Monday, April 18, 2005

   Nougat: Origins (Chapter III)
[Alright! We're back on track now! Let's rock!!! Hehe . . . oh, and we have family friends who run a Waffle House in my area, if anyone's wondering . . .]


Constables Nougat and Marsden entered the midtown Waffle House and quickly spotted the other two squad members who had been waiting for them. The two entering officers took off their hats and sat down at the small table next to the already seated Henry and Kitzman.
"Hey Mars'," Constable Kitzman said as she put down her cup of coffee, "so what's your take on riding with the new guy?" Nougat had long since accepted that he was going to be labelled as the "new guy" in the squad for a long time, so he opted not to comment on it. Marsden, meanwhile, had already propped his elbow on the table, his forehead nested in his upturned fingers.

"Ohh man . . . y'know how Flint sometimes gets a little airy during late shifts?" Both Henry and Kitzman immediately burst out laughing. Henry spoke quickly.
"You mean . . ."
"Yup," Marsden said, "Flint's got nothin' on the new guy." The laughter continued; Nougat simply leaned back in his chair and stretched a little.
"Hey, that's what happens to me early in the morning," he rebuked plainly. Marsden leaned in closer to Nougat.
"Yeah, next time leave it at home before you ride with me, okay?" he said with a smirk. Nougat just shrugged.
"I didn't have anything to leave before I left home, I can't control these things, you know . . ." Henry, meanwhile, was barely able to contain his entertainment.
"So hey," he said, getting into the conversation, "he doesn't like, fan them at you too, does he? 'Cause Flint does that sometimes . . ."
"No," Nougat answered, "that would be too mean and I don't know you people well enough to be doing that . . . not that I would anyway, I'm just saying . . . . ."

It was shortly after decided to drop the particular subject before ordering their end-of-shift breakfasts.
"So, anything cool happen during your guys' shift?" Marsden asked after the waitress took their menus away.
"Kinda," Henry replied, "earlier in the night we . . ."
"We had a fun run-in with these stupid kids outside one of the train stations," Kitzman finished. Henry let his jaw fall down in a half-serious expression of hurt.
"Hey Kathy, I was gonna tell the story!" Henry said.
"Aww, I'm sorry . . ." Kitzman replied, patting him on the hand sarcastically. ". . . please, you tell them." Henry scoffed while the others laughed.
"Stupid Kathy . . ."

"Anyway," Henry started, getting control of his audience again, "'Stupid Kathy' and I came up to these young punks who for some reason thought it'd be a good idea to finger us as we drove by . . ." Marsden immediately exploded into laughter; Nougat smiled and kept listening. ". . . so we slow down, roll down the window as we go by, and I look out at 'em. Of course, they're being stupid, and one of them goes 'oh hell, they stopped!' or something like that and started running. Of course, they're stupid, so they run into each other . . ." Kitzman started laughing again, already aware of how the story was going to end. "So yeah, these two Einsteins conk their heads together like the Three Stooges, the smaller one falls flat on his ass . . . and out of his pocket hangs a nice green-filled ziplock bag . . ." Kitzman started giggling immediately as the other two officers laughed.

"So what," Nougat asked, "did he just not put it deep enough into his pocket or something?"
"I dunno," Henry answered, "maybe it had something to do with the suddenness of the whole thing, but man . . . best part came after I came out to check it out."
"Here it comes," Kitzman commented as she sat up straight for the end.
"I get out, tell the guy on the ground to stay still, and instantly everyone else, all his friends, yet and sacrifice him or something!" Everyone at the table began laughing - as well, Marsden muttered something about "honour amongst thieves" - "so I pick the guy up, search his pockets . . . before I can say anything, he's already going, 'it's not mine! It's not mine!' and is basically freaking out. 'You wanna know whose it is? I'll give you his address, his phone number . . .'" The table started roaring.
"Just like that, he sold out the rest of 'em?" Nougat asked.
"Sold 'em out, and went on to join them, yeah . . . . . not like we'd let him get away just for that, right?" The laughter continued.

The waitress came with their breakfasts just as Henry finished his story.
"Alright Mars', your turn," Kitzman said from behind a mouthful of waffle, "what was fun that happened to you guys during your shift?" Marsden swallowed and answered,
"Not a lot, we just . . ."
"Alright new guy," Kitzman to Nougat, interrupting the other constable, "tell me something good that happened to you during your training." Nougat took a sip of coffee before replying.
"You mean at the academy, or during my block 2 . . ."
"Doesn't matter. I just want something since your idiot partner failed me." Marsden grinned and shook his head.
"Stupid Kathy . . ." he muttered before going back to his meal.

"There was this one pretty wild time during my street training," Nougat began. "I dunno, I must've been adjusting to the early hours of a morning shift or something, but I completely forgot to put on my body armour before leaving the station . . ." The surrounding officers were quick to throw in their respective two cents about the poor move. "Yeah, yeah, I know . . . but yeah, once we were out on the road, we get a call to some domestic something-rather . . . seemed some guy decided it'd be a good idea to hold his kid hostage or somethin' . . . something about custody or something . . ." The other officers nodded along intuitively. "But yeah, my T.O. and I got there, the guy had a handgun . . ." Nougat spent a fair amount of time elaborating on exactly how they talked the father into releasing his daughter and turning himself over - as well, he was personally amazed at how much attention people were giving him as he told his story. ". . . now I'm not saying that I wasn't happy that we got him, but during that whole time not having my vest on under my clothes, especially any time he pointed his gun at me . . . I never felt so naked in my life . . ."

