Old Ned's Blog

Chapter Two

Downfall

Martin Tanner roughly elbowed the heavyset woman out of his way and climbed the steep stairs into the Greyhound bus. He slammed his duffel bag into the first seat, following it with a heavy thud as he threw his body into the seat next to it. He took the aisle seat and let the duffel bag fill the window seat, making it impossible for anyone to even try to climb over him and take the seat.

Martin Tanner was tall and wide-shouldered, still muscular in his 40s, while his recent weight gain was causing his once visible six-pack to fall back behind what was slowly becoming middle-age spread.  He was still a commanding presence and obviously not someone with whom you wanted to get into a disagreement.  His body language and eyes seethed hostility. It was going to be a long six-hour ride to Chicago and Tanner was an angry man with pent-up rage almost visibly seething from his pores. 

If I still had my truck, I wouldn’t have to ride with these cows, he thought as the heavy woman made her way up the stairs and squeezed sideways to get past him. One by one, they made their way down the narrow aisle. Every one of them is a loser, he thought.  His sneering look kept any from even thinking about sitting by him, even across the aisle.

Yet, an unkempt, skinny young man with a lip ring and an eyebrow ring and a face full of pimples stood before him and nodded toward the empty seat. Tanner stared at him.  Leaning to within a few inches from his face, he narrowed his eyes to slits and snarled, “In your dreams, sicko.” The young man jerked back from him and scurried to the rear. A wise move.

The driver climbed up into the bus, took a headcount and stepped back out again, talking briefly with a ground agent. One of a group of cops standing next to a police van walked over the two and spoke briefly to them. They turned and stared at the bus. A moment later, the driver was back and after taking a quick appraisal of Martin Tanner, seated himself at the wheel. At last, the bus crept out into the city street. Tanner heaved a deep sigh and managed a tight thin smile.

The cops remained next to the police van parked at the edge of the driveway and watched the bus pull away. Tanner kept his eyes on them until the bus rumbled down the street and they were no longer in view.  Tanner knew that they would follow the bus until it hit the freeway, making sure he was on his way and out of the city.

Finally. I am out of this place, Tanner sighed under his breath as the bus climbed the freeway ramp.  The last few months had been hell. He shook his head at how fast everything went downhill after that first arrest. If only his stupid wife had just shut up and not called 911. He was a police officer, for God’s sake.   His mind drifted back to when his life began to fall apart.

He guessed it all really started with his takedown of those two homeless drunks several months back. He had stepped out of his patrol car and told them to get in the back. They were filthy to start with and refused to come with him. When he grabbed one by the shirt and tried to pull him up from the sidewalk, the other one who was standing sucker-punched him from behind.

Tanner quickly turned and swung his nightstick with full force. He heard bone breaking as it smashed across the bridge of the man’s nose and watched with a smile as the drunk flailed backward to the concrete, his head slamming into it with a popping sound like a melon exploding.

By then the one on the sidewalk had his arms wrapped around Tanner’s legs and spewed up a gush of vile, foul-smelling vomit onto Tanner’s trousers and down over his shoes.

Tanner punched down, bashed his nightstick and fist into the drunk’s booze swollen face and head, and yanked himself away from the death grip the drunk had been trying to hold on with.

He stepped back and with measured coldness, dropped kicked the groveling man, lifting him up and splaying him out on the sidewalk.   He looked at the two unconscious men and leveled several kicks to the head and ribs of each.  Gasping for breath, adrenaline pumping through his chest, he stepped back and stared down at the two broken and bleeding men.

Only then did he call for an ambulance. As he waited, he tried to clean the vomit from his shoes and gagged as he fought the horrible smells.  He walked over to the second man, the one who had fouled his legs and shoes and with all his rage behind it, kicked the fallen man in the groin. 

Then the flashing lights from another patrol car brought him back to reality. A few minutes later, by the time he heard the sound of the wailing into the scene, he was calm. His mask was now in place, covering the rage inside.  He climbed back into his own unit and drove away, a smile working its way out. He opened all the windows as the wretched odor of the vomit permeated the car.

The bus rocked with a swaying motion as it picked up speed and jerked its way into the HOV lane, bringing Tanner back to the present again.   He sighed deeply and let the motion of the bus and the blur of the cars speeding alongside the bus calm him down. They forced him out of there for good and he was going to make some people pay for what they did to him.

He shook his head as he thought of the two useless wrecks he had put in the hospital that night. He could still smell the reeking odor from the vomit. He had to throw the shoes and socks away. I should have dropped a throwaway on that first guy. Maybe that would have been enough to keep the Review Board away from me.

His thoughts went back to the job.  The next day, after the incident, they called him into the precinct Captain’s office at the start of his shift. He was informed that both homeless men were in ICU and may not survive his ‘take-down.’  The angry Captain placed him on administrative leave for a month and would have to go before a review board before he would be allowed back on the street.

