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Lasting First Impressions (Part 1)
When I was a little girl, I feared policemen. I can’t pinpoint why. I grew up in a law abiding home, so I had no real reason to be afraid, but for some reason, they looked scary to me, intimidating with their dark uniforms, big sticks and guns. Once when my mom got pulled over for speeding, I cried so hysterically that the police officer let her off with a warning. I think I may have scared him more than he did me. I wonder if I would feel differently if the younger me ever came across a police officer like my good friend, Don. Actually, I don’t need to wonder. I know.
I grow more fond of Don when he shares his experiences in the very uniform that used to scare me, so today it is my privilege to introduce him to you as he shares Part 1 of a tale you won’t soon forget. (Make sure and come back Thursday for the rest of the story.)
I can’t think of a better man to be the first to post for the SisterWives. ~Mandi
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“Hello! Is anybody home?” I asked as I peeked my head through a wide open doorway.
“Who is it?” A woman yelled from somewhere in the back.
“Police, ma’am. Is everything okay in here?”
A woman I’d swear I knew from somewhere suddenly entered the doorway to greet me.
“We’re fine, officer; come on in, if you have to. Nobody here called though.”
She was correct that nobody in her apartment called for the police.
The call came from a neighbor who said she could hear arguing coming from this apartment. The caller told the dispatcher that it happens a lot and that she’s never gotten involved before, but it sounded particularly violent this time.
The woman who called asked to not be identified or contacted, but she felt as though she couldn’t do nothing this time, as she always had before.
Guilt is a bitch like that.
“I know you didn’t call, Claire. Somebody passing through must have heard some noise and been concerned.”
The woman standing in front of me wasn’t quite thirty years old and she was quite pretty, even dressed in gray sweat pants and a tattered, white Def Leppard tee shirt.
Some of her long brown hair was matted into her eye brows and long lashes that were unable to mask the fact that she’d been crying.
She deftly swept her hair from her eyes and looked up at me. She was maybe 5’3″ with her shoes on, and rail thin, but not scrawny. She was toned from working out or working hard, one or the other. As I was sizing her up and looking at broken glass and silverware all over the apartment floor, she spoke again.
“Nobody here ca…wait, did you just call me Claire?” She suddenly asked me, clearly surprised, but still sheepishly.
“I did. I’m sorry, isn’t that your name?” I’m usually good with names, but I started doubting myself for just a second. Maybe her name was Candace or Karen or even Kim.
I was pretty sure it started with a hard C sound though.
“I am Claire, but how do you know that? Does your car computer tell you that?”
Her question was serious, but the look on her face struck me as childlike just then as she spoke to me. I wondered who could hurt such a face.
“No,” I sort of laughed, “nothing like that.” There’s no magic in that computer. It’s a Panasonic.”
I smiled at her as I remembered back to a couple of years earlier when another officer got a call just down the street from the very same apartment complex where Claire and I were now talking.
On that other night, a woman riding by in a passing car called 911 to report that she saw a man in a car that was parked on the side of the road pull a woman out of the passenger seat by her hair, then drag her all the way around the back of the car, still pulling her by her hair, all the way to the sidewalk before he punched her in the face at least twice before leaving her in the bushes where she had fallen.
That wasn’t my call to handle, but I was close, so I stopped by.
I got to the woman first and she was still conscious, but clearly going to have a couple of black eyes and possibly a broken nose.
“What happened here? Are you okay?” I asked her as she laid in the grass and dirt.
She was woozy, but she was a tough cookie too, I could tell that right away. After she collected herself a little bit, she figured out who I was and then she spoke.
“Nodding habbened obbiter. I fell off my botorcycle.” Was her answer, the best I could understand through the snot and blood and spitting. She was crying a little, but not really as I’d expected her to be for some reason.
It struck me that this woman was tough or maybe she was simply used to absorbing this sort of beating, or maybe both.
I called her an ambulance as the officer handling the call arrived and took over.
As I stood in her kitchen two years later, I had no idea how that case turned out, but I remembered the woman because she was dressed in a stunning evening gown that night, as though she was out on a special date night.
She was a very attractive woman, a woman with some class, I could tell, yet there she had been, wallowing around in the dirt and grass all bloodied and beaten and crying and blubbering in what may have been a very expensive party dress. It’s not a sight you see very often in the area where I patrolled.
I remembered two things from that night. One was that she had said her name was Claire, and also that she kept saying how she was sorry for bothering me that night.
I was sort of lost in my thoughts about that earlier night when I noticed she was still waiting for me to answer her.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
“We’ve never met before, officer…”She squinted her eyes to see my name tag. “Officer Don.”
“I was there when you fell off your motorcycle down the street a couple of years ago. You told me your name was Claire that night.” I said.
