On the Other Side of Nowhere
A Thick Caterpillar of Hair
The police force in Nowhere consisted of three men exactly: the Sheriff and two patrolmen. Crime wasn’t much of a problem in such a sleepy town, limited mostly to drunken fights at the pub on a Saturday evening, but whenever something did happen, all three would bundle into the patrol car, siren wee-wawing, and speed to the scene of the crime – even if it was only a few yards down the street, as Mr. Walsh’s drug store was.
The first thing I noticed on returning from the Laundromat, hefting a heavy satchel of freshly cleaned clothes, was the patrol car parked within a hair’s breadth of my mustard-yellow hunk of scrap metal. It wasn’t such a surprise; Mr. Walsh had been quite upset over the break in. What was a surprise was the new dint in the back of my car and the incriminating smear of yellow paint on the hood of the patrol car.
“Finally!” Mr. Walsh exclaimed from the doorway. “What took you so long, Ava? It doesn’t take forever to wash clothes.”
“Did someone hit my car?” I asked, pointing to where the metal had caved in above the tail light.
Mr. Walsh briefly noted the damage to my car but clearly didn’t care since he instantly chided me, “Don’t keep the Sheriff waiting any longer! Get inside!”
In the drug store yellow crime scene tape had been erected around a square foot area. Chalk outlines of pills and boxes were drawn on the carpet. The Sheriff stood to one side. He was a bulky man, but he preferred the term ‘robust’. A thick caterpillar of hair lived above his lips and the Sheriff took great pride in it, he even kept a comb specifically for it in his breast pocket. “You’re the tenant?” he asked me. He was wearing aviator sunglasses despite being inside and I noticed that his two patrolmen were also.
“She is,” Mr. Walsh responded before I could even open my mouth.
“And you didn’t hear anything last night?”
“She didn’t.”
“Did one of you hit my car?”
Suddenly it seemed as if a sharp gasp had sucked all the air out of the room. The Sheriff puffed out his chest and his two patrolmen assembled themselves behind him defensively. “What makes you say that?” The Sheriff bristled, lifting his chin so that he was looking down on me.
I could see my reflection in all of their sunglasses: my green eyes wide but unflinching while the rain had made my hair into a frizzy bird’s nest. “There’s a dent in it and some of the paint transferred onto your car.”
Realising that the evidence was stacked against him, the Sheriff changed the subject. “That’s not the issue here today.”
“That’s right! Ava, don’t be so selfish,” Mr. Walsh rebuked. “We’re here to sort out who robbed my store!”
“I thought nothing was taken?” I was fishing for information, trying to figure out if Mr. Walsh had noticed the aspirin bottles were missing. Apparently he hadn’t since he sputtered and flustered for the next few seconds until the Sheriff interrupted.
“A break-in has occurred,” he corrected seriously. “We need to sort out who did this.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a break-in,” one of the patrolmen piped up. He was youngish looking. A blond moustache hugged his upper lip in an attempt to emulate the Sheriff without much success.
“What are you implying, Richardson?”
“What if it was,” he paused dramatically and lowered his voice like I’d heard the actors do in soap operas, “an inside job.”
It took me a moment to realise that his sunglasses were aimed directly at me. Two other pairs followed suit, as did Mr. Walsh’s beady eyes until finally I was caught in a web of accusatory stares. Before I could even defend myself, the Sheriff declared, “We’re going to need to search your room, Miss.”
“I have a key!” Mr. Walsh announced, already digging through his ring of assorted keys. After a few seconds he triumphantly held up a small, silver one identical to my own.
“Wait – you can’t – don’t you need a warrant?” I stuttered, thinking frantically of the stolen pill bottles sitting on the windowsill upstairs. Why did I ever take them? It wasn’t as if I’d really needed them – a little migraine never hurt anyone, right?
The men didn’t hear me, or maybe they simply ignored me, but they couldn’t ignore the shrill ringing of the phone at that moment. The police probably would have started their search without him, they were so eager, but Mr. Walsh didn’t want to be left out of the action, he wanted to be there to witness the moment I was found guilty, so he took the key with him into the office to answer the call. I was left to stand awkwardly under the hard scrutiny of the three officers. To keep my mind off them, I strained my ears and eavesdropped on the overflow of Mr. Walsh’s phone call.
“…I’m afraid she’s unavailable…”
“…no, she can’t right now…”
“…are you sure you…”
“…but I’m her landlord…”
“…well, okay…”
When Mr. Walsh emerged from the office he wore a sullen, sulky expression, like a child whose favourite toy had just been taken away. “That was Shauna,” he said morosely. “You’re late for work and she needs you there straight away.”
“Oh.”
“Well, we can’t search without her there to bear witness,” came the Sheriff’s firm voice. Mr. Walsh scowled and relief breathed throughout me, but it was short-lived “We’ll just have to wait until her shift ends. Richardson, you drive her to work, make sure she doesn’t try fleeing across the border.”
