Thursday, May 2, 2013

The Prowler

by Hero Jenkins 

If you like this story please go back to Facebook and "Like" the post, but more importantly "Share" the post. Let's see it we can make Eddie FAMOUS! 


Today’s post is a story that no rookie police officer should ever tell an aspiring author (no matter how many margaritas he’s had). It’s about the night he met the most unusual peeping Tom ever.

The Prowler

If I remember the story right, the night in question was a warm summer night. And according to Eddie, the first warm summer nights always signaled the start of “Peeping Tom Season”. Peeping Tom season was as predictable as the swallows’ arrival at San Juan Capistrano. When the days were hot, the nights were warm. People left their windows and curtains open at night because they were desperate to cool off. Peeping Toms, also known as prowlers, love to sneak around and peek into windows. So when the temperatures went up, the Prowlers came out.
Prowlers are sneaky little turds and a big problem for Law Enforcement and therefore they were a big problem for Eddie. The warm weather brought another problem for Eddie. It was harder for our sleep-deprived hero to stay awake… because the heat made the sleepy even sleepier.
"Some of these cops must be part vampire or something!" Eddie once lamented.
According to Eddie there were some cops, not many, who actually enjoyed graveyard shift. Being up all night didn’t bother them a bit. A lot of the older guys, the veterans, all had secret places where they could hide unobserved. Those guys were usually holed up somewhere fast asleep. Others were at 24 hr. coffee shops pouring coffee down their throats, or standing inside of a 7-Eleven, reading magazines… trying their best not to fall down. Then there were the rookies, like Eddie, who hadn’t quite figured out how to handle this “being awake all night” stuff.
3 o'clock in the morning found Eddie struggling to keep his eyelids up so he parked his patrol car and got out because it was a lot harder (but not impossible) to fall asleep while walking.
Predictably prowler calls were on the rise and those creeps could hear his police car coming from a mile away, so it was a no brainer... he would patrol the neighborhoods on foot. Eddie picked a large apartment complex to patrol because he knew there was a good chance he would run into a prowler. There had been a lot of calls in this particular complex; Eddie suspected it was someone who lived there. Sure enough, about fifteen minutes later, Eddie spotted a Peeping Tom. He was wearing a dirty knit cap and hiding behind a hedge. It looked like he was peeping into a window of a downstairs apartment.
I am amazed at the things TV cops do. They see some guy they’re looking for on the other side of the street. So what do they do? They yell “freeze”! They always seem surprised when the bad guy spins around and runs away. Real cops don’t stand 50 feet away and yell freeze. They sneak up on the bad guy to get close enough to grab him and then they yell freeze. Most of the time, they don’t bother to yell, they just pounce.
So that’s what Eddie did.
Eddie crouched behind a car and moved towards the prowler. The prowler was partially hidden in the shadows now, but Eddie could clearly see that someone was there. Eddie darted to a dumpster and then ducked behind a gigantic bush. There was a four foot wall that he was able to hide behind and get within feet of the prowler without being seen. 
When he got closer he noticed that the prowler was surrounded on three sides by that thick four-foot hedge. If he decided to run he would have to run past the wall where Eddie was hiding.
The prowler must have heard something because he suddenly ducked down. When he disappeared something tightened in Eddie’s stomach. What if that the prowler realized that he was cornered? Would he do something drastic like rip the screen off the open window and take the apartment occupant hostage? To his relief as he inched closer the prowler’s head popped back up. 
Before long Eddie was in a good spot, but he was alone so it wasn't safe to grab him and risk getting into a wrestling match. So the plan was to order the prowler to lay down and then Eddie would call for back-up. Then he would handcuff the prowler when his back-up arrived. If the prowler decided to run Eddie was close enough and confident that he would be able to grab the prowler no matter which way he ran.
It was time to take this creep down.
Eddie moved behind a tree and used it for cover. He drew his gun from it's holster and pointed it at the prowler. Then he unleashed a stream of foul language to let the prowler know he meant business. And somewhere in that stream he must have ordered the prowler to “freeze” because that’s exactly what the prowler did... he froze.
“Get down on the ground!” Eddie ordered, the prowler didn’t move. Eddie took out his radio and called for back-up. Then he addressed the prowler again.
“Get down on the ground or I will blow your F@#!% brains out!” He shouted.
The prowler didn’t budge.
That was when Eddie noticed that the prowler was thin and as pale as a ghost and oh yeah, he only had one arm.
Oh wow! How in the hell am I going to handcuff this guy? He remembered thinking.
Eddie moved to another tree and noticed something he had missed before. As if things needed to get creepier, he noticed that his prowler was naked as a jaybird! The only thing he was wearing was that dirty knit cap.
Now that's just nasty, who hides butt naked in the bushes at 3 AM?
Eddie could hear the sirens approaching from the distance; help would be there soon.
“I’m not going to say this again, get on the ground… put your arms… errr arm on the ground in front of you.”
The prowler ignored his commands and just stood there.
Eddie was starting to get irritated. It was as though this knucklehead figured that if he stood perfectly still, nobody could see him. Eddie moved a step closer and that was close enough for Eddie to finally get a good look at his prowler. A prowler who, until now, had been mostly hidden in the shadows. It was not until that moment he realized that his prowler was not a prowler after all… he was a statue.
Eddie had been sneaking up on a statue.
What the hell is going on? 
Eddie's head was spinning... what about all the suspicious things he had witnessed? Belatedly he realized that it must have been his old friend… sleep deprivation. But as his adrenaline started pumping, the fog had lifted and he realized that he had just spent the last fifteen minutes sneaking up on a statue. And with that realization came real fear. Because it was not until that moment that Eddie understood that he had a big problem.
The guys were already giving him a hard time in the locker room over what they were calling “the great zombie caper” and there was no way he was giving those guys anymore ammunition. The sirens were closer; they would be there any second. He couldn’t just say never mind… they would ask too many questions. Some smart-ass would no doubt notice the statue. Sooner or later one of them would figure it out.
Eddie realized that he had to get away from that statue, but he couldn’t just leave. He was desperate, but he didn’t panic and then he got an idea.
 “I’m in foot pursuit, the suspect is running south through the apartment complex,” Eddie yelled into his radio as he started running south. “The suspect is a white male wearing uhhhh… all white!”
The radio came alive as the responding officers scrambled to catch up to Eddie and his fleeing suspect. The dispatcher began calling out streets directing some of the responding units so that they could get out ahead of the suspect. Somebody asked about the helicopter. Fortunately for Eddie, the helicopter had just landed and shut down and could not get airborne in time.
After running a sufficient distance, Eddie stopped and advised all of the excited officers that the suspect had gotten away. The canines arrived minutes later, but were unable to pick up the prowler’s scent (big surprise). After a short but fruitless search everything was called off and everyone went back to being bored to death.
Eddie later found out that the statue was a reproduction of the famous King David statue by the sculptor Michelangelo. At least he now knew why he was naked, but he never found out why King David had only one arm or why he was wearing a knit cap. 
Eddie swore to himself that he would take this secret to the grave and he probably would have except he had one too many margaritas at a friends house one night.




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