me up this early on a Saturday. Manson and Stiner didn't even know where I lived. I was sure that even though Angie's engagement was next weekend, my parents wouldn't be wasting this precious planning time to force me to come.

I slipped on my shower sandals and headed out of my apartment, leaving the door open a crack as I staggered up the stairs, still in a half-conscious stupor.

I unlatched the chain from the front door and opened it to find Thaddeus Harris. He looked irritated and impatient but didn't look overly tired like me.

"You deaf?" he said, attempting to make the comment in a teasing way, his lips curving up at the end of his short statement. By how irritated he was, though, it came out much angrier than he intended it to—I think.

"I was sleeping," I said, rubbing my eyes again. My wrinkled t-shirt and shorts and messed up hair couldn't have been too great for him to see. "What are you doing here?" I asked. I then added a sarcastic comment. "What if Commandant Lassard is watching?"

Immediately he pushed through the door with his good arm, his eyes becoming fearful as he glanced behind him. Apparently he hadn't picked up on my blatant sarcasm.

"Good point," he said, closing the door behind him and replacing the chain. Once he was satisfied, he looked at me, his jaw set. "Why didn't you call?"

"I was busy," I said grumpily. "I have other stuff to do, you know."

"Now, is that any way to treat your boyfriend?" he said, attempting to be charming. It was enough to make me roll my eyes and give him a look of disbelief. What nerve!

"Are you serious?" I shot. "You've been ignoring me all week because you want to be commanda—"

"Let's talk in your apartment," he said, peering down the hallway we were standing in with apartment doors lining both sides. "It's not very private here."

"It's really not ready for guests," I countered. "As you can see, I just got up."

"Excuse me; I'm not just a guest," he said. "Mullers may be a guest. Maybe even that weirdo Manson. Me, I'm not just your guest. I can't believe what I'm hearing right now, when little more than a week ago, you wanted to screw m—"

"Alright," I interrupted, not wanting him to get into the details of all that. "Let's go to my apartment. Geez."

We walked down the stairs silently. I looked back for a moment to watch Harris run a hand through his salt and pepper hair. What kind of excuse would he be using for not telling Lassard all week about what had happened on Tuesday? He had wasted three days without saying anything, and now there was only one more official academy day before the decision was made. Instead of being at my apartment, he should have been at Lassard's door, explaining what had happened without actually discussing the sex part, of course.

Once the apartment door was shut, Harris began to take in the sight of my apartment and its lack of decoration or conversation pieces. While he was quietly glancing around attempting to find something interesting to talk about, I let him have it.

"Why haven't you told Commandant Lassard about his fish?" I hissed at him. "You told him you would. It'll be too late soon—it's only three days from now."

"I gotta wait for the right time," he replied. Bullshit.

"I know what you're trying to do, and I think it's terrible," I shot.

"What is it exactly that you think I'm tryin' to do?" he said, clearly not amused by my accusations. He stopped looking around at my boring apartment and stared right at me, seemingly trying to intimidate me with a staring contest. I answered his question while staring right back at him.

"You want him to pick you as commandant, and to never know what really happened to the fish," I replied matter-of-factly.

Now it was Harris's turn to be offended. I could see his face reddening.

"He will know what happened to that damn goldfish," he snapped. "In time."

"Yeah, right when you get that position. I hate to break it to you, but you're not going to get picked," I added. Damn my mouth. It was typical of me to dig my own grave with my lack of a filter.

"What?!" he suddenly blew up, throwing his good arm up in the air. "How dare you think you know what Lassard thinks, or even how the academy works! I'm a damn shoo-in for the position!"

I was still reeling from my decision to dumbly blurt out that he wouldn't be the next commandant. I could only blink rapidly, attempting to figure out how to calm him down.

"You think because Callahan and Tackleberry outrank me that they're more qualified? Bullshit," Harris continued dismissively. "Tackleberry's a loose cannon and you're the one who informed me that Callahan's been sleeping with male cadets. That won't fly with Lassard, if he just so happens to hear about that…."

"Well, what do you call this thing with me then?" I raged, throwing my arms up. "Do you really think you're better than the other instructors? Your lie about the fish is the only reason Lassard is retiring."

"You really think I'm on par with that whackjob Tackleberry yanking out his guns any chance he gets?" he growled. "Let's see, then you got the two mutes: Hooks and Hightower. Motor-mouth Jones is the opposite extreme. Callahan is probably the most qualified, if she could keep her legs shut."

It didn't matter what he thought of the other instructors. I could only think of the parade in the back of my mind, with Harris cowering behind the float's academy seal as shy, petite Sergeant Hooks lifted the little girl off of the horse's back. I rolled my eyes. Protect and serve my ass.

"You know what? It don't matter what you think!" Harris added, his voice full of venom. "I should have known better than to get involved with some punk cadet who thinks she knows everything."

"Get out," I heard myself say. How dare him! My vision shook as the adrenaline coursed through my veins. What an asshole he was! This whole damn relationship was a mistake. Harris was nothing more than a lying coward.

"Lying coward!?" he screeched. "At least I'm not a broke, car-stealing punk with no job!" he shot back.

Oh my God. I'd called him a lying coward out loud. Was I losing track of what I was filtering out? I immediately tried to backtrack.

"Wait—I didn't mean to—"

"I saved your goddamn life four times, in case you forgot, missy!" he raged, his spit spraying on my face. "Saved you from that Wilson Heights dickhead! Got your dried-out ass outta the sun when you didn't know any better! Saved you money on your ex's piece of shit car you stole! Oh, and rescued you from a confirmed murderer while the other cops stood around with their thumbs up their asses!"

I opened and closed my mouth several times, feeling my eyes tearing up. I hadn't meant to say those nasty words out loud, but they were out there and he was pissed.

"Yeah, I'm a coward, alright!" he said, throwing his arms up again, the pitch of his voice uncomfortably high. "In case you forgot, I had a damn bullet fished out of my shoulder a week ago! What have you ever done in your life?"

I felt extremely uncomfortable by the dressing-down he was giving me. There was a ring of truth to what he was saying, which made it more difficult to listen to. I felt like a total loser—what had I done in my life, really?

Harris stomped over to the door, grabbing the handle with white knuckles, his face practically maroon. I heard myself begin to mutter, wringing my hands behind my back as I talked.

"Fine, I'm nothing but a loser," I began, my voice far quieter and weaker than his. "Your… career and well, this, whatever you call it; they're just not going in the same direction. It's obvious that I'm just holding you back."

It was a wimpy closing line, but I had been summarily slammed by Harris with very good points proving how he wasn't actually a coward. I no longer felt the confidence about his being a coward, but I still felt just as strongly that Harris was a liar for keeping information from Lassard.

After I finished my statement, Harris's face showed no obvious emotion but didn't appear quite so maroon. He had no verbal response, but did lift his chin as if insulted. I stood there in my wrinkled clothing as he proceeded to open my door and storm out, wordlessly closing it behind him. Tears spilled out of my eyes even though I was just as angry as he was. Even so, I didn't dare enter my hallway to see which neighbors would be venturing out in the hallway to stare. I'm sure everyone in the building heard Thaddeus Harris yell at me. That thought depressed me even more, and I returned to my bed for the rest of the day, miserable and angry. I now had a difficult choice to make about the police academy.