Dark Blue

"Joe, you've told me a lot. You've explained what happened and why. You've even told me how you think she feels but what you haven't said is more important than all that other stuff."

I was confused and I must have looked it.

"Joe, Honey," she said taking my hand, "What needs to be established here is how Joe feels about all of this. What is it you want? That's what has you stumped. Where exactly does Doctor Moss fit into the Romanski equation."

"Well...we're friends...I guess," I said shrugging my shoulders.

"If that were truly the case Joe, why are you hurting the way you do?" she kissed my hand, "Joe, you're hard as nails and rough around the edges but there is a sweet caring side of you that not many ever get to see. You, you big dumb shit, are in love."

"Jamie, you scare the hell out me sometimes."

Imagine big bad Romanski has a sensitive side, who'd a thunk it? I don't know if I was buying the fact that I was pining inside for Nancy but the truth was I did feel hurt and I missed not having Nan to talk to but was it really love?

I tried to push my personal life into the shadows as Bill and I hit the streets each day. The radio calls kept coming and they got weirder. There was the call of a fight in progress on the set of a porn video shoot. When we arrived, a small Asian woman wielding a three foot long double headed dildo confronted Bill. He immediately pulled his baton, the leather-clad woman took offence and the fight was on. I stood and watched as the two used their weapons like a scene from an old pirate movie. Errol... I mean Bill, seemed to have the upper hand until he was stabbed in the nuts by her rubber saber. I intervened by lifting her off her feet from behind and wrestled her into the back of the patrol unit.

My all time favorite came a few days later. Bill and I were dispatched to the scene of a motor vehicle accident at the off ramp of the Hollywood Freeway and Alvarado. On arrival, we found a van laid on its side. Nothing all too unusual at first glance, I'd witness hundreds of MVAs over the course of my career. I surveyed the scene while Bill radioed our arrival to the dispatch center.

The driver was ejected from the vehicle and it appeared at first glance that his lower legs were pinned under the overturned van. The man was unconscious but didn't seem to be bleeding. His pulse was strong and he was breathing well. I'd noticed the handicap plate on the initial inspection but hadn't really put two and two together just yet. Upon closer inspection, it became clear the van was not really pinning the man's legs, he didn't have legs. That's when I remembered the handicap license plate and decided to have a little fun at my partner's expense.

When Bill kneeled beside me I shouted, "Fuck Bill, where are his legs!"

The look of shock on his face was priceless, a true MasterCard moment. Bill jumped to his feet and begun the relentless search for the man's missing appendages. Rescue was on the way and the patient was stable, Two more units had arrived for traffic control so I let Bill continue his snipe hunt. He looked high and low as his face contorted with desperation while his search led him nowhere.

I've never seen Bill so focused on a task. My poor buddy was right there when the tow truck up righted the overturned vehicle. The look of disappointment mixed with relief was all I could take. Bill took the news like a man and pouted for the rest of the day but I found great humor.

Making absolutely no headway with Nancy was making me desperate. The florist at the hospital was on my speed dial and starting to recognize my voice. I sent bouquet after bouquet, gawddamn that woman is hardheaded.

If Jamie was right and I really was in love with Nancy, was it the kind of forever love that I couldn't live without? This was one of the questions that kept bouncing around in my head. The other, and more to the point was, what was I going to do about it? The wheels of progress for Joe's future had been set in motion already, could I stop them and did I want to? In a matter of a few short days, I would be unemployed and worse, homeless. I'd canceled the lease on my little house and the owner already had replacement tenants.

My last day on the job had come and my mind was somewhere else. As Bill and I hit the streets, he looked over knowing this was the final time we'd spend together in uniform.

"Maybe we'll have a quiet day," he said.

I glared at him, "What the fuck did you say that for? The last time you wished for a quiet day, we had an earthquake that measured eight on the Richter scale, asshole."

Frustrated, I finally decided to do something that I probably would live to regret for the rest of my life. All these foreign notions were too much for a simple guy like me, so grabbing the first idea that floated by me, I told Bill to take me to the hospital.

"Are you sick?"

"Yeah, sick in the head," I muttered.

"You want to talk?" he asked.

