The Grim Reaper Reaper Security ConsultingChapter 17 Miles Madigan
- 3 years ago
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Fall 2018 to Spring 2019
Thanksgiving was at my parents’ house. Last year it was supposed to be there, but Kelly had inherited it when Dad had his heart attack that week. Another way of looking at it was that Mom gave him a heart attack, considering what the two of them were up to when the event occurred. With all the mayhem I’d been around in my life I’d prefer to check out the way he almost did. Regardless, this year it was at Mom and Dad’s, and it would give us a chance to tease them some more. Up until then Thanksgiving dinner swapped between my parents and Aunt Laurie and Uncle Dave’s house. Now it looked like Kelly and I would be in the mix.
Kelly made pies and I brought a couple of bottles of nice bourbon. This year Aunt Laurie and Uncle Dave attended; they alternated with the Matucket crew and family members out of town. That was going to be the same with Bobbie Joe and Joanne and little Robert; they were spending the holiday in Boston with her family and would visit at Christmastime. Jack, Teresa, Diego, and Miguel were already in town and would be at the house with us. They were flying to Miami on Friday to see her family. He once told me that he was too much a gringo and preferred a Thanksgiving with turkey and stuffing. Teresa’s family was Cuban, and their version of Thanksgiving included roast pork, black beans, and rice. Finally, Grandma and Grandpa would be there.
It was a nice time. Mid-afternoon, Bobbie Joe and Joanne called and Facetimed with us. He also asked Dad if his heart was any better and if he and Mom were still exercising together. That got the pair of them hooting and hollering at us, even though it went completely over the heads of the kids. We kept teasing them even after the call ended. What Kelly and I didn’t do was to say anything about me moving to Athens part-time. We would wait until everything was finalized and tell them, probably around Christmas.
Friday, I called Rich and told him I was interested and what we had come up with as a plan. He agreed that it was probably the only way I would be able to free up enough time to both teach and go to school. He promised to try and schedule any classes I taught to fit in with my time at UGA. He also said he’d ask around to see if anybody knew of any efficiency apartments in the area. The odds were good that something was available since there were undoubtedly students at Georgia who had flunked out after the fall semester. I was checking online and would call Student Housing on Monday to see what might be open through the university.
Our parental units, both Kelly’s and mine, were very concerned when we told them our plans at Christmas. Everyone seemed to consider this was simply the first step on the road to divorce. We assured everybody it was a temporary thing only, and that I would be coming home weekends and holidays and whenever else I could manage it. The same applied when the Athens academy wasn’t teaching; classes ran for eleven weeks, but there was always a week or two in between classes. Our mothers were still skeptical.
Speaking as a law enforcement professional, if this was the start of a divorce, it was the most pleasant divorce I had ever seen. Most that I had been involved in started with screaming and went downhill from there! There’s a reason cops hate ‘domestics.’
I survived my first semester as a doctoral student and promptly ran out and bought my books for the spring semester. I was hoping to begin reading ahead before class started in January. Classes began the first full week in January, which was the same week that classes started at the academy. Classes ended at the end of April. The academy class finished the end of March, and the next class started up mid-April. I would be busy, but it should prove doable. I drove over to Athens right after Christmas and picked up the gear I would need as an instructor, mostly uniform items. Just like the students all had to dress alike, so did the instructors. That wasn’t too onerous a burden, though. Students wore khaki pants and a white polo shirt with the academy logo on it. Instructors dressed similarly, though with black polo shirts. I also picked up any teaching materials I needed at the academy.
We found a small furnished efficiency apartment through the university, with the emphasis on the small. It was a single open room with an attached bath; a half-wall separated the eat-in kitchenette from the living room. The bedroom consisted of a folding futon bed on one side of the living room. The weekend before classes started Kelly and the kids helped me move in. Riley and Seamus didn’t really understand what was happening; Riley wanted to know if Mommy and Daddy were getting divorced. We just assured them Daddy would be coming home frequently. Then after we brought everything in, Kelly began making a list of everything I would need. We headed out to the local Walmart to buy bedding and a few staples. I was to keep a list of necessities and bring it home on Friday, and we would try to scrounge it up around the house. I was also left with several Tupperware containers of leftovers and casseroles I could heat up for meals.
Monday morning, I was at the academy by 0700. Classes didn’t start for another hour, but I didn’t want to be late my first day. It wasn’t critical, in any case. The rest of the instructors came in by 0730 and we mostly just sat around and drank coffee. The first day was folderol, checking students in, making sure they had the required gear, introducing the staff, handing out books and materials, and so forth. I was assigned morning classes, Monday to Friday, 0800 to 1200.
