My time with Officer Skeleton

I was breakfasting with Officer Skeleton — he’s the Grim Reaper character who plays chess against the medieval knight in Ingmar Bergman’s movie THE SEVENTH SEAL (1957); he also stars in my own police report from March 20, where Officer Barbara and I die and spend some time in the underworld. Officer Skeleton ordered a hamburger, and I ordered a cheeseburger. 

“What I love so much about being a cop,” I said to Officer Skeleton, while taking a bite into my breakfast-burger, “is all the people that one gets to meet. They’re all so friendly.”

“I like the women because they are intelligent yet sweet, and their hair is pretty,” said Officer Skeleton; “and I like the men because they resemble overweight guard-dogs.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” I said, taking another bite and then sipping my soda.

“Tell me, Officer Bryan Ray,” said Officer Skeleton: “Where do you think this world is going?”

“Please, call me Bry,” I replied. “We’ve been partners for more than fifty-two years now; I think we can drop the formalities.”

“OK, Officer Bry,” said Officer Skeleton, “I repeat my query: Where is this world heading?”

I finished chewing the last bite of my cheeseburger; then I answered: “To hell in a handbasket. That’s my opinion. Everything’s bad and getting worse by the instant. Now, shall we take our first distress call?”

Officer Skeleton smiled and laughed and said: “Yes, let’s!”

So I ordered two large servings of french fries to-go; then Officer Skeleton and I both kissed the hand of the proprietress and left the restaurant and climbed into our patrol cruiser and sped away.

I was the one driving. “Take your pick,” I said to my partner: “hotline or C.B. radio.”

“I’ll try the citizens band,” said Officer Skeleton. And he reached his pale white hand forward and took the transmitter off the hook and said “Hello?”

“Good morning, Officers. This is Eric, the new intern, speaking from Eagan Precinct Two. Shall I read the menu?”

“Gimme that,” I grabbed the transmitter from Officer Skeleton and shouted into it “Eric, this is Officer Bryan Ray. I want to welcome you to the Force. — Hey, this is the first I’m hearing about Eagan having a second Precinct. That’s great news! Congrats! Alright, now I’m passing the horn back to Officer Skeleton.” And I lobbed the transmitter onto my partner’s lap.

“Hello, Eric?” said Officer Skeleton.

“Here am I,” replied the intern with a funny type of shy confidence.

“Go ahead with the menu,” said my partner.

“Alright,” said the new-hire, “first, we got a little boy who’s having a bad dream in which he says that his room seems to be filling up with sand. And then we have a whole town — underscore that: an entire community — that’s performing a countdown (in other words, the townsfolk are all shouting out in unison the integers from ‘ten’ backwards; for instance: ‘nine… eight… seven…’ and so on and so forth); then each and every one of them intends to commit self-slaughter, all at the same time, once they reach the numeral ‘zero’.”

“OK,” said Officer Skeleton, after writing down the two distress-call summaries in his pocket notebook, “anything else?”

“Nope,” said Eric the intern.

“Then I’ll say goodbye and hang up now,” said my partner, Officer Skeleton.

“Over and out,” said Eric. “You guys have a nice day, now.”

So we raced to the first of these two jobs. I switched on the flashing lights and the blaring siren of our police car, and I drove thru more red lights than we could count. Finally we ended up in the driveway of a house in the suburbs. We kicked in the front door and held our firearms in the upright position while yelling repeatedly the phrase: “Police! We are invading your domicile!” until we reached the little boy’s room who had phoned in the distress call.

Officer Skeleton and I aimed our guns at the youth, and I shouted: “Are you the one who’s currently having a bad dream?”

The little boy was half asleep, but he answered in a faraway voice, obnoxiously slowly: “Yes, that was me. I’m afraid that my room is filling up with sand.”

Officer Skeleton quipped “Whoever heard of dry drowning?” then he started to laugh at his own joke and accidentally fired his weapon, which shattered the window in the boy’s room.