“Maybe I was a bit overzealous,” he told the Captain, “but the men fought me and I feared for my safety.”

He smiled, aware that he was using the code words that would keep him safe from any penalty. The Captain returned Tanner’s cynical smile and told him to tell it to the Review Board. Tanner did not worry too much. The Review Board was loaded with his Lodge brothers, who were bound by oath to cover for him.

Sitting home had been worse than prison. His wife kept harping at him day and night and his drinking got worse. Their daughter was no better than her mother was and when he slapped his daughter’s smart mouth and broke some teeth, the hag called 911 and had him arrested for domestic abuse.

“I put up with that kind of abuse from my drunk of a father and I sure not going to let you slap around your daughter like he did me. Get out and don’t come back you rotten drunk!” she screamed at him as the police led him out of the house.

“Stay away from us, you make me sick,” she screeched from the front porch as they put him in the patrol car.

That little episode added to the drunken punks in the hospital got him his 30 days without pay and a restraining order from his wife to stay away from his own house.  His Lodge brothers were no help and he let them know it.

Martin Tanner smiled tightly as he thought about the next few days when he had someone from the squad pick up his clothes at his house.  He winced at the humiliation and anger he felt when he rented a room in a dump of an old boarding house. He spent the month watching TV and drinking away each day. A few days before the end of his exile, he put the bottle down and cleaned up.

When he walked into the precinct the first morning of his return, a process server dropped divorce papers on him and his boss gave him a walking beat, something out on the docks with orders not to bring his nightstick out on patrol.  He tossed the divorce papers in the trash on the way out, unopened. If the hag thought she was going to get a divorce from him, she had a long wait ahead.

He lasted two hours on the street before the sweats hit him as the booze worked its way out to the surface. He stopped at a small liquor store and picked up a fifth.  The Asian clerk took his money and made change without making eye contact. Tanner walked around to the alley next to the store and drank deeply.  He called in sick for four straight days.  The hair of the hound got him going each day, but he was starting to get the shakes and knew he needed to pull off the booze before it killed him.

He finally sobered up enough to show up for work again. Tanner argued loudly with the Captain that he deserved better than a walking beat after 18 years on the job.  He was assigned to a ride-along shift with a young cop who had been a trainee a year earlier.  At least he wasn’t walking and the car had air conditioning and the kid kept his mouth shut and his eyes to the front.

He talked the kid into stopping downtown at his bank so he could pull some money out of his account to rent a small, furnished apartment and get out of that dump of a room. He needed something a bit more permanent now that his wife had him locked away from the house with the restraining order.

He went in and wrote a counter check after waiting impatiently in line, even though they could see his police uniform. Tanner finally gave the check to the teller and told her he wanted it in cash.

She clicked in his data and with an apology, told him that he needed to talk to the bank manager. That was when he found out that his wife had emptied both their checking and their savings accounts. He screamed his rage at the banker and scuffled with the bank guards as he was ushered out of the bank. Someone had raced out and brought in his partner, who helped get him back to the car. Even Tanner had to admit it was an ugly scene.  The kid dropped him off at his rooming house and told Tanner the Chief said for him to stay home for a few days.

Tanner looked out of the front window of the bus as it sped along the highway. He felt tons of heaviness lifting off his shoulders, more with each mile away from the city.  He sucked in air and sighed loudly as he thought back, remembering how things just seemed to keep spiraling out of control.

The next morning after the bank incident, he was notified that he was on indefinite administrative leave. At least his paycheck was not cut off. He was also told that one of his drunken, homeless men was going to spend the rest of his life as a semi-vegetable. The Chief was concerned over the possibility of a civil lawsuit against both the Department and him. Not good, the boss said. Your career is on the line, Tanner.

Tanner took his prized Dodge Ram 3500 with the Hemi 8 down to the dealer the next morning and wholesaled it to the Used Car Manager. Lenny was a Lodge brother and one of the few friends still talking to him.  He walked away with $18,500. At least he had some cash now.

Two days later, he walked into the precinct to pick up his paycheck, only to find out that it had been forwarded to the divorce court, per the papers he had tossed without reading. He had been given ten days to respond to the order to have the court disperse his pay. Tossing them in the trash had not been my best move, he lamented.

Tanner walked back to his small room and drank himself to sleep. He drank through the next three days and when he was finally sober enough to move, made another foolish move.

Sitting in the bus, Tanner shook his head at the idiocy of what he had done. He reached into his duffel bag and pulled out an almost- warm Bud Lite, opened it quietly, and took a deep swig. The bus driver looked back at him with a deep frown and was about to say something until he made eye contact and saw the anger and rage just at the surface. He turned back to the road and with a quick look back in the mirror, chose to say nothing. 

I never should have gone to the house that day, Tanner thought. What an idiotic thing to do.

