August 31
Here it is chronologically. We pick matters up at 2330 because I inadvertently misplaced the first thirty minutes. You didn’t miss much.
2330 – Visit with Schempp at the four-way. At my request, we swap 482’s, with me going at 0400 and Schempp at 0300. I overslept and had two protein shakes after lifting and I brought a sandwich to eat later and an 0400 482 would complement that nicely. Schempp gets off one more funny about the valet incident from last night, advising me to valet my car and maybe I’ll get an upgrade when I pick it up, a pretty good line. It’s pleasing to note that Schempp is in good humor tonight, cause when he’s not whining he’s a pretty good guy.
2343 – Back in the southwest corner of the guest lot, after a trip to the can.
2345 – Consume sandwich, a cashew butter/apricot jam/tempeh salad on whole-grain bread concoction, that’s really good.
2350 – Roll to the short term lot to move out an illegally parked shuttle van and limo. Schempp rolls with me and takes the shuttle van and I take the limo. My tone is that of a supplicant asking for a loan. There could be a VIP in the back seat and though deferential, I am firm and he moves.
0002 – If I am going to keep written source material tonight I need a clipboard. The search is as short as it is successful because Jo(s)e has one for me at the employee parking lot.
0004 – Back at the guest lot, southwest corner. Rich, Bi-Bob and Russ start their 482’s.
0010 – Jane comes on 97.1 The Point. This is not my all-time favorite Starship song, but it is Top 3.
0015 – X-Ray, in his role as Henry 2, starts his 10-10.
0022 – The Co-Heavyweight Champion of the World, More Than A Feeling, comes on 97.1 The Point. A great night on the radio, so far. I air guitar to it. I don’t have any loose change on me, so I can’t use a dime or a penny, which is ideal, so I press a breath mint into emergency service. It starts to melt after a couple of minutes, though, and I end up eating it.
Also, X-Ray triumphantly concludes his 10-10.
0035 – Dream On on Jack FM.
0045 – Off to Eddie – 2 to make a fresh pot of coffee so I can take a cup to C.T., the new guy who is manning the New York, New York gate tonight. Radtke is there and we BS for a while. He also has an 0400 482 and he is not enthused about it because he fears he won’t run into Nong. I tell him 0400 482’s can be perfect for this, especially if Nong has the 0400 or 0420 break, in which case you’re all set. Not for the first time under my tutelage, Radtke doesn’t see my point.
0055 – Something is going on outside, though since I’m chatting with Radtke I’m not entirely sure what. Turns out some dolt waddled up to Guy at the four-way and asked “How’s security at this joint” and you don’t have to be Joe Friday to have that make you suspicious. Guy takes immediate action and it turns out this guy is having a fight with his girlfriend via cell phone and apparently was looking for a place to have it out at. Or something like that. Guy and Jo(s)e take care of it.
0115 – I’m sitting on North Drive, near the fire doors close to the brewery. North Drive is more or less closed and it’s nice and quiet and since outside units no longer have scanners, I am looking forward to killing some time there.
0120 – Cruel To Be Kind is in Jack FM. This is a great song to sing along with.
0122 – From out of nowhere, Schempp comes up and joins me! This is bad. You may recall a few months ago Schempp cornered me in the garage and yapped through two in a row from .38 Special, which almost bought him instant death. Now he shows up during Cruel To Be Kind. After Cruel To Be Kind Jack FM plays The Breakup Song, which is real cool to air drum to. Schempp is mesmerizing me with a comparison of a Twilight Zone episode to the construction that is going on next door at City Centre, specifically the huge T-shaped crane they have there, which is plainly visible from North Drive. I am a fan of neither The Twilight Zone nor large, T-shaped cranes – nor Schempp, right now, for that matter – and have some zero clue how the two are related, but that doesn’t stop Schempp.
0125 – The Breakup Song ends and Walking In Memphis, a song I love dearly, comes on. Schempp would do well to stop talking right now cause I also enjoy air-pianoing to this song and I am about to break out the Kung Fu Grip, but in one of the great upsets in human history, he wraps it up before the song is a minute old, not ideal, but I’ll take it.
0140 – Visit Mark in the New York, New York garage. He’s doing OK. I was prepared to relieve him so he could go to the can, but he says he’s good.
0210 – 85 to valet to watch two people getting kicked out of the hotel pick up their car. There had been a runaway alarm clock in their room on swing shift and when they weren’t there Stan and Mike went in to shut the alarm off and discovered some weed. We would’ve let it go on graveyard, but Stan and Mike locked them out of their room and when they came back we evicted them.
There’s more though. Ted, watching them in the hotel from dispatch, sees the girl dart away while they’re waiting for the elevator and gets suspicious. He goes up there and finds a baggie of coke in the fire extinguisher locker and he and a Henry unit dispose of it.
Later, the guy calls back and says he and his woman left a necklace in the hallway and could he go back up and get it, the oldest trick in the book. Well, no, he was told, he can’t go up and get it, but we’d be pleased to have an officer go and look for it, which didn’t please him at all and eventually he and his woman left again, minus the bag of blow they had left.
0245 – Off to the New York, New York garage to relieve Mark for 482. Time in the garage is peaceful, though a tad warm.
0400 – Daryl should be sainted. He comes through with a primo, and I do mean primo, cut of prime rib. Double cut, too. If a waiter had presented you with this fine cut of beef and a bill for, say, $30, you would’ve gladly paid it. It was that good.
Radtke was sorta right about the late 482 not being good, as Nong didn’t show up till right as we were about to clear. She did favor Radtke with a smile that resembled a sunrise, so he’s in heaven again.
Radtke also reported that Emily in the cage wants to set him up with his sister. I told him never turn down a blind date because any spoke might lead to the hub, but he was skeptical.
“What if she’s a cow?” he asked, not unreasonably.
“So what?” I said. “You’re signing up for a date, not marriage. Besides, Emily’s pretty foxy, so her sister probably is, too. Unless one of them is adopted, of course.”
0500 – Back on patrol, in the southwest corner of the guest lot. Turn to the only decent morning show in town, Kahuna and Company on KKLZ. It’s Kahuna, Jim Tofte, a really funny guy, and Dennis Mitchell, plus Backseat Beth on traffic, though this morning Beth is actually out in the field, passing out condoms at the local Catholic high school.
