Part 16: Episode Eight: Sunday in the Park with Sonny

Did you see that?

Did I see what?

It was like a huge shadow passed across the sun.

You mean an eclipse? So you guys actually have a moon now?

Not an eclipse. It was shaped more like... a giant man in a really bad suit.



...



Sonny, you need to take a break.

Yeah, you're probably right. I feel like I've been on duty forever.

Maybe after we get back to the station you can...



Oh, hey, what's all this?



From the looks of her, it's something serious.

Ah, she's going to finally confess her love for you.

Shut u- oh, hi, Laura.



Sounds good to me!

A-ha! Finally, some action!

"Finally"? Didn't you guys already find a dead body in a crashed car and capture a multiple murderer?

Well... all of that doesn't seem as exciting from out here.

Hmm. Let's see if we can make things a little more interesting for our friend, then, shall we, Sonny?



...

You are the best cop, Laura.

Oh, I know.



You know, I'm really glad you can hear that guy. I thought Steve heard him the other day, but I wasn't sure. I was getting kind of worried that I was cracking up.

No, you've just come down with a bad case of protagonism.



I guess that makes sense. I've always been a protagonist; since school, anyway. That would put me in the at-risk group.

Careful, though. Friend of a friend got infected once. Thought she was going on a trip to Paris and almost got eaten by cannibals.



So far this one seems okay, if you can ignore the jokes and... well, everything else.

Hey!

Oh, he's not so bad. At least he's not trying to find all your bugs or something.



Alright, guys, here's the park. It's show time.

What, we're not allowed to talk about you for three seconds? Any suggestions on how to handle this based on your information, Laura?



Sounds good. Come on, you, let's get going.

Right behind you, Sonny.



I like her. You should go after her instead pining over Marie.

I am not "pining"!



You are! I can tell from your complete lack of facial expression.

Not this again. Come on, let's get out of sight so we don't scare the nice drug dealers.



It's not just a job. It's an adventure!

That's the Navy, you nitwit.

Look, just b-

Shh!



(Hell, arrest him now. You can charge him with wearing a muscle shirt in broad daylight.)

(Keep it quiet. If they hear us it'll spoil the whole thing.)





(Why in the hell else would anyone under seventy be in the park?)

(I come here all the time!)

(Of course you do, Sonny. Of course you do.)




(These guys are the best at secrecy. Asking if you were followed isn't the LEAST bit suspicious.)

(I'd bet the drugs they are about to exchange won't be too subtle, either. They think they're alone.)





(It APPEARS to be an envelope? You're not sure it's one?)

(For God's sake, shut up.)





(OK, you have to move in now. I'm not sure my tender ears can take any more strong language.)

They've made the exchange, so...



(Gun out, Sonny.)

(Right, right.) HALT! POLICE OFFICER!





Get him! Get him!

Laura will get him. I don't want to lose this one.

Better a dealer in the hand than two in the bush, eh?




Carefully, you admonish your suspect of his "Miranda" rights.
"You have the right to remain silent."
"What you say may be used against you in a court of law."
"You have the right to an attorney."
"If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to represent you before questioning, if you wish."


You're in deep trouble, Mister Simms.


Oh, you are going away for a long, long time, young man, if I have anything to say about it.




Yeah, what DID take you so long?



Hah, just like your m-

Don't. Not in the mood.




Alright, in the car, you-

Sonny, don't take that from him. Try again.


Time for a nice trip downtown, you two. Lt. Morgan will be real happy with this bust!



83-Nora-10, request subject check on Don Colby, Charles, Ocean, Lincoln, Boy, Yellow.

Dispatch responds, possible hit, Paul D. Colby, DOB 12/8/61, 5'8", 155 pounds. Served 18 months State Penitentiary '85-'87 for assault on a police officer and possession and sale of a controlled substance. Three year probation, still active.



So his first move after he gets out is to start dealing again.

Nobody ever said people in his profession had a lot of brains.



