' I had a horrible nightmare last night' the corporal said to the sergeant by way of good morning.
'What about?' asked the sergeant with interest.
'Some guy named George Forbes wrote an article about the RCMP, recommending that guys who f***up should have their guns taken away and ordered to work their shifts in community service like doing dishes in soup kitchens or helping out the orderlies in hospitals until they can be fired or until they serve their time- depending on what they did wrong,' the corporal outlined.
'That's a horrible idea!' the sergeant replied outraged and a little fearfull.
'Ya well, remember that time I got caught on video punching that handcuffed guy in the face? I dreamed they assigned me to clean out the outhouses in a provincial park while the regular workers did the other things like blazing trails', said the corporal.
'That's a pretty bad dream alright', sympathised the sergeant. 'It's amazing what some people have to do for a living. Makes you glad you got your grade 12 and joined the force.'
'It gets worse!' the corporal continued. 'While I was mopping some stray crap off the backhouse floor my cell phone rang and I dropped it down the hole. I made a grab for it and my new sun glasses fell out of my shirt pocket and went down the hole too. Then I slipped and fell on my ass right into my bucket and the mop handle hit me under the chin. I took a big breath to curse and just about had a heart attack from the stink. I got so mad I kicked the door off the hinges and stomped off to a pay phone and called in and quit ', the corporal summarized with a shudder.
'Let's hope that George Forbes guy never gets Shirley Bond's job', the sergeant said, shuddering at the mental image conjured up by the corporal's words.
'Whose Shirley Bond?' asked the corporal.
'She's our boss', the sergeant explained. 'If she'd been in your dream you wouldn't have been sent to that outhouse. You'd have received a good bawling out and been sent home for ten days with pay to watch TV and play video games.'
Shirley Bond,
BC Attorney General
The RCMP Desk Sergeant clutched his stomach in unrestrained mirth as he laughed helplessly.
'What's so funny?' asked the corporal.
'I just got off the phone with the desk sergeant up in Terrace,' he answered. 'That guy is a barrel of laughs, I gotta tell you. He's always making up jokes. He told me one about some college teacher up there named Tugwood who walks past Mayor Pernarowski's house every day because it's on his way to the college. The mayor is the local nut case. His dogs are loose half the time and they attack everybody- including Tugwood.'
'That's not that funny so far, sergeant,' the corporal braved- the sergeant not usually given to accepting criticism kindly.
'No, no it is funny! This one time the prof lost it and yelled at the dogs. Next thing you know the mayor goes nuts. He goes to the college personnel department and tries to get Tugwood fired! Haaaa! haaa! ' the sergeant couldn't help bursting out anew. 'Tugwood's union rep and the college personnel guy were called out and the whole nine yards. That didn't work because Tugwood has been teaching there for over twenty years and they know him pretty well. The mayor yelled and screamed for fifteen minutes before they got him calmed down enough to go away.'
It was apparent from the corporal's expression that he still couldn't really see what was so funny, but the sergeant continued undaunted.
' So that didn't work, see? It was pretty obvious to all the college guys the mayor is nuts.'
'I still don't get the joke,' the corporal said.
' That's a pretty big detachment up there' the sergeant continued. 'Forty- five members and fifteen civilians. Mayor Pernarowski phoned our head man up there, Inspector Hart, and told him to get his personal ass in gear and go after the prof. himself! '
'I think I see it coming,' the corporal brightened. 'The Inspector dropped everything and personally put the fear of the force on the prof for yelling at the Mayor's dogs! Right!'
'Right!' enthused the sergeant.
There followed a couple of minutes of quiet paper work with occassional chuckles issuing alternately from the two, when the sergeant suddenly wondered aloud, 'You know, I wonder if this might not be a joke. that Inspector Dana's main claim to fame is being a bodyguard for political big shots. You don't suppose he actually takes orders from the crazy mayor? Naw! Couldn't be.'
The Inspector The Mayor
'How's it going with that case up in Terrace where the members beat that guy up and sent him to hospital?' asked the corporal.
'It looks like it's going to be no problem. Some New Westminster cops went up for a couple of days and swept it under the rug. They said they won't be making a report for a few months,' the sergeant added.
'Jeez. They must be slow typers', laughed the corporal. 'Any hints how the report will look?'
r
'Well it won't be anything for us to worry about, I can tell you that already,' the sergeant said confidently.
'How so?' asked the Corporal.
'Well, the investigators from the New Westminster force said almost immediately in a press release that we had to beat the guy up because he was noncompliant,' the sergeant said."And then too, by delaying the report, some witnesses will lose their memory of details, or move away.'
'I like that 'noncompliant' explanation. It's really works well for us, time after time,' observed the corporal. 'How do the investigators know he was noncompliant?' he asked as an afterthought.
' Because we said he was, of course,' the sergeant said.
'Ha!' the corporal said in approval of the process so far. 'But what if the guy comes out of the coma and has a different story or a good explanation?' wondered the corporal aloud.
'Like what for instance?' challenged the sergeant.
'Well', answered the corporal, counting the points off on his fingers, 'What if he says he wasn't 'noncompliant' enough to deserve a beating? Or that maybe we shouldn't have dragged him back and forth from his cell to the Terrace hospital all night, or that maybe we should have told his wife there was a problem before she came by to take him home and found out instead he was in a coma in Vancouver?'
'Maybe you think we should have offerred her a seat on the plane or found her a place to stay down there?' sneered the sergeant.
'Whoa, whoa,' soothed the corporal. 'I'm just saying. What if all that gets said?'
