The pager beeped just after ten that night, four hours after I had put the APB out on the wire for my suspect. I put on my black and blue marbled eel skin cowboy boots, grabbed the rich dark brown Stetson and equally hued trench coat from my deer leg coat rack and headed out the door quickly. I felt guilty almost immediately as I began grumbling to myself about the lateness of the evening as I headed to the lime green Gremlin that served as my steed in the pursuit of justice against those who would break the highest law of the land: the Fire Code. Justice, just as crime, did not punch a time clock. For twenty three years I’ve been serving the most demanding of mistresses to reach the apex of that servitude; Fire Marshal.
When I was promoted to this esteemed position three years ago it was a big-to-do; it seemed like the entire city turned out for the ceremony with the mayor putting the seal of the office and a purple silk strap around my neck. As the mayor shook my hand he talked about how great it was that a five foot two, myopic, overweight, asthmatic, diabetic, narcoleptic man could reach such heights – thank goodness, he said, for affirmative action – and, the mayor quickly added, showing that by hard work, sacrificing a personal life – burning potential bridges by burning the midnight oil at both ends, anyone could accomplish what they set their minds to. I thanked the mayor for his kind words then, as my first act as Fire Marshal, arrested him for uttering false accusations of arson against me.
It took me fifteen seconds to drive the half block distance from home to the police station where the Mounties were holding suspect. I walked in hurriedly, ignoring the gasps from the various officers standing around in the reception obviously in awe of the way I carried myself with confidence and purpose as I tossed my hat and coat at the dispatcher, telling her hang them up for me, please. I could hear her faintly behind me calling me with a “but, but”, probably wanting to tell me which room my perp was being held in but I already knew; I had a sixth sense that sniffed out the guilty – besides there was a group of nine or ten people, some officers, some arrestees, gathered at the end of the hall staring and cackling at the person they were observing on the other side of the one way window they sere all ogling through. I was livid; it didn’t make a difference to me that the suspect was some big star – and it shouldn’t have mattered to them either.
“Get the Sam Hill away from there,” I barked, startling the crowd. One of the junior officers with the department for about six months, Jensen, without taking his eyes off the window answered.
“Yes, sir! We collared him two hours away about to board a plane, but airport security received your bulletin and held him until arrived and brought him…” Jensen turned around then stopped his report, opting to just stare at me. It was one of the prices of esteem, I guess, he was made speechless by being in my presence. It was no excuse for the unprofessionalism I had just witnessed but I decided that I could let his indiscretion go…this time.
I took the clipboard Jensen was holding in his hand, scanning the pages it held. Anderson, Kisean Jamal, AKA Sean Kingston, age 20, occupation, entertainer, yup, this was the suspect in the Grand Hotel investigation, alright. There had been no issues with the arrest; the suspect had cooperated completely, waived his right to have a lawyer present. I glanced in the window at Kingston; he was sitting down at the single chair on the far side of the ten by three foot table. He didn’t look worried, just seemed to be confidently contemplating the look of the white sterile walls of the thirteen by thirteen room with lack lustre interest. I’d be making sure that I changed that one’s attitude right quick.
“I’ll take it from here, son,” I said, patting the young officer on the shoulder before entering the interrogation room. I let the door slam shut behind me, making Kingston jump a little out of whatever sick twisted daydream celebrities’ lolly-gag about when they aren’t preening for the press and walked briskly to the table side nearest to the door.
The entertainer began to shift nervously as I stood with hands curled into a tight fist against the faux-wood table top with my arms locked across from him – good; I had struck the fear of authority into him. His eyes flitted eradicately around the room rather than staring back at stern dark brown eyes; obviously because he knew that he had been caught dead to rights and the guilt was eating him up without me having to provoke shame from within him. Funny how the cockiness evaporates from these stars when they come face to face with someone who isn’t going to fawn and pander blindly to them.
“So, Mr. Kingston,” I growled deeply, “You think it’s alright that I had to pull my butt out of my hot tub because of your negligent actions?”
“No, but you could have at least put on some pants,” he answered weakly. That smarmy lad! His eyes focused on the sprinkler above his head as I vibrated with anger at his insolence.
“Oooh, I’m sooooo sorry, I didn’t realize that there was a dress code for questioning a suspect in a criminal case,” I cooed sarcastically.
“At least some boxers would have been nice….”
That did it! I tromped around the table where the suspect tried to shrink himself into the back of his chair as I stood only a foot in front of him. I jutted my finger at him and shook it violently as I told him that justice, just like crime, doesn’t have a time card. He asked politely if I would stop shaking that thing at him, which was a little confusing because I couldn’t help but notice that his head was tilted downward at the time where his peripheral vision wouldn’t have even registered my finger.