Classes began for real the next day. The Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council made the rules about what you needed to do to become a cop, and the Georgia Public Safety Training Center ran the training. The GPSTC was the main academy in Forsyth, and they also ran the satellite academies throughout Georgia. They weren’t the only police academy in Georgia, though. Atlanta and the Georgia State Patrol both had their own academies. Still, most Georgia police and sheriff’s departments used the GPOSTC and GPSTC requirements and then modified them to fit local requirements. Matucket, for instance, had changed since my rookie days. Now you took the eleven-week course at an academy, followed by three weeks of additional training in Matucket, and then four months of hands-on ride-along training with a training officer. Only then were you considered trained and allowed loose on the public without a keeper.
Athens and the other satellite academies almost exclusively taught Basic courses. Basic Law Enforcement was a 408-hour course, which worked out to eleven weeks. Also taught was an 80-hour, two-week course to become a Basic Jail Officer, but I wouldn’t have anything to do with that. Basic Law Enforcement was a single long course and was required of every peace officer in the state of Georgia. Even if you were an officer from out of state and trying to get a job in Georgia, you had to prove that you had passed an equivalent course elsewhere. Afterwards, you had to take a minimum number of Continuing Education courses every year in order to keep your qualifications current.
There were three levels of police officer in Georgia, Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. Everybody starts out as Basic after making it through the academy. The next two levels required additional classes taken at Forsyth, with minimum additional credit hours and minimum time in grade requirements. It works out to four to five weeks of additional training for each level, but since you have to fit that in around your work schedule with your department, it can take several years to move forward to each higher level. That’s important, too. Most departments have rules about promotions. In Matucket you needed to have at least a couple of years of college and an Intermediate level to be promoted to Senior Patrolman; Sergeant required a four-year degree and an Advanced level. Most other departments had similar rules. Additionally, being a Senior Patrolman opened a number of paths in the MPD. You needed to be a Senior Patrolman to be a training officer or instructor with the department. There was a big pay jump, too, so that with overtime you could make as much as a sergeant. A lot of officers took their time working towards Advanced and never even tried to make sergeant, since they didn’t want to go back to school or stop working side gigs that tied up their time.
As with any Basic course, you ended up with a wide mix of students. Some were already knowledgeable about policework, having experience as MPs with the Army. We had a large number of vets, some with combat experience. That was useful since they already had experience with weapons and body armor and understood being shot at by angry locals. Then you had the utterly clueless, kids who only knew about the police from what they saw on television. We had a real mix.
Nobody introduced me as anything special, which was just fine with me. The first few days involved getting everybody into the swing of things, pushing teamwork and conditioning. We had them running and doing calisthenics, marching and saluting. That proved amusing when Todd Whitlock was leading the class in marching and saluting and somebody in the rear ranks loudly muttered, “What the fuck do we need to salute for?”
Todd immediately ordered the class to stop and come to attention in ranks. “Cadet Winston, front and center!” The loudmouth’s eyes popped open, but he marched to the front of the formation. I recognized him as one of the guys with military experience. Todd positioned himself to the side and said, “Mister Reaper, would you care to instruct Cadet Winston in the reason we teach the cadets how to march and salute.”
I rolled my eyes but marched over to where Winston was standing. He was smart enough to have realized by then that he had fucked up. The way to survive training, any kind of training, was to become invisible. I stood in front of the hapless cadet and looked him up and down slowly. Then I answered, “The reason you are being taught to march and salute, Cadet Winston, is so that you won’t embarrass your department at the funeral when your training officer is killed covering your butt when you screw up in the field. If you wish to avoid that destiny, I suggest that you stop complaining about what you are being instructed in and dedicate your life to learning your lessons. Is that understood, Cadet Winston?”
“UNDERSTOOD, SIR!”
I left Winston and turned towards Todd and received a surreptitious wink. It was a rare cadet who wanted to be singled out like that more than once.
Friday afternoon I packed my laundry and the empty Tupperware and headed back to Matucket. I had called every night like I had been ordered, but that wasn’t enough. I made it home just as they were getting off the school bus. Riley was in the second grade and Seamus was in kindergarten. Sharon O’Connor, Kelly’s mother, was waiting for them in the driveway. They got down off the bus and ran down the driveway, not realizing I was right behind them. She waved at me when I stopped and turned off the car. That was when my son and daughter noticed I was home.
“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” came screaming out from both of them. They ran away from Sharon and over to me. I knelt in the driveway and let them tackle me and take me to the ground. It was chilly but dry, and we roughhoused for a few minutes. Then I stood up and sent them back to the house.
Sharon smiled and said, “Grim, you’re home! Welcome back! How’s school going?”
I gave my mother-in-law a hug. “Good, good. Going fine. Where’s Kelly? Late day?”
She nodded. “She has a late class and then was going shopping. She told me she’ll be home by five.”
