ONE COMPLAINT PER CUSTOMER

by

Alessandro

TRIGGERS: THIS STORY CONTAINS IMAGERY OF SUICIDE, MENTAL HEALTH AND DARK PSYCHOLOGY.

What an asshole.

Before this new idiot police Sergeant arrived (after a long list of 5, who stayed a year to pad their careers, get a feather in their cap and move on) he had worked five fear-riddled years, working the best he knew how, the best he’d been trained by some of the finest police detectives in the city (the good ones, probably only a handful of about 6 that he knew of), finding unseen, ignored or hidden crime trends no one had before. And entering a scary world of unseen terrors, the public not having an inkling of what lay beneath their surface waters.

The stress was daily, palpable and it infected every aspect of his life, including a failed marriage. Never, never, ever tell your family “how your day was”, despite your spouse wailing that you don’t communicate. There are things you just don’t tell mom. Put on a happy face and say, “ah, same old grind”, which was incidentally what a Special Forces soldier would say (SOG).

Once it was a 7am drive to the office, the same one every day for the last 5 years, that he noticed them; just some casual old men, calmly, innocently having their Espresso but with the 7 foot muscled giant standing strategically behind and just off to the side of the seated table of elders, that caught his eye.

THAT is weird. At 7 am? A: what is the place doing open and B: Why the muscle standing tactically for a group of old Italian men? You might ask yourself; “Self, what IS this?” And that one little look, that one single momentary driver’s glance pulled the pin on a claymore of shit, that rocked the city, the papers and his whole life. And, why didn’t the cops of 30+ years ever notice this? Were they just driving by and didn’t give a shit because it was shift change or were they bought, as some are, and said nothing. The crime ring he exposed sent rumblings into the underworld and he soon discovered just how ‘under’ this world was.

It seemed he was born into this life because growing up, he wasn’t always the good guy seen here.

He had it all, some would say, only those that had nothing anyway… a good home “food shelter and roof over his head” as the parents would always say, having had all that over their head but using it as an anvil against his unknowledgeable, blank-slated head.

What would he know? He didn’t ask to be brought into this world, yet he was pulled here because of an arrogant man’s antics and ego and desires to be better than his elders, but pulled his success from the veritable mouths of babes; garnered it by pitting the man into veritable slave labour. Another father figure asshole who thought he had the right to dictate and obliterate the man’s dreams because of his own social and personal failings.

Another asshole to deal with.

…and the beatings of course; those justified everything since the dawn of time, the very essence of what was controversial to this day, but no one thought this was any consequence other than having the privilege of being alive. Not only did he not forget, CANT’ forget, but he carried it within himself, as a peaty moss, smouldering for years and giving him the fuel he needed to overcome, not succeed, destroy not build and ultimately eradicate the continual pain.

No one thunk it, saw what it would do, because you were all stupid and arrogant… and selfish…the opinions of those that had it well.

He left it all, so to speak. Traded a very nice life, one he would later wish for again. He was bucking the system with the full artists’ palette: drinking, doing and selling drugs, wild parties, fighting anything and anyone that threw even an unwitting glance at him, a complete outcast, everyone afraid of him, including the police and parents in his own hometown.

Police. The kind of asshole he was dealing with right this second, was there in his life back then, 30 years ago. They would let you drive with a case of beer in the front seat all night, power drinking all night long, then, when it was shift change, they would pull you over and ‘confiscate’ the beer. Not to enforce the law, but to drink it themselves.

It’s a good thing there were no cell phones and internet back then.All this shit that was coming out now about police corruption would have come out way earlier, and in a newspaper, something you couldn’t really scrub.

He did time, eventually of course. Not much, a mere 30 days, but he had an evil grin when he was asked what he went in for by growling, “it’s not THAT I went in, that was gonna happen anyway, it’s how many years I got away with all sorts of shit BEFORE I went in.”