'Don't worry about it. The investigators have already committed and they can't go back on it now,' the sergeant said as he began to count his own points off on his fingers. 'Why they picked him up in the first place is irrelevant. Maybe he was driving drunk and maybe not. Let's say not- the Terrace hospital must have done a blood alcohol test before they botched his treatment but nobody's saying anything about that aspect. Either way, the whole point now is the noncompliance ploy. The investigators clearly implied he wasn't just a bit noncompliant, but that he went stark raving berserk. Now they're going to have to defend their position so they don't get in trouble themselves. They're not going to be looking for anything on behalf of the guy we beat up.The guy that got beat up is toast, if he ever recovers enough to object,' the sergeant finished with admiration in his tone for the way the whole thing was handled- 'and at this point all he can do is move his eyes. Our spin guys could write plots for Mission Impossible, eh?'
Hearing no response, the sergeant glanced up to see that he had totally lost the corporal with this reasoning, so he continued patiently:
'Look, did the investigators recommend charges against any members even though they practically killed the guy? "No" ' he answered his own question. 'So the investigators are obviously going to have to take the line that the guy must have gone berserk. It's the only even half way good enough excuse for our members to stay in the clear. Did the investigators say anybody should be suspended? No. Did they even say anybody should be confined to desk duty? No. So now they can't turn around and say they looked into it and then deliberately left any vicious bastards on duty. Forget about it! The poor sap lipped somebody off and we beat him to a goddam pulp, dragged him all over the province and hospitalized him four times. End of story.'
'Pretty neat,' intoned the corporal. 'All the same, I don't think I'd like to get posted up there anywhere in that whole area.'
'Just be glad you're not an unarmed civilian anywhere in that whole area', the sergeant answered. 'If your neighbours want you to get beaten up they just call 911.'
'Ya, bye', said the RCMP Sergeant pensively as he hung the phone up.
'What's up with your Prince Rupert friend?' asked the corporal.
'He says they had to invite the Delta Police to investigate an injury to a civilian up there. Delta are the pricks who tried to give Monty the Mountie Menace such a hard time for his second killing.'
'Oh-oh,' responded the corporal. 'Well what happened up in Rupert?'
'Some 15 year old girl yelled at her mother that she was going to kill herself if she had to keep living under the same roof, and somebody called 911. When we got there, the women said it was just a normal arguement and the girl was just being dramatic and they didn't need us.'
''Sounds like my wife and daughter sometimes,' chuckled the corporal. ' I hope they tried to use psychergy.'
'Psychergy?' asked the Sergeant?
'Ya, like shrinkergy, you know? Talk them down off the ledge stuff.'
' I know what the words mean,' the sergeant said somewhat testily, 'but remember this: we're called a police force, not a police debating team,' . And don't talk about psychergy to the Rupert members,' continued the sergeant. They're not having any of it. They decided to arrest the girl for her own good and she didn't want to be arrested, so they broke her arm.'
'Bummer', said the corporal, abashed and subdued.
' Double bummer,' corrected the sergeant. 'They broke it in two places.
The RCMP corporal put the paper aside with a concerned frown as the desk sergeant came in.
Noting the frown, the sergeant asked, 'What's the problem corporal?'
'It says here in the paper that as of last month, most of the civilians have no confidence in us. In B.C. more than 70 per cent say they have NO confidence in us!' whined the corporal.
Unperturbed, the desk sergeant calmly replied, ' At over $60 thousand a year after 6 months on the job are we still the highest paid grade 12 graduates you ever heard of ?'
'Ya', said the corporal.
'On top of that we got a raise and nobody else did.'
'Ya', said the corporal.
'We got our contract renewed for 20 years.'
'Ya.'
'And the icing on the cake, as of this week it's open season. We can punch any of those 70 per centers right smack in the face if they so much as give us a dirty look, and get away with it'
'Ya!'
'So who gives a f*** about the 70% ?' asked the sergeant rhetorically.
'NOT ME!' replied the happy corporal.
'Your looking a bit tired corporal,' the sergeant advised. 'Why don't you take some extra time off ?'
'Thanks Sergeant,' the corporal answered. ' That would be great. Can you set it up for me?'
'No problem,' answered the sergeant. 'Stop at the pub for a few beers on your way home and I'll arrange to have you pulled over when you get close to your house. Then I'll do an internal investigation and you'll get ten days off- with pay of course.'
'But we did that last year,' the corporal reminded the sergeant.
'No problem,' the sergeant reminded him. 'If you get really really totally fall-down drunk, we can get Judge Lenehan to give you a curative discharge.' But don't run over anybody unless you want a few years off with pay.
'I love this job,' enthused the corporal as he grabbed his jacket and headed for his car.
'I'm getting pretty tired of everybody hacking on us over the pay raise we snuck in,' the RCMP desk sergeant complained to the corporal. "They forget how dangerous this job is.'
'Ya,' agreed the Corporal. He thought for a minute with a worried look on his face. 'How dangerous is it?'
'Well, answered the desk sergeant, you know commercial fishermen?'
'Ya?' replied the corporal.
'You know loggers?' asked the sergent.
'Ya?'
'You know airplane pilots?'
'Ya?'
'You know steel workers?'
'Ya?'
'You know farmers?'
'Ya?'
'You know roofers?'
'Ya?'
'You know power-line workers?'
'Ya?'
'You know truck drivers?'
'Ya?'
'You know garbage men?'
'Ya?'
'Well,' said the sergeant,' They all have more dangerous jobs than us. We're tenth on the list.'
'Are we on the list because of being in fights or shot?' the corporal asked.
'Not really.' the sergeant answered. 'We're on the list because we have a lot of car accidents. And some of those are because of drunks.'
'Ya, I hate drunks,' the corporal said.
'No,' clarified the sergeant, 'I mean some of our car accidents are caused by our members being drunk.'
