28. "Gather the Troops"
When she first saw the posters, she was proud of her city's leadership for finally taking a stand against those reckless ne'er-do-wells who made less-than-rich people look like terroristic maniacs, but she didn't think too much about those posters beyond that. She made a mental note for when she got home that afternoon to call Amanda and confirm she was aware of the new campaign to take those devils down, but then she was content to move on with the rest of her day.
Then an outbound train came into the station and a bunch of people got off, most of them much larger than her. From her low vantage point, they first just looked like another couple pairs of legs, and from their view up on high, they likely didn't even see her. But she couldn't help but overhear.
"Rob!"
"What's up, Johnny?"
"Look."
She turned and snuck a glance for just a moment, and even though she didn't see much, she couldn't believe what her brain was telling her she'd seen. She scurried behind a pillar and hid behind it to get a better, safer look.
"Well, uh… at least on the bright side, that's a lotta words, so not a lotta people're gonna read that, eh, right, Rob?"
This couldn't be happening.
"Plus, y'know… it's just our faces, and for better or worse, a lot of people look like us. You gotta get really close to see our stats and, like… stuff about our accents and stuff. And who's gonna bother with that?"
...This could very well be happening.
"Heh… someone oughta tell them I've lost something like fifty pounds over the years. But judging by the photos, they got these details from our old driver's licenses…"
Now that didn't leave very much room for ambiguity, now did it? She didn't know why the bear was doing all the talking while the fox looked catatonic, but perhaps this was the perfect opportunity to nab them. The posters implored dutiful citizens to call the authorities immediately, and so she set out to do so.
But she had no cell phone; she certainly wasn't in the income bracket to be able to afford one. And while there were emergency call boxes throughout the subway station, the 55th and Portsmouth TAN station was rather antiquated in that it was clearly built for the comfort and convenience of medium-sized mammals; those call boxes might as well have been a cloud in the sky above her head. And the only TAN employee she could see was on the other side of the outlaws.
So she ran back to the entrance and exit to find an employee at the stationhouse. Could she have simply asked a bystander at any point to use the call box for her? Perhaps, but there was no way of knowing that any given person riding public transit at dawn wasn't on the side of the outlaws, and most of them were big enough that they could simply kick her onto the electrified railroad tracks and be done with her; she couldn't simply trust these strangers.
Terrified, she ran down the long platform, but she was still small and her legs were still short. By the time that she got to the escalator to get back up to the stationhouse and pay area, she could clearly hear in the distance behind her:
"Somebody call the police! This is the fox from the wanted posters!"
The employee upstairs obliged to call in the report, but by that point a few others already had, and by the time the police actually arrived, the fox and the bear were long gone. It was frustrating; all she wanted to do was do the right thing, but not only did her efforts fail, they made her late for work, and her boss refused to believe her story that she had tried and failed to apprehend two wanted criminals standing idly in a crowded subway station littered with wanted posters with their own images on them.
But she refused to let the bandits win the war just because they won the battle. When she got home that day, she knew exactly who she wanted to talk to. She opened the door to her apartment and went straight for the kitchen phone. Every subsequent ring on the line just chipped further away at her patience as she came so close to being able to share her frustrations with someone who would understand.
Finally, she answered. "Hello, Rebekah?"
"Hi, Amanda, how're you doing?"
"Oh, I can't complain. The kids in my care've been more rambunctious than usual today, but it's nothing I can't handle - still, though, thanks for giving me a reason to step away for a moment."
"Of course. Glad I could help."
"Now how can I help you, Rebekah? What made you want to call me?"
"I'll cut to the chase, Mandy: I saw them today."
"...'Them'?"
"Mmhmm."
"No…"
"I did."
"Just out in the open? Where were they? Were they in disguise or just… walking around as themselves?"
"They were right there on the platform at 55th and Portsmouth. I don't know if you'd call it a disguise; they were doing that thing they do where they think they're blending in by wearing… sports shirts. The stupid fox, he was wearing, uh… oh, what's that other baseball team in L. A.? Not the Dodgers…"
"Was it a red shirt?"
"It was a red shirt. How'd you know?"
"Do those filthy men ever change their clothes!? That was the same shirt he was wearing when he came to my house two days ago!"
"Oh, you mentioned a lot about that, but you didn't mention he was wearing a bright red shirt."
"One of the less infuriating things, I guess. Slipped my mind under everything else. Do those idiots really think they're blending in more wearing flashy logos on their clothes!?"
"They probably think it's reverse psychology-"
"Then they ought to start carrying their bows and arrows with them everywhere, then they'll really look too obvious to be criminals!"
"But listen, Amanda, I'd love to stand in my kitchen and listen to you rant and rave about how much those guys suck, but I saw more than just… it was more than just seeing them in passing."
"Oh… what did you see?"
"I saw them see themselves."
"...I don't follow."
"They put up wanted posters this morning, Mandy, and they discovered them in no time at all."
"...Hmmm. Talk about speak-of-the-devil."
"And believe it or not, they actually seemed surprised to see those posters. They almost looked… hm, were they nervous? I don't want to say they looked nervous because I don't want to get your hopes up, but they definitely looked… confused. Like this messed with some plans they had."
