Off

Karen had bought Folgers again.

Rod hated Folgers. He drank his coffee anyway, the picture of a dutiful husband, pouring it from the yellowing plastic spout of the coffee maker and spooning in too much sugar to mask the chemical taste. Folgers put his stomach off. How many times had he told Karen this, and yet! Here was the round, red, plastic canister of Folgers sitting on the kitchen counter, pretty-as-you-please.

She hadn’t even warned him first. “Rodders,” she’d called up the stairs like nothing was wrong. “Roddie! Coffee’s ready. See you tonight.” And he had walked downstairs, through the thick, floral curtain of her perfume, into the kitchen, into this betrayal.

Karen.

She sat on an expensive office chair tapping away at a keyboard all day. If she got the shits from her morning coffee, a clean bathroom was mere footsteps away. But Karen wouldn’t get the shits, would she. Her asshole was a perfect white rose. She kept it bleached — Rod paid for those monthly appointments with his own AmEx — but she still shifted her bottom away when he slipped a little lower than usual during sex. Rod drained the last of his coffee. He got ready for work.

Rod wondered if Karen, comfortably nestled in her cubicle by now, appreciated the fact that it was people like him — no, actually, just him — who made it possible for her to spend her day cocooned in front of a bright monitor. It was clear that she took it for granted that he kept the streets safe. She knew that he was the sole barrier between the world and the integrity of her asshole, but she still didn’t care enough to buy the coffee he liked.

He buttoned his shirt carefully, over the mound of his belly and chest, imagining the coffee coiling into his gut like a rattlesnake seeking revenge. Karen had put it there. Karen was the rattlesnake.

He went to work.

Later, huddled in the stall at the police station, elbows making red, oval depressions on his shaking legs, Rod knew that his relationship with Karen was over. He would tell her tonight. The grip on his intestines slackened; Rod stood up and buckled his belt. For the first time since he could remember, he felt in charge.

He didn’t wash his hands when he left the bathroom. Karen hated it when he did that.

He was on foot patrol that day, with Andy Gapinski. One of the girl cops went by Andy, so everyone called him Gapinski. It was an unspoken rule. Their department looked after each other, even down to those little details. It was what Rod wanted Karen to do for him. He wanted her to look after him, take care of the small stuff. Never buy Folgers again. But she wouldn’t, would she.

They walked in tandem, he and Gapinski, their black boots hitting the ground with a thud that said authority, if you got their beat right in your head. Something Karen would never understand. Gapinski was slow, taking the easy routes first, lagging behind. He kept checking his phone.

“It’s an app called Snapchat,” he explained when Rod gave him the look. “My girlfriend. She’s sendin’ me, you know, stuff.”

Rod did not know, but he let his mind flit briefly over the thought of Gapinski’s girlfriend. He had met her once. All legs. He regained focus; resumed the rhythm of his steps once again.

Rod’s eyes, the eyes that cried tears of justice when he made a good arrest, surveyed the area. He sized up every passerby. Girls walking a kid sibling to kindergarten. Busy office-types and Karen clones yelling into their cell phones and glaring at the guy pressing in too close. He walked blocks with no action. His hands itched. He wished he and Gapinksi could walk over to Karen’s office and arrest her for being a smug bitch.

Finally, like the hunter he was, he spotted a target. A pair of shifty characters shuffled out of a candy store, looking in each direction. Their hands were shoved deep into the pockets of their saggy jeans. Their eyes darted over Rod and Gapinski, and they started walking fast in the opposite direction.

The stop was smooth, the punks yielding in Rod’s experienced hands like sun-warmed putty. Their pockets were stuffed with candies: sticky peppermints, dented caramels and bright Jolly Ranchers with tussled wrappers. They produced a receipt that accounted for every item, but Rod felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Something wasn’t right. If Rod’s years with Karen had taught him anything, it was that he had a natural intuition for people who were just off. He could feel it in his Folgers-damaged gut. Gapinski was tugging one of the subjects to his feet; he even brushed off his jacket for him, like they were a damn valet service. Rod signaled for Gapinski to wait.

“Give me one of those Jolly Ranchers, kid,” he growled to the taller of the two suspects.

Rod opened the candy cautiously; the wrapper felt wrong. It didn’t crinkle the way it was supposed to — and then he saw it. The print on the wrapper spelled out the reason why Rod’s hairs were standing on end. It gave meaning to the day. It proved that Karen needed him, although he would never need her again. Tears of victory pressed against his eyelids.

“Jolly Rammer?” He held the glistening red cube up high. “Did they change the name, or do you have something to tell me?” Rod could see that Gapinski was impressed. Their department had just finished a training segment on how criminals disguised hard drugs like methamphetamine as candy — an idea spawned from garbage-quality network television shows.

Rod was in his element. The creak of handcuffs, the sound of knees hitting the pavement, these were all things he controlled. He radioed for backup, his voice crisp and professional even through the static crackle.

His paperwork that afternoon was nothing short of thorough, his hand steady as he wrote his name on a barrage of forms. This was a preview of how it would feel when he signed the divorce papers.

He had woken from a coma that morning. After 26 years, he could finally breathe again. He didn’t need Karen, and he didn’t need their sham of a relationship. He had gone through intestinal hardship and risen, victorious.

He was a hero. Women would be all over him. When Karen saw him featured on the news tomorrow, she would be so sorry.