Bud Grossmann’s Words of the Week for the Week of February 9, 2014 Previously unpublished fiction. © 2014 by Bud Grossmann. All Rights Reserved. Police Officer, 1969 © 1969 by Bud Grossmann STOPPED & FRISKED O ne weekday evening late in the summer of 1970, when “Big” Dave Fischer was working in Wisconsin while his wife remained home in Falls Church, Virginia, Mrs. Fischer received a call from the D.C. police informing her that her seventeen-year-old son Richard had been arrested. The caller advised her, however, that if she would come to the police station and sign for Richard’s release, the boy would be placed into her custody without being charged with a crime. “Little” David Fischer, age twenty-one, eldest of the Fischer kids, employed by Arlington Yellow Cab, chauffered his mother and his sixteen-year-old sister Yvette into the District. They found parking directly in front of the precinct house, went up a short set of stone steps and into the building, and received a ten-minute Officer-Obie lecture about responsible parenting and good citizenship. As best Little Dave could make of it, his brother had been observed committing no offense beyond Operating a Motorcycle While Wearing Long Hair & A Beard. The Officer Obie in this instance was a handsome, tall, trim, straight-backed, gray-haired, blue-eyed, uniformed lieutenant, whom Little Dave in later decades would always remember as looking a lot like the guy in the Naked Gun movies. Obie gave Mrs. Fischer a handshake but did not give her a smile when he wished her good luck and told her that Richard was free to get his motorcycle and to leave. Little Dave and Yvette had not said a word. Mrs. Fischer thanked the lieutenant, hooked her arm around Dave’s, and went out with him into the night. Yvette followed two paces behind. As the brass-ornamented oak door whooshed closed behind them, and as they stepped down toward the street, mother and son both spoke at once. Mrs. Fischer exclaimed, “What a nice man!” in the exact same instant that David declared, “What. A. Jerk!” The details of further discussion in the Fischer family that evening have gone unrecorded in history. ♦         ARCHIVES         Click for a list of other Words of the Week I would welcome your thoughts on this page (or any of my others).  Write to me at the following address.  Please be sure to spell Grossmann with two n’s and mention what page you are writing about. Thanks!  BUD GROSSMANN Top of this page | HOME | Fine Photography | Picture of the Day | Writings | | Words of the Week | Mom & Pop Prop. Mgt. | FAQ |

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