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IN MY HUMBLE OPINION ROkie White FEATURED COLUMNIST R Ray Collins FICTION |
The police station in Aspire is little more than a window and a door from the street. A small, squat brick building sandwiched between Nadine’s Fine Clothes and the Aspire City Bank, it doesn’t attract much attention or do much business. Once inside the station, I didn’t look beyond the soles of the boots propped on the oak desk amidst scattered papers and Styrofoam coffee cups. The wastebasket beside the desk overflowed trash onto the pine plank floor. Behind the desk I glimpsed the two jail cells the town felt necessary to contain criminals. I wondered if I would be the next occupant. "I brought in a vagrant, Sheriff," the kid who arrested me said to the feet. The soles parted into v-shape and a head peered through the opening. The Sheriff stared at me. His face was vaguely familiar but I was too worried at the moment to search my memory for a name. "Jayne?" he asked. "Bobby?" I recognized him when he spoke. Amazing he could recognize me at all through all the mud. "Jayne." He swung his feet down and walked toward me. A two or three day’s growth of blonde stubble covered his jaw line. The wavy corn silk colored hair I remembered from high school was practically gone. Only wisps, strategically combed, remained and his scalp shone through slightly red with sunburn. His eyes were the vibrant blue I remembered though. The same blue as the corner of the American flag listing to one side behind his desk. "Bobby…?" I started again. Things were turning out worse than I imagined on my long ride back to town. Whatever happened to old Sheriff Holly? He would have swept this whole thing under the rug, laughed at me and sent me home to Momma. Bobby. Sheriff. Seems I remembered Momma mentioning something about Sheriff Holly resigning and Bobby being elected. I definitely needed to visit more often. Or at least come back for an occasional high school reunion. How many years had it been? More importantly, how was I going to explain my way out of this one? "Well, I guess we’ve got that down." He pointed a finger at me. "You, Jayne," he poked his thumb against the silver badge on his shirt pocket, "me, Bobby." Okay, I thought. This is going well. We were old friends after all. Even though we probably hadn’t spoken two words to each other since high school graduation. "Gee-man-eee, girl. What you been doing? Rolling in the mud?" "Guess that pretty much sums in up." I laughed nervously and Bobby laughed with me. The dimples by his mouth deepened. Half the girls in our high school class had fallen in love with that smile. He was hard to resist when he smiled. Still. Forever charming. Which probably explained why he’d been married four times despite the balding head and the slight paunch. "Mel, get the handcuffs off her. Now." "So I guess she really is Jayne Tilley, then, huh?" Mel asked. He looked disappointed. So much for the wanted posters and filling a jail cell I imagine he envisioned. Can’t say that it made me too unhappy though. "And I guess you know the perp then, huh, Sheriff?" "The perp? My God, Jayne, what did you do? Knock over Wes Watson’s Amoco?" "Miss Tilley was running on the highway and she was uncooperative when I questioned her." Mel answered for me. "She hit me when I tried to frisk her. I’m charging her with resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer." "Cuffs off. Now." While Mel dug in his pocket for the keys, Bobby turned back to me. "Are you still Tilley? Didn’t you change your name when you got married?" I knew every conversation I had in town for the next three months would come to this. Resist arrest. Slug a policeman. The failed romance of the old maid school teacher still took precedence. I rubbed my released wrists. Then rubbed the spot between my eyes that was beginning to ache. "I didn’t get married," I said. "But last I heard you were engaged," Bobby said. "I was. And now I’m not." Only my second day back and already this was getting old. I held up my left hand where the ghost of a line left from my engagement ring stubbornly lingered around my finger. "It’s a long, sad story. So how are you?" He ducked his head and looked behind him. The door to the jail cells was open. In the cell closest to the office I could see a cot made up with pink, flowered sheets and a TV in the corner with aluminum foil on the antenna. "Well, guess I’d have to say that’s a long, sad story, too," he said. "I’m sorry," I said. Of course, I’d known before I asked. Momma told me a month earlier he slept at the police station in an empty jail cell. Ginger, his current wife, threw him out and changed the lock on their trailer house door. It wasn’t the first time Bobby and his clothes had been tossed out the front door. Charming or not, marriage didn’t seem to agree with him. "Me, too." He shrugged. "You doing okay now?" "Sure. Great. I dumped him," I said to clarify any confusion. "His loss." "And hers." I tilted my head toward the occupied jail cell. We looked at each other and smiled. After all these years, it was a peculiar thing to have in common. Mutual losers in the marital game. "Uh, Sheriff, I’d like to proceed with the arrest." "Well, now, Mel…" Bobby rubbed the stubble on his chin. It was serious charges the kid leveled against me. Factual charges. Maybe it wouldn’t be so easy to ignore this. Bobby’s uncertain reaction made me nervous again. "I did hit him but it wasn’t intentional…" "I didn’t hear that," he raised a hand to stop me in mid-sentence. He turned to Mel. "So, if she hit you, let’s see where. Show me the mark." Mel pointed to his nose. He looked like a small boy who’s dropped his lollipop in the dirt. "All I see is a pimple, boy." Mel colored. I squirmed. I’ve always believed an honest person should admit their mistakes. Still, I couldn’t help wondering if assaulting a police officer is a misdemeanor or a felony. But Bobby’s approach was flat out wrong. Mel was only doing his job. He shouldn’t be belittled. I was the one at fault. "No." I clenched my teeth as I said it, dreading the consequences if this didn’t work. "I did hit him. I’m sorry Mel. I was only trying to get away. You scared me when you grabbed me. I wasn’t thinking straight after that tumble in the ditch and your nose…well, it was just unfortunately in the way. I wasn’t aiming for it." Looking at Mel, I was genuinely contrite. I hoped he realized it and let this go on his own. We compromised on a ticket for running on a limited access highway. This news would still make the third page of the County Gazette under Police Business and would be the talk of the town for at least a week. Welcome home, Jayne, I thought as I limped out of the police station. Welcome to a long hot summer in Aspire. |