Chapter 67

The morning walks had become drudgery. I continued with them only to keep my body working at 75% percent or more. I couldn’t avoid all the pain, but I refused to take the drugs derived from opium. The alternative was a very aggressive surgical solution, which did not come with guarantees. It wasn’t likely to take away the pain. The doctor’s would say only that without the surgery it would only continue to get worse. The surgery was likely to take me back to the day after the original hip joint’s complete replacement. In other words, take me back to the days after their first, less than stellar work. It had only been a handful of years, so my choice was to continue with the pain.

The first time Thia wanted me to do something, and I refused due to pain, she would climb on my ass until I went to see an orthopedist. That day wasn’t that beautiful Monday morning. Even if it was a wonderful Monday, it appeared to hold only more script doctoring for me.

Tory was well dressed and appeared to be in a good mood.

Tory: Driving into work is my only guaranteed alone time alone now that Shelly had moved in with me.

(She said that to Sergeant Jarrett who approached her car. After she killed the blaring radio.)

So whats today’s tragedy?

Jarrett: Overnight one of the kids from the lab decided to talk, so someone cut his throat while in jail. I guess it was a warning of some kind.

Tory: A warning to who. He sure as hell won’t be talking now.”

Jarrett: I wouldn’t expect the other to talk either. (They were in the elevator by that time.) How are you getting on with Shelly.

Tory: It’s not happening, but thanks for asking. (The doors open) I want a detailed report on my desk right away. Get your nerds on it.

Jarrett: Yes Ma’am. (He wandered off to the common area called he bull pen.)

The rest of that part of the scrip required just small changes in the dialogue. Tory’s crew concentrated on trying to break the others. One of the first thing I leaned as a cop, many years ago is that there is no honor among thieves. Just the instinct for self preservation and a fear for ones own health and safety. The trick was to find the weakest one of them and exploit him. It was hard to explain that in a TV show’s dialog.

In the script I was working on Jarrett verbalized it to one of his nerds. For my purpose I renamed him Nerd one, he was the black male, and nerd two was the female. Jarrett couldn’t do that in the new world of correctness, but I sure as hell could. As long as I gave instructions for the typist to look up their names it was likely I wouldn’t have to answer for it.

Jarrett assigned the research of the incident in the jail to the mild mannered black male. He was really interested in how the kid handled himself. To his surprise Nerd one did a very good job on the report. He interviewed the corrections officers on duty at the time. He secured the CCTV footage and included it into the report, which was interactive of course.

It was so good that Jarrett used it for the briefing of the team. In the script Jarrett called nerd one by name which I didn’t bother to look up. In my audio tape I instructed the typist to look it up. I simply referred to him as nerd one. Nerd two got a share of the ‘atta boy’ when Jarrett delivered it. For future reference I decided that Jarrett was a good sergeant

It was Jarrett’s decision to personally interview the survivors of the lab raid. Tory insisted that he bring someone to soften his tough guy approach. He chose Sarah of course. If he had needed muscle, he might have gone with one of the Gym Rats. That pair was as odd ball as Sarah and Jarrett.

I couldn’t keep all the players straight in my mind, so in-spite of the script’s obvious leaning toward a large cast. I chose to change that to a smaller cast with smaller roles for the minor cast members. Since I was the doctor, I led the script in that direction. Jarrett and Tory were going to be my main characters. The story would progress by his updates to her. It would not show each individual event. Like the interview scene. I didn’t cut it, but I cut most of the bullshit from it. They convinced the kid to flip, then brought in the witness protection aspect through Jarrett reporting that he got the deal from a young ADA. The original script had the DA come in, but in my version Jarrett simply says the DA signed off on it.

Sarah had very little to say. She was there mostly for set dressing. When the kid flipped he gave up names and other valuable information. The rapid response team hit more doors based on the kids information, and they got more dealers and distributors. Yes they were lower level employees of the main people, but it showed that old fashioned police methods still worked.

It occurred to me that I really hated the doctor’s job. It was the absolute opposite of the old saying, ‘love what you do, and you’ll never work a day in your life’. I hated what I was doing and it showed. What I had written that day was all crap. It was time for me to allow Tory and Jarrett to go their own ways.

I called Harris at Durham and said, “I’m sorry Harris, I can’t do this. Everything I did today was just crap. It’s depressing me, so for my mental health I have to admit it’s not working. Sorry.”

“Since your first bite of the apple was great, would you consider working with Janet again?” he asked.

“Maybe, but I really don’t know.” I said. “Right now I just want to get away from this script.”

“I have faith in you. If you say it’s crap then it is. Bring in Janet, and see if the two of you together can rescue it. If you can’t clean it up, then we will give up on it as well.”