"And with any luck, it has. I'm glad to see that our city's leadership is finally taking a stand against those idiots."
"And speaking of our city's leadership, I did try to contact the proper authorities, but by the time I flagged somebody down, someone else beat me to it, and by the time the police actually got there… those jerks already made an escape. Complete vanishing act."
"Well, you're a good woman for that, Rebekah. And while the competency of this city's police still leaves something to be desired, I'm not going to complain about them taking steps in the right direction."
"Yeah, but I just feel so… helpless that I had a chance to help catch them and I couldn't."
"Oh, don't beat yourself up over it. You did your best. If they were that easy to catch, they wouldn't have been able to do all the damage they've done."
"I know, I know…" She heard movement coming from her living room, and was startled for a brief moment before she realized that it was just her son. It was his day off work, and whereas she'd thought he was out and about, apparently he had passed out on the couch and was just now woken up by her talking. "I've gotta say, though… now that they know we know… I can see this going one of two ways: either they knuckle down and start going into overdrive in their shenanigans… or they get spooked and lose all their nerve. Hopefully the second one, but those guys seem like they're too stupid to realize that they shouldn't be too confident in themselves."
"Oh, don't be such a Debbie Downer, Becky. Have faith that the tides will turn in our favor. Actually, I remember once when that dang fox told me and my family - th-this was back when I was foolish enough to fall for his charms - that fox looked me in the eye and promised me that one day soon, happy days would be here again. And you know what? He could be right, because the dumb fox never defined his terms! Never crossed his mind that a picture of happy days in this city might not include him!"
And Rebekah likely would have emphatically agreed with Amanda's assessment had she heard it all, but she was distracted by the sight of her son groggily walking into the kitchen. He made an annoyed shushing gesture, she annoyedly pointed at her phone, and he annoyedly threw his arms out as if to say that that was precisely what he was annoyed at in the first place and didn't see that as a valid excuse.
But she turned her attention back to her conversation partner. "You know what? We really ought to hold another meeting."
"You know what? I completely agree."
"What night should we plan for?" She knew Amanda worked six days a week and was in temple for all of the seventh, so she just assumed that they'd have to convene on an evening as they usually did.
"You know what? Would Saturday afternoon work for you?"
"Uh… Saturday afternoon?" Her son had gone back to the living room to wait out this storm. "Are you closing for the day?"
"No, but it ought to be a manageable load since a bunch of these kids' parents have the day off. I'll have a lighter load."
"But still… you want us to show up while you're running the daycare?"
"Rebekah, I understand your concern, but the rest of my nights for the next week are already booked. Church events and primetime television and such. And this meeting can't wait that long. I can make Saturday afternoon work. I can multitask. I'll manage."
"Uh… if you insist. Who do you want me to call?"
"I'll call them all myself, Becky, thanks. I'm the host; they'd best hear it from me. I'll see you Saturday."
"See you Saturday," she said as she hung up the phone. After she did, she took a moment to just take a few breaths and try to come to come to terms with the fact that she had squandered a golden opportunity to strike.
"So I couldn't help but overhear 'Amanda' and 'those guys suck'." Her son had wandered back into the kitchen. "Amanda's the rabbit lady, right? The one who belongs to that weird cult that thinks that Jesus lived in Kansas City?"
She acted like she wasn't surprised to see him. "Her religion doesn't think that Jesus lived in Kansas City," she said, sounding moderately offended on her friend's behalf. "...Her church does think Adam and Eve lived somewhere in Missouri, though, and - yeah, that's pretty weird."
"Alright, so Adam and Eve lived in Kansas City. Close enough."
"No, George: Missouri."
"...Mom, Kansas City is in Missouri."
"Ahem, it's called Kansas City."
"Yeah, because it's on the border with Kansas the state and it's immediately next to another Kansas City on the Kansas side but nobody ever talks about that one because it's smaller and even suckier than the one on the Missouri side. Alright?"
"...Fine, you're technically right about Kansas City. But Missouri's a big place so the Garden of Eden probably wasn't in Kansas City."
"No, I looked it up awhile back when I first heard about the Mormon-Native-American thing, I forget the name of the town but it was something like Libertyville or Independence or something, where they think significant biblical shit happened, and it's right in the same county as Kansas City - Missouri."
They stared at each other for a moment, looking bored and unimpressed, before she turned away and maintained her bored look as she went to examine the day's mail on the counter.
"Fine. You think I'm stupid. I get it. Nice way to treat your mother."
"Jesus Christ, Mom, I don't think you're stupid, I just think you're… stubborn."
"Yeah, just like me and your father," she said without looking at him. "I know, I know; that's where you get it from."
"I'm stubborn when I know I'm right about things and people put up a fight about them anyway! But if you were paying attention, you told me it was Adam and Eve instead of Jesus and I backed off. Ya see?" He walked a little closer to her. "Do you expect me to just say 'yeah, you're right' when I know you're not because I'm supposed to assume you can't handle me challenging you? Now that would be disrespectful - at least in the world I choose to live in."
She kept shuffling the letters but not actually processing any details about them. "I thought I raised you in a world where you would choose to be nice to people."
