BIG MIKE’S RETIREMENT
Teddy just turned up one day in the front office, left behind by some kid, so Kate sat him on the counter, presuming, hoping – in the beginning - he’d soon be reclaimed.
But Teddy sat and sat, a forlorn bear, like some abandoned child who only wanted a decent home and someone to love him, sat and sat and watched the people traffic go by, until he became something of a novelty, a Court mascot, presiding.
One big crusty old-style copper (a sergeant everyone called Big Mike), took a particular shine to Teddy, and every morning would come in and pat Teddy on the head – pat, pat, pat - and say “G’morning Teddy”, did this for months, coming up to his retirement.
Kate – and everyone else – had a fondness for the old copper and his routine, and it became part of the rituals of the place, made for some smiles, and some asides, about Teddy maybe going bald, maybe getting shorter.
One day some low-life crim nicked Teddy, stole him clean away with not an informant in sight, and left only a remarkably empty space behind, and no Teddy-head to pat.
But the old copper would still look in each Court morning, and ask - “Teddy come back yet?” – and Kate would shake her head, make half a smile, watch his hand sort of pat the counter, where Teddy used to be.
Kate got an invite to Big Mike’s going away party, the only non-copper who did, because Kate was – well, Kate – singularly respected and herself something of an institution, but when she gave him her Happy Retirement card, he didn’t open it straight away, just looked a bit sheepish, a bit pleased, a bit sad, and said thanks, and tapped it against his big hand. It was like he couldn’t find the words, or didn’t trust what they might be, at that moment.
When it was time for the inevitable speech, the sergeant held up Kate’s card, moved it about so everyone could get a good look. It had a bear on the front, a well worn bear of a bear, a lot like Teddy, and he had on a backpack, and was coming down the steps of a house, heading off.
He read it out –
“Dear Mike – seeing as how it’s your retirement I thought it was about time I confessed. I do know what happened to Teddy, he popped in a couple of weeks ago and told me ‘I got sick and tired of some old copper whacking me on the bloody head every morning, so I ran away to be street kid.’
– love, Kate.”
It was the biggest laugh of the party. Was handed around no end. Became part of the folklore of how well the old copper ended his career. Pity that what came after that, for Big Mike, wasn’t quite so funny.
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Big Mike had been an old style copper some forty years, been a bear of a man and a desk sergeant forever, some even said he became a desk sergeant when he graduated from kindergarten, told stories of how he’d treated both Constables and Superintendents in pretty much the same manner, and gave most crims an even break if they deserved it, wore his heart and his authority on his sleeve for all to see.
Big Mike and his Dottie fitted together like hands in gloves, shaped to each other from years of practice, walked at the same speed all their days, saw off the kids, saw off the mortgage, retirement and hit-the-road now a reward for a steady life lived well enough. And they had made such plans, Big Mike and Dottie, four-wheel-drive and a swish caravan and do the whole grey nomad thing like gypsy lovers in the springtime. They talked of little else.
But Dottie died. Three months in. Had a quiet heart attack one night and never woke up.
Big Mike was a man lost, bereft, a stumbling bear, half a bear, or less, forever staring straight ahead like maybe Dottie was surely coming back, somewhere in the distance.
Big Mike met Sylvia at the Lost Bears Club, the Leftovers Club, the Half A Person Club, a ring of chairs once a fortnight with a pile of partner memories in the middle and all around them sad people with a deep need of someone, someone and something, a something that can’t be had, can’t be replaced. But they try anyway.
Big Mike and Sylvia married, eleven months and fifteen months respectively from the loss of their other halves, their separate kids tut-tutting and their separate friends awkward with the two of them and neither hearing their “D’ya think this’s wise? – I mean, so soon after...”, but some grief has no ears to hear such noises, and eyes that only see what they need. Unaware of the edge.
Sylvia stepped off first. Stepped off into some illusion of reality. And did it blindly, assumed that Big Mike would of course sell his home and move in with her, take up bowls, join their church choir. Be a handyman. Just like her missing half. She drip fed this scenario to him in the first week of their honeymoon, not that Big Mike was listening to all that foreign language.
Big Mike had his own agenda, but not being a drip feed kind of a guy, laid it on her in one piece, like he hadn’t even heard her, told her how the obvious thing for their new life was for her to sell her house and move in with him, and cook his favourite casseroles, while he got the four-wheel-drive and the caravan and the nomad thing sorted out.
Awkward silence. Waiting. Waiting for each other to be ... be ... practical. Sylvia blinked first. Half blinked. Said she’d try out the nomad thing, for a while, but keep her home. See how it went.
So they sort of lived together, but back and forth, a week in hers and a week in his, each like visitors, him a little stumbly, a little impatient, her making noises that sounded as though she hated his carpets. And his curtains. His whole kitchen layout. Not that Big Mike understood, too busy with The Itinerary.
They headed west for two days and got as far as Coolgardie, two days and two nights across all that Nullarbor-ness, a pair of strangers looking for words, while Big Mike waited for Sylvia to turn into Dottie.
Third morning. Cold. And a gloomy overcast. Sylvia stepped out of the ’van and looked about the camp-ground and sort of said this far and no further. This isn’t for me. I’m catching the bus home. And did.
Big Mike managed to make it to Geraldton before he gave up on his dream and his rejuvenation and his new wife who refused to be his old wife and yes, gave up on his life too. Turned around and came home. Sold the whole rig six months later without putting one more nomadic mile on it. Stopped doing any house back-and-forth as well.
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Kate ran into Big Mike three or four years later, at The Mall. He’d aged and gone to sloppy fat and drove a shopping trolley around with his forearms, slumped over it, shuffling. But he turned back into Big Mike when he spotted her – well, a bit like the Big Mike that was - sat with her for the best part of two hours and told her his retirement story, poured it all out and when he was empty waited for her to make him feel better about himself. And she gave it a decent shot. Because Kate is Kate, the compulsive counsellor and worry-warrior, gently trying to make him understand his run-in with Replacement Syndrome, but all the while mostly sad at her own loss, of respect for a great bear of a desk sergeant.
Kate had to invent an escape that day, but it was a few more Mall visits before she realised that each time Big Mike just seemed to happen on her at her favourite café table, or came filtering through the throng, looking for her, and each time set about killing her cherished chunk of weekly freedom, killed it dead with pretty much the same story. Over and over. About his grief, about the half of him that was still missing. The half that was starting to look about Kate’s size.
She found another café after that, one with a hidey-corner, and always scanned the Mall landscape before breaking from cover, ever on the watch for the fat sad man, hunched over his shuffle-trolley, the man who used to be Big Mike.
© T. R. Edmonds 2021
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