was in high school?”
“You never mentioned that, Brennan, but I can definitely see it.”
“You don’t understand,” protested Marvin, “my wife wanted to pay for a hooker tonight so that we could buy her dinner and talk her out of being a prostitute. That’s all we wanted to do. We’re on your side. We’re the good guys. You can ask her.”
Beatrice threw the car into gear and burned rubber as she drove off.
The officers started laughing.
“Oh, is that what you were doing? Just trying to help a girl out? We didn’t know. I’m so sorry. Let me get these cuffs off of you,” said the short cop, and the other officers laughed.
“Please. It’s the truth.” Marvin sighed and hung his head.
Marvin continued to kneel silently with his head down while the officers wrapped things up, fearing the reaction that he’d get from the people that he worked with when his face appeared in the paper alongside the front page headline that he imagined: Pervert and Wife Get Busted Seeking Prostitute. Then he pictured the phone call that he was going to get from his mother about buying a prostitute and he winced. With the horrible thought still in mind, Beatrice snuck up behind everyone with her homemade gun, the butt still wrapped in napkins so that she didn’t mess up her hands.
“Don’t any of you move! Get ‘em up! Reach for it, cops! Reach for the sky! And stay where you are. You all know the drill!” she yelled. Marvin remained where he was. “Not you, Marvin. Get off your knees. We’re getting out of here.”
“Honey, I think we’d better-”
“Let’s go, Marvin!” She walked forward and pulled up on Marvin’s handcuffs, forcing him to stand. Some of the shoe polish from her gun rubbed off on her shirt.
“That’s not even a gun,” said the short cop, putting his hands down. He reached for Beatrice and she kicked him squarely between the legs.”
“Oh, no! I’m really sorry about that, officer.”
He curled up on the ground in front of her. She reached down and patted his leg apologetically.
“I really am sorry, officer.”
Then Marvin and Beatrice took off running, Marvin staggering along awkwardly, not having the use of his arms, looking something like an ostrich. The undercover police women pursued, but with great difficulty because of their impractical footwear. It wasn’t long before they lost ground and Beatrice and Marvin had enough separation to head down an alley undetected, where she’d hidden the car. She jumped in and waited for Marvin to get in before realizing that he was still cuffed, desperately hopping with his back against the door, trying to grab the handle.
“The door, Beatrice! The door, sugar pie!”
She jumped out, ran around to the passenger side of the car, opened the door, and tumbled Marvin in. She ran back, jumped in, and they sped away.
An hour later they were home in their kitchen trying to figure out how to get the cuffs off of Marvin while he watched a small television that they kept on the counter next to the oven.
“Well, Marvin, are you satisfied yet?” asked Beatrice, while she dropped a pair of pliers on the counter. “They didn’t mention anything on the news. We’re free. All’s well that ends well.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“Of course I am. Stop being paranoid.” She thought for a minute. “Those pliers are never going to work. I’m going to see if we have anything for those cuffs in the hall closet.” She left the room.
“Just call my brother, Gary. He has lots of tools,” he yelled after her.
“I’m not answering any of Gary’s questions,” she hollered back from the hall closet
“He probably won’t even ask any questions, Beatrice.”
“Oh, right, Marvin. He’s not going to bother to ask why you’ve got handcuffs on.”
“Come on, Beatrice. My hands are getting numb.”
“You know, this whole thing’s really not my fault either, Marvin. Cops shouldn’t be allowed to trick people like that. Those girls looked just like hookers.”
“That’s kind of the point.”
“What?”
“I said, that’s the point!” Marvin yelled louder.
“You don’t have to yell at me, Marvin,” she said, now standing in the doorway, “Are you mad at me? Please don’t be mad at me.”
“I’m not mad!” he was still talking too loud so he lowered his voice. “I was a little mad at first. But then I realized that your heart was in the right place. You just wanted to help someone.” He smiled at her. “Plus, you did come back for me, sugar pie.”
“I felt just like Angelina Jolie when I came back.” She pointed her finger like a gun. “Reach for the sky, coppers! Was that great or what, Marvin?”