Long before this moment, George had already had plenty of thoughts about how society would have a lot of conflicting answers about how one should treat an elder when they were being unreasonable in a way that wouldn't be tolerated coming from other people. And he still hadn't made up his mind about the best way to do it now. But he had certainly made up his mind that it was a mistake to let his mom guilt-trip him into letting her cosign on this condo (he owed him for each and every year she'd let him live with her, she'd said, and with her asshole ex-husband finally out of the picture, it would have been awful cruel of a son to let his mother be oh so lonesome). Now the next question was whether it was a prior mistake to take a job he didn't want and to keep accepting promotions he didn't care about just so he could support himself and ultimately be able to afford a pretty nice condo like this, just to wind up in a situation where most of the neighbors still assumed that the mother owned the home and the son was a bum who just lived there while she paid all the bills herself, which was especially stupid because they'd surely know who he was if they simply watched the news or just, you know, asked him what he did for a living like a nice neighbor would. But he just kept trying to tell himself that it was a stroke of fortune that he could even afford this place; when you're a rodent in a job that's expected to be taken by a big mammal, they legally have to pay you the same, and that money goes a much further with physically smaller real estate.
Then again, it wasn't so fortunate that he basically had no choice in letting his mom cosign on the condo on the grounds that he needed her help figuring out how to buy a home at all, something everybody else in his life either refused to teach him or didn't know themselves. She'd always seen this lapse in knowledge as a failure on her son's part, refusing to believe him when he insisted that, no, they did not teach such adult life skills in the American school system and he hadn't just been inattentive in class that day. This, among many other things, would be something he would vent about to his boss the next time they were bored at work together, not because he particularly liked talking to his boss but because he needed someone to vent to and making new friends as an adult was another life skill that he was never taught in school.
He moved in and gave his mom a one-arm side-hug. "Mom, I love you-" (and as far as we can tell, that statement was true) "-but I don't love everything about you, and I'm not gonna treat you like a god just because you're my mom, okay? I'm an adult now and if I have a problem with you, I'm going to treat you like any other adult in my life and tell you so, because only then can we talk it out - like adults. Alright?"
She walked out of his half-hug and went to find the letter-opener without looking at him.
"The fact of the matter is you can be unreasonable sometimes," he continued, "and… honestly, I don't like having such infuriating thoughts about my own mom. But I also don't think I'm wrong to, because I wouldn't tolerate that from anybody else, okay? I'm trying to help you."
She opened the letter.
"...Because in my world, mature adults talk things out… and they don't vindictively stay silent when the people they love are trying to have a genuine conversation with them."
It was a bank statement.
"...And I'm sure you'd agree, since you didn't like it when your husband would ignore you when you were yelling at him."
She had made eight cents in interest on her savings account.
"...Would this be a good time to mention that my old therapist said you qualified as 'emotionally abusive'?"
"Oh, of course he would!" she snapped at him. "He's only hearing your side of the story! If he heard my side of it, he'd hear all about an ungrateful little boy who still needs his mommy's help doing grown-up stuff!"
"Yeah, of course I do! Because you did the mother-son equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome-ing me!"
"Then go complain to your therapist about it!"
"I don't go to a therapist anymore because I don't have time because I'm always working to pay for this apartment that I-I really didn't even really want but you pressured me my whole life to be successful and buy you a house someday! So I did."
She went back to her mail. "It's not a house, it's an apartment. You're still not there yet."
He stormed out of the kitchen to go rot his brain with more daytime television and she went back to sifting through her junk mail, both of them lamenting that they couldn't have an adult conversation with the other because the other was too pig-headed and immature. She likewise loved her son but didn't love everything about him; she wanted a son who was smart, but not a smartass. And of all career paths, he chose to be a cop? Cops become cops because they're not smart enough to get cushy office jobs that pay big bucks like she'd always imagined him having. She honestly wasn't proud of the fact that her son had risen to the position of County Sheriff's Deputy, because rather than demonstrating work ethic, it demonstrated how far he had run down the wrong road - plus the fact that he spent his off days watching Jerry Springer and Wheel of Fortune didn't do much to paint him as a hard worker, either.
And the worst part was that he didn't even seem to have a passion for his job - or for any other line of work he could have chosen. Even wild, fantastic careers with slim chances of success never seemed to appeal to him; as far as she knew, young George never wanted to be an astronaut nor an athlete nor even a rockstar. You know what embarrassed her more than the idea of having a lazy or defiant son? Having a son who was some kind of unfeeling schizoid who lacked the innate mammalian trait of enjoying something enough to want to make it his life's work.
But she was also an extremely lonely person, so after hardly five minutes of bitter silence, she walked into the living room and struck up a new conversation with her son as if the previous one had never even happened.
"Anyway, the reason I was calling Amanda was because I actually saw that you guys are putting up posters trying to catch those guys who live in the woods outside of town."
If she had said anything else, he would have been extremely tempted to call her out for acting like it was normal and healthy to press the reset button on an interaction and pretend everything was peachy-keen after a conflict had just transpired without resolution, knowing full well that he'd probably get nowhere with her and only strengthen her resolve that he was a disrespectful little shit but he really wouldn't have cared. But what she said had actually intrigued him. He put the Simpsons rerun on mute and turned to her.
