Dear diary,
And the policewomen cannot find any reason for the book to continue, so they allow it to remain closed and shelved. The policewomen now seat themselves as a group and stare at the volume that they have placed on the bookcase; they sit like this for a great while in their folding chairs. Not a single officer even whispers a word to any of her colleagues: they all remain hushed.
Then Officer Midge stands up and announces: “I’m going to water the grass.”
Officer Betty stands up and sez: “Good idea. We’ll follow you out there and serve as backup.”
So the policewomen all rise and follow Officer Midge out to the front yard, where she disentangles the garden hose, turns on the spigot, and waters the grass. Midge stands waving the sprayer back and forth very slowly over a part of the grass that, just yestermorn, the policewomen all added seed and topsoil to. Officer Betty and the rest of the policewomen stand by and watch the water fall to the earth and soak in.
Now the head postmistress passes by the police station on her bicycle. Stamped envelopes fill the basket between her bike’s handlebars. This friendly mailwoman waves while pedalling past: “Hello, sisters!” The policewomen all raise their hands to acknowledge the postmistress and return her greeting: “Good afternoon! Thanks for your service!” Then a whole host of bicyclists follow in the postmistress’s wake, each carrying upon one arm a satchel brimming with mail. They all wave and voice a cheerful greeting likewise, and the policewomen return their love: Officer Betty and the policewomen surrounding Officer Midge all lift their arms again at the group of postwomen bicyclists, and Officer Midge waves with her free hand while her other hand continues to move the sprinkler in a half-moon pattern.
After ten minutes, Officer Midge releases the trigger of the spray nozzle to shut off the flow of water; then carefully gathers the garden hose back up and turns off the spigot. The rest of the force of policewomen and Officer Betty follow Midge back inside the station.
The policewomen sit in the folding chairs and think to themselves quietly again. The windows of the room show the sunlight fading. Soon the windows are totally black.
“Should I turn on the exterior lamps?” asks Officer Betty.
“Yes, please do so,” replies Officer Midge.
The policewomen all as a group accompany Officer Betty out to the garage where all the patrol vehicles are parked. The policewomen follow Betty over to the light switch panel near the garage’s service door. Betty opens this door, revealing a view of the police station’s large back yard. Betty flips the switch on the light panel, causing all the exterior torches at the rear of the station to burst into flame. Betty now shuts the door, and she and all her fellow policewomen proceed back inside and head toward the front of the precinct, to the light switch panel that’s mounted just to the left of the front entryway. This station’s main entrance has automatic sliding glass French double doors with ornate casing. Officer Betty stands before the sensor that causes the door-leaves to slide aside, and then she flicks the two switches on the electric panel next to the entryway, whereupon the torches to the left and the right of the doorway’s exterior, as well as the corresponding torches on the other side of the moat, ignite with a whoosh into a blaze of plumes; moreover, all the rest of the flames in the parking lot and above the building leap to life, including the neon sign that reads “POLICEWOMAN PRECINCT”. Officer Betty and the rest of the force now step away from the entrance, and the French doors close automatically. Betty and her colleagues now return to the room where all the folding chairs are arranged. They take their seats and recommence thinking to themselves earnestly about how to solve all the problems of our world.
Officer Midge sits in a folding chair at the front of the room, facing the rest of the policewomen. She has an easel before her, upon which rests a large canvas. She is painting a group-portrait of her colleagues.
Officer Betty is the only policewoman who has a typewriter on her desk; and she uses it to compose a screenplay about righteous policewomen who do a good job and are respected by their community. All the policewomen in Betty’s story also play softball as a team, after hours, against rival precincts from various other made-up towns. Eagan, Burnsville, Rosemount, and Apple Valley are all the small towns that Betty dreams up whose policewomen play on softball teams in her story. A full rewrite is then undertaken, to add much-needed risqué banter to key parts of the script, in which she includes a town called Savage, and a town called Thief River Falls. Also Glencoe gets a team.