“And she didn’t need to go shopping with these two,” I finished for her. I chuckled at that. “Well, feel free to head home. I’m just going to take my stuff inside and settle in. Where’s your Seamus?” My Seamus was named after his grandfather, Kelly’s father.
“He’s here this weekend. He flew in today and will be here for a week.”
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2024 Sunday, I helped Jack get home. He had chartered a plane to fly from California to Matucket (“ Can you imagine flying commercial through Atlanta with a wheelchair?”) so I simply drove over to their house Sunday morning and helped him out of the house and down to his rental. None of our homes had ramps and I asked whether we should build some for their next visit. “Grim, I’m not sure you should bother. I don’t think I’ll be coming back here any time soon.” “Jack...” “Grim, I just...
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Nothing job-related came to my attention by Friday afternoon. I speculated what the perfect job ad would look like - “Wanted! Matucket Firearms Corporation has an immediate opening for product design and testing in their Machine Gun Division! Iraqi war veterans with PTSD desired! Call now, operators are standing by!” I remembered that the AK-47 was invented by a busted-up Russian sergeant during World War II. Too bad there really wasn’t a Matucket Firearms Corporation, either with or without...
Monday, March 19, 2018 “Dispatch to One-Six-Three.” “One-Six-Three to Dispatch, go ahead.” Dispatch to One-Six-Three, say location.” I was curious as to why Dispatch wanted to know where I was, since they had sent me to supervise an accident at Pinetree and Glen Aubrey. There was a three-car pileup on Glen Aubrey after the first car, a silver Nissan sedan had suddenly braked for a squirrel. The next car, a red Ford Fusion had slammed into the Nissan from behind and had then been...
Spring 2019 to May 2022 Saturday morning things started getting silly. I was home when it started, sacked out while Kelly got up to tend to the offspring, when she came in and said, “You’d better get up.” “What’s up?” “The President is complaining about you again.” I looked at her curiously. “Trump?” She nodded. “What’s wrong now? Jack tweeting again?” “I don’t know, but something set him off. He’s tweeting that the Army needs to yank your medals again,” she replied. I rolled my eyes...
Mom got a text from Kelly that she and the kids would fly home early Saturday. Seamus was acting fussy, and it would be very late by the time they arrived on the East Coast. She told me she would call back when she got the kids fed and settled down. I was going to have to con my mother into loaning me her phone, so that she wasn’t listening in while we talked. It was late enough in the afternoon that it was time to watch the press conference on television. I turned it on and dialed through...
June to August 2002 The following week we had finals, and that was it. Seniors had to go through graduation, but the rest of us were out for a couple of months for the summer. For me that meant I had about a week of goof-off time before I had to go back to the mill full time. That would take me through all of June and into July, at which time it was back to practice for the football season, running twice-a-days and sweating off about ten pounds under the July sun. Somewhere during that...
Holden looked at me curiously. “How can I help you, sir?” “Tell me about the department. How did you get the acting chief slot, for one thing? Seniority?” He nodded. “Basically. I was hired by Chief Babcock back when he was first hired. Shawn Warren was hired about a year later. He has Patrol.” “So, you’ve been a captain about two years, and he’s only been a captain one year.” Again, he nodded. “We weren’t even considered for the chief’s slot, at least not permanently. Besides, Chief...
I was glad I had asked for a brunch meeting and not a breakfast meeting. Kelly not only thanked me for being a hero when we got back to the room, she insisted on thanking me again the next morning! It’s too bad that the Herndons were flying back with us, because I would have bet a significant portion of my net worth that Kelly could have been talked into joining the mile-high club otherwise. Ah well... Mike Forrester and Bob Jenkins met us at ten in the cafe for the breakfast buffet. They...
May 2019 The spring moved along, slowly at times, quick and harried at others. February saw Chris Balvin sending out advanced copies of his final draft for everybody involved to do a final edit. We were supposed to review it for any technical or factual errors; it was sent not just to Tolley and me, but also to Jose and Bob. The deal we all had was that any proceeds from the book would be split three ways. Chris was paid a flat $150k up front to write the book, and then he got a percentage...
October 2007 - December 2007 Mid-October, about when it became obvious that I was going to stick it out and go to the academy, Tim Hungerford showed up at the rickety-bench-with-delusions-of-grandeur that I called my desk. He had a packet of paperwork with him. “Take a break,” he ordered. “You need to look this stuff over.” I looked at him. “Why? What is it?” “It’s the packet from the academy.” “Ah!” I nodded at that. “Let’s take a look. You’ve been through this, right?” Tim nodded....
Monday, May 26, 2008 Certain things worked out for me. The bullshit out of the CORB had gotten pretty extreme, and the Justice Department planned to investigate them and not me. The Review Board wasn’t helped when Pendergast was caught saying that he was hoping for the dissolution of the entire Matucket Police Department and its replacement by a federally supervised police force. That was considered more than a bit nutty, even for hard-core Democrats. In any case, it got me off the hook with...