"You mean the bandits or whoever?"
"Yeah, the big British fox and the bear he hangs out with."
"Huh. I'm surprised they already did that, I thought they were waiting on… a higher-quality print job or something."
"Yeah, it just looked like regular office paper, I probably could've made those posters in Microsoft Word, but I saw them. The posters, I mean - but then I saw them."
"...You mean the motherfuckers themselves?"
"The very same."
"Jesus, Mom, why didn't you call me!? O-o-or the police in general?"
"Op-op-op! Hey now, don't assume I didn't try to call the police, because I did!" she said with a wagging finger and a condescendingly self-assured smile. "But they got away by the time I could find somebody."
"Hm… alright, my bad, fair enough," said George, hoping she'd pick up on his hint that he believed a reasonable conversationalist wouldn't be hesitant to concede when they were wrong.
"So that's why I called Amanda, you know she hates those guys more than anything else."
He kind of knew that. "You keep saying that, but you never really elaborate."
"Oh, yes I have. Her son?"
"...H-her son? What do you mean, 'her son'? What does he have to do with this? I-I know she's from that part of town that those guys hang out; does she have some sort of history with them?" Before moving into this nice condo on the Northeast Side, the Nutzingers were originally from the Near Southeast Side by the docks in the Holiday Acres neighborhood, which was certainly on the lower end of middle class but nowhere near rampantly impoverished, a place that had never really been geographically nor economically on the Merry Men's radar.
"Yeah, you know, how she used to adore them before her son got arrested for attempted terrorism with a bow and arrow the fox gave him; he wasn't there to help him, and that's when she realized he wasn't the great community leader she'd thought he was, and if anything he was making their community a lot more chaotic-"
"Mom, why didn't you tell me this!?"
"Because I was afraid that if I brought up cops arresting a seven-year-old and charging him with attempting terrorism, you'd think I was saying all cops are bad-"
"No. Mom. Not the arrest part; I know there's dipshits on this police force, thank God I outrank them now. I meant why didn't you tell me this lady knew these guys personally!?"
"Oh, I've told you that before."
"You have not."
"Yes I have."
"Mom, I would have remembered that! Having a connection to somebody who actually knew these cocksuckers as people would have been really freaking useful!"
"Well then, maybe you should have listened to me more when I said it."
"Then tell me exactly when and where you told me. If you remember so well, you'll remember the context."
"George, enough. I remember what I remember, and I remember that I've told you that before."
To that, he stood up off the couch and threw his arms in the air. "Fine. If you can't even consider the possibility that you might be wrong on the slightest thing, then we can't have this conversation. I'm going to the bathroom."
"George, get back here."
"I need to go to the bathroom."
"George."
"Ergh- Jesus, lady, I actually have to go to the bathroom! Do you want me to shit on the floor to prove it!? Because I'll do it! Or are you so used to lying to get out of situations you don't like that you're just assuming I do that too!? That's called projection, and it's pretty bogus."
"...Fine. Go. Take your shit."
And so he went off to the lavatory. And just as the door shut, the phone rang again.
Rebekah retrieved the call assuming that her friend was calling her back upon realizing that scheduling for Saturday wasn't the greatest idea. Without so much as a glance at the caller ID, she answered, "Hey, Amanda."
"...Who's Amanda?"
The voice on the other end was… well, it certainly wasn't a deep voice by any stretch of the imagination, but it was definitely a guy on the other end. A guy from somewhere a lot closer to the Heart of Dixie.
"Who's this?"
"...Oh, you must be Nutsy's mama! He's told me lots about'cha!"
Only then did Rebekah check the digital screen on the phone. The black block letters on the green field read "WOODLAND, E"; only then did she put the pieces together.
"Oh, uh… all good things, I hope!" she replied.
"Aw, plen'ny a' good things, don't you worry! He only ever says that the only reason he fights wit'cha so much is 'cause he wants your approval so bad!"
She was none too pleased to see that her son was freely talking about their quarrels with work acquaintances, but she forced herself to retain the positive sentiment of what he'd said. "Well, he doesn't need to fight so hard for it, he already has it." In some ways more than others, perhaps.
"And 'sides, he always says you're a heckuva lot better than his daddy ever was anyways!"
All she could think to herself was He'd damn well better think that. "Well, hey, nobody has a perfect relationship with their parents - honestly, it'd almost be weird if somebody did!"
"Mind if I can talk to him? Work-related. Police stuff."
She was kind of put off by how blatantly he had rerouted the conversation, but again she told herself to be polite; after all, he wasn't calling to talk to her. "Sure, jus-just a second."
"Um, hi," George said with a sideways glance from the toilet as his mom opened the door slightly.
"Oh, don't worry, I'm not seeing anything!" she said as she stuck her hand with the phone into the bathroom through the narrow opening; indeed, she could not see any part of him. "You've got a phone call!"
"Mom, I'm… kinda preoccupied, wouldn't you agree?"
"George, it's your boss."
"I-I didn't ask. I'm on the toilet. He can probably hear me saying this, even. He can wait."
"He says it's important."