With his eyes closed tight, Kingston said that he came willingly with the officers so that he could clear up any misunderstandings that he was unaware of doing, let alone being investigated for. I snorted and slapped my hip, which he then requested that I please tell him that was not me sitting down heavily on the table – celebrities, they’re not like you and I…they talk in tongues sometimes. I had a crime to wrap up; I wasn’t in the mood to humour some damn celebrity’s character nuances.
“Last night at the Grand Hotel Convention Hall SOMEONE decided it would be ‘funny’ to shout out that there was a fire which resulted in 200 hundred calls to 9-1-1 at the same time that overloaded the entire disaster emergency system and 65 people being trampled to death,” I stated.
“That’s terrible!” Kingston gasped, though I noticed he still wouldn’t look at me. The look of horror in his face turned to relief. “Wait a minute, I’ve never been to the Grand Hotel, in fact, I’ve never been to this town before tonight –I couldn’t possibly have anything to do with this tragedy. I’m afraid, sir, you have me mistaken for someone else!”
The nerve! I wasn’t going to stand for this; I decided to press him with the facts.
“Listen here, Mr. Smarty, did you not say…” I shook the clipboard in front of his face, “’Somebody call 9-1-1, Shawty burning up the dance floor, fire burning, fire burning’? Did you not also mention that all the exits were blocked? Did you, huh, DON’T YOU!”
The entertainer’s mouth dropped open; for the first time since I had entered the interrogation room, Kingston looked at me right in the eyes.
“Do you mean to tell me that all this,” he said as he waved his hands wildly about the room, “is because of some lyrics from one of my songs? Did you fall off a ladder lately or did your mom and dad have the same last name before they got married? IT’S JUST A SONG!”
The arrogance! To Hell if I was going to let some celebrity take that ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude with me over such a serious matter; I had fallen from a step ladder only two days before. I don’t know what he was inferring about my parents but from what they had told me growing up, Flitsinburgeritz was a very common last name just two counties down though I had never left town to attend any extended family functions. Something about my broncles and aunsters having mental issues, my parents didn’t want me to be exposed to. It was to protect me from that that my parents moved here when they discovered mother was pregnant so naturally when they passed away I continued to respect the sacrifice they obviously had made to keep me safe. I wasn’t going to let some smarmy “star” side track me from the issue.
“Just a song, you say? Just a song? Is that your defence of your callousness and lack of concern for public safety?” I shot back. “Those people in the Grand Hotel especially, are those who need our protection the most!”
Kingston’s face blanched.
“Oh my God! They weren’t mentally handicapped, were they?”
“If only they were so lucky,” I said sternly, bending down until we were almost nose to nose, “These were people who bought Sarah Palin’s autobiography.” I could see Kingston’s mind beginning to see the ramifications of his carelessness in lyric choice. He buried his face into his hands.
“I didn’t think….how could I have known….I….I…should have pushed the label harder for a warning label for Republicans….I…I,” he sobbed.
I told the remorseful singer that I wasn’t going to charge him for the deaths of those 65 people; he was going to be released – after he took a course in public safety awareness and responsibility. He asked where he would have to report to enrol in the course. I gave him a pat on the shoulder, telling him it was his lucky night – we just so happened to be running one expressedly for his benefit that night.
I led Kingston out of the interrogation room, down the hallway and retrieved my hat and coat from the dispatcher who must have anticipated our departure time to have them ready like that though I couldn’t help but think for the briefest of moments that she seemed almost frozen in the position I remembered her being in when I first arrived. I opened the passenger side door of the Gremlin for the entertainer and with a few sputters of the turning of the ignition switched as I took my place in the driver’s seat; we were off for a teachable moment.
We drove past the city limits in silence for the most part, except Kingston asking about whether or not I had a rubber hose, shovel or rope in the back…celebrities, who knows what kind of freaky stuff they are into. When we were about twenty klicks out of town I pulled into the Franklin’s field that had its wheat crop harvested off the week before. I had phoned my fire crew before I had left my house so the field was ready for Kingston’s and my arrival. Two pumper trucks, one ladder truck and our “spring water” delivery truck were parked to form the outline of an eighty square foot square. A lone figure stood in the middle of our imaginary square.
The “spring water” delivery van was a shining example of the departments’ ingenuity. With budget cuts to the department last year I had become forced to find new sources of revenue; one that worked well had been our “spring water” business; we would use a sump pump to recycle the water we used fighting fires then bottle that water up to be taken to New York’s Soho district to be sold as “naturally enhanced eco-friendly charcoal and gravel filtered” mineral water. Our slogan is, “Other bottled waters say they are healthy – With ours you can see the chunks of proof”; those artsy types just soak that type of hype up.