That morning, after taking a few extra shots to settle himself down, he had shown up at his house and pounded on the door.  When his wife opened the door and screamed at him to get away, he pushed her back and onto the floor as he strode past her into the kitchen. A man he did not know was standing at the sink. He was shouting for him to get out of the house right now before he called the police. His side of the bed was still warm and she had another man in the house!

Tanner screamed that he was the police and it was his house. He then proceeded to beat the man into unconsciousness. When his wife tried to pull him away as he was punching the fallen man in the head, he swung up and turned on her, slamming her into the refrigerator. Her head snapped back against the metal and she fell on the floor like a rag.  Tanner kicked her unmoving body until the rage subsided.

With a frantic look around, he knew he had gone too far. At least the kid was at school. He headed for the door and ran into a herd of police officers running up the steps.  It took four of them and several zaps with stun guns to slow him down as he tried to fight his way down the steps. At last, with Tanner lying face down at the bottom of the stairs, they were able to get him under control and handcuffed. 

The next few hours were a blur and they ended with Tanner handcuffed to a cot in a single-occupant cell. Many hushed conversations were going on as the news of his actions and arrest reached the troops. He stayed in lockdown for five days as the brass tried to figure out what to do with him. His food was shoved through a slot in the solid metal door. His head pounded out in pain and his hands shook as the booze worked its way through his system.

On the morning of the sixth day, both his Precinct Captain and the Police Chief came down to the cell. He could smell trouble. It was written all over their faces.  They opened the cell door, came in, and stood against the wall facing his cot.  The Captain was the first to speak. 

“Not sure if you care, but your wife had an arm broken in three places, 4 broken ribs, a concussion, and several teeth knocked out. She finally came out of a coma this morning. The man you mauled was her attorney.  He is still in ICU with serious injuries including blood clotting on the brain. You did a real number on both of them.”

“Both Homeless men are still in the hospital and as I already told you, one is a vegetable.  You are a real piece of work, Tanner.”

The Captain paused for a moment and looked at the Chief before he spoke again.

“Where did you get the eighteen grand that was in the envelope in your pocket?”

“Sold my truck.”

The Chief nodded. His eyes were like smoldering coals He leaned forward and spoke in sharp angry, chopped sentences between clenched teeth.

“Tomorrow, several Review Board members will see you. They have already met and have reached a decision. You will officially surrender your badge and your weapon.  We have already taken them from you. You are no longer on the police force as of this morning. You ‘retired’ yesterday. You will sign over your pension to your wife and daughter.

You will be placed on a non-stop bus to Chicago when they are through with you.  Do not ever come back to this city.  You will have no contact with your wife or daughter. Ever.  Restraining orders are in place and were served on you yesterday. Those are the rules. Take the out, that is, unless you want to move from this cell to the State Prison for the next 20 years. Think on it.”

Tanner smiled through lips still cracked and thickened in his battle with the cops at the door to the house. He pulled out his ace card.

“O Lord my God, is there no help for the widow’s son?’ he asked his Lodge brothers, with both arms raised to the square.

“Not this time, Tanner” The Captain replied,   “You’ve had all the help you will ever get.  You should be spending the next twenty years in prison.  The only reason we are kicking your sorry butt loose is that you were a lodge brother. That’s all the help you are going to get with that plea.”

“Were?”

The Chief smiled at the handcuffed man. “Yes, the word is “were”. The Lodge officers have met in special session with the Grand Lodge and they voted to full expulsion. Tanner, you pushed us too far. You are no longer a Mason.  As far as the Lodge is concerned, you are a dead man. Get out of town and never come back. If you do, you will not live to enjoy it. That is not just your former Police Chief talking, but it is also a Masonic promise.”

The Chief stepped through the door and walked away without looking back. The Captain stood there looking at Tanner for a long moment, shook his head, and followed the Chief out of the cell, closing the cell door firmly behind him.

Tanner remembered that the rage and fury within him brewed hotly through the night and the next day as he paced back and forth in his cell, 

Eighteen years down the drain. His bosses were more concerned about covering their respective Fannies than they cared about their own lodge oaths.

Early the next morning, several members of the Police Review Board team came to the cell and visited him. They coldly repeated what the chief told him. Tanner sat sullen and silent as they pronounced their decision to fire him.  The jail boss had wisely double handcuffed him for their visit.

When they left, a guard gave him his clothes, watch, wallet, and cash and told him to dress quickly. There was no time for food or a shower.  He threw his wedding ring against the wall. Once ready, he was hustled out a back door and shoved past several armed guards, into a waiting van.  One driver and four hostile jailhouse cops accompanied him to the bus station and only un-cuffed him just before the bus began loading. They handed him his duffel bag from his room and a one-way ticket to Chicago.

“Get on the bus, Tanner, and no trouble. I swear I will shoot you if you act up,” the jailhouse Shift sergeant snarled as he slid the side door open.

Tanner stepped out and pushed his way to the bus door, jostling the woman at the head of the line out of the way.  Chicago, here I come.  Your worst nightmare is on the way, he muttered under his breath.