Beyond The Blue

Messing The Mind Up

I head to sleep and have a restless night, my mind just running through every negative scenario possible that I could face tomorrow when I go to work after having Keith yelling at me for something that wasn’t in my control and then arguing back, which wasn’t the smartest thing to do given the target already on my back but I don’t give a shit.

The next morning, I’m up early stopping to get Coffee and what seems to be a regular thing I bump into Connor who hints that it was no accident that he bumped into me this morning. “Hey Trent, what happened last night? I tried to find you but heard you stormed off” he says as we sit down at the table.

I just sit there shaking my head “I got yelled at and threatened with disciplinary action for ignoring direct orders from a superior officer and how on my second day I think I can do whatever jobs I want to and not what is assigned. My anger still hasn’t abated from that moment yesterday and Connor can see that and changes the topic “Do you know if you’re working on Saturday night?” he asks me as I shake my head.

“Nah, I have my first night shift on Thursday and Friday but Saturday I’m off all day before starting at 7 on Sunday,” I say as he nods realising that we are on the same shift patterns for the fortnight. “Well, I was thinking do you want to go to the footy on Saturday night, my uncle usually flies down for the Kings and Jets game but he had to have knee surgery so can’t making, so was wondering if you wanted to come,” he asks as I’m really keen to go but realise that I promised my sister that I would look after my nephew Logan.

“I would love to bro, but is it cool if I bring my nephew along, I promised my sister that I would look after him because it’s her anniversary this weekend and my niece is having a princess sleepover at my brothers and with his daughter,” I ask as Connor smiles and nods. “Yeah, of course, it is man, get to see how you deal with a real challenge,” he says as he teases me and I kick him under the table.

Talking to him always makes me feel better and calmer as we both head into work. I sit there waiting for the allocations for the day and to my relief I’m not subjected to be with Joe but placed on station duties which is another word for the naughty corner. I have to wait until everybody leaves when Sergeant Wilson walks over to me “Hannan, the two police vans need cleaning plus Car TJ24 is out of action after a prisoner had an accident last night when being brought in so you need to clean that up” he says almost as if they were deliberately left for me.

Feeling so ridiculous, I walk out to the car with the cleaning equipment and open the door and instantly smell the stench of hours-old diarrhoea which makes me gag at the smell. I go back into the locker room so as not to get my shirt dirty and put on an old t-shirt I keep in there as Sergeant Wilson walks past “Hannan, thought I put you on cleaning duty now go?” he says as I nod, walking out in the old shirt.

“Ah uniform constable…” he says I turn and look at him “But sir with all due respect, the back of that car is an absolute mess and it would be much better if I wasn’t wearing it because it would get shit all over it,”. My response is one that I think is valid and that I would be disrespecting it more than what it would be if I wasn’t wearing it.

Although, I should have realised that it wasn’t going to be a valid argument with Keith “You have a uniform for a reason… now put it back out there and get out there and get it cleaned, there are other things to be doing,”.

Cleaning the car is an almost impossible job but I clean it up to the best I can even though now I am covered in shit from cleaning the cars and smell like the combination of stale shit and vomit from the back of the van. Heading back in, there’s a noticeable odour to me as Steph and another guy that I haven’t met yet laugh.

“Jesus christ mate, what the hell happened to you?” he says as I look across and shake my head “Station duties… so I’ve spent the morning cleaning literal shit out the back of a car and then vomit out of the back of the two vans,” I say as feeling embarrassed meeting another cute guy and looking like this.

“Oh, by the way, Trent, this is Jamie, he floats between across the different squads at the station filling gaps,” Steph says introducing us to each other at the worst possible time. “Good to meet you mate, I’d shake hands but probably not the best time,” he says as they head in to brief the detectives on an incident they dealt with this morning.

“What the hell is that smell?” I hear coming from one of the temporary offices and see Sergeant Wilson coming out “Fucking hell Hannan, I didn’t expect you to actually use yourself to clean the car and the vans,” he says walking out of the office. “Sir, I warned you the mess would end up like this but you didn’t listen to me now can I please go and use the showers and change,” I ask which seems reasonable but I can tell that he has it in for me. “You’re not on break time yet, these incident reports have to be typed up into a computer, you can do that until your break,” he says handing me a box of paperwork that hasn’t been typed up.

