I’ve been a cop for almost three years now. Everyday my alarm chimes at exactly 1000hrs, I head to the gym, shower, prep my meals for the day, and head to the station to work the evening shift. If it’s the weekend, I may hit the bars after work with my shift but otherwise this job is my life- for better or worse.
They warned us in the academy that the job can change you and that you’ll lose most of your family and friends. Sometimes the loss is from a difference in political views, sometimes it’s from lack of free time, and sometimes from our short-tempered bursts due to extreme burn out. But whatever the reason may be, those people aren’t easily replaced. The job consumes your entire being and prevents you from meeting new people (who aren’t other cops).
Wouldn’t you know, it didn’t even take three years before my instructor’s words rang true. Well, besides for Ethan. Ethan and I have been best friends since first grade and even my odd sleep schedule, extreme exhaustion, and lack of ability to schedule just about any plans, he never wavered.
I was a quiet kid, but Ethan wasn’t. He always saved me a seat on the bus and even though I didn’t know the kid, I was always excited to have someone to sit with. As time went on, he made more of an effort and I opened up from my shell. One day in high school during lunch I remember asking him why he always saved me a seat, expecting him to tell me how he wanted to be friends or liked my lunch box, or some other shit.
Ethan lifted his sandwich from the iconic red tray and took a bite of his sandwich before telling me, “The kid the stop after you smelled like straight fish sticks and I needed to make sure he didn’t sit with me.”
That’s Ethan for ya. He wasn’t popular by any means, but he never lacked confidence or integrity. He quickly became my most trusted person. At least, he was.
We’ve talked every single day for the past 10 years. If it isn’t texting, we’re constantly sending each other Snapchats or links to videos. He’s like a brother to me. Hell, he just asked me two weeks ago to be the best man at his wedding. I was stoked about it, and not just because I wanted to plan a trip to Vegas or Nashville- but because I really like his fiancé. I’ve known her since college and she’s just the chillest girl ever. They recently bought a house together, a small cottage-style yellow house that I grew up calling the “Matilda House.” There were always rows of brightly colored flowers and a small white picket fence that was just high enough to still allow you to see the flowers and front stoop. I was actually excited when they bought it so I could finally see the inside to compare if it was anything like I had engrained in my head like the movie. But now, I pray that I never have to step foot in that house again.
It was around 2200 hrs, nearing the end of my shift. It had been an eerily quiet night. I was just finishing my last sip of gas station coffee when the call went out and the disruption to the silence was such a startle, I spit some of my coffee out and it dribbled down to my radio mic. As I went to reach for a napkin, deja vu struck.
Maybe I’m just sloppy and use a lot of napkins, but it was so strong I even KNEW the Dispatcher was about to send me priority. So much so, that before she finished calling out my badge, my finger was on the switch.
“Dispatch to 822,” she called out.
“822, go ahead,” I responded, finger still hovering.
“Head to 344 XX(redacted) Lane for a 911 hang up. Dispatch heard loud screaming prior to the hang up. Priority authorized.”
It’s not often we get priority authorized in this small town, so I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little pumped to flick on my lights and hear the siren flood the empty the streets as I made my way toward the call. It took me about four seconds before the shock of adrenaline waned enough to recognize the address- it was Ethan’s house.
I arrived on scene and the front door was slightly ajar. In any other house, my hand would have been on my gun, if not pulled out and down to my side. But this was my best friend, family. Within an instant, all police protocol leaped from my brain and was replaced with concern. I pushed open the door and yelled, “Ethan? Lauren?”
No response.
I turned the corner and looked up the stairs. Blood was smeared all over the walls, wrapping around the furthermost side and into the kitchen. There was a pool of blood lying on the kitchen floor. The top of my boot splashed in the blood before I could stumble backward.
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. I followed the red trail up the stairs to their bedroom.
There was no way someone lost this much blood and was still alive.
