Thirteen

Mark sat in his patrol car in the parking lot of Tripod, the diner slash bar slash café in Acker, Wisconsin. He had thirty minutes’ break ahead of him, but since it was Wednesday, he knew to wait until exactly five minutes past eleven. That was the time his mother would call him.

When his cell began to play the random classical tune he’d chosen for her, he took a deep breath, and swiped the screen.

“Hello, Mom,” he said in what he hoped was an even, neutral tone.

“Did you have your lunch yet?” she asked immediately, like she’d done almost every Wednesday for the last three and a half years.

“No, Mom, I was waiting for you to call. I’ll go eat after.” He sighed, then steeled himself, knowing that she’d heard that and—

“Don’t you sigh at me, boy!”

“It wasn’t at y—”

Mark heard the phone changing hands, and then the voice that made him shrink lower into his seat boomed into his ear. “What’s this pussy shit, son? Huh? Don’t tell me all the fags moving into that town have rubbed off on you!” His father chuckled, the sound nasty and loud in his ear. “Just don’t let ‘em rub on you, son, you know they all got that AIDS!”

“Yes, sir,” Mark managed to mutter.

“You got shot yet?” Dad asked, sounding almost hopeful in a sick, twisted way.

Mark’s skin crawled in the familiar manner that came with hearing his father’s voice. “No, sir. Not yet. You’ll be the first to know, I’m sure.”

In fact, the only person who had gotten shot in town lately was one of the “fags” who had moved in. That was why his dad knew about it; because it had made the local news and Mark’s parents followed the news even though they lived blessedly far away.

Dad grunted. “Well, you better do your job. Having a fucking convicted murderer fag doing your job for you? What sort of shit is that? That what you went to the Academy for, son? Huh?”

Mark could feel his neck starting to tense more and more with each word out of his father’s mouth. The tightness climbed to his skull until it started to pound his brain from the inside. Migraine. Great.

“Dad, I got to go. Lunch time, remember?”

Another grunt. “Your mother will call you next week.”

“Yeah. Bye.”

The call disconnected with nothing more than silence. Mark put the phone on his lap and looked at his hands which trembled like hell. He concentrated on breathing.

Eleven-ten. It was fine. He would be fine by eleven-fifteen. He always was.

* * * *

He had lunch at Tripod and topped it off with his migraine medication. Once done eating, he drove the cruiser out of the parking lot and onto the main road running through Acker, then turned right and maneuvered the car into the sheriff’s station’s lot. It took him more time to get into the vehicle and back out than it did driving from the diner to the station. Hell, he could’ve run the distance faster through the backyards of the businesses next to Tripod if he’d been in a rush.

Small town living. He’d tried the big city as soon as he’d gotten away from his parents to college, and then through the police academy in Arizona. Since his parents lived in northern Arizona, he’d become a patrol officer in Tucson and stayed for two years. After that, he’d chased a salary—and explanation for his parents to justify leaving the state—and went to Chicago for three years, then Detroit for two.

Every time he thought he’d stay in one place for long enough to call it home, something happened that made him change his mind. Acker had been a place to escape to after what had happened in Detroit. He’d been at the end of his rope, almost literally, and he’d seen that a small sheriff’s department in a tiny Wisconsin town needed a deputy. He’d applied on a whim.

That was over three and a half years ago.

“Hey Mark, was my sister at Tripod?” Erin Peters, one of the other deputies, asked from behind the front desk as soon as he stepped in through the back.

“Nope,” he replied, going to his own desk. “No messages?”

“Nope,” she parroted back at him with a grin.

She was pretty, blonde, and blessedly not bubbly. Just an overall nice person.

“Anything wrong with Evy?”

“Nah, just thought I’d catch her on my break. You mind manning the desk? Jason would’ve, but he and the sheriff had to go check up on the Grahams.”

Mark grunted. “Sure, go. I’ll be here. Just keep your radio on in case there’s an emergency.”

“Will do!” She got up, grabbed her coat from the standing coat rack next to the front desk and practically skipped and hopped out the door.

Something was going on. She wasn’t this happy on a regular basis. Oh well.

Mark went to the coffee maker in the break room and made a fresh pot while keeping an ear for the phone in the front. No calls came, so he waited until he could fill his mug, and then took it to the front desk.

The blessing and the curse of Acker was that nothing much happened. There were the regular things like speeding and accidents, domestic disturbances, some vagrants taking up residence at the run-down trailer park a little way outside town, and the welfare checks that seemed to be more and more common these days.