As I leave the office, I shake my head still smelling and covered in god knows what as I hear him pick up the phone “Dave, it’s Keith yeah we’ve got a car that needs cleaning and the usual service, cheer mate” he says I see Angela coming the other way as I walk past her.

“Jeez Trent, you smell absolutely disgusting what have you been doing all morning?” she says as I roll my eyes. “Station duties today ma’am,” I say which doesn’t really answer her question “I know that Constable Hannan, but what sort of station duties?” she asks me as I don’t know if I really want to answer and create the situation.

I look away from her for a minute “Look Ma’am, I am not trying to create an issue here, I got put on station duties this morning so that is what I’m doing” he face doesn’t reassure me as she gestures me to follow her into an empty hallway.

“If a senior officer asks you what you have been doing this morning Constable Hannan, you answer them, understood?” she says in a fierce tone which is that she is annoyed for not telling her what I was doing but at the same time I know she’s not angry with me.

“Sergeant Wilson put me on station duties and told me that last night a suspect had made a mess through one of the cars having an accident and he sent me out to clean it up,” I say as she looks at me.

“Hang on, you’re telling me that you were out there cleaning up a car from another unit last night’s shift that wasn’t cleaned or booked in for a proper cleaning?” she says as I don’t really know how to answer the question. “Sergeant Wilson just told me that I had to do it and when I went to change so that I didn’t get so dirty he told me that I had to do it in uniform” she shakes her head and lets out a sigh.

“Give me that box, go into the supply room and get out a fresh uniform in your size and then go up to the police gym and take a long shower and then come back and do this, because if you are needed to go out onto the streets, then you cannot go out like that,” she says as I nod and grab a new pair shirt and pair of pants out of the supply room and head upstairs to the police gym.

The gym is the newest part of the building upstairs, it was part of the government's healthier police force and mental health space. I walk up there and walk to the third shower cubicle and take a shower. Letting the water run down my body, I sigh just letting out my frustrations a bit as I close my eyes and think about how this is not how I wanted to start my police career.

I knew that things wouldn’t be all glory and chasing bad guys, but I thought that I would be able to make a difference in the community and at least help someone instead of being forced to clean up shit and vomit out of police cars and vans when really, I found out that there is a special cleaning crew that is supposed to be assigned to it.

Getting out of the shower, I bump into another guy who flashes a cheeky smile at me “Shit sorry dude” I say as he wanders down. “I’ve had guys hit on me when I’m in a towel before but to walk straight into me and almost force my towel is a new one,” he says jokingly as I laugh feeling really embarrassed.

“Sorry dude, I’ve just had a really shitty morning, literally and got sent up to clean up,” I say walking with him to the lockers up there. “It’s cool man, I’m not bothered,” he says as we chat for a minute.

“I haven’t seen you around here before, you just transferred in?” he asks me as I grab my blue boxers and put them on. “I’ve just started here, it’s my third day,” I say as he nods “Oh so you’re Darcy’s brother?” he says as if he knows me.

“You know my brother, yeah I used to be stationed at Central before moving into the Public Order division based out of here, I’m acting Sergeant Reid Wilson,” he says as I notice his thick kiwi accent.

Still standing there in his towel as he introduces himself to me, I can’t help but notice how intricate and detailed his traditional tribal tattoos are as he talks, I could talk to him a lot more but I quickly make my excuses.

“Sorry for rushing but I’m not the most popular person here so I don’t want to have too many more issues,” I say heading back downstairs feeling much fresher than I did before as I grab the box of incident reports and type them up.

The rest of the afternoon feels like an absolute week before I head to my gym because I promised Joel that I would look after the two sessions tonight because he had somewhere else to be and nobody else was available.

Being able to have a sleep in the next morning, is absolute gold as I don’t have to be out of bed too early and Joel’s sister Cassie is opening and looking after everything at the gym this morning. It’s about 6:30 am and I’m sleeping when I hear a knock at my door “Oh god I just want to sleep in, why do people have to be up so early” I open the door and see my sister Jess with Logan and my niece Mia standing there.

