The Big Thaw - Donald Harstad [86]
“Uh, yeah. I guess it is.”
“Don’t you think you better take it off, then?”
“Not now…”
“Okay,” said Lamar. No reason for him to argue that. I’d just go on building up comp time for eternity.
“Maybe I could get next weekend?”
“If you can get somebody to switch,” he said. “We’re still shorthanded.”
When I got home, I explained the situation to Sue. It was one of those times when she got really mad, but was totally reasonable.
“I expected that,” she said. “I always expect that.”
“Look, I’m really sorry. We can try for next weekend …”
“There’s leftovers in the refrigerator,” she said. “Scalloped potatoes and ham. I’m going to bed.”
As she started up the stairs, I had two choices. One, I could say something apologetic, and she’d start to lose it, and we’d have a fight. Two, I could stay downstairs, and she’d lay awake for an hour, getting madder and madder.
I hate to say it, but I let her go up the stairs. I just didn’t have the energy to argue.
I put the scalloped potatoes in the microwave, and heated them up. I took a plateful into the dining room, and ate in silence. I hated that schedule. I hated the size of the department that made you find your own replacement for an unscheduled day off.
The potatoes sat in my stomach like concrete. Most of the ham chunks were still cold. I didn’t care enough to take them back to the microwave.
I took my plate out, scraped it off, and decided to go upstairs to bed. I’d just have to say something to Sue, the frustration was building to a point where I wouldn’t be able to sleep, anyway.
I got into the bedroom, and Sue was asleep.
I remember counting, lying there, staring at the thin strip of street light coming through the curtain. I remember making a mental note to myself that I had reached 22,500.
Eighteen
Friday, January 16, 1998, 0802
I woke up, showered, shaved, and went downstairs for coffee. There was a note on the pot from Sue. She and a neighbor gal had gone to Cedar Rapids to shop. She had already taken the day off from school and chose to make the most of it without me. She planned on being back after supper.
There being no point in sitting around the house, I checked the Weather Channel on TV. There was a great worm of a jet stream, moving up and down over the Midwest. Huge cold masses were sliding down from Canada into the dips in the stream. We, however, were just getting the benefit of a sort of peak. Warm Gulf air was just moving into the area. The forecaster said we should enjoy it. Shortly, the arctic air would be back as the hump of the jet stream moved east. It was warming up, and forecast to be above twenty degrees most of the day. A “January thaw,” as they call it, was in the making. If it got over thirty-two degrees, it would really start to mess up the gravel roads, with standing water, and softened surfaces giving under the wheels of traffic, and making ruts. Then it would freeze hard, again, and those ruts would be like steel trenches. In the meantime, the water on top of a frozen roadbed made for some really greasy driving. They say wet ice on wet ice is the slipperiest surface known … much slipperier than Teflon.
I got to the office at 0842. Three plus hours early, since I was now going on to a noon-to-eight shift.
I found myself wandering about the jail kitchen, waiting for the fresh coffee to brew, when Sally came in at shift change. She came out to the kitchen to store her supper in the refrigerator, and stopped to chat for a few seconds.
“Hiding from work?” she asked.
“Kind of. Just waiting for a phone call…”
She opened the refrigerator door, and put her lunch bag inside. “You making fresh coffee?”
“Yep. Want some? Be glad to pour you a cup.”
“Sure. You must want something special,” she said, pulling a folding chair up to the long, institutional table.
I interrupted the pot, poured her a cup of coffee, and took it to the table. “Here. Well, yeah, I sort of do.”
“Like, what?”
“Well, I’d like to know