Crashed Into Reality

Chapter 3

Matt McGovern sat in the passenger seat, quietly staring out the window. He hoped he would be able to shake it off and focus. He still had seven more hours until his shift ended. They were the first to respond to the scene of the accident, not twenty minutes after leaving the station to start their rounds. He might be new to the force, but he wasn't new to violence and despair.

His parents were killed in a quick-e-mart during a burglary. Some idiot hopped up on speed was all jumpy when he was demanding money from the clerk, and saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and started shooting, everything, everyone in the store. It was hard, but he had to stay level-headed, because he had become the sole caretaker of his younger brother, Mikey, who was fourteen at the time, Matt had just turned twenty one.

He did his best with all sorts of terrible part time jobs, just trying to keep them from getting evicted from their apartment, and keeping food on their plates. Their "apartment" wasn't much more than a shack in a bad neighborhood, but he still managed to push Mikey in a positive way, making sure he had plenty of activities to be involved in, like football, and baseball, to keep him out of trouble.

Then, just as Mikey was getting ready for graduation, he got caught in the crossfire of a drive-by shooting. He didn't die instantly, but his heart failed on the way to the hospital.

Matt was devastated, just wanted to crawl inside himself. He was alone, no one to check in on, and no one to check in on him either. It took about a year before he decided he had to help stop the violence, be a more moving force and advocate for victims, he knew he had to be a police officer.

Lindon pulled the squad car into the police station, turned the car off, and turned to face Matt.

"Hey, McGovern! I let you zone long enough, that was a tough one for your first time, but you gotta get your feet wet at some point." Lindon was bringing him back with her soothing talking-to-the-victims voice.

"Yeah, sorry, is it always going to be this hard?"

"Well, yes and no. You get the scum that had it coming, then you don't feel quite so bad. But then, you get the ones that seemed to be doing great, and...no it never gets easier. When it stops getting to you, it's time to quit. But, we do our job, and we go home and be thankful for what we have."

"Yeah, okay. So what do we do now?" Matt was beginning to thank the Lord for teaming him up with Brenda Lindon, she showed a side of herself to him, that it seemed no one else had seen, she was mostly known for being a tough, "take-no-crap from nobody" kind of cop.

"Well, we are going to file our reports, kick it over to Missing Persons, and we go back out and continue on our rounds. The job doesn't stop, just because it gets hard." Okay, the tough cop face came back on, as they walked up the steps of Central.

Later that night, Lindon and McGovern were answering a call on a D & D-drunk and disorderly, and their quickest route to the location, took them down Nuthatcher Road, they drove right past June Greene's house, which now had a white Mercedes convertible in the driveway. Matt saw the house and everything flashed back to earlier when they were there talking with June.

Ugh! He thought, he felt so badly for her. He lost his brother, whom he helped raise, but to lose your child, and so young too. Of course, she might not be dead, just terrified and hiding somewhere, he hoped for June's sake.

8:30 AM

It was his day off, and normally he would be sleeping in late and relaxing at home, but Matt felt himself drawn to drive, and he wasn't sure where he was going yet. Well, he had an idea, and he got there on auto, not really paying attention.