"Mom! There is currently feces… coming out… of my asshole. Do ya mind!?" he asked with a strain in his voice that heavily implied that he wasn't just being hyperbolic in that statement.
"Oh, just-!" And without finishing her sentence, she blindly tossed the phone in what she thought was his general direction; the phone bounced off the lip of the bathtub, popping the battery compartment door right off and liberating one of the batteries as well, and landed in the tub basin while the wayward battery rolled its way into the drain.
He exited the bathroom a few minutes later, and after explaining to his mom why he needed another ½A battery, he called his boss back.
"Nutsy?"
"'Sup, Fatass?"
"Nutsy, no more of this 'fatass' this 'n' that! You are to refer to me as 'Chief'-! I-I mean 'Sheriff'!"
"Mkay. 'Sup, Sheriff Fatass?"
"Goddammit, Nutsy!"
"It's telling that you still answer to 'Fatass', though."
"We're on the phone, Nutsy, who else couldja be talkin' to!?"
"Ooh, fair point! I'll let you have that one."
"Nutsy, this is no way ta' be talkin' to your sheriff!"
"Don't worry, Ward, I don't hate all fat people, just you and other specific fat people who specifically remind me of you, specifically. In their mannerisms and shit."
"George!" his mom barked from the kitchen. "Don't talk to your boss that way!"
"It's a cop thing, Mom. You wouldn't understand," he replied with a hand over the microphone. He returned to his call. "So what's up with you?"
"So I gotta ask, Georgie-Porgie… did you go runnin' your mouth and tellin' people around the station that I'd run into the outlaws on my own a while back?"
"I told them that you insinuated the shit out of it, absolutely."
"...Now come now, Nutsy, why wouldja do that?"
"Because honestly it was really freaking weird and cryptic how you said something like 'I've been alone in these woods before and I won't make that mistake again' and I just… I needed to share that insanity with someone else." That, and he was trying to make more work-friends so he wouldn't have to exclusively confide work-related matters to Ward.
"...Nutsy, I was hoping you'd keep that a secret."
"Well, hey, man, how was I supposed to know it was so personal?"
"Because I trusted you."
"...Oh." That's when George remembered that as lonely as he felt, his boss was surely lonelier. "Hey, uh… my-my bad, man. But hey, next time, if you want me to keep it under wraps, tell me so. That's all ya gotta do. Alright?"
"Well, Nutsy, it's not just that ya got me questioning my trust in you. You also kinda screwed me outta a day off."
"...How so?"
"They made me come in an' give a formal interview about that night. I just got home."
"Aw, jeez, that's a bummer, dude. How long did they drill you for?"
"Not long, really. I didn't have much ta' tell 'em. It was six 'er seven years ago, Nutsy, I don't remember all the details myself."
"Wait, it was?"
"Was what?"
"Six or seven years ago?"
"Yessum."
"I… shit, I just kind of thought this happened recently. Like on a day that you just… incidentally weren't with me."
"No, Nutsy, this woulda been when you were fresh to the force yerself and you an' me'd hardly even met yet."
"I, uh… I see. So: ...what happened that night?"
"Nutsy, I don't want to repeat everything I just told them."
"Alright, alright, fine, whatever, just uh… there really wasn't a police report from this incident back in the day?"
"Nope. When it happened, I could hardly remember it. Shellshock or whatever. But I've been puttin' the pieces together over the last few years. And I gotta say, Georgie… the piece that made it feel like the puzzle was finished was hearing you say their names."
"...Whaddaya mean?"
"They definitely told me their names that night. They were braggin'. But just like the shellshock made me forget half a' what happened right off the bat, I forgot their names too. Then I heardja say 'em… and fer the first time in years, I felt like I completely remembered that night. That's prob'ly why I toldja later that I'd been alone in those woods before; when we got outta the mayor's place, that was all I had ta' think about."
"Uh… I see."
"So while I'm pissed ya cost me a day to get drunk and let loose, I'm kinda glad you made that snap in my head. Kinda felt like I got control a' my mind back after so long."
"Oh, well, uh… hey, no problem. I-I was wondering how you hadn't known their names if you've had a close encounter with them before, but, uh, as long as it patches up a continuity error in the story of our lives, uh, hey, I'm happy to help."
"That you did, little buddy. But, uh… hey, speakin' a' names and faces, goddamn did they get those wanted posters out fast!"
"Yeah, uh… I ain't seen them myself, boss, I haven't been out of the house all day, but I've heard about 'em," George mumbled as he swung his legs around onto the couch, assuming that his boss had finished the important part and was now going to bore him with pointless small talk.
"Yeah, and they printed 'em cheap, but then they printed a million of 'em! Now listen, Nutsy, I'm not the brightest bulb in the drawer, I know I'm not, but even I gotta ask: what's the point of tryna save money if they're just gonna blow they're money by making a bunch of 'em?"
"Hm. Pretty smart thought, honestly."
"You think those medieval-lookin' sons-a-bitches are gonna be scared seein' their faces all over town or do ya think they're gonna just get pissed?"
"Man, I don't know them that well," George grumbled. "I mean, they tried putting the British dude on a poster a few years back, didn't they? But they doodled him wrong and nobody recognized him so that basically didn't count as an attempt."
