The Christmas Failure

      On Christmas Eve, 2003, I was the evening shift patrol supervisor on the north end of the parish. While my chain of command and every other non-essential entity were enjoying the night with their families, my shift and I ensured that civilization did not go extinct. By nightfall, which came early, my deputies alternately went home to have dinner with their families. I couldn’t go home because I lived on the south end of the parish, twenty miles away. The rest of the evening dragged painfully slow while I drove the perimeter of my area.

At 8 pm, I reached the Arkansas state line and turned around. I came south on US 71 through little towns named from women or old families: Ida, Myra, Hosston, Gilliam, Belcher, and Dixie. The Highway was bare, and I was eager to be with my family. I arrived to civilization quicker than I expected, so I drove back north and pulled over on Highway 1 in TV Hills. Back before they leveled the hills and widened the road, Highway 1 had two lanes with improved shoulders, and you could pull over on a hill and catch speeders before they knew you were there, but nothing was moving that night.
I stopped at my office to read a report, but I couldn’t focus. I started over, but it didn’t work, so I cleared my desk, cleaned out a drawer, used compressed air to clean my computer, separated my pens from my pencils, and emptied the trash can. I got back in my car and went south, stopping just north of the city limits, and parked on the side of North Market to remind everyone coming into the parish that we weren’t putting up with any nonsense.

10 pm was too early to go home, so I drove slow. I almost reached the Cross Lake Bridge when the radio blared for the first time in hours, and it wasn’t the dispatcher wishing the evening shift Merry Christmas. Instead, it was an emergency.

“Dispatch to all units...a caller reports a man lying in the middle of Lowery Road with a gunshot wound to his head. Fire District One is in route.”

I shook my head and flipped on my lights and siren. A few minutes later and the call belonged to midnight shift, but now it was ours.

If you live any further west of Lowery Road in Caddo Parish, you’re in Texas. By the time I arrived, one of my deputies was setting up an LZ for the medical helicopter, and another was interviewing the people who found the man in the road. Yellow tape held back a dozen onlookers. Women were crying. A small group was praying. People were scared. Fire trucks blocked the road, the way firemen like to do, and under their spotlights lay a man in the road, slightly north of center. My deputy told me the man was talking to firemen when he arrived. 
      Before I was promoted two months earlier, I was a detective. When detectives arrive at the scene of a violent crime, they worry about killers running loose and putting people in danger. Detectives know the clock is ticking, and the crime scene holds crucial information. That night we were responsible for getting all the information we could. There were beer cans and a Mr Thrifty cup with ice sitting conspicuously in the road. Maybe they were evidence, maybe they were trash, but we collected them. The other evidence was on a back board with an oxygen tube going to his nose and a disposable blanket covering him from the waist down. The firemen told us he had been shot three times, but the wounds weren’t obvious. Despite the cold, he was shirtless. I watched his chest to see if he was breathing, but it didn’t move. Maybe he was already gone.
      The medics were nearby, but no one was excited. They were waiting for the helicopter, and seconds later, I heard it in the distance. Lowery Road was covered by tall trees on both sides, so the helicopter had to land a mile away and the nurses driven to the scene by ambulance. From there, they would load the victim, take him to the helicopter, and send him to LSU Medical Center. I still had a couple of minutes, and if the victim could talk, he might be able to tell us what happened. He was perfectly still, and his eyes were closed. I crouched down beside him. 

