Spend The Night In A Police Car

            Officer C G has been a police officer for six years, but we’ve been friends for more than a decade. In college, we worked together at the parking department. In fact, my wife trained him. In my five years working the student job, I jumped back and forth between being a cashier and a student supervisor. At the end of my tenure, C became one of four managers in the department. While he was technically my boss, I never saw him in that manner. This is not a slight towards him, but more his position. He was doing the full-time duties of what I did. I got paid to sit in an office with him and watch movies or play poker on a homemade table fashioned from an overturned garbage can with a board on top of it. This was a stop-gap job for C. The occupation that he wanted was that of his father, a police officer.

            At eleven p.m. on a Tuesday night, C and I met in the parking ramp that housed the University of Iowa Office of Public Safety. This encompasses three branches: Security, Police, and Fire. As I approached him, C was standing at the cab of his truck wearing mesh shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops. Inside the station, I waited in the lobby, a small area with several plastic-backed chairs, a counter filled with pamphlets about last year’s crime statistics, rape victim advocacy and paperwork for pressing charges. While I was sitting there, C got a privacy form for me to fill out. The entrance wall was glass, giving me a sense of self-awareness. People could watch me as they stood outside this wall. I assumed that someone was watching me from behind one of the glass partition windows labeled “Records” and “Police.” C came out of the office and handed me a sheet of paper, telling me to fill it out while he got ready. On one side was a waiver, absolving them of any liability. On the other, there was a confidentiality agreement. That being said, all names have been fabricated to protect their identities.