“I’ve never fallen off a motorcycle,” she said, semi-defensively. “I’ve never even been on a motorcycle. I think you’re thinking about somebody else.”
“I figured you didn’t have a motorcycle, but that’s what you told me that night we met. You said you fell off a motorcycle that you were apparently riding in an evening dress and that somehow had vanished into thin air after you hit the ground from crashing it.
“Ahhhh,” she sighed. “I remember that night now. I’m so sorry.”
She looked away from me and busied herself by picking up some Matchbox cars from off of the floor.
“Please, don’t be sorry.” I answered. “You didn’t do anything wrong that night, Claire. You were a victim tha….”
“I was just drunk.” She cut me off very abruptly. She softened her tone and repeated herself. “I was just drunk.”
I got this call to Claire’s apartment well after 10:30 PM, so I was perturbed as I arrived to her place. A call that late in the shift normally meant that I’d be late making relief at 11 PM.
That the call involved this particular woman had caused my mood to lighten immensely.
She was one of those people I’d sometimes thought about. I had wondered from time to time what ever became of her, and now here she was, alive at the very least.
“Same guy?” I asked her while making a gesture with my finger towards my own neck. As I waved my finger in front of my neck, I eyeballed the red marks, scratches and bruises protruding from under her tee shirt, just over Def Leppard’s photograph.
“Huh?” She was legitimately confused.
“Were you choked?” I asked, knowing full well that she was. “Was it the same guy tonight as the other time?”
“No, nothing like that. Nothing happened, officer, I swear it. It was just a misunderstanding about money.”
I shook my head just a bit and took a deep breath.
Nothing happened? I thought about those words to myself for a moment.
Ten years ago, I’d have shook her hand, told her good luck and hurried out the door to make my scheduled time off as close as possible. There were always beers to be had before the bars closed at 3 o’clock.
That was younger Don.
That was before blogging Don.
I wonder why she didn’t speak up the first time. Or the several times after that. My mom was a victim of domestic violence too, and she never said a word. I can’t imagine taking abuse lying down. Looking forward to the next part.
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You can’t imagine it, until you have to do it. The consequences for saying anything about it can be worse than the “punishment” you received for whatever the “misunderstanding about money” actually was. And if you don’t know that you can get assistance for shelter and food, life expenses and medical care, job placement and a confidential home address, it can seem like the only choices are getting beat on a full belly or shivering under a cardboard box with an empty belly. Self-preservation is easier to imagine in familiar situations. You know you can survive the beating (you hope), but you don’t know if you can survive on the streets. So you stay.
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Thank you, Melanie. Oh that I could hug you right now.
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I’ll cash in the rain check the next time I’m in town.
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Thank you Melanie. It is painful to see so many women suffering so much.
My mom kept telling me it was for us, her children, that she put up with so much. And you’re right, staying was probably her only option when we were little. Even when I grew up and got a job, she refused to leave. But then in India, self preservation is not just about surviving the beating, it’s also about surviving the society we live in. People can be really insensitive and inhuman sometimes.
It breaks my heart.
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I’m sorry to hear that your mom went through the pain of DV. It’s hard on a family. I’ve seen it all too many times. I think the second part will be posted Thursday, so please come back. Thank you.
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Thanks Don. Yours is a difficult job. Thank you for sharing.
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Wondered where you’ve been. And here you are. Beautiful writing about a horrible act, made all the more powerful by your point of view.
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Here I am! I was going to post something the other day, but we have a “situation” on our hands with people rioting in the streets, so my heart and mind have been preoccupied with that mess. Hopefully, things return to normal soon. Thank you!
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Are you a part of that? Oh do please be safe.
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Wow.
I really want to know if she’s okay now.
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Come back Thursday, Michele.
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Nothing like a second part to leave you hanging, right Michelle? Lol. Sorry, but I’m long winded and the ladies made it a two parter. Probably for the best.
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It is one of those things you can’t understand until you are faced with its reality. Such a common story. There is love inside the tragedy and the horror doesn’t match the guilt or the shame. Fear holds hands with terror and when they are united in wedlock it becomes a matter of survival or betrayal. You write so well I think I could read an entire book if you wrote one.
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This is SCARY common. It’s crazy how often it’s a third party who calls instead of the victim. Fear is no way to live, but I completely understand how hard it is to leave a relationship like this, especially when there are kids involved. Thanks for the nice words about my writing. That means a lot coming from the likes of you, even if you’re just being nice.Lol.
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Ha me being nice??? NO I really love how you write. Plan to read your blog tonight instead of the book I am reading 🙂
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Haha, oh God! Don’t do that to your brain, Hasty! Lol. Wait, no please do that, and thank you.