And I bet he just had a ton of other job opportunities waiting for him after he got out that he could have investigated instead.

Look, as far as I'm concerned they could have just left him in there forever.

Either way, boys, he's heading back in now.




You'll just take any excuse to watch boys, Laura.

Oh, yeah. Nothing I like better than bald drug dealers and high school students.



Can you two give it a rest for two minutes? We've got serious business to deal with here.

Loosen up, Hot Rod. I'm just glad we nailed the guys who were supplying the high school.

And I'm just glad I won't have to look at this guy with the muscle shirt any more.



Ladies? Gentlemen? Disembodied presences?



Sonny, I'll wait here while you complete the booking.

Don't like paperwork?

I just know how much he likes to play with the handcuffs.


Book 'em. Drugs.



You remove, inventory, and deliver the prisoner's personal property to the jailer along with the booking slip.

The jailer says, "Ok, Sonny, remove their 'cuffs and put the little pushers into cell number one."

"I think you boys know where to go!" you tell them.

"Up your's, Dick Tracy! You'll never make this stick!"

"My Mommy's gonna be bummin' when she finds out where I am!" whines Victor Simms.




Does this cell just have a trap door in it or something? Does it eat the people you put in it?

This is just a holding cell. They go to a real prison after they're tried.

Hey, Bonds, I'll wait for you in the car.




Hey, as long as we got two more pushers off the street, I don't care who did it.

I just imagine you saluting a flag every time you say something like that.



You aren't proud of today's work?

Don't ask me. I don't even know what "today" means anymore.



I'll bet Jack is over at the Blue Room. Why don't you go tell him we nailed the rat who was dealing dope at Jefferson High!

Good idea. See you later, Laura.



You think this'll cheer Jack up?

I hope so. He's been a wreck because of what's going on with his kid. You know, he used to bring Kathy around to the station when she was little. She made a little macaroni picture of all of us in art class when she was ten. Cutest little kid.



Bet she had to use a lot of blue paint.

You know, she really did.



And maybe after this you can take a break.

We'll see.



Ah, hell, Jack.

He doesn't look good.



Trying to cheer Jack, you tell him about the Victor Simms arrest and how he was responsible for selling dope at the high school.

Sonny, I really do appreciate you nailing that filthy scum bag pusher, but I'm afraid it might be too late.

Too late? What do you mean?

My daughter, Kathy, is in the Intensive Care Ward over at Lytton General Hospital! She's in a coma from a drug OD! There's nothing I can do!

Jack, I'm so sorry.

Oh, Sonny! There's nothing anyone can do!

Jack... there's still a chance for her. We'll all be here for you, buddy.

I sure would love to stretch the neck of that sorry dope-pushing scum-sucker that hurt my little girl!

I don't think he hears you, Sonny. He's somewhere else right now.



That's the best thing for him.

I can't just leave him like this.

There isn't anything you can do, Sonny. Let them get him home so he can sleep it off. He needs to be with his family.




The cabby says, "Right this way, Buddy Boy, and don't fall down! Whew, man! Is this boy in bad shape!"

Just be careful with him.



I don't understand. I don't understand how things like this can happen.

Me neither, Sonny. Look, I think that's Keith, right? Let's see what he has to say.



God, Keith, that's the last thing I need right now.

Sorry, Sonny. I don't think it'll wait. Lieutenant Morgan sent me over here to advise you that your boy, Taselli, has escaped from jail.

What? WHAT?

Taselli jumped a guard, then made it to the exercise yard, where he escaped by climbing over the fence. There's a city-wide dragnet on him right now!

Christ, Keith, it was not easy to get that guy put away, and now I have to do it all over again?

Sorry, man. I don't know what the hell is wrong with those guys at the prison. See you later, Sonny. I have business to take care of.



Sonny?



Sonny?



What's the point of all this? I catch people and they don't stay caught. I stop the drugs but I can't save my friend's little girl. What does it matter?