Richardson’s first name was Dick, he told me so in the first few awkward seconds of the ride to work. Despite my insistence that it was unnecessary, he’d turned the siren on. “It’ll get us there quicker,” he yelled over the sound as he ran the only red light on Main Street.
I’d never been in a police car before. It was rather like a taxi, same leathery smell and radio transmitter attached to the dashboard. The difference was that an air of authority made the patrol car claustrophobic and oppressive.
Dick continued to talk while I sat with my knees pressed together, attempting to take up as little room as possible. “I haven’t seen you around here much,” he said. “How long have you been in town?”
“Nearly ten months,” I mumbled shortly. I didn’t particularly feel like engaging in friendly conversation with the man who’d accused me of conducting an “inside job”. Thankfully, we were pulling up outside Al’s, so I wouldn’t be forced to endure it much longer.
Dick switched off the engine, the siren ceasing its inane wailing with it. “You’re facing some big charges,” he said gravely, turning to me.
“I didn’t do it.”
He ignored me. “Sheriff wants to search your room real bad.” He pushed his reflective sunglasses further onto his face. I still didn’t know why he insisted on wearing them on a sunless day like today. Surely they were more of a hindrance than a help. “But I like you, so I’m willing to help you out.”
My eyebrows went up of their own accord, as if a puppet master was pulling the strings on my face.
“I hold quite a bit of sway with the Sheriff. He’s gonna make me Deputy soon,” Dick boasted. “He’ll listen to me if I tell him there’s no point searching your stuff.”
“You would do that?”
He shrugged like it was nothing. “You’d have to do something for me in return,” he said slyly. I recoiled, even more so when I realised that I was actually entertaining the thought of doing this man a favour to make all the trouble disappear.
“What would I have to do?”
Dick smiled toothily. “Just go out with me.”
The mirrors on his glasses unnerved me so I shifted my gaze to the rain-streaked window. He wasn’t asking much, less than I’d expected, in fact. Even so, I didn’t really want to go out with him. It wasn’t that he wasn’t okay looking, there were no disfigurements that I could see and he might actually be quite handsome if he shaved his moustache, but the hard truth of it all was that what he was doing was blackmail.
“Of course, I could just let the Sheriff have his way,” Dick murmured. “Who knows what kind of evidentiary things he’ll find in your drawers?”
If I had drawers, I thought, but then the pill bottles on my windowsill came to mind. If Mr. Walsh knew I’d taken them… I couldn’t go back to sleeping on the backseat of my car, I just couldn’t.
As I watched the patrol car flash red and blue on the road away from the diner, a date next Friday looming in my future, I couldn’t help but think one thing:
Dick was such a dick.
The first thing I noticed on returning from the Laundromat, hefting a heavy satchel of freshly cleaned clothes, was the patrol car parked within a hair’s breadth of my mustard-yellow hunk of scrap metal. It wasn’t such a surprise; Mr. Walsh had been quite upset over the break in. What was a surprise was the new dint in the back of my car and the incriminating smear of yellow paint on the hood of the patrol car.
“Finally!” Mr. Walsh exclaimed from the doorway. “What took you so long, Ava? It doesn’t take forever to wash clothes.”
“Did someone hit my car?” I asked, pointing to where the metal had caved in above the tail light.
Mr. Walsh briefly noted the damage to my car but clearly didn’t care since he instantly chided me, “Don’t keep the Sheriff waiting any longer! Get inside!”
In the drug store yellow crime scene tape had been erected around a square foot area. Chalk outlines of pills and boxes were drawn on the carpet. The Sheriff stood to one side. He was a bulky man, but he preferred the term ‘robust’. A thick caterpillar of hair lived above his lips and the Sheriff took great pride in it, he even kept a comb specifically for it in his breast pocket. “You’re the tenant?” he asked me. He was wearing aviator sunglasses despite being inside and I noticed that his two patrolmen were also.
“She is,” Mr. Walsh responded before I could even open my mouth.
“And you didn’t hear anything last night?”
“She didn’t.”
“Did one of you hit my car?”
Suddenly it seemed as if a sharp gasp had sucked all the air out of the room. The Sheriff puffed out his chest and his two patrolmen assembled themselves behind him defensively. “What makes you say that?” The Sheriff bristled, lifting his chin so that he was looking down on me.
I could see my reflection in all of their sunglasses: my green eyes wide but unflinching while the rain had made my hair into a frizzy bird’s nest. “There’s a dent in it and some of the paint transferred onto your car.”
Realising that the evidence was stacked against him, the Sheriff changed the subject. “That’s not the issue here today.”
“That’s right! Ava, don’t be so selfish,” Mr. Walsh rebuked. “We’re here to sort out who robbed my store!”
“I thought nothing was taken?” I was fishing for information, trying to figure out if Mr. Walsh had noticed the aspirin bottles were missing. Apparently he hadn’t since he sputtered and flustered for the next few seconds until the Sheriff interrupted.
