Attribution: Photo by Jessica Smith on Unsplash
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper having grown up in and around a two-man police force town—Barron, recognizes the personal nature of the relationship between the “law” and the citizens.
The records tend to be in the minds of the police and the policed, and the keeper had established a nuisance identity when once late at night he happened to be incidentally and innocently behind the Barron police car driving out of town on his way home. A long slow freight train stopped things on the edge of town and when it had finally passed, the patrol car in front of the keeper’s car did not move. “Dishie,” the number two Barron officer had either fallen asleep or died while waiting for the train and he blocked the road home for the keeper.
What to do? Midnight approaches and the way home is blocked by a cop who is either sleeping or dead. Even the most careful action seemed fraught with risk so the keeper did nothing except wait quietly, aware that Dishie had obviously identified him earlier in his rearview mirror.
The wait went on—five minutes, fifteen then twenty, and at the half hour mark suddenly there was movement in the squad car and it sped off at a rate obviously not necessary given there was no other traffic in sight in the sleeping town.
The keeper mentioned the incident to a few people but it was primarily something between the keeper and Dishie who seemed to soften his enforcement attitude toward the keeper from that point on.