"Shut the fuck up and drive," I ordered.

After finding Nancy and cornering her in one of the exam rooms, I did what I came for.

"I don't want to talk to you Joe, can't you get that through your thick skull?" Nancy hissed.

"That's good because I don't want to hear a damn word from you right now. I've got something to say and you're gonna listen."

"I'll call security and have you removed," she threatened.

"Call 'em. I'll be done talking before they get here."

She folded her arms defiantly but stood silent.

In an unrehearsed fashion I continued, "I'm not gonna even try to tell you that I understand what happened, cause I don't. But a reliable source tells me that I'm in love with you and maybe you feel the same. If that's the case, we can't go on not speaking. I know you're mad at me but unless you can get over it and start communicating, we'll never know one way or the other."

I studied her body language and she'd opened up substantially.

"I've never really loved a woman so I'm in over my eyeballs Nan, I have no fucking clue what happens next. I've said what I had to say now the next step is yours."

I should have kissed her like they do in the movies but I didn't think of it. And despite the ugly way I had done it, I'd just told her I loved her, well kinda, so my brain was not hitting on all eight cylinders. I felt relief and at the same time I was more afraid than I'd ever been in my life. What if Jamie was wrong, what then?

Before Nancy could say a word I turned and left her to think about what she wanted. When I got back in the car Bill asked, "Feelin' better?"

I sunk down into the seat, "Nope."

"You wanna..."

I cut him short, "Shut up Bill, you talk too much."

The day couldn't end soon enough to suit me, my world was not mine anymore it was out of my hands.

"All units stand by for emergency traffic," I shot a burning look at Bill and waited for the bad news, "All available units respond code three to a two eleven silent," the radio announced.

I noted the address of the armed robbery in progress, "You just had to open your big mouth didn't you, dickweed."

Bill had jinxed our day as sure the sky was blue and he knew it. We were a few blocks away and I turned the siren off as we closed in on the bank where the silent alarm had been activated. Several other units were closing as well and the area would be effectively closed down in a couple of minutes.

More likely than not we'd find the alarm was set off accidentally. This kind of thing happened all the time when some teller hit button with her knee but although most of the time this type of call was a wild goose chase, you had to treat each one as the real deal.

With only two hours left as a cop, I shouldn't be pulling my weapon. I should be back at the station telling war stories about what a great cop I was and how the remaining suckers would miss me when I was long gone. I should be eating a big slab of cake and wondering what was in the frosting. I shouldn't be wondering if this is what I should be doing.

As I came around the corner of the building, I got a bad feeling. Something was telling me that what I was looking at was wrong. There should be someone there to tell us it was a false alarm, the manager should be apologizing his ass off. The absence of people coming and going sent shivers down my spine. I signaled to Bill to stay quiet and stay low.

Raising my head to take a look was my first mistake. I was trying to look inside while two armed men burst through the door on the run. They turned straight toward Bill and I and were almost instantly behind us before we could react. Now, instead of being the lead, I was Bill's backup.

"Not this time," I thought. Not on my last day. Bill is a good cop but this is different, these guys had guns not pool cues. As the two gunmen ran, I yelled to Bill, "THE CAR, GET THE CAR!" I took off in foot pursuit.

The next words out of my mouth were, "FREEZE, POLICE OFFICER," which of course no one ever obeys.

The area was well covered by our guys for an escape by car but these assholes had to get cute and try legging it out. With my size, you wouldn't think me much of a runner but I'd surprise you on that count. I caught the first guy within half a block and with my hand on his back, steered him into a power pole at a dead run. I left him sprawled on the sidewalk for Bill to secure and continued the foot chase hardly missing a step.

The other suspect was fast and agile and I barely kept pace. After a few blocks, he looked back but I was still there like a pit bull on his ass. I heard sirens in the vicinity and the whir and thump of a helicopter overhead.

Conditioning was paying off and by then I was gaining ground. The guy was about fifty yards ahead of me and running out of steam. I figured I'd have his ass in another block or so and that's when I made my second mistake.