“I could never stay mad at you, Beatrice. You know that.”
“I’m glad that you’re not mad at me anymore,” she said. She walked back to the closet. He heard her say,”oh, good,” and then he heard her yank something from the closet, spilling other things to the floor. He heard her walking back. She entered the room with an ax on her shoulder.
“Where’d you get that thing, baby?”
“The hall closet. Daddy brought it over for me once. In case we ever get an intruder.”
“He brought you an ax?”
“Daddy worries about me.”
“What are you planning on doing with that?”
“Turn around and bend over. Try to keep your hands as far apart as you can.”
“Beatrice, no! No, Beatrice!”
“I can do this, Marvin. You just need to trust me.”
Marvin got up and ran. He ran through the house, yelling ouch every time that he used his head to push a door open.
“Stop acting like a baby, Marvin! We can’t leave those cuffs on you!”
“Not with an ax, Beatrice!”
Marvin ran up the stairs and barricaded himself in the bathroom by slamming the door with his head and turning the lock with his mouth. “Ouch,” she heard him mumble from within.
“Marvin, open the door. I promise that I’ll be careful.”
“I’m sorry, Beatrice, but there’s no way I’m opening this door.”
“I can get in there, Marvin. I do have an ax. Don’t make me use it.”
Meanwhile, downstairs, on the TV in the kitchen, a frozen image of Beatrice running, her long hair streaking out behind her head, one petite fist up beside her determined face, filled the small screen. It had been captured by a convenience store camera as she passed. The words ALL POINTS BULLETIN ran beneath the picture. “Be on the lookout for this woman that assaulted an undercover officer earlier tonight near Hennepin and 58th street. The woman is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. If you have any information as to…”
Beatrice and Marvin continued to argue upstairs through the bathroom door.
AUTHOR’S NOTES
If you have a relationship with someone that has bipolar disorder, whether it is a parent, a brother, a sister, your wife or husband, you know how hard their condition can make life for everyone. It is important to be patient with them and get them appropriate help when possible. This story was written with no intention of making fun of or belittling the seriousness of the disease. Some people with the condition actually do have drastic mood swings and impulsive urges that continually disrupt any kind of normal existence. I hope you enjoyed this story. If you wanted to share your own experience in the review section for this story I would hearing from you.
JT Pearson.
Please leave a review if you enjoyed this story, and if you’d like to read other stories by this author there is a list of some of his work below.
About the author
JT Pearson studied writing at The University of Minnesota. He now lives in Wisconsin near his parents, most of his fifteen siblings, and their children. When he’s not writing he spends the majority of his time with his best friend Frank – who generally keeps a very low profile – can solve just about any dilemma with one quick phone call - and insists on
calling the mob - The Italian Gentlemen’s Club (forget about it – nothin to see here – move along). JT also spends his days with his mum – Carol –who labors over her formulas – eyebrows raised like a mad woman – tweaking them ever so slightly in the production of her experimental scientific super bread which will soon be released to the people, and his pop, Terrance – who, though quite intelligent and a very nice man when unarmed - screams at the computer with a knife in hand nearly every other hour, threatening to ‘gut the blasted thing!’ if it doesn’t stop lying to him. He also spends much time with the fifteenth and sixteenth children of the enormous Pearson family, Jake (actually born a girl and named Jacinta but older brothers do horrible things to little sister’s names), Mikey (who really is a boy – not that JT ever officially checked while they were growing up, but Mikey’s a thick-necked six footer with a low voice and a back covered with hair so it seems prudent at this point to take his word for it). He also spends time with Nema - the smartest but unfortunately most sarcastic Border Collie on Earth, and lastly, an army of extremely small, dirty-faced beggars who are often missing at least one shoe, talk funny, are short a few teeth, and regularly pick his pockets for gum and small change whenever he’s distracted.
Other short stories by JT Pearson:
The Wormters
Jeff was always like a magnet to the people in society living on the fringe. After compiling a collection of acquaintances that not only seemed bizarre but dangerous as well he decided that a move out of town to the peaceful country was just the answer. But Pyle’s Trailer Court proved to be anything