As soon as the thought escaped my mind, I drew my weapon. I forced the bedroom door open with my boot, leaving a small new stamp of blood on the crisp white door that was already spattered with droplets. Ethan was curled in the corner of the room, grasping onto a knife. He was wide-eyed and jaw clattering. He was unrecognizable.
“Ethan, what the fuck…” as I went to offer him help, my police senses caught up with my civilian emotions. He was covered in blood. And not just him, but the knife too.
“822? Do you copy?”
I physically shook my head to try to get my shit together. I held my gun in one hand, lowered. “822, negative, what?” I asked Dispatch.
“822, 934 is entering the premise. Where do you want him?”
My Sergeant was on scene. “Upstairs, first door on the left. One,” I hesitated. Do I call him a suspect? A victim? “One individual with a knife. Stand down.”
I release my mic and look at Ethan. “Ethan, man, you gotta drop the knife.”
He took a deep breath. Held it.
I repeated, “Drop the knife.”
He released the knife and his lungs simultaneously and let out a sob that still shakes me to even think about.
As I grabbed the knife, my Sergeant approached behind me. Then I realized…. And asked, “Ethan, where’s Lauren?”
The rest is a blur in my mind. As soon as my Sergeant arrived, I forced my mind and my body to enter Cop Mode, as I call it. Similar to Auto Pilot, it’s a nearly robotic function we use to hinder our personal emotions so that we can physically complete the task at hand without letting our emotions completely cripple us, to a point of danger. People may complain that cops are emotionless, but do you want someone shaking and crying when they run in to your house to save you from a gun wielding robber? Or someone vomiting and crying as you relive your rape in detail?
I remembered every detail long enough to log it into my police report, but now, the adrenaline dump has set in. If you asked me what I wanted to eat, I wouldn’t be able to respond. I am incapable of the simplest most decision making abilities following removing my 40 lbs of gear.
I will tell you this, Ethan admitted to stabbing Lauren. He said she was gone and that this wasn’t the first time. I was the one to place the handcuffs on him, and I’ll never get that image out of my head.
I’m sad that I just lost my best friend. I’m sad that I lost his fiancé, an incredibly close friend of mine. I hate myself for not having seen the signs. I’m disgusted by caring so deeply about this guy who I considered family, could be so horrible. And I’m angry. So fucking angry at Ethan.
I lied there, trying to quiet the anxiety storm that was torpedoing my mind out of a sleepless state. I wanted to forget everything. I took a few deep breaths.
But then, I remembered something. The instant the storm in my mind even remotely paused, I could remember. Ethan whispered something to me as I walked over to grab the knife he dropped.
“Hollowell. You were right.”
Hollowell… it’s familiar but I can’t place it. I close my eyes. Hollowell, Hollowell…
My eyes jolt open. Our 8th grade English teacher. But why? What did that mean?
It felt like I was never going to get to sleep, but at some point I eventually simply shut down. No other way to put it.
I woke up today and couldn’t shake the last thought I had- Hollowell’s class. I knew my mom incessantly kept all of my schoolwork, labeled with the label maker she asked for on Mother’s Day how many years ago. I drove over to her house and dug out my 8th grade tote.
I flipped through some book reports from Summer reading assignments- nothing Ethan had ever set his eyes on. I found a few tests, Romeo and Juliet, grammar, creative writing. I failed the Romeo and Juliet test- definitely nothing I was right about there. Grammar doesn’t seem very… murdery.
But there it was. My creative writing assignment I presented to the class. The only thing I ever got an A on. It was inspired by a compilation of late-night Harry Truman Show rewatching and Twilight Zone binging. I basically wrote an entire essay on how our lives are predetermined and out of our control, but not for a greater being, but rather due to the need to keep an equilibrium of parallel planes/universes. It was titled: It’s All a Set Up.
And there it was, three paragraphs from the conclusion:
Unexplained phenomena such as UFOs, Moms magically lifting cars, or even perfectly sane people committing murder, are a result of this life as we know it counteracting a glitch in the parallel. It’s when deja vu hits the hardest.