"Yeah, yeah, guess we'll wait and see."
"Mmhmm." This conversation with his boss was putting him to sleep.
"You hear they're gonna show the footage on the news tonight?"
That woke him up. "Wait, what?"
"The video."
"What video?"
"Elky and Goldy goin' ta' town on that poor dumb hyena kid, remember?"
"...and what news is this gonna be on?"
"Oh, maybe all a' 'em? They gave it to the stations in town, now it's up ta' them if they wanna put that on TV."
George sat upright on the couch again. "...Shit, we're gonna have riots tomorrow, aren't we?"
"Riots over what? They got fired, didn't they?"
"They didn't get arrested."
"'Course they didn't! Why would they be!? They really think we're gonna throw 'em in the cell with all the guys they helped put in there!? They'd get eaten alive. Cruel and unusual punishment, the Constitution forbids it. Know yer law, Nutsy."
"Well in that case, the people'd probably say the only just option left was to put them in a freaking guillotine!" George was finding himself shifting in his seat every few moments, more from existential discomfort than from physical discomfort. "I'm just saying, man, if a bunch of riots break out in Antonucci Park, don't be surprised."
"You really think so?"
"Ward, I grew up in this town, I know how its people tick." For example, I know that the other cops in this town won't talk to me because they think I'm a midget pussy who used to see a therapist and the civilians in this town won't talk to me because they think I'm authoritarian square, so I'm stuck talking with you. "So… yeah, shit, I guess between the impending riots and the… the Happy Chaps or whatever the fuck they call themselves seeing their faces on paper all over the city and deciding they oughta go for broke… things are about to get real, Ward. We're gonna have to actually start trying at our jobs."
"Oh, what! Are you accusin' me a' not doin' my job the best I can!?"
"Uh, you and me both, brother. We slept through our fuckin' promotion ceremony, remember?"
"Yeah, yeah, I remember, ol' Prince John was pissed at us. Was kinda funny when he put his hat on ol' Chuckie, though."
"And you know what? Speaking of the son of a bitch, why does he think any of this is a good idea? Whose idea was it to release the beatdown footage to the media? Was it his? Was it not his and he didn't pull some strings to cover it up? That and putting up those posters specifically because his sycophantic fucking assistant convinced him that it was a good idea to stir shit for the sake of stirring shit… man, I'm really getting the impression that this guy's trying to make a mess just so he can look good for cleaning it up."
"Hm… you know what? That wouldn't hardly be a bad idea!"
"Jesus, of course you would think that. But you know what? ...If this is how he wants it, then fine. Have it your way, slugger; create your own problem and knock it out of the park with trying to fix it. Fucking maniac. Thi-this is a man who found out that people were derisively talking shit and calling him 'Prince' behind his back, retro-fucking-actively nicknaming his brother 'King' even though nobody even liked his brother when he was in power but at least he seems tame now by comparison, kinda the same thing with George Fucking Bush and his daddy… but then he decided that he liked how regal that nickname was and started owning it. So he wants to be royalty so bad? Fine, make like an absolute monarch and fix this problem all by yourself. Go on, I'll watch. Make my day."
"...Damn, Nutsy, ya sure are steamed about all this."
"The guy just drives me fuckin' crazy. I can't believe he's our mayor. But I know I stumbled ass-backwards into my job just like he did, so while I'm not judging, I'm also not gonna pretend I have any loyalty to my boss or my department. They wanna fire me for not kissing his ass and bringing about his idea of a new world order structured entirely around him, fine, fire me, see if I care. I'm not dying for this asshole."
"He really does wanna be the king a' town, don'he?"
"And how."
"But don't forget, Georgie. Whadda they say? 'No man rules alone.' He can't do this by 'imself, Nutsy, and if we help 'im get what he wants, there might be sumpthin' cushy in it for us!"
"I'll pass, buddy, I'd rather live a rough life that's my own than be a supporting character in someone else's."
"'Ey, suit yourself, pardner, but I kinda like how the kitty-cat's thinkin'! If he can prove 'imself as the mayor this town needs, we might be right in the money!"
"'Right in the money'? Uh… Ward, dude, ol' buddy ol' pal… anybody ever care to tell ya that the fundamental concept of government is supposed to be a non-profit organization?"
"Aw, Nutsy, yer just jealous that we'll be rollin' in taxpayer dollars and rich-people bribes while you're out in the cold! He can be the king and I can be his trusty right-hand man!"
"You're not even the central figure of your own fantasies. Jesus, this is depressing."
"It'll be great! It'll be just like, uh… um… Nutsy, what was the name of the lion from The Lion King?"
"...You mean the movie about the fucking Rwandan genocide!?"
"What!? No-!"
"You wanna be like that!?"
"No, no! What's- isn't The Lion King the Sidney movie about the lion king in Africa?"
"That's Long Live the King, you fucking crazy person!"
"...I coulda sworn it was called The Lion King."
"Long Live the King was about a cartoon lion prince of a precolonial African land whose dad got deposed by his tyrannical uncle so he steals it back; The Lion King was about a real-life lion dictator of an African country a few decades ago who tried to exterminate all the hyenas and probably woulda done it if he hadn't gotten deposed!"