I was too focused on the chase and didn't see the car coming down the side street as we crossed. A two hundred-forty-pound man struck by a three thousand-pound car, can you guess who won. Physics dictates that it wasn't me. I careened of the front fender and smashed almost through the windshield into the driver's compartment of the car. I struggled to get off the car but my legs were of no use. There was blood pouring into my eyes and my chest felt like it was ready to explode as I fought to breathe.

If all this weren't bad enough, I had a new and more immediate problem. Standing alongside the car and laughing was the prick I'd been chasing. He seemed to find great joy in my predicament and had his pistol aimed at my chest.

He panted from exertion but managed to blurt, "You're gonna die now pig."

The term pig had gone out before I'd even joined the force and the mere thought of dying at the hands of a punk that used this archaic euphemism infuriated me. My thumb twitched once on the safety of my Glock and yes it was still in my hand, an officer never gives up his weapon.

As he aimed his revolver toward me, my thought was of anger management and that son of a bitch Exley. I couldn't do the deep breathing exercise, hell I couldn't breathe at all. Count to ten? No way, this would all play out in the blink of an eye, "Relieve the stress, that's way my way out of this," I thought to myself. There was only one choice and I made it calmly and not out of anger.

One shot to the throat and one to the chest was the best I could manage. I got off three rounds and could smell the burning gunpowder before I lost consciousness. I opened my eyes a couple of times, once to see Bill with tears dripping down his cheeks and again in the emergency room.

Things were happening too fast to comprehend, as I only caught bits and pieces of the organized chaos to save my life. I could make out one voice though.

"Joe, you're gonna be okay, don't give up," Nancy cried.

"Fine fuc... fuckin' time... to... decide to talk to me..." I rasped.

"Don't try to speak now Joe," came her soothing reply.

Breathing was nearly impossible, my chest was on fire until I felt the sharp stabbing pain where the chest tube was inserted. Relief was instantaneous, I could breathe again.

"Nance, don't leave me," I gasped.

"Never Joe."

I hadn't counted on spending my first few weeks of retirement in the hospital but better there than the morgue. My body was bruised and broken and Nancy was there for me night and day. At times she would care for me tenderly and lovingly and when I thought I couldn't take the pain any more, she came down hard like a marine drill sergeant. She was tough on me but I never resented her, knowing it was all done out of love.

My legs had been pinned and screwed back together and the cuts to my face sutured. I hated peeing into a bottle and well, the bedpan deal; I don't even want to talk about that. The worst part though was the food. Did you ever try and get a chilidog in a hospital? But that's where my buddy Bill came through for me. Even Nancy let him slip me a decent meal once in a while. Hey, it's amazing how much that grease helps the healing process.

When release from confinement was imminent, I worried where I would go. I had no house any more and living in Bill's den of inequity was out of the question. Nancy solved that problem before she even knew it was a concern to me. Taking charge, my things were moved to her place and it was decided for me that I would recuperate under her personal care, not that I minded. This was a big step for Nancy and I. The last woman I'd cohabited with was my mother and as you can imagine, that was over twenty years ago.

Rebuilding Romanski was not a pleasant thing but it was happening none the less. I assumed that once the casts were cut away from my battered limbs that I would be the same old Joe. Wrong, wrong, wrong, it frustrated the hell out of me that I had to learn to walk again. "Baby steps," Nancy would say. Those words made me want to run just to prove her wrong and the harder I tried the worse I failed. Each time that she asked me to take it easy I rebelled and worked harder.

This strategy didn't last long however. After a particularly nasty fall one day when Nancy was out, I found myself stranded. Lying on the cold hard bedroom floor for several hours made me realize that Nancy wasn't my problem, I was. I'd made her the bad guy in my life because I didn't like being told what to do.

Being called an asshole by nearly everyone in my life had never fazed me before but when you realize it's true, it upsets your equilibrium. That time had come for me, I was being stubborn and pigheaded but most of all, unappreciative.

I felt like the lowest of the low for the way I had been behaving and I cried tears for the first time since my mom had died. When Nancy found me crying on the floor, she immediately came to me to comfort me.

"I'm sorry Nance," I sobbed.

"Baby, you don't have to be sorry for crying," she soothed.

