Steak Out

“Samuel, do you copy?” asked Tyler. Tyler was a new recruit for the Bellwood Police Department. Samuel was the officer who was charged with making sure he knew the ropes. 

Samuel Parker had a ten-year-old daughter named Opal at home. Pictures lined every corner of his small cubicle. One was Opal as a small infant. In the second one, Opal was on his back and the neighbor Bridget was taking the photo at the beach last summer when Opal was nine. Opal always looked up to her father.

 “That’s enough for today,” said the commander of the station who was watching the two officers battling rubber dummies. Samuel wiped the sweat from his brow and hands.

 Samuel had to use his badge to get out of the building because it was locked down due to criminal activity in the area. Security was important. Samuel said goodbye to Tyler in the parking lot. Tyler had to finish his training before he could receive the keys to his own police car. Samuel got to drive his police vehicle home every night, so it felt like his. 

On his way home he noticed a beautiful sunset. Samuel turned on the radio. He always saw the silver lining in everything. The song “God Is On the Move” by Mercy Me was playing as he entered his neighborhood. Mrs. Dorothy was an elderly woman who was supposed to be watching Opal, but the roles were reversed. Bridget was Mrs. Dorothy’s daughter. Her mother’s health was declining rapidly due to Alzheimer’s disease, but Samuel didn’t want to break Opal’s heart by telling her. 

Samuel walked into the house and was greeted by the smell of burnt chocolate chip cookies. The smoke was prevalent throughout the house making it hard to see his daughter. Her head was bowed like a dog being thrown into the doghouse. But Samuel smirked and smiled at the same time. He threw his hands into the air.

 “I know what you’re going to say,” said Opal. “Don’t touch the oven because the battery is dead in the smoke detector. But I wanted to bake some cookies for you and Mrs. Dorothy.” 

“Oh, that’s so sweet of you! But you don’t have to do a good deed every single time you see her,” Samuel said, escaping to the bedroom after he took his shoes off at the door. He had one shoe on when the disaster was taking place in the kitchen. 

He saw that Opal did the math homework problems that she could do. It was Thursday and her spelling test was tomorrow, which gave them to bond as they reviewed the word list. They practiced the same words for an hour, and then Samuel put a pizza in the oven.

 After Opal went to bed he baked a second batch of cookies. He put them in the freezer to help them stay fresh. 

The next day Samuel clocked in, and the night guard introduced him to a new group of inmates booked into the jail overnight. The day flew by as Samuel cruised his neighborhood beat. He was surprised to find a fight between two teenagers playing in the park with a basketball. “That was a three-pointer,” said the older boy who looked like he was about seventeen years old. The older boy’s hair blew on his forehead in frustration as he plunged the ball into the younger boy’s chest. The two boys were in the park alone. It turned out that the boys were from the next neighborhood over but their grandmother lives in this neighborhood. “Can I get your names, please?” Samuel said. The older boy, who was named Elliot, protested while Frankie started to cry. The boys still didn’t say anything. Samuel gave them a grim warning. “Don’t you bully anyone here again? I don’t care if you are related to him or not. Conflict can’t be fixed by fighting,” Samuel said. Samuel watched the boys like a hawk. The boys left on their bikes without saying anything.

After his shift ended, Samuel went home and looked up at the sky. He had been a police officer for almost twenty years. Was it finally time to leave the police department permanently? He wanted to be there more for Opal.

 Two weeks later Samuel noticed that the boys from the park were going in the same direction as him but they stopped when he pulled up in front of his house. 

He went into the house and had dinner with Opal as usual. He kissed her gently on her forehead before bed and headed to bed himself a short time later. In the middle of the night, he was awakened by a loud bang and the sound of glass breaking. He sat up in bed and wondered who and what was in his house. He didn’t have a gun of his own, just the one he used for work. He got the spare flashlight and woke up Opal. He had to call his job because he wasn’t working tonight but he wished he was. Tyler and Robin were both working tonight. 

Suddenly Opal jumped as a bolt of fire broke through the window. “Daddy, what is going on?” Opel cried suddenly. She rushed out of the house and disappeared into the dark. Snap! Snap! went a gun. Samuel ran to see if he could find Opal. He found her on the next lawn hovering over what looked like a body. 

It was Mrs. Dorothy. Samuel bent to feel for a pulse. Her heart was pounding but not for much longer. Her flower nightgown had blood on it. 

In this field, it was usually young people who got the short end of the stick. Samuel looked for Elliot. He didn’t want him to harm anyone else in the neighborhood. A boy who was wearing a black ski mask was coming out of a shed in Bridget’s yard. Where was Bridget during this scene? Suddenly a light came on in the upstairs bedroom and the window opened. 

“What is going on down there? I’m trying to get some sleep,” Bridget said. Bridget’s silhouette disappeared from the window. All the lights were on in the house. Mrs. Dorothy must have gotten up to go to the bathroom but she proceeded to unlock the front door to the house. 

The boy had come back around but he wasn’t going to get away with anything. Samuel had been genuinely reasonable about the basketball incident but this time it was life or death. Elliot tried to make a getaway but Samuel caught him. He dropped something as he was taken to the ground. Elliot was going to be going to the juvenile detention center. Samuel wanted to deliver Elliot down there but he had Opal to take care of. 

“Daddy!” Opal said as she ran into his arms. Fresh tears were streaming down her eyes. “Is Mrs. Dorothy okay?” asked Opal. How can you explain to kids that people who are our friends have to go? The two of them were silent as they witnessed a shooting star shooting across the sky.

 Two minutes later Tyler and Robin were on the scene. Bridget had collapsed in the front yard when she saw her mother’s body lying motionless. She put her hands over her face. But when she saw Samuel and Opal standing there she immediately embraced them in a giant bear hug. Bridget would need help recovering from this loss and Samuel and Opal would be there no matter what because that’s what real family is. 

Opal saw the obituary of Mrs. Dorothy in the newspaper. It said that she loved butterflies and she wanted to build a garden for all sorts of butterflies and donate the rest of her estate to a local hospital. Opal wanted to forgo her allowance to help pay for the garden. 

“I wouldn’t know how my life would be without you in it,” Opal said to her father. Opal was just trying to make a point that money doesn’t matter but love makes the world go round.