June 2004 - August 2004 Word came down from Battalion that the rest of Second Brigade would be deploying to Iraq soon. It was expected that they would show up sometime in July, but no dates were available. What they would do then was not known, or at least not known to us down at Camp Custer. Where exactly they would be positioned wasn’t known or might change before they got here. However, one interesting tidbit came out. Fourth of the Fourth was going to get some leave. Over the next few...
I told my family to stay there, and I would get my gear and catch up to them. Kelly offered to follow me, but I had to explain that women were not allowed in the barracks, no way, no how! Luckily there was a parking lot near the barracks that would allow me to load my gear up. Dad had driven down in the F-150, so we could toss my stuff in the back and then ride home. The ride home was mostly taken up with my parents and Kelly asking me about the Army and my training. What did I do, what did...
January 2007 Mom was very upset that I wasn’t going to come home on my leave. She just wasn’t buying my explanation about losing my squad. She wanted me to come home, squad or no squad. I think Dad understood, and he told me that his father understood, but Mom was very unhappy. I had been in the Army now for four Christmases, and three had been spent in Iraq. I didn’t even bother telling her about the incident at Yankee North. One of her latest kicks was, “Are you the only soldier in Iraq?...
I stared at Jerry for a second, and then ran over and knelt next to him. His upper right arm was mangled and bloody, and his face was covered in blood. “Oh, Jesus, Jerry!” I wailed, and then I grabbed the mike on my shoulder. ‘OFFICER DOWN! OFFICER DOWN! OH JESUS! OFFICER DOWN AT MATUCKET AND ELM! ONE-SIX-THREE TO DISPATCH! I NEED BACKUP AND AN AMBULANCE ... ROLL EVERYTHING! OFFICER DOWN!” Dispatch was saying something, but I didn’t pay any attention. “Oh, shit, Jerry, don’t you die on me!”...
I couldn’t take any more days off that summer. My time with Kelly was restricted to evenings and weekends, which was probably a good thing, at least as regards to my health. Keeping up with her appetite for sin was tiring! She might kill me, but I’d die with a smile on my face. I did speak to Dad about a temporary dock, and he nixed it, at least for this year. “One, it’s not as easy as you think, or as cheap, or as quick. You won’t get it done, at least not done right, until the end of the...
I had a problem with the academy in Athens related to graduation. Specifically, I would graduate with my doctorate mid-May, but the current Basic Law Enforcement class ran from the end of March through mid-July. I couldn’t stay in my apartment after graduating and we couldn’t justify my moving to a new apartment for just a month. I had been keeping Rich caught up with my schedule and plans over at UGA, but as May moved along, it was obvious my time in Athens was ending. Some of my lectures...
1996 to 1999 In August, football started up again. Matucket Middle School didn’t have a real football team, only flag football, so I was still playing Pop Warner football. I turned twelve on March 1, so I changed to the Midget League team, the Spartans. At twelve I had jumped over the Junior Midget team, which was ages ten, eleven, and twelve. The Midget team was ages twelve, thirteen, and fourteen, so I could probably play there until I got to high school. I knew Matucket High played real...
Seamus turned fourteen on May 8. Like every year before then, Kelly and I wondered whether he would live long enough to see another birthday. The eternal question was which one of us would kill him first. On the other hand, he could consistently manage to take my mind off the ongoing crisis in the Matucket Police Department. Over dinner that night he asked, “Dad, a mistress is a girlfriend, right?” I looked across the table at Kelly and she looked as confused as I did. I turned my head...
September 2003 - December 2003 Dad drove me over to Hartsfield International in Atlanta Thursday morning, sometime around the crack of dawn. Mom stayed at home, which was a good thing, because she spent most of Wednesday night and Thursday morning crying. She was a total basket case, even though I was only going to New York. I didn’t want to be around her when I ended up going overseas. I had to be there early, because I was on a very cheap Delta flight, and you had to be there two hours...
I went into the station the next morning at 0730. I figured I would go in early and see the shift changes and roll calls for a bit to get a feel for things from the bottom up. After roll call, I headed back to my office, only to get stopped by Mindy Hollis. She dragged me back outside to the department parking lot and over to the corner it shared with the impound yard. “This is where we should build a storage annex,” she said. “Why here? In this corner?” “It’s the best choice. It’s inside...
2026 to 2027 We spent about a week cleaning up from the remodeling. There was dust on everything, even the ceiling, and everything needed to be wiped down and washed. Dust even got into all the clothing that hadn’t been boxed up and left in the closets, since the closet doors had to be open so the flooring in the closets could be replaced. We were doing wash nonstop for a week, and Custom Clean Dry Cleaning made a small fortune off us when we took all our good clothes over. The most amusing...