"Yeah, you come to really love that vest," Marsden added as the other officers agreed. "I remember this one time, I was patrolling with Twix, and . . ."
"Hold on, who's 'Twix'?" Nougat asked, interrupting the story. Marsden laughed again.
"You don't know everyone in our squad too well, do ya?" he asked.
"I've been here for less than two months, of course I don't!" Nougat replied. Kitzman stifled a giggle while Marsden elaborated.

"'Twix' is the nickname Jones got after we came to some house-thing she had a couple years back," Marsden explained. "At the time, her niece couldn't exactly pronounce 'Aunt Trixie' just right, so we had to make sure to keep that on her mind for the rest of her life." Kitzman and Henry grinned as they watched Nougat listening carefully. "Anyone else you missing?"
"Actually, I've got a better question," Henry said after finishing off his breakfast. "Do you know the names of all your squadmates?"

Everyone leaned in towards the rookie officer, egging him on to list off their squad members.
"Uh, alright . . ." Nougat said, thinking hard. "So there's Flint, you guys . . ."
"Names, new guy," Henry pressed.
"Marsden, Henry, Kitzman. Happy now?"
"Very. Now continue." Nougat recomposed himself after being interrupted quickly.
"Alright . . . . . then there's Ruth, there's Jones . . . and . . . . . ah crap . . . . ." Nougat thought hard again, but the last member would not come to mind. "I give up. Who gets to punch me when he finds out I forgot him?" Henry chuckled, as did everyone else.
"You forgot Roch, but that's okay, he's always been a bit of an outsider in the squad anyway."
"Gee, that's nice to say, former new guy," Kitzman said, eyeing Henry harshly; Henry just shrugged.

Marsden stopped everyone for a moment to speak on the radio.
"Yeah, we're all still here . . . okay . . . yeah . . . yeah, we can wait for ya, sure . . . . alright, see ya soon . . ." As he straightened his posture, everyone around the table looked at him. "Oh, looks like Flint's in the neighbourhood and is gonna come laugh at us now," he said.
"Oh!" Nougat said, almost standing up from his seat. "That reminds me now! How the heck did the sergeant get that sort of nickname?" Marsden took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair.

"Stupid Kathy, you wanna field this one?" he asked.
"It's not that hard, Mars'," she answered, "but sure." Nougat cracked another smile, but listened intently once again. "Basically, the sarge is a noisy kinda guy. Not like his voice, but just his whole being. He makes things messy, blows stuff up . . . well, not lately . . . . . but yeah . . . you've seen how he acts, haven't ya?" Nougat chuckled and nodded. "So yeah, big abrasive bastard, last name stone . . . sparks and all . . . so 'Flint' just made sense, I guess." Nougat looked up at her and smiled extra wide for a moment.
"I see, very informative . . . so how long has he had this nickname?" Kitzman put down her coffee and shrugged.
"I dunno, Flint's been around for a while, I guess he's had it for a while . . . oh yeah, that said, I'd bet that his 'sparkey' nature's what's kept him as a sergeant for so long . . ." Nougat smiled even wider.
"Well, there's that, and if I were a lieutenant I'd be a lot harder to beat up ass-clowns like you for every time you stuck your foot in your mouth," Flint said from behind the immediately startled Kitzman.

Nougat lost his composure and exploded in a bad fit of laughter.
"Hmm, guess you were closer than I thought," Marsden commented.
"Yup," the sergeant replied, "then as I got closer, I heard my name, so I knew I had to ninja my way up to ya . . . luckily, my stealthiness was not compromised. Thanks new guy, this nets ya five points in my book." Nougat suppressed his fit as best he could.
"All in the name of the squad, sir," he said before going back to laughing; Kitzman kicked him from under the table.

"Alright lady and gentlemen," Flint said once everyone had settled down, "you all did good last night. Now I don't need to tell you this, but I want you all to get some good sleep once you get home. Tonight's game night, so the streets could get rowdier than usual . . . that goes double for you, Noug', rest up. We're gonna need to tag you in if they hit us with their finishers and the ref's counting fast." Nougat was puzzled about the analogy, but responded in the affirmative.

The tired officers paid their bill and left the restaurant. Nearing the small parking lot in the back, Nougat grinned, thinking about how amusing it was to see three squad cars all parked in a row behind a Waffle House. Before everyone got into their cars, Flint called to the rookie one last time.
"Hey! New guy!" he shouted.
"What's up, sarge?"
"It's my experience that a scared cop is more useful than a dead one."
" . . . what?!"
"What's it from, man?! What movie?!"
"Oh! Um . . . . . . I don't know!"
"Ah geez . . . you're killin' me man! Killin' me!"
"I'm sorry!"
"Go to Blockbuster before going home today! I'm changing my orders for you!"

Inside their cruiser, Nougat couldn't remove the grin on his face.
"It was from Lethal Weapon 2, by the way," Marsden informed him before starting the car.
"Ah . . ." Nougat thought out loud while buckling his seatbelt. " . . . haven't seen that one yet . . . . ."


[Are these getting too long, you guys think?
Another tidbit for ya. My brother the police officer has a squadmate named Kathy - that's right, she is the original "Stupid Kathy" . . . or Cathy . . . . . meh. Oh, a quick question: being from the commonwealth nation I am, I know fully well what a "constable" is. For the record if people were having problems with it, "constable" is basically the lowest level of police officer, under sergeant. Thought I'd throw that in just because I've been using it throughout the series. But hey, it goes with my use of "ERT" and stuff, so yeah . . .]
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