"...Oh."
"Yeah. 'Oh' is right."
"Well, hey, Nutsy, it's not my fault I don't know a whole bunch about kiddie cartoons like you do!"
"Dgfhh- I've never seen Long Live the King either! It came out when I was in high school and that is not an age where it's cool to watch Sidney movies! But I still know of it because I'm a man of the world and I'm aware of the fact that that stupid kid's movie broke the frickin' box office! I mean, shit, it's just like what we talked about the other day at the mayor's, where the fuck were you where you were completely unaware of the wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl last year? You don't even have to witness events to be aware of them!"
"What can I say, Nutsy? I'm a busy, important man with busy, important duties, and I ain't got time for such silly stuff."
"Holy hell, you really do spend all your free time locked away in a room getting drunk while the entire fucking American cultural zeitgiest passes you by, don't you? You dumb fucking dillhole."
"Nutsy, you know I don't drink alone like some sad-sack, I aw'ready took ya to my favorite bars in town- wait, what the heck's a 'dillhole'?"
"A stupid asshole. Which you are."
"Now where in the hell did you learn a goofy word like that?"
"Because in the mid-Nineties, I wasn't watching kids' cartoons like Long Live the King, I was watching fucked-up grown-up cartoons like Beaver and Butt-Head, alright? Edgy animation was very en vogue at the time and I was in on it. We grew up in different eras, Ward; I'm sorry no one your own age wants to talk to you."
Rebekah, meanwhile, had long since stopped trying to do anything productive as long as George's talking in the other room was distracting her. She had many a time chided her son for having what she called 'selective hearing'; it never crossed her mind that he may have inherited it from her.
"Well hey," the sheriff continued over the phone, "I wouldn't be choosin' ta' talk ta' ya MTV Generation fuckwits either if I had the choice!"
And yet here you are, choosing to keep talking to me on your day off when it seems like you're done with telling me the pertinent details. "Dude, if you were born twenty years later, you'd've grown up with the same amazing stupid awesome trash I did. Oh, and The Brothers Grunt, that was another MTV cartoon I was hooked on, I wouldn't even call it good, just fascinatingly disturbed and I couldn't stop watching. Man, if the guy who made that ever tried to make a kids' show, he should be arrested…"
Rebekah was frankly embarrassed as both a mother and a citizen of Nottingham to overhear her son and the county sheriff discussing cartoons like a couple of kids at recess. She couldn't help but think that as both an adult and as an authority of the law, George should be more active in his endeavors. Like with those assholes in the woods who ruined Amanda's family, George and the wolf shouldn't be sitting around and waiting for those assholes to come to them; they should be going out and doing something, like… like… hey, there was an idea.
Somewhere along the line, George realized he was now the one boring the other party with insipid phone conversation, so he decided to wrap it up. "But anyway, yeah, so we've established that this is the day that shit starts getting real, because the Cheerful Chums got a fire lit under their ass and everybody in town's gonna want to see Tommy and Matty get executed by intentionally-botched public castration. Anything else you needed to say before I go?"
"Just thanks again for makin' me hafta go in an' get interviewed on my day off."
"I thought you said you were actually kinda glad to get control of your memories back? Like… cathartic or something?"
"...You know what? You're right. So it's half 'thanks' and half 'get fucked'."
"Or half genuine 'thanks' and half sarcastic 'thanks'."
"Eh, sure. I still wanna regular day off, though."
"Dude, chill, I think I heard they're gonna give us a day or two off next weekend."
"They did?"
"Yeah, for our birthdays. They said fuck it and picked a weekend roughly halfway between yours and mine. For us to share."
"Aw, Nutsy, ya remembered my birthday!"
Yeah, I remember because it's six-nineteen and that makes me think of sixty-nine and that makes me think disgusting thoughts of how gross and unsanitary you'd probably make it if you ever got the chance to copulate with a woman… "Yeah, I remember, uh… I remember it's a few weeks before mine. Easy to remember. But, uh… we good?"
"Good fer what?"
"Good to hang up and get on with our lives for the rest of our day off."
"Uh… yeah, yeah, I think I said all I needed ta' say."
"Alright. Take care, Sheriff Fatass, ya dumb dillhole." Beep. He pressed the button to disconnect before his boss could protest his remark and slumped in his seat, letting out a phew of relief that that excruciating bit of banter was finally over.
And the exact moment she heard that beep and that sigh, Rebekah welcomed herself into the living room. "You know, George, I actually had an idea."
"That I should marry a woman I'm not actually interested in just so I can give you the grandkids you've always wanted and then you can be happy?"
She gave him a dirty look that conveyed that she disapproved of his sass but didn't convey that he was actually incorrect to say she wanted him to do that. "No… I thought that maybe if you're in this pickle where you've got to redeem the name of the cops in this town and you think those assholes in the woods are gonna make a resurgence and put up a bigger fight, then maybe… maybe you could come join me when I go to Amanda's on Saturday."
"...You want me to go to the Mormon lady's meeting?"
"Yes!" she beamed. "Like… wouldn't it be good for a high-ranking police officer to get involved in their community and meet with the civilians who're fighting alongside you to beat those criminals? And… and think about how good for morale it would be for our group to know that we have the authority of the law on our side!"
