Tommy Sallow is onto better and brighter things. After working a small hometown beat in upstate New York, he's finally in sunny California. As expected, it's the same shit in a different town. Except, you know, now he's near the ocean and miserable...
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When I get to work, I stall in my car until the last possible minute, hoping to miss the chief on his way out. Really don't want to deal with him right now and I'm not above crouching down and straight up hiding when I see him exit the front doors of the station and hang a left in the opposite direction of me.
Once I've handily avoided him like the grown ass man I am, I head inside and dive right into the same old thing we start every shift with. A meeting that could literally have been a sticky note on the bathroom mirror, telling everyone to report where they usually go and be safe.
Okay fine, the job is a bit more complex than that when you really consider all the many facets of being in law enforcement. But mostly, it's really simple.
Report where you're told. Be safe. And that's what I do every shift, taking it one day at a time because that's all you really can do. I'm not here to spout political jargon and make enemies or friends. I'm here to treat people right, keep everyone as safe as possible and do everything in my power to make sure we all make it home in one piece.
Sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn't. We all have a choice to make.
My partner is doing his rotation training the new guy so I'll be on my own today, covering a block of downtown that I'm more familiar with than I'd like to be. This is rookie territory and also, the place they send people who are fairly new to the precinct and don't know their way around yet because of its smaller coverage area and the close proximity to the station. I spent a lot of time doing this beat when I got hired here because I wasn't just new to the area, I was new to the state.
As a result, I've become pretty well acquainted with the people in this little part of town. Apart from the outstanding ocean view, it actually feels a lot like my hometown back in New York. The layout is so similar and even some of the shops have the same vibe. That's partly why I don't jump up and down in excitement when I'm sent over here. I won't lie, it sort of makes me homesick.
I visit Oakwood often enough. I was just there over the summer, in fact, celebrating my youngest sister's graduation from college. It's actually the strangest thing though. When I'm there, I'm homesick for here. I can't wait to get back to the ocean and the people and the little house I found on a steal.
It's sort of weird to feel so disconnected from my old town and yet, remain so deeply linked by way of my mom and sisters who are still there. California seems to be the place, geographically speaking anyway, that feels most like home while my connection to Oakwood is limited to the people. I miss them, I really do. My dog, Stella, is the closest thing I have to family here and she gets the job done well enough but still, there's no real substitute for my mom and sisters. In their own way, they're also my home. But I can't go back. Not when I know what it's like to be here, too.
I wish I could get all of them to move to California with me, which is unrealistic because they're scattered across the globe now. Evie just moved to London following graduation and Harper works for the government in Texas. I was actually pretty close to getting my mom to agree to a move this way but she chose Sadie and her idiot husband, Austin, because they stayed local and kept popping babies out.