"It's not that, I'm sorry for fighting you every step of the way. I'm truly sorry Nancy, I don't deserve you."

She stroked my cheek and washed away the tears in an instant. Finally I knew the feeling of love. I recognized it for what it was and knew that things would work out okay.

Things did work out, I started to heal and could walk again. There was some pain and I had a limp but with time they would vanish. We talked about the future and that's where we had our first fight, as a couple that is.

"We're going and that's final."

"What if I don't want to move to Seattle."

"We have to, we've got to get out of this city."

"I don't think the timing is right, can't we talk about this?"

"There's nothing to talk about, I've made up my mind."

"So you're telling me I have no say in the matter?"

"That's about the size of it."

So with great confusion, I gave in and agreed with Nancy that we should go. Huh? You thought it was me that wanted out didn't you? I did, but not without Nancy. The way I felt though, If she wanted to live in Jackoffistan, that was fine by me.

When the U-haul-it was loaded, I stood at the back of the truck. My leg throbbed and my limp was a little worse than it had been a few hours before.

"You sure about this?" I asked, giving Nancy one last chance to change her mind.

"I'm sure," she nodded.

"Okay then, let's get this traveling cluster-fuck on the road."

I had a feeling of déjà vu as I watched the city disappear in my rearview mirror. It was the same as the day I boarded the plane from Saudi. The shooting was over now and the further we went, the safer I felt.

"Nance," I said as LA became just a memory, "I don't want you to think that because you got away with telling me what to do this time, that I gonna make a habit of doing any thing you say."

She studied my face before she spoke, "Right Romanski, you just keep on repeating that to yourself, now shut up and drive, you talk too much."

As the miles clicked by, I considered what had transpired in the past couple of months, the pain and the way it had brought me to my knees. What would have happened if the woman next to me hadn't been there to remind me to take "baby steps" and not over do it?

I'd been taking baby steps way too long, it was time for big Joe to get back in the game. At the next exit I turned the truck east.

"You're going the wrong way," Nancy astutely pointed out.

"Yeah, probably."

We pulled into Reno a little after noon. This place, known for divorces, was not the perfect setting for what I was about to do but it would work. Nancy had given up questioning me as had taken the fifth and refused to answer on the grounds that I may incriminate myself.

Like a man on a mission, I secured an expensive suite at the nicest hotel. Nancy was impressed but naturally suspicious as we checked out our accommodations.

"This is great Joe but..."

"No buts," I said as I adjusted the water temperature on the giant Jacuzzi.

I stripped Nancy to the buff and helped her into the ocean of suds, "Okay now, just relax for a while and I'll be back before you know it and don't forget to shave your legs," I told her.

"Where are you going? I'll come with you."

"Not like that you won't," I said shutting the door behind me.

The first joint I stopped at left my bank account about eight grand in the hole. They were friendly though and told me where to try my luck next. The next place was considerably gentler on my wallet, only about three grand, but it took a while.

It had been about four hours since I'd left the hotel. When I opened the door to the room, I got just what I'd expected, a pissed off Nancy. I set the souvenirs from my little spending spree on the bed.

Before she got her fuse lit I asked, "Did you shave your legs like I asked?"

"I did," she answered curtly.

I was opening boxes as she glared at me, "Good, then put these on," I handed her a pair very sheer extremely sexy silk stockings.

She looked at me in disgust, "If you think that this makes up for your little stunt..."

I held up the handmade lace garter belt, "And this."

"Joe, what the hell is all of this, some kind of kinky sex fantasy?"

I shoved the matching lace bustier in her direction, "No girl of mine is getting married in shorts and T shirt."

"Married!" she screamed.

She started to pay a little closer attention to the other packages. Soon she was ripping the boxes open to find the treasures inside. I'd almost had to hold a gun to the sales lady to get all of this done in such a short time. It had taken most of my skills to get all of the sizes correct but I had. They'd assured me that anything and everything a bride should have was included in the kit, down to the flowers.

"This one's mine," I said holding the tuxedo jacket up for inspection, "You like it?"

She never answered my question but the tears of joy said it all. After scooping up the remainder of her bridal ensemble, she scurried away to the bathroom and disappeared for over an hour.