George tried not to look too condescending upon hearing that, because he didn't think that was a bad or illogical idea, he just thought it wouldn't work out. "Mom, that's… that makes sense and all, that would be nice, but… I gotta go to work that day, Mom. They don't just let me wander wherever I want all day just because I'm a high-ranking, uh… person." Well, they kinda do, but that's only because stupid Ward drags me wherever he wants to go without their permission, it ain't my choice. "I mean, maybe if you gave me more time, I could try to swing it so I could get formal permission to go-"
"Who do you need to get formal permission from?"
"Uh… basically anybody who can hold me accountable for disappearing for what they decide is no constructive reason. The chief- the sheriff, I mean, still getting used to that - uh, the mayor, the county commissioner… the media… the person at the department in charge of payroll and timesheets-"
"Well, why can't you convince all these people that attending our meeting would be a constructive reason to be off your regular beat?"
"I… I mean, I can try, but I can't guarantee that I'd win them over everybody in one calendar day-"
"Actually, what is your regular beat?"
"...Basically at this point they just want us doing whatever we think we can do to catch the Jolly Lads or whatever; that's what I meant by 'disappearing for a constructive reason'-"
"And attending a meeting to learn what the community's doing to help you catch them isn't a constructive reason?"
"...Well, can you just… tell me what you guys are doing and save us all some time?"
Rebekah kept staring for a moment before she decided to stop standing over her son and sit down next to him on the couch. "They seriously don't have a detective's department to deal with this?"
"I mean, we do, but they kinda suck at their jobs and we never hear from them because they basically only find useful information when it's convenient for them to find it."
"Oh, that's horrible. And… and they don't have you and the sheriff spending most of your time at a desk? I just sort of assumed that when you get that high in the ranks that you spend most of your time bossing lower cops around and not getting much on-the-scene action yourself except for big, important situations."
"And they'd probably say that all of these last few years have been a constant big important situation with the Chipper Muchachos running around. Listen, Mom - I'm just as confused as you are. I'm starting to get the impression that other departments aren't like ours. It's almost like our department was structured by someone who doesn't understand typical American police hierarchy as much as they should. Kinda like… honestly, it's like we're in a fuckin' movie or, or a book or something where there's a police department that's prominently featured but it's not quite the main focal point, so the writer just sort of operates under a vague understanding of police structures and fills in the blanks with guesses, but they guess wrong, and… but then again, this is the same town where we have a North South Dakota Avenue and a South North Dakota Avenue, so maybe nothing in this city is supposed to make sense. Why do we live here again?"
Rebekah couldn't help but smirk and nasal-laugh at that. "Because Gramma and Grampa thought it was better here than back in Buffalo." She paused as her smile suddenly became a lot more intense. "C'mon. Do this for your mom. Please?"
George wasn't in much of a mood to be a smartass at that point. "I'd love to get paid while sitting and watching your friends talk, but-"
"And honestly? It's another way to keep you safe and off the streets." And her look seemed to get even more tender. "You know I worry about you doing your job. Just give me a little peace of mind. You know I'd be crushed if I ever lost you."
Well, jeez, Mom, then act like it more often, would ya? Where was all this over-the-top sweetness twenty minutes ago? "...I'll ask if I can make it work."
"Thank you." And she leaned in to give her son a hug and he reciprocated.
"And by the way, does your group even have a name I can tell them when they ask me where I'm going?"
She leaned out of the hug and looked a bit confused.
"O-or, actually, better question, are you guys an official organization?" he asked. "Like… are you guys legally recognized? Because it'll be a lot easier to get permission to visit if you're an actual entity recognized by… some level of government."
"What? Oh- no, no… we're just a bunch of regular people doing big things," she cooed, "that's what makes us special."
"Uh… okay, but you'd look a lot more legitimate in the eyes of… everybody, basically, if you guys incorporated on some level."
"Well, hey, talk to Amanda about that. This whole thing's her brainchild." And she leaned in and kissed her son on the cheek. "Thank you."
"By the way, you still didn't clarify if you guys have a name or not."
"Nope. Just ordinary people doing extraordinary things." And with that, she got up and walked back into the kitchen without saying another word. And George just sat there and wondered if he had successfully struck the balance between being a good enough son to his mom and standing up against an emotionally-unstable parental figure trying to exert an inappropriate amount of influence on his life again.
He wasn't lying when he'd said that he would have loved to be able to sit back and watch the fireworks at that stupid meeting while being on the pay clock for work; he just really thought he'd get shanghaied into being Ward's little buddy during his wayward wandering for the day. He was still thinking of his boss as he drove to work that day, pondering the irony of how he and Ward were essentially a dysfunctional foil to the fox and the bear that they were looking for and how much less his job would suck if he and Ward actually had a rapport like those two had. And he was still thinking of his mom as he found himself at work early that day with time to kill, taking the liberty of using a department computer to Google the signs of varying mental conditions ranging from BPD to NPD to the other BPD to MPD to DID, and how to help loved ones with those conditions; he didn't find anything relevant, but he did learn that apparently MPD and DID were the same thing now. The more you know.