Now an actual, existing precinct of policewomen from Poplar, Wisconsin receive word of Betty’s project, and they decide to drive their entire squad of patrol cars, in real life, to the precinct where Midge and Betty are painting and typing. These Wisconsin policewomen come to visit the policewomen of Minnesota. Their cars show up in the latter’s parking lot, one Monday morning, and the Minnesota policewomen all step out thru their French automatic sliding glass doors to greet the visitors.
“Welcome!” say the Minnesota policewomen; and Officer Midge adds: “What brings you here to our neck of the woods?”
The tallest member of the Wisconsin force of policewomen steps forward with a note, which she passes to Officer Midge.
“No talk? Just a note for us to read?” Midge flicks the paper with her finger. And, as the tall policewoman who gave her the note simply smiles, Officer Midge decides to unfold the paper and read it aloud:
“Dear fellow officers from Minnesota, we the policewomen of Wisconsin recently read a story in our newspaper about an Officer from your precinct who is writing a screenplay about policewomen who enjoy playing softball after their workday is over. Our shift in Wisconsin goes from nine in the morning until five in the afternoon; after that, we all change out of our policewomen’s uniforms and slide into our softball outfits. Our colors are navy blue, metallic gold and white. We traveled here to Minnesota this morning, straight from Wisconsin, in our squad cars, with our lights flashing and sirens blaring all the way, just to see you in person. We desired to give you a hug and ask if you would like to play a softball tournament against us. If your answer is yes, then we will be happy; but in the case that you say no, we will still feel honored to have had this opportunity to meet you and hug you. Until the time when we receive your official reply, dear Madame Officer and fellow policewomen, we remain your humble servants: [signed] The Police Force of Poplar, Wisconsin.”
Officer Midge looks up from the note, and her eyes are glistening. She smiles and holds out her arms, and the tall Wisconsinite policewoman who handed her the note steps forward smiling as well, and they embrace very warmly. Now the rest of both police precincts come together and give each other very friendly hugs. Then Midge signals for Betty to draw nigh, as soon as she’s finished with her current embrace, “I have something to discuss with you,” mouths Midge over the general din (for the Wisconsinite policewomen and all the policewomen from Minnesota are excitedly mingling; the noise of which, on the soundtrack, produces a significant commotion).
“Yes?” sez Officer Betty, arriving at Midge’s side. “What’s up?”
“Look,” sez Midge, “these policewomen from Wisconsin have challenged us to a softball tournament. Now, they themselves apparently actually DO, in reality, play softball after hours, whereas we Minnesotan policewomen only claimed, as a whim of escapist fantasy, to moonlight as softball players in that movie script that you wrote. Now here’s my question for you. Since you’re the expert, please answer me this: is it truly possible to have a tournament when there’s only two teams? Cuz I thought that tournaments were contests between multiple softball establishments; and, if that is so, then we’ll need quickly to find a whole slew of other states that might fall in love with our precinct and wish to play softball against us. Also, I have one other question: Do you think that our girls can manage to get good enough at softball in the next few days to be able to beat our Wisconsinite sweethearts?”
After a moment, seeing that her colleague is maintaining a respectful silence, Officer Midge adds: “My interrogation of you has come to an end; you may voice your answers now.”
Officer Betty nods once and smiles. “Those are very good questions: both of them,” she sez. “First, a tournament does not necessarily need to contain more than two opponents. In the Middle Ages, a sporting event in which a pair of knights jousted on horseback was considered a tournament — lo, if just two knights fit the bill, then two full teams of outfitted policewomen softballers should be more than enough. So we can totally do this. Keep in mind, too, that those brave knights jousted with blunted weapons, each trying to knock the other off his destrier; but I don’t think that the policewomen from the Wisconsin precinct will want to be too brutal to us, their Minnesotan sisters, because we’re already such good friends with them. Thus, there’s nothing to worry about, on that front. Secondly, as to your wonder about whether we gals will be good enough to beat our comradesses in a genuine softball game after a full seven innings, I say: Don’t bother about winners and losers — remember what Whitman sez: ‘battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won’, and he adds:
Vivas to those who have fail’d!
