The Radio's Talking

In my dream, I could hear the sound of a policeman’s radio. I just couldn’t remember the context, if it was in the middle of a bust or watching “America’s Worst Drivers” or some other FOX network program. You know, the kind where they recreate all the sounds of car crashes and the dispatcher says little things like “They’re heading southbound on Madison” in the background.

I woke up when our oldest boy came into our bed at around four this morning. Sweetie had to work late last night and so I was left with the duty of putting them to bed. It’s not that hard to do, both boys go to bed real easy for the most part, but you can always tell that it’s not the way they’d prefer. So anyway, after everyone gets re-settled and I’m just starting to drift off, I think I hear the police radio again. So I sit up and listen real hard to see if I can hear it or if I’m just doing some sort of post-REM hallucination due to the hours I’ve been keeping.

Silence…

Then from the quiet of our singlewide I hear the familiar wail of our youngest one who has taken this moment to tell the world that it has pissed him off for the last time and that now, like Aguirre, he will show it the full fury of his wrath.

Sweetie gets up to deal with it and even after much padding back and forth for clean diapers and Tylenol, Ike is still trying to tell anyone who’ll listen that he’s been dealt a raw deal and if you like it so much why don’t you have a full cast on YOUR leg. Then in the midst of all that clamor, with my nose running from the remnants of last weeks cold and of a four-year-old kicking my kidneys, I hear it again.

Not loud enough to understand what’s being said, but loud enough to know something’s going on. This must be the longest bust in the history of Tacoma I’m thinking at this point, so since my bladder was full after the kidney assault I decided I could get up and empty it and see what all the commotion was about outside.

I’m looking out every window we have and I don’t see any cops. Could they have packed it all up in the few minutes it took me to sit on the john? I can’t imagine how, but I start to head back to bed when out of the living room I hear it again. There on the table was Sweeties walkie-talkie, which she had forgotten to turn off after work. She almost never brings it home anymore so it had never occurred to me that that might be what it is.

I stopped by Ike’s room to see if there was anything I could do to help. There wasn’t. Sweetie had made sure he was comfortable and even though he was still pissed off, she decided to leave him in there to work it out on his own.

I got back to sleep about six after the house had gone quiet. The next thing I remember is Sweetie telling me to get up or I’d be late for work. Though I had set my alarm to go off at six thirty I have little recollection of having turned it off instead of just pushing the snooze bar. Standing in the shower, I can’t remember if I’ve just washed my hair or only gotten it wet.