      “Hey my man...who did this to you?”
      He came to life, opened his eyes, and moved them up and down until they landed on me. Moving only his lips, he gave me a name, and then closed his eyes, seemingly breathing his last. I wrote the name down but didn’t give up. I spoke again, he answered and then closed his eyes. We repeated the exchange three or four times until I knew about the car that brought him to the scene, the two men involved, and the neighborhood where he lived.
      The nurses from the helicopter arrived and ushered me away. They put him on a gurney, loaded him into an ambulance and took him to the helicopter. Minutes later it was in the air stirring up dust, blowing off hats, and dropping the temperature 20 degrees. When it was out of sight, I jumped in my car and drove to Shreveport. When I got to the neighborhood, I stopped two people on foot and asked if they knew the victim or suspects, but they didn’t. I looked for the car the victim described, but I couldn’t find it.
      It was after midnight when I got home. The kids were asleep. I was supposed to help wrap and put presents under the tree, but I fell asleep. Colleen didn’t wake me. 
      The kids woke us at dawn. We opened presents and had breakfast. To accommodate my schedule, we had an early dinner with my parents and brother’s family. At 2 pm, I left the lights, presents, and family behind to return to the dark world of car crashes, thieves, burglars, wife beaters, fleeing felons, and murderers. I called dispatch and asked for an update on the case from the night before. The detectives were talking to two men at the office. They were the men the victim named the night before. Things looked promising, but the man who had been shot died at 2 am. His name was Curtis Ewing. Fifteen hours earlier I was talking to him, and I assumed he would be alright. The case was now a homicide.
      The night before, I knew the clock was ticking, but I didn’t realize a man’s life was at stake. When he left the scene, he had only two hours to live. He needed to know the wages of sin is death, and it is appointed unto man once to die. He needed to know Christ alone was his only hope, but I didn’t tell him. As far as I know, I was the last person to communicated with him, but I was so caught up in temporal things, I didn’t tell him about Jesus on Christmas Eve. Why didn’t I tell him that God is holy, and in his holiness he created mankind to please himself, but man sinned, and now everyone born of man wants to please himself rather than God? Why didn’t I tell him that God himself became a man, Jesus, lived a perfect life while resisting the same temptations we experience, and gave himself to be crucified so he could die in the place of all who repent of their sin and trust in him?
      I repented and promised to do better if God ever gave me another opportunity.

      Six years later, I was on my way to the office when a man was thrown off his motorcycle in a curve after hitting an eight point buck on South Lakeshore Drive. The crash left him in the middle of the road and sent his motorcycle flying into a fence a hundred yards away. I heard the call on the radio and was the second deputy to arrive. A man with a white beard wearing a helmet and leather jacket was laying across the double yellow line. He was still breathing, but it was the labored breathing of a man in distress. Traffic was passing us, so I ran to the west end and asked a motorist to block the road until a deputy arrived. When I got back to the man in the road, I expected him to be dead, but he was still breathing. 

        I was afraid to move him, so I got on my hands and knees beside him and talked to him. I told him about the God-man who lived a perfect life and gave himself on the cross to pay for our sins. I urged him to repent and trust in Christ. There is more I should have said, and my details were far from perfect, but I encouraged him and gave him the only hope I knew. Ten minutes later the medics arrived. The man never responded, but he was breathing when they took him to the hospital.

        Four hours later, I called the hospital, and the nurse told me the man died. His name was Dr William Steen. During the Vietnam War, Dr Steen was a flight surgeon for the Army. He received the Silver Star, Air Medal, the Bronze Tar, and two Purple Hearts. In 1997, Dt Steen did laser surgery on my eyes.  He was a hero and a genius. The news of his death shook me. I wanted him to live. Those who knew him well say he was a Christian man. Perhaps the last words he heard before he died gave him peace.

https://www.leagle.com/decision/inlaco20100811303

https://www.ktbs.com/news/dr-william-steen-killed-in-motorcycle-accident/article_614eaa7b-d447-5d2e-a9f9-bdaa0d9d7fc9.html

Heroes

I grew up a mile and a half from Graceland in a subdivision next to I-55 and what is now Federal Express Headquarters. Our house was new in 1968, and our neighborhood was a perfect place to grow up. School was a short walk or ride down the street. I learned to ride my bike by coasting down the hill in front of my house. After that, I sported a green Spyder bike with sissy bars, a banana seat, and a 3 speed stick shift until I graduated to a Free Spirit ten speed when I was twelve. There was baseball in summer, football in fall and winter, and basketball anytime you wanted to walk outside to the driveway. We had a playground, a swimming pool, tree houses, friends and pretty girls. 

People in our neighborhood valued order and appearance. Fathers got angry when vehicles sped down the street. Neighbors waved at each other. Mothers made sure their kids had rain boots in the rain, jackets in the fall, and snacks whenever they were hungry. It was a place where families lived, brothers and sisters went to the same schools, and families went to church on Sundays.

Every spring, my dad dug up the wild onions in the yard, spread fertilizer, and moved the sprinkler around to water grass and concrete alike. The neighbors did like wise. By June, the Bermuda was deep and green, making mowing a constant necessity and a viable job opportunity. Mowing lawns was my primary source of income. I pushed my mower through the neighborhood from yard to yard.