To all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes!
And to the numberless policewomen who failed to win softball tournaments against their out-of-state colleagues!
“So, what I’m getting at is this,” Officer Betty concludes: “it’s not even worth wasting energy trying to conquer and be victorious — instead, let us simply attempt to tie the score. That way, there shall be no hard feelings afterward. We might even share the same locker room.”
Officer Midge looks semi-credulous about this plan. “However,” she asks, “doesn’t a tie score at the end of the seventh inning in a softball tournament between rival teams of policewomen trigger an automatic extra inning? And won’t that result in inning after inning of extra gameplay, so that we’ll be forced to continue embarrassing ourselves on the field until the Wisconsinite policewomen finally get that extra point that pushes them over the top and crowns them our vanquishers?”
Officer Betty now laughs long and hard at Midge’s speech. She gives Midge a hug before answering. Then she steps back, wipes away the mirthful teardrops, and declares:
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, my dear — we can simply ask our adversaries, the Wisconsinite policewomen’s softball team, before the game begins, to sign an agreement stating that the rules for the present tournament shall be thus and so: and we can type up an addendum to the usual rule-sheet stating that if there is a tie score at the end of the seventh inning, all teams shall accept that they are equally magnificent, and they shall then hug and become one single police force, and share the same color of uniform, and live in the same precinct together, happily ever after.”
Officer Midge’s eyes grow wide, and a smile begins to dawn upon her visage: “You’re saying that all of us and all of them shall voluntarily congregate within the same mixing bowl and become UNE FEMME?”
“Yes, exactly,” Betty smiles. “We’re already UNE FEMME, and so are they — why not therefore melt our hearts together and form a happier UNE FEMME! It’ll be more vivacious, with more women around.”
Officer Midge turns and gazes musingly upon the two police forces whose individual officers are still mingling and hugging. She waves her arm to attract everybody’s notice. Immediately the multitudes of policewomen fall quiet and offer Midge their undivided attention.
“Just so you know, our answer is: YES,” Midge announces. “That’s in regard to the softball policewomen tournament challenge.”
A great cheer goes up from both precincts.
“We just have one minor legal document that we need you all to sign, before the tournament begins,” adds Midge, still addressing the multitudes in her loud commandress-voice: “it’s just an addendum to the normal softball contract that we thought would be more promising for the health of our allied forces’ future relationship.”
A wary silence results from this news.
“We just want to establish an agreement,” Midge adds, “stating clearly that if the tournament results in a tied score, then both teams get to walk away hugging each other, and we won’t be forced to continue our battle until one team dies. Does that make sense?”
The multitudes of policewomen from both Wisconsin and Minnesota now visibly relax, and a collective sigh of relief goes up from the sprawling crowd. Then all the policewomen begin to cheer again; and they toss their police-hats into the air as if they just graduated from Officer Training School.
Midge now shakes hands very firmly with the tall Officer who represents the Wisconsin policewomen, after they sign the contract.
CLIMACTIC TOURNAMENT
Now the game begins. Officers Betty and Midge play pitcher and catcher, respectively; and the remaining policewomen pose in the rest of the softball positions.
It is a tense game — a very good game, in fact. The crowd in the bleachers truly enjoys watching this spectacle. Hotdogs are served by free-roaming vendors; also nachos (chips with melted cheese and assorted toppings); plus soda, popcorn, snack nuts, and beer.
It’s now the seventh inning and the score is tied: seven to seven. Betty pitches a perfect pitch. The tall Wisconsinite policewoman softball professional swings her bat gracefully, in slow-motion, and just misses making contact. Officer Midge catches the ball, and, doubling as umpire, yells: “You’re out! That’s the end! TIE GAME!” All the policewomen from both teams run from their dugouts and hug each other intensely, right there on the field.
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