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Hasty, you give great comment!
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Very well written. I look forward to hearing the rest of this. I hope it turns well for Claire. But as it goes, one can only hope. Thank you for sharing.
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Thank you very much.
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Love love love. Don is my superhero. After all he has seen he still has so much compassion and concern for the people he comes in contact with every day. He’s one of the great ones that truly lives up to the honor: to protect and serve…AND he’s an awesome writer, a fantastic dad, loyal husband, and kick-ass friend. Stoppit Don – you’re making the rest of us look like assholes. Fabulous post – I can’t wait to read the rest of the story on Thursday!
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Hahaha, Thank you, as always, Molly. You’re a pretty amazing woman yourself. I guess I need to share some stories about times I didn’t care so people don’t get the wrong idea about me.
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I cannot imagine the things you have seen in your job, Don. I would imagine that after a while most LEO become jaded, maybe even numb. I can tell, just from this first part, that you are not one of those. It’s interesting to hear a story of DV from your point of view. Thank you so much for sharing and I am very much looking forward to part two.
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Jaded and numb are perfect descriptions, but every call is unique, so that keeps it fresh for me. I get that I’m not like your typical cop, and I’m okay with that. It really is interesting to hear a story from different perspectives. It’d be great to have her write about this same experience. I bet she’d make me look like a real asshole, but I was only trying to help.
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Reblogged this on Gypsy Rue and commented:
Thank you Don, for your fantastic contribution to the wonderful group of bloggers that are SisterWives. I look forward to your following post. As a woman who has been raped, and ignored by the local police when I made my report, I want to sincerely thank you for caring.
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Ugh, I always hate to hear about terrible police experiences, especially when it involves rape. I’m lucky to work in a city where training is offered and encouraged and where resources to help victims (non-police related) can be found. I know there are many parts of the the country where this is not the case. I’m sorry you were treated in such a disrespectful manner.
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Well… that was awesome… other than the whole ‘not picking me to be the first man to post here even though I am the ‘semiofficial man-sister wife’ and court jester… sigh… and maybe… sob…
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Don, I’m always awed by the way you pretend to be such an asshole sometimes, but really, your writing gives you away. Perhaps you used to be different, but you have a compassionate, kind heart, and I’m glad you were the officer who went to respond to this lady, and that you went over and above the call of duty because you care. You’re good at that, now.
Thank you for allowing us to share this. Looking forward to part II
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Lizzi, if you’re implying I’m not an asshole!!! That hurts my heart, but thank you for reading and slandering me.
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I’ll always do my best. And I’ll try never to libel you as anything *too* good 😉
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Is it Thursday yet?
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Come on Don, it’s Thursday where I am, man.
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How do you know if you’re in an abusive relationship? What if its not physical? What if you really are crazy, and the reason he’s mad?
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What if it is all your fault?
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First I want to say that it is NEVER the fault of the victim. That is very important to understand. If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, physical or otherwise, or you suspect that is the case, please call the Domestic Violence hotline at 1-800-799-7233. Please.
We are all here for support but are certainly not professionals. The people on the other end of that phone line can answer your questions and get you the help needed.
Don’t hesitate, please! I cannot say that enough. If you suspect the relationship is abusive, it probably is.
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My heart and hugs are with you. Don’t you forget it, compassionate one.
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Thank you, dear. You’re the sweetest Redwings fan ever.
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Don, you always have such a surprisingly tender side. Looking forward to seeing how you handled this one. And thanks for speaking up for your Sisterwives–some of us take a long time to speak for ourselves!
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You are such a compassionate man, Don!! I knew this but you keep proving it to all of us over and over again. This is another post I will be sharing with my 20 year old son who strives to be a police officer (as we have spoken about in the past). I can’t wait to read the rest on Thursday! 🙂
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How is he doing? Still riding along?
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His last ride along is this Fri night then he heads back to college. He’s got two more years to go. We shall see how things develop. I enjoy sharing your stories with him. 🙂
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I can’t wait to read part two. Seriously.
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Don, I just realized by what PMAO said that you are the first man to post on the Sisterwives blog!
*throws confetti in the air*
You are an amazing story teller. You should do this writing stuff more often, ya know?
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Haha, the first. *smiles creepily*
Lol. Thanks for the compliment, Samara. It means a lot to hear you say that. The story really tells itself because it is what it is.
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Wait! What happens? Is this a continuation? I have to know!!
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The more you write the more I love you! Whether it’s funny, inappropriate, sarcastic or sad. You are the real deal, Don, and I love that about you! Off to read part 2!
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I missed this comment the other day, which sucks because it’s only the BEST COMMENT EVER!! Lol. Thank you so much.
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