“Look, son,” I said to the lad (incredibly, the sound of the gunshot and the breaking glass had not awakened him), “listen closely while I tell you the truth about dreams. Dreams are just the result of your body digesting its food. So if you’re envisioning sand that is covering your carpet at present, and you fear that its level shall swell until it reaches the ceiling, here’s my suggestion: simply de-escalate the situation. That way, the sand shall only fill 50% of your room. You could say that your room is half full or half empty, I don’t care — in the long run, it doesn’t make a difference. All that matters is that you realize that YOU are in control of your own prophecy. So let that sandstorm subside, and then you can turn your room into a U.S. beach resort. Stick an umbrella next to a lawn chair, recline, and enjoy a piña colada. That’s my advice.”

So the little boy did this, and it worked out perfectly.

“We will see you later,” said Officer Skeleton, as we waved goodbye to the still sleeping youth who was now wearing sunglasses. 

The lad’s mother met us at the door, as we were trying to sneak back to our patrol cruiser, and she offered us dollar bills for payment.

“Keep your filthy lucre, ma’am,” I raised my hands in protest; “we’re financed entirely by your tax dollars.” — Then, in undertone, I explained: “Rumor has it that the ruble is on the rise. (That’s the monetary unit of Russia.)”

The woman whispered something enticing in my ear and exchanged contact info with me; then she slid a few rubles into my pocket while continuing to flirt, and we made arrangements to enjoy an affair in the near future (tho, before we engaged in any intimacy, I introduced her to my wife and kids; and both my wife and kids accepted her, and my wife actually ended up falling deeply in love with this damozel as well and joining in on all the fun). 

So Officer Skeleton and I waved goodbye to our day’s first distress call, and then we sped in our police vehicle to the day’s final dilemma. (Officer Skeleton drove, this time.)

We ended up in the city that was specified by Eric the intern on the C.B. radio earlier. Sure enough, all the citizens were outside, standing on the porches of their houses and planning to commit communal suicide. They had been counting down from ten and were now on the number four, so all that was left was “three… two… one…” and then when they all shouted “ZERO!” they would pop off to heaven. 

“What should we do?” I asked my partner, Officer Skeleton.

“I have no idea,” said Officer Skeleton. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

So we ended up waiting and cautiously observing what transpired — we did not want to act in foolish haste and possibly escalate the situation: that might make matters worse. 

And it came to pass that the whole town fulfilled their intention and slew themselves, right before our eyes. Some slashed their wrists and fell backward into an outdoor bathtub; some took overdoses of opiates; some shot themselves in the head; some hanged themselves from a noose; some carved out their own guts with a bolo knife; and some sat cross-legged and poured gasoline all over their skin and patiently set themselves ablaze.

“I can’t believe we just witnessed that,” I said, after the shocking scene concluded.

“This might be the first distress call that we failed to de-escalate,” replied Officer Skeleton.

“You might be right,” I touched my forehead with two fingers and tried to remember if I had ever experienced anything remotely similar. “Yes, I think you might be right,” I repeated.

“Well, we better start loading these cadavers up and getting them to the morgue,” said Officer Skeleton.

I shook my head and sighed: “Alright, where do you wanna start?”

“Maybe let’s begin at the mayor’s place and then work around counter-clockwise until we reach the apartments out yonder.”

“Okie dokie,” I said. Thus we walked up to the porch of the mayoral residence and hauled the bodies that were sprawled there into our cop car and taxied them to the morgue. Then we returned and took care of the next house and repeated this process for the following several weeks, covering all the remaining residences, until the town was corpse-free. Lastly we had to go seek out any instances of this town on all the world’s maps and globes, and use permanent ink to blot them out.

As implied, this was a multi-month mission. Once we finished, we celebrated by dining at our favorite steakhouse. We sat in the big black booth at the back, under dim red lighting. I ordered the tenderloin, and Officer Skeleton ordered the sirloin.