Still it haunts him but he has followed society’s errant notion to ‘better oneself’ and now, secretly uses the experience to try to NOT send people to jail, as it is a shitty, horrible soul-searing experience. You never have ‘served your time; that starts when you got out and are stigmatized, glared at by those that want to do something physical to him for some long-forgotten transgression but they themselves are cowardly and intimidated by the ‘con’ and so, whine to their inner self and do nothing.

Finally, slowly moving past all that, getting a pardon and playing within the system he made a life for himself, studied, got a degree (he did finish high school despite being wasted much of the time and being told by his parents he was stupid, useless, lazy good for nothing, mentally deficient and of course, selfish) and he came to a great place. He did what the societal ideal asked of everyone; adapt and overcome your failings and succeed. What society didn’t tell you was there was NO success, just another set of ridicules to endure and move on, coldly.

He was lauded by his newcolleagues as a brilliant investigator who looked at things NOT the way everyone else did, he ironically went to work in the very system he fought that lifetime ago.

As a government inspector, his conviction rate was at least 92%; better than some actual police detectives, but as a government inspector and carrying a badge, he was still always derided, never a part of the Thin Blue Line.It was no matter to him as he did his level best to excel. He formed great partnerships but one of the saddest things to be, was that with the over 800 ride alongs he’d done and the hundreds of business cards he’d accumulated, only about 10 cops said they would ever do that job again. Out of the 10 only 2 remained lifelong friends.

And now….

This asshole Sergeant.

He was gaunt, slight with what they called a “70’s porn-star moustache.” He looked the evil part and acted it. Amongst colleagues he will always be remembered being THAT guy, who went to do a death notification of a husband and in the very same breath, asked the widow, is she would like to sell the husband’s boat trailer. After all, he wouldn’t need it.

And a plethora of abusing the police services’ resources, driving the work vehicle on personal time, doing all the shit that society has come to know about police abuse of power, He was barely able to manage a 14 man platoon’s vacation schedule, despite being an ‘Administration Sergeant’.

His field operative days long ended, spoken of only under the most extreme of alcoholic blurs, often formed a backdrop for casual office meetings where everyone had to endure his heroic tales and, like Star Trek’s Klingon tales of glory, were often exaggerated for effect.

Now, he had taken to workplace harassment, mistreating the man to the point of near violence, police officer be damned. He had caused untold damage, used his position to snoop in counselor’s files about the man, set up surveillance on him on his days off and maligned his work. The Sergeant was so stupid, that he copied the man’s colleague’s performance review, which had stated things like “almost went to jail while working with the police for yelling and screaming in the station.”, and pasted it on his, but didn’t delete the colleagues name or signature.

What an idiot.

But, it didn’t seem to matter; Sarge could shred intelligence files and not get fired, so the idea that if someone’s owed you a favour, this tribe was rife with it.

The man had had enough.

He was sick and tired of looking at that stupid grenade on the Serge’s desk: Completely workplace inappropriate, certainly not Feng Shui with pale blue, chipped and filthy office walls and shale tinged cabinets but it was a cold look into the Sergeant’s dead, nihilistic soul; an asshole, a scum, an abomination to police and to the human race. That stupid looking grenade office prop with the white tag in big red letters:

“ONE COMPLAINT PER CUSTOMER.”

As the Sergeant wandered the room in his overused power pose, braying that the Inspector had done something wrong, again, the Inspector thought of the divorce caused by this shit job and this shit cop, the money lost, being moved 20 hours away to another city after being 20 years in the same town, the embarrassment, the fake Union that was supposed to help him but let this abuse endure for 3 years, despite taking his dues, more money lost…

…and the one actual friend at the Military Armoury, who had access to all sorts of ordnance and also a kindred spirit, being used and abused by a system that only wants your obedience and eventually, your life. Thanks buddy, see you on the other side.

As the man smiled, leaned forward, snatched the grenade stood up sharply and grabbed the Sgt by the tie; not as smart as predicted, he didn’t wear a clip on tie, he growled at the Sgt who suddenly saw reality. “Time to go you piece of shit. See you in Hell, I’ll be running the place when you get there.”

The smoke poured softly, quietly from the freshly unpinned live grenade.

One complaint per customer.