Kingston seemed a little unsure as I told him to get out of the Gremlin and stand at the hood of the car in the half moon illuminated field. As I joined him at our position in front of the car the entertainer asked what we were doing out in a field in the dead of night. I told him that I was a man of action, not words; he was going to atone for the sins against the Fire Code. He asked how he was going to do that. I pointed out to the field and asked him what he saw. He replied that he saw what looked like someone tied to a large pole standing in the middle of a deserted field in the middle of the night – then asked if there were going to be some men in white sheets jumping out any moment.
“Son, this ain’t no ghost story,” I chided. “That there is a hottie standing out there in the field. The boys and I weren’t too sure what a ‘Shawty’ was but we figured it was you youngsters word for ‘hottie’, so we improvised – which is quite an accomplishment when you live in a town of 200 with the average woman’s age being 78.”
“But tied up?” Kingston asked, “Isn’t that a little…uhm, you know….”
I gave a slight chuckle before explaining to him that when it came to fire prevention, there were no limits, it just took more convincing methods for some than others. Besides, I added, it was Celine Dion; it was like doing a two for one – it was damn time someone made her atone for “My heart will go on”. It had just been fortunate that she had been in town inspecting the cat milking operation for her perfume line at the time. A day later and we would have had to blow most of next year’s budget setting up a trail of shot glasses to entice Lindsay Lohan to be our hottie.
“Celine Dion? I don’t think I’d really classify her as a hottie,” Kingston remarked.
I shot him a scornful look.
“Sure to Hell she is,” I barked at him, “Look at her feet.” He didn’t move from my side but stuck his head out while his eyes squinted.
“Is she wearing some sort of clog?”
“For Christs sake no! The boys “super glued” a couple of hot plates to her.” Damn celebrities can be so damn dense – must be on account they get sheltered by their pansies…possums…platypuses…whatever they call those folks. “Those things have been turned on for a couple of hours now, she’s got to be a hottie by now – look a little bit more closely – see? I’d say some of her skin has done melted itself around the edges. She’s definitely a hottie…her feet are, anyways…”
Kingston seemed to get really het up, asking all sorts of fool questions like whether I thought he was a hottie, how many hot plates were hanging around, just how many plugs were on the extension cord that ran the hot plates that were making Dion, while not burning up the, possibly slightly charring the freshly tilled, wheat field, and where the heck does a person get a twenty two kilometer long extension cord anyway? I didn’t answer any of his queries; I was the querier I told him. He responded with some nonsense that he was sorry and flattered but he didn’t swing that way. I glared at him until he looked down at his shoes.
The crew’s timing couldn’t have been better; just as it looked like Kingston was once again speak they began putting up the prefab disco walls and ceiling, with the mirrored ball, around our” hottie on the wheat field”. I was impressed; in less than twenty minutes the boys had turned the Franklin’s barren field into one heck of a fancy looking fifteen by fifteen foot night club with no exit but a single pane-less three by five foot window in the wall facing us. To replicate the safety issues of a real night club I instructed the boys to throw tequila, rum, whiskey and schnapps bottles, condoms, toilet paper, cardboard coasters, and fake ID’s through the window until the ground and the materials were saturated enough that the moonlight glittered brightly enough through the window to make the mirror ball glitter. It would have been more realistic for Kingston if Ms. Dion had been more cooperative for her part; she had head butted to of the men who were trying to wrap her in shrink wrap to imitate the skimpy outfits that hotties, from what I understood, wore, and wouldn’t stay still enough for the thick afro and hair extensions we had gotten from one of the working girl’s currently staying at the “Casa de Policez” to complete the illusion. Celebrities –a person would think that she could have at least been a little grateful for the shrink wrap hindering her blood loss the multitude of gashes the glass from the bottles breaking on her body had caused. Hendricks completed the set up for this learning experience when he came up to Kingston and I, emptying out the last of the contents from the open and upside down gunpowder keg that he had carried from our nightclub to our position. The rest of the men then moved behind the taped off safety zone.
I took a “Zippo” lighter from my pocket and motioned for Kingston to take it; he refused, calling me all sorts of things that showed a great disrespect for a man of my position. Celebrities, they’re just like spoiled children, they need a firm hand to counter all that damn coddling they get from the world. I flicked the lighter’s cover open and dropped it into the small pile of gunpowder.
I watched Kingston’s eyes follow the bright spark that merrily popped and smoked its way toward our fashioned night club; my hand gripped his shoulder tightly when he attempted to take a step towards the meandering ignition agent. I smiled when the gunpowder reached the wall and like a tidal wave breaking over the jutting rocks at the beach the spark turned to bright orange flame because it had the desired affect on the entertainer; he dropped to his knees and began to weep. I handed him my cel phone and told him now would have been the proper time to phone 9-1-1 – it could have saved some lives instead of leading to the deaths of 65 people. It was hard to watch the young man come to terms with responsibility but sometimes sparing the rod does more spoiling than righting….
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