Seat of the Soul

For 29 years I have been plying my trade in the middle of the night or in the wee hours of the morning. Strange things happen at these hours, not only around us but also within. As a result of these years of observation and experience, I have come to the belief that the proper combinations of stress, Mountain Dew, exhaustion and aggravation can render one into a dream-like state. In this condition the real becomes the sublime and the world takes on an eerie, ethereal quality. I was in this condition the morning of the following call.

Ribbons of crimson danced out from the top of our truck, playing arcade mirror games in the glass of the storefronts facing the street. All were asleep in these moments before dawn. The sky had begun to lighten and the first fingers of the sun's rays were starting to poke out from just below the inky horizon. The revelers from last night were sleeping it off, either at home or in their cars. Some of the more mobile and coherent had made their way to Denny's and were now chasing wallbangers with OJ and scarfing Excedrin with gulps of coffee between bites of their Moons-Over-My-Hammy.

It was too early for a siren, and besides, we were the only moving vehicle on the road. The major intersection was easy enough to negotiate with just lights and patience. Tony drove; I stared out the window so exhausted I wondered if I was dreaming this call. No such luck. The dispatcher alerted us that PD was on the scene and wanted us "extreme code 3." It was their way of saying, "Hurry the hell up, this is some bad sh*t here and we don't know what to do." I acknowledged dispatch with a sleepy and calm "10-04." I probably sounded cool and aloof when all I really was, was exhausted. The pleading of the police on scene did not cause us to drive any faster; they just provided a heads up that things were not hunky-dory.

The call had come in as a traffic accident. Further updates from the frantic cops informed us it was an accident involving a bicycle. That little bit of added information caused me to sit up in my seat and shake off any remaining fog. My regular partner Dave was on a "Kelly Day" and he was a bicyclist. It would not have been far-fetched for him to be taking an early morning ride along the ocean. Although he lived about 20 miles from the station, his long rides had him up in our zone and frequently had him stopping by.

We were only about a minute away when the final update came in. In fact, I remember the entire response only taking about six minutes from call out to arrival. Things just seemed to be in slow motion that morning. That was about to change.

We drove eastbound and once over the bridge hung a quick left at the light. We were in Gotham by the Sea, a small spit of a town with hotels, restaurants, a fishing pier and their own proud police department.

As the truck swung north the scene unveiled. On the left, standing off the road in front of a row of cars parked in front of the seaside motels, was the "Oh-My-God-Squad." This time all of their murmuring and fretting would be warranted. Facing us, parked in the middle of the street in the turn lane that separated the north and south bound traffic lanes, was a garbage truck.