I guess it all started with my visit to East Town. I had just gotten off of an overnight, but the night had been busy and I was still wired. Too wired to sleep, and fearing that my bumping around the apartment at seven in the morning might disturb the Saturday morning rest of my roommate Elle (who very rarely gets to sleep in), I decided to pay a visit to a friend.
I happen to live in East Town, and their police department is only about five minutes from my house. So, I make a habit of dropping by when I know Linda is working the morning shift. Today, I had passed by the East Town firetruck heading out for a call, so I knew she'd be busy. Sure enough, when I walked in and picked up the receiver to call into their dispatch office, I wasn't surprised when nobody answered. What I did hear instead, though, was the click-click, click-click of the front door as it was unlocked remotely.
Grinning, I stepped inside and made my way to Lin. She was finishing up with the call when I settled in, and we launched effortlessly into our usual chatter.
"How you are you guys liking your new Chief?"
I smirked. "If you're wondering if we feel guilty for poaching him from you guys, the answer is no."
"We miss him," she admitted. "But it was an upward step for him, so we understand."
"Well, he's very popular right now. I think his sense of humor is going to bring an energy of fun and playfulness that we've been sorely lacking."
Talk of our new Chief turned to some affectionate anecdotes from back when he was East Town's Captain, my favorite of which details his exploits as resident prankster. Apparently, our Chief was the ringleader of much of the shenanigans.
"We had this giant cardboard cutout of Buddy the Elf," Lin explained. "He used to make his rounds around the station, people moving him around and scaring each other by putting him in unexpected places."
"And... he was in on this?"
"He wasn't just in on it," Lin laughed. "He was usually behind it!"
Apparently, Buddy wasn't universally liked among the officers, and this was a fact the Captain regularly exploited. In a bit of station security camera footage Lin showed me, I watched the solemn, dignified figure who would one day become our Chief of Police sneak out into the garage bay, Buddy tucked under one arm and a huge grin on his face. I watched as he raced to set the figure up in front of the garage and then run away, just in time for the bay door to open. I swear, I could see the man giggling.
The officer who pulled up was less thrilled, and after a moment he emerged from his cruiser and delivered a punch to poor Buddy that sent him flying across the garage.
"A lot of the pranks sort of... fizzled when he left," Lin admitted. "It was like he took that energy with him."
"Well, I can't say it's transferred over perfectly. I mean, the Chief has a good sense of humor, but our department is a lot more serious than some of the other small towns' around here."
I thought for a moment to the description that Kara had given me of her other department, where she dispatches part-time. Chair races across the floor, long-running inside jokes-- all of the things I love about closely-knit workplaces. "But... you know, it doesn't have to be." Turning back to Lin, I asked, "Where is Buddy now?"
Her eyes narrowed slightly. "What are you thinking?"
"Well... when your Captain left to become our Chief, he probably figured he'd left all of this behind him. He'd never expect it to show up at his new workplace, now, would he?"
Lin threw back her head and laughed. "My god, that's perfect," she said. "I'll ask around."
The introduction of Buddy the Elf to our town's department, and more importantly, his reintroduction to the Chief, brought about some well-needed laughter. First and foremost, on his first day with us, Buddy was set up to scare the Chief himself in his office, right next to the light switch so it would be the first thing he saw when he came in. Upon his arrival, he went straight to his office and opened the door. A second later, his loud, booming laughter could be heard throughout the station.
Later that morning, a frightened scream came from the women's locker room, where Buddy scared the daylights out of our SRO. A few minutes later, she came into Dispatch and asked to see the camera footage from the morning.
"I want to know who's responsible for this," she said, holding Buddy aloft.
Later, Buddy made his way into EOPs, where he took Officer Crabby (whom you may remember from my interview) for a good scare, and then around into the dispatchers' lockers, where it gave me a fright. Last I saw Buddy, he was wreaking havoc in the men's locker room, and I'm sure I haven't seen the last of him yet.
Over breakfast one morning, after a particularly taxing overnight, Kane (one of the officers I'm closer with) told me that long ago, the department had been a different place. Pranks and practical jokes ran abound, with one particular highlight being the head of one Lieutenant (remember Baldy from my interview? Yeah, that would be him) being printed out and stuck all over the department. After a closer look, I was able to find a few of the remaining heads, the ones he was never able to track down and eliminate. There's at least one in the hallway among the memorial photos, and a few in the Detectives' offices-- including a large one glued to a popsicle stick like a mask, high up on a shelf.
"I don't know what happened to that sense of humor," Kane told me.
As Buddy makes his rounds about the station, gaining details such as a printed-out goat face (for the benefit of the officer who spent much of a Saturday morning chasing around a goat), I've been hearing chatter about a retaliation. I have a suspicion that my well-known fear of large insects (specifically roaches, after my first apartment turned out to have them) might come back to haunt me. It's starting to look like an all-out office prank war.
Perhaps it should bother me, the thought of my phobia being used against me. But really, I'm pleased. A wink and a, "Strong work, Diz," from one Sergeant made me think that this really might be the beginning of a new era for the department.
With a new chief with a great sense of humor, and a cardboard cutout of Buddy the Elf making its way around for all to be spooked by, maybe this means a new era is dawning, one full of laughter and the sort of camaraderie every workplace needs to maintain a sense of fun when things get really dark.
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