Chattanooga Pulse

Alex Teach is on vacation this week, so we dig back into the On the Beat archives for a fitting column for our Halloween Issue.

Another dream.  Darkness was contrasted by lightning all around. It tugged on the large, cheap plastic shingles on the storefront’s false roof, the modern equivalent of an Old West block-style façade, which was blowing off in sections. I was viewing everything from above my car. As I stood by the open driver’s-side door, I gripped the upper edge of the frame at the roof and gritted my teeth. The storm was here.  It was all wind and lightning and no rain, and the lack of rain was maddening, as if a lack of closure was pervading what I knew should be blistering rainfall, making windshield wipers useless, and thoughts of crawling into the attic seem sensible.

My hair was longer, and this time a streak of gray showed half an inch above my ears, but I was not many years older than I am now.  The collars of my coat were whipping against my neck. My embroidered badge was frayed but still visible. Time was short, as was my patience.

Only a few options left…then the dream ends, leaving me with a memory of irrational fury and frustration.  Weird.  Same dream as always, and as such, background noise to me, so I quickly forgot about it as I put miles on my Crown Vic.

Earlier, I’d left a nice subdivision for a bad reason, and though it was completely behind me, I couldn’t quite get the feeling of being clean again just yet. I’d walked into a well-decorated, well-lit home to find a middle-aged woman sitting on the edge of a bed looking down and wringing her hands ceaselessly, quietly mumbling something to herself and ignoring my cautious greeting.  This was likely because she was sitting opposite the body of her husband, who was slumped between a wall and the mattress with the better part of his head’s contents spread across the wall, a revolver lying next to him.  He was the suspect in his own shooting, and there was nothing left to be done.

Cops and medics made their rounds. Pictures were snapped, measurements were taken, and eventually his body had been removed as tastefully as the circumstances would allow…then as it was in the beginning, it was just the woman and I.

She had no idea how many hours had passed.  Her husband’s remains were gone, but I couldn’t leave her there alone with his final reminder on the walls, because although we record the crime scene, we don’t sanitize it, and his blood had soaked through the carpet and into the padding.  The Missus was in the living room. I asked her to stay there, and took it upon myself to start cutting through carpet and wallpaper with a pocketknife, removing both in great ragged chunks.

Coagulated blood smeared on my dark blue gloves and sweat dripped from my nose as I placed the scraps on the center of her bed, the comforter having been soiled as well as the wall and floor.  My scowl was fixed, but I suppose it was also tinged with disgust for the situation he had put her in.  Put me in as well.

My delay returning to service caught my partner’s attention. He returned to the home to check on me, and was shocked to see what I was doing.  I explained myself and told him to leave, but he insisted on staying.  I directed him to glove up and hold a garbage bag open for me while I stuffed the gory comforter inside.  He barely held his lunch and I admired his loyalty. We finally departed, stuffing the bag in a can outside.  The Missus hugged me goodbye, and at last cried her first tears as reality finally set in. I managed to leave before I broke as well.

I found my partner later, and we sat quietly until he said, “You shouldn’t have touched it, man.  You take it with you when you do that.  You shouldn’t do that, man.”  I had no reply, because I suspected at the time he was right.

He was, of course.  Ten years later I can still see her silhouetted in her doorway when I close my eyes, see the bloody gray chunks on rattan wallpaper, and I can never check on her.  As for so many others, I’ll always just be a reminder of the worst life had to offer, but I do not regret the decision to clean.  Some things don’t wash away easily.  Sometimes someone has to do it for you.

I just wish I didn’t have to dream.

When officer Alexander D. Teach is not patrolling our fair city on the heels of the criminal element, he is an occasional student at UTC, an up and coming carpenter, auto mechanic, prominent boating enthusiast, and spends his spare time volunteering for the Boehm Birth Defects Center.