“A break-in has occurred,” he corrected seriously. “We need to sort out who did this.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a break-in,” one of the patrolmen piped up. He was youngish looking. A blond moustache hugged his upper lip in an attempt to emulate the Sheriff without much success.
“What are you implying, Richardson?”
“What if it was,” he paused dramatically and lowered his voice like I’d heard the actors do in soap operas, “an inside job.”
It took me a moment to realise that his sunglasses were aimed directly at me. Two other pairs followed suit, as did Mr. Walsh’s beady eyes until finally I was caught in a web of accusatory stares. Before I could even defend myself, the Sheriff declared, “We’re going to need to search your room, Miss.”
“I have a key!” Mr. Walsh announced, already digging through his ring of assorted keys. After a few seconds he triumphantly held up a small, silver one identical to my own.
“Wait – you can’t – don’t you need a warrant?” I stuttered, thinking frantically of the stolen pill bottles sitting on the windowsill upstairs. Why did I ever take them? It wasn’t as if I’d really needed them – a little migraine never hurt anyone, right?
The men didn’t hear me, or maybe they simply ignored me, but they couldn’t ignore the shrill ringing of the phone at that moment. The police probably would have started their search without him, they were so eager, but Mr. Walsh didn’t want to be left out of the action, he wanted to be there to witness the moment I was found guilty, so he took the key with him into the office to answer the call. I was left to stand awkwardly under the hard scrutiny of the three officers. To keep my mind off them, I strained my ears and eavesdropped on the overflow of Mr. Walsh’s phone call.
“…I’m afraid she’s unavailable…”
“…no, she can’t right now…”
“…are you sure you…”
“…but I’m her landlord…”
“…well, okay…”
When Mr. Walsh emerged from the office he wore a sullen, sulky expression, like a child whose favourite toy had just been taken away. “That was Shauna,” he said morosely. “You’re late for work and she needs you there straight away.”
“Oh.”
“Well, we can’t search without her there to bear witness,” came the Sheriff’s firm voice. Mr. Walsh scowled and relief breathed throughout me, but it was short-lived “We’ll just have to wait until her shift ends. Richardson, you drive her to work, make sure she doesn’t try fleeing across the border.”
Richardson’s first name was Dick, he told me so in the first few awkward seconds of the ride to work. Despite my insistence that it was unnecessary, he’d turned the siren on. “It’ll get us there quicker,” he yelled over the sound as he ran the only red light on Main Street.
I’d never been in a police car before. It was rather like a taxi, same leathery smell and radio transmitter attached to the dashboard. The difference was that an air of authority made the patrol car claustrophobic and oppressive.
Dick continued to talk while I sat with my knees pressed together, attempting to take up as little room as possible. “I haven’t seen you around here much,” he said. “How long have you been in town?”
“Nearly ten months,” I mumbled shortly. I didn’t particularly feel like engaging in friendly conversation with the man who’d accused me of conducting an “inside job”. Thankfully, we were pulling up outside Al’s, so I wouldn’t be forced to endure it much longer.
Dick switched off the engine, the siren ceasing its inane wailing with it. “You’re facing some big charges,” he said gravely, turning to me.
“I didn’t do it.”
He ignored me. “Sheriff wants to search your room real bad.” He pushed his reflective sunglasses further onto his face. I still didn’t know why he insisted on wearing them on a sunless day like today. Surely they were more of a hindrance than a help. “But I like you, so I’m willing to help you out.”
My eyebrows went up of their own accord, as if a puppet master was pulling the strings on my face.
“I hold quite a bit of sway with the Sheriff. He’s gonna make me Deputy soon,” Dick boasted. “He’ll listen to me if I tell him there’s no point searching your stuff.”
“You would do that?”
He shrugged like it was nothing. “You’d have to do something for me in return,” he said slyly. I recoiled, even more so when I realised that I was actually entertaining the thought of doing this man a favour to make all the trouble disappear.
“What would I have to do?”
Dick smiled toothily. “Just go out with me.”
The mirrors on his glasses unnerved me so I shifted my gaze to the rain-streaked window. He wasn’t asking much, less than I’d expected, in fact. Even so, I didn’t really want to go out with him. It wasn’t that he wasn’t okay looking, there were no disfigurements that I could see and he might actually be quite handsome if he shaved his moustache, but the hard truth of it all was that what he was doing was blackmail.
“Of course, I could just let the Sheriff have his way,” Dick murmured. “Who knows what kind of evidentiary things he’ll find in your drawers?”
If I had drawers, I thought, but then the pill bottles on my windowsill came to mind. If Mr. Walsh knew I’d taken them… I couldn’t go back to sleeping on the backseat of my car, I just couldn’t.
As I watched the patrol car flash red and blue on the road away from the diner, a date next Friday looming in my future, I couldn’t help but think one thing:
Dick was such a dick.