On my way home from mowing, I often saw Victor mowing his parent’s yard. Their house was across the street and five houses down from mine. Their yard was the most beautiful one in the neighborhood. Across the front were azaleas and irises, and the sidewalks and driveway had a two inch edge around it. Vic mowed the yard at a perfect 45 degree angle. It looked look like a golf course. Vic was in his 20s, and despite the weather, always wore bell bottoms and a button down shirt with the tail untucked. On his feet were sandals, the kind with tire treads as soles. He had a beard, wore tear drop glasses, and had a distinct way of walking with a long stride, dipping up and down like a piston. I saw him every week in his yard, but he never spoke or even looked up. According to neighborhood lore, he fought in Vietnam and came home shell shocked. The older boys said he was a war hero.

In Tennessee in the 70s, you couldn’t get a driver’s license until you were 16 years old, but you could get a motorcycle license when you were 14. It was a great opportunity, but my dad hated motorcycles, I talked to him one day and told him I could throw a paper route if I had a motorcycle. I never thought he would do it, but I stumbled on the one thing he respected: hard work. He went to the bank and withdrew four hundred dollars to buy me a Honda 125 Enduro. A week later, I passed my driving test and filled out an application to throw a paper route for The Commercial Appeal.

On June 1st, I got up at 2 am to pick up my papers at the Stop and Go at Boeingshire and Shelby Drive. When I got there, I found the route manager, Mr. Wilson (not his real name), inside the store impressing the night shift clerk. He had a crew cut and military bearing. He liked me because I was young and showed up early. He was destined for big things. 

I went outside when the van arrived with the papers. I had three bundles, but Wilson told me to unload the van while he and the driver talked baseball. Rather than help unload the van, the other route drivers got their bundles and started folding their papers. When I got the last bundle out of the van, the driver walked up and asked what I was doing. Two-thirds of the papers went to other drop off locations, but no one told me, so I unloaded the whole van. Without apology, Wilson made me reload the van. By the time I finished, all the route drivers were gone to throw their papers. I wiped sweat from my forehead and started folding my papers, 156 of them.

I was in front of the store sitting on a stack of pallets. The van driver left, and Wilson was inside, behind the counter with the clerk. I finished filling my first bag of papers when I heard laughing in the distance. A man with a beard and distinct walk came around the corner from the bar. He was wearing sandals, bell bottoms, and a button down shirt. It was Victor.

I didn’t think Vic knew who I was, but he called me by name. It was the first time he ever spoke to me. He was funny and engaging, and when he got closer, I found out why: he was drunk. When the bar closed, they ushered their patrons out. Victor was on foot due to a recent DWI. I was all alone in front of a convenience store at three in the morning. It was good to see a familiar face. Victor and I became friends that morning. 

Vic told jokes and acted out stories while I folded papers. For a few minutes, I was no longer a paper boy with a route ahead of me, I was a spectator with a front row seat at the comedy club. My sides hurt from laughing. He told a joke about a priest and a lawyer and said a word that started with S and rhymed with pit. A shadow flew past me and became a barrage of punches that knocked Victor to the ground. It was Wilson. He yelled, “Somebody call the police! This man is using foul language in the presence of women and children!”

I was well beyond childhood, and the only woman around was inside the store out of hearing. The offending word was the same word I heard everyday at school and in the neighborhood, and besides that, Wilson said it several times earlier when he was trying to impress the clerk.

Victor lay on the ground, bleeding from his mouth. 

“Vic...you alright?”

He stared blankly at the fluorescent light above me.

Wilson stepped between us and backed me away to protect me from further danger. Minutes later, a police car pulled up, and a cop jumped out. He handcuffed Vic, jerked him up by his shoulders, and put him in his back seat. “Damn drunk!”

I threw my paper route wondering how a seemingly reasonable man could attack a defenseless man and think he was a hero. Wilson was clean cut and talked big, but he had never been through what Vic had gone through. Victor was a real hero, scarred by the things he experienced in battle. He needed help not violence.

From that day on, I waited until 4:30 to pick up my papers, so I wouldn’t see Wilson. A month later, he took a job elsewhere. Forty five years later, he remains the epitome of cowardice.

A week after the attack, I saw Victor mowing his yard. He wore the same bell bottoms and button down shirt, and he had the remains of a black eye. 

“Hey Vic!” I waved.

He never looked up.