I Hate Birds!

**This is the ongoing story of becoming a police officer in my forties and then becoming The Bad Luck Detective. It’s best to start with the first post.

My weekend consisted of lazing around my house and doing nothing. It didn’t matter that the house was a mess. I used ace bandages to keep icepacks on my arms and legs. My husband took me out to dinner on Saturday night, and I drank a couple of margaritas, and finally felt better. I didn’t tell him about what I was facing the following week. I made the entire academy experience sound like a lark. He was glad I was doing so well.

I left at two in the afternoon, and made it back to campus for study group. My class adviser had the short straw that week, and he was in the classroom ready to prepare us for the test. His name was Corporal Tsisonnee, pronounced Tis-on-knee. He was quiet and had not interacted much with the class. I needed advise, and decided to speak with him after we were finished.

He told me he had been informed of my transgression the previous Friday. He asked what I was going to do about it. I told him I needed to change Sgt. Dickens’ mind, and somehow redeem myself. Corporal Tsisonnee told me it would be hard, and it would take a lot of heart.

There was that phrase again. Sgt. Spears from STPD had used it as well. Corporal Tsisonnee said he believed in me, and I could succeed if I truly wanted to. I left feeling better.

The following morning no one was looking at me. Word had spread, and I was not a person you wanted to be seen with. Rocco and Donna were my only allies. I think everyone else was surprised I’d returned.

For PT we headed out to the POPAT training field. We were taken through the obstacle course, and got to drag the dummy. It wasn’t easy. Next we headed to the fences. The chain link was not a problem because you could get a toe hold in the fencing. The wall was a nightmare. There were five of us that couldn’t make it over. Rocco was one, though Donna made it over on her first try. Rocco and I decided we would head back out that evening and work on it some more. 

Morning inspection was a nightmare. My shoes were perfect but not according to Sgt. Dickens. He stepped on my toe, and then complained I had dust on my boot. He also complained about my hair wisps touching my collar. It didn’t stop there. He gave the entire class twenty pushups for each infraction I had. He watched me like a hawk, and I managed to pull through the punishments.

During our first week we were given school identification cards. We attached them to our shirt pockets because we were still carrying around our duty belts. We were told if we lost a badge it would be like losing our police badge and the punishments would be endless. A cadet reported his missing badge to our class leader, and Cadet Clark reported it to the sergeant. We were told to report to the running track at lunch.

I only missed five of eighty-five questions on our Monday test, and had the forth highest score in the class. It was a relief, but I was more worried about what was in front of us during lunch. We double timed to the track and saw Sgt. Dickens waiting for us. There was a flock of large black birds on the football field, and Sgt. Dickens told us one of the birds had our badge. We started chasing the birds. Sgt. Dickens then shouted we needed to be begging the birds to give us back the badge.

We started begging loudly saying, “Here birdy birdy, give us back our badge please.”

We ran across the field and through campus following those damned birds. The college kids got a real kick out of us yelling at the birds. This went on throughout the entire lunch hour. We were then told the birds had left it on the hill at the water tower and we could look after class. Starving and dehydrated we headed back to the classroom.      

We ran the hill that day until we couldn’t see straight. I think the only reason we were allowed to stop was that several cadets looked as if they would pass out. When everyone left, I stayed behind to do my ten punishment hills. Cadet Clark told me he had to stay and monitor me. A young Cadet by the name of Rodriguez stayed behind as well. He told me he didn’t want me to do the hill alone, and he ran by my side. As we ran, he told me about himself. I was incapable of speech at this point, and every breath was a struggle. Cadet Rodriguez was twenty years old, and would be turning twenty-one in a few weeks. He’d worked at a county jail, and had waited until he was old enough to attend the police academy. He said he admired me for coming when I was so old. I didn’t take offense, I was so happy to have someone with me. He chatted the entire time. I had no food in my system to throw up, but I did spit up some foul tasting liquid.

Cadet Rodriguez told me he was struggling with the weekly classroom tests, and asked if I would tutor him. He said he would shine my shoes nightly, if I was willing to help. We made a deal. After the run we went back to my room, retrieved my boots and notes, and went to Rodriguez’ room. His roommates were busy shining their boots and said they wanted to participate as well. My boots were passed around. As the weeks went by we fit about eight cadets nightly in that small room and I also had a study group at my breakfast table on Monday mornings before our test.     

The next day I began the pushup club. During every break I worked on my pushups. We added one pushup daily and I kept track of out totals for the entire day. Including our morning punishment we did 843 pushups that week. The club began with Rocco and me but soon we had about ten cadets joining us. I don’t think they needed to do the pushups but our efforts were being noticed by the Sgt. and advisors. Anything that made us look good was on the agenda, because we were told repeatedly we were pieces of shit, and not fit to wear a badge.  

We were finally given permission to wear our duty belts. We were also issued “blue guns” and told to practice our draw. Blue guns are hard rubber imitation firearms matching our department issue gun. Thank god I had gone out shooting before the academy, and knew what kind of gun I had. It was nice to wear our belts, and not carry them everywhere although a set of handcuffs, a flashlight and blue gun were the only gear we had.

By the end of the week my fellow cadets were treating me normally, but Sgt. Dickens was not happy. On Friday I was given an additional ten hill runs for dropping a piece of paper on the floor in the hallway.

We only had five hills to run as a group, and the entire class ran my ten with me. As I ran, there was a litany going off in my head; I will never call Dickface Dickless again, I will never call Dickface Dickless again, and on it went. This recitation would probably come out at the worst time and I was doing myself more harm than good by saying it, but it got me up those hills when I didn’t think I would make it.

This had been a hell of a week but I had survived and I only had fifteen more to go.