Isolation

Chapter 7: I remember

When I was younger my dad used to take me fishing with the rest of his police buddies. One time on one of the trips, there was a man on the side of the road screaming "ACAB (ALL COPS ARE BAD)!" My dad's buddies got out of their vehicle and harassed the man for his negative beliefs against cops. My dad tried to stop them, but nothing is stronger than a person's hatred. After verbally, physically, and emotionally assaulting the man, they got back into their vehicle to head up to the fishing grounds. My dad stayed.

He picked the man up and gave him a change of clothes. He also shared two of our sandwiches that mom made for us with him. While doing so, the man proceeded to yell, "I hate you cops, all you! So I don't know why you want to help me." My dad nodded his head and said that he understood. Instead of cutting the man off, he allowed him to get out all of the anger and dad just stood there. After the man finished his yelling he said,

"This is not for you, you're not the kind of cop I want to yell at. So, why? Why do you work for a system that can be so corrupted?"

My dad sighed. "I know, I know my system is broken, but if I were to leave you guys with only the bad cops, what would that make me? No better than them."

The man started crying, "But one man can't change the world, not even a system like the police. So why waste your time trying to fight with it?"

My dad chuckled and said "How about you? One man can't change the world or the system, but yet you're still on this corner yelling 'ACAB!"

Dad turned toward me and clapped his hands. "Kay can you answer both me and his question? The big 'why,' can you do that for your old man?"

I remembered something that dad always used to tell me as a kid. A phrase— no, a belief that he chose to base his life around and to follow contently. I opened my lips, "We as people should live not so we can change the world, but we should live so that this world doesn't change us."

  My dad smiled and said, "Exactly, I know that I might not be able to change the system, but by being me and helping whoever I can. I make sure that this world doesn't change who I am as a person."

  Ever since that day, on every fishing trip journey, we would see the man holding up his sign and yelling "ACAB!" Dad would always stopped and give him two of our sandwiches made by mom. She realized that me and dad were still coming home hungry for some odd reason, so she started packing two extra. It became a ritual for him (my dad), to see that man before every fishing trip. For me, it became an example of how two people with opposite opinions can still manage to find meaning together.

  One fishing trip, dad stayed back to take care of mom who suddenly fell sick. We turned on the news later that night to see that the very man, who we gave mom's sandwiches to, was shot and killed in an altercation with police from my dad precinct. That was was the first time I ever witnessed my dad verbally state that he regretted becoming a cop. He took a week off of work and attended the man's funeral too. While his coworkers would refer to the man as "the idiot who got into a scuffle with law enforcement," Dad would correct them every single time.

  "Jackson Young, not 'idiot,' his name was Jackson Young," my dad would say.

  Since dad didn't go on the trip, he wasn't able to properly testify on the man's behalf, but deep down me and him both knew that there was more to the story than what was being said. That's what a bad system can does to good people, it breaks them. I never seen my dad feel so powerless, but I told him the very belief that I used to answer his and Jackson's question.

"Live, Live so that the world doesn't change you!"

  Dad went back to work, but the uniform would never feel the same for him.