It matters, Sonny.

I don't want to hear it from you. You're the one that was trying to make me feel bad for that scum and his job prospects. You're the one who was trying to tell me it was Kathy's own fault for taking the drugs when we first heard about it.

That wasn't exactly wh-

You're supposed to be here helping me solve these problems. So why aren't they solved? Why haven't we fixed anything? I try to stop the bad guys, but the bad guys keep winning. You just give me crap about how I talk and act and tell me the little girl whose picture I see on my buddy's desk every day is a horrible person. What the hell use are you, anyway?

That's enough, Sonny.

I just wanted one thing and you-

I said that's enough. It's time for me to lecture you for a change.

I don't want to h-

Shut up, Sonny.

...

Good. I never said Kathy was a bad kid. I said she made a dumb mistake. And she did. But that doesn't mean... look. Have you ever heard of Philip K. Dick?

What in the hell are you talking about?

Yeah, didn't think so. He was a writer. He wrote a book about his experiences in the 60s drug culture wrapped in a bunch of science fiction hooey, and in the afterword he talked about this.

Great. Hippie wisdom.

Yes. Now listen. This is what he said. The important parts, anyway:

This has been a novel about some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did. They wanted to have a good time, but they were like children playing in the street; they could see one after another of them being killed - run over, maimed, destroyed - but they continued to play anyhow. We really all were very happy for a while, sitting around not toiling but just bullshitting and playing, but it was for such a terrible brief time, and then the punishment was beyond belief: even when we could see it, we could not believe it...

Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error in judgment. When a bunch of people begin to do it, it is a social error, a life-style. In this particular life-style the motto is "Be happy now because tomorrow you are dying," but the dying begins almost at once, and the happiness is a memory. It is, then, only a speeding up, an intensifying, of the ordinary human existence. It is not different from your life-style, it is only faster. It all takes place in days or weeks or months instead of years. "Take the cash and let the credit go," as Villon said in 1460. But that is a mistake if the cash is a penny and the credit a whole lifetime.

There is no moral in this novel; it is not bourgeois; it does not say they were wrong to play when they should have toiled; it just tells what the consequences were. In Greek drama they were beginning, as a society, to discover science, which means causal law. Here in this novel there is Nemesis: not fate, because any one of us could have chosen to stop playing in the street, but, as I narrate from the deepest part of my life and heart, a dreadful Nemesis for those who kept on playing... It was, this sitting around with our buddies and bullshitting while making tape recordings, the bad decision of the decade, the sixties, both in and out of the establishment. And nature cracked down on us. We were forced to stop by things dreadful.

If there was any "sin," it was that these people wanted to keep on having a good time forever, and were punished for that, but, as I say, I feel that, if so, the punishment was far too great, and I prefer to think of it only in a Greek or morally neutral way, as mere science, as deterministic impartial cause-and-effect.

I'm not sure...

Kathy isn't a bad kid. She made one mistake and she paid more for it than she should have had to. The universe isn't forgiving. But Sonny, do you know why she took so many drugs that she ended up in a coma in the first place? Does anyone know? Putting the pushers in jail helps, but it can't be all you do. It's not all about punishment. You have to help make peoples' lives better so that they don't even want to abuse drugs, and it's all of us that have to do that. You do your part and you just have to hope everyone else does theirs, too.

I see. I think I see.

So we're going to go back out there. We're going to get Taselli back and lock him up. We're going to take apart this whole network, because people that give drugs to kids that can't make rational decisions about the risks involved deserve any ass-kicking you care to deal out. You're going to do your job so that the other people that ought to be helping these kids can do theirs.

You're right. Let's go.



...thank you.

Don't mention it.



No, seriously, don't bring it up again. I'm just supposed to be along for the bad jokes.

Don't worry. I don't think anyone is likely to forget that.


Next time on Police Quest: The Return of Sweet Cheeks!

...really?

Wait and see!