“Did you forget again?” she asks as I roll my eyes standing shirtless just in my sleep shorts. “Of course, you did Trent…” she says as they come inside and Logan and Mia put the TV onto the kids’ channel while I make coffee.

I always forget that I promise to take them to school because Jess starts work at 8 am on a Thursday morning at the hospital and Brody her husband is working nights for the past few weeks on the big railway project that will link the new airport with the old airport and the rest of the city.

“I didn’t mean to forget, I just thought I’d sleep in since I’ve got my first night shift tonight,” I say as Jess looks across at me “You didn’t tell me that, I could’ve just dropped them off at one of their friends,” she says as I shake my head not worried by having to look after them.

Sitting there with Jess is nice because she and Mum are the only two people that I can talk to about things that don’t end up being about work and right now Mum is on her retirement cruise which is a 4-week cruise around the Antarctic which everybody pitched in to help her pay for.

I leave the terrors downstairs with Jess for a few minutes while I have a quick shower and get changed before she heads off to work and I’m sitting downstairs with them as they want to argue about what to watch on TV. “I know that you’re not allowed to watch TV in the morning, so if there’s any arguing then Uncle Trent will become policeman Trent and nobody will be allowed,” I say as they both giggle and agree to watch TV for a little while.

Harry and I actually once had a talk about having kids in the future which was odd cause we had barely started living together and it was not long before he got sick which always makes me wonder if he knew something was up before, he actually got the news of his cancer. I sit there watching Logan and Mia and think that as much as I love having them around and being with them as well as seeing Bailey and Sierra but I don’t think I could handle this all day every day as much as I love them.

Taking them to school is a lot of fun because it’s a bit of a further drive for me so they enjoy the drive in Uncle Trent’s fancy car which was probably an unnecessary splurge but makes me look fancier than what I really am. I drop them off at school and then head to the gym, there’s no chance that I will be able to get straight back to sleep so I go in there and chat with Cassie for a bit before just doing some lifting for a little while.

I head back home, exhausted and lay on the couch watching SportZone to catch up on things but I fall asleep for a good few hours. The wait to get ready for an 8 pm shift is agonising in the afternoon, because all you want to do is get ready but you don’t want to be too early at the same point.

Eventually, I decide to just get ready and head in, I can find something to do around the station and it happens that I bump into Reid as I’m on my way into the station. “How’s it going Trent?” he says as I smile, him in his Public Order gear doesn’t make his face any less cuter but it’s a big difference from what he was wearing when we were talking yesterday.

“Are you busy right now?” he asks as I’m heading into the station to get ready “Not really, I’ve got about an hour or so until I need to be at the briefing” I say as Reid follows me back inside. “If I square it away with the Inspector, do you want to come out with me and have a drive around for a little while?”

I get excited but then realise that I would get into trouble with Sergeant Wilson again “I’d love to but I’d get in trouble off the Sarge again and well I’m already in the bad books” I say as Reid shakes his head as to say it’s no bother. “If we square it away with Inspector Reynolds then I think it will be alright, it’s no more than an hour and we’re just picking up some of the support gear that we left with the mounted police at the protests today.

Heading upstairs, Ange gives us the tick of approval to head out as she thinks it’s a good experience for me to have some experience with some different units and officers especially given that I’m not on duty yet but she tells us to be back within the hour. Quickly changing into my uniform, I head out in the special van with Reid and get talking to him about things.

“First thing is that I’ve gotta say thanks for taking me but secondly why?” I ask a bit confused considering that he had only just met me the other day and it was when we were both in a towel in the locker room.

Reid looks across at me “Why? Because I thought you might like to go out on the road for a bit rather than be stuck with that lot in there, cause I’ve been here long enough to know what they are like” he says to me having had experience with them in the past “Plus honestly, it’s not very often that you get to spend time in the showers with a hot mystery man just wrapped in a towel” he says winking at me that throws me.

“Wait are you trying to use this to hit on me?” I ask as he laughs “If I wasn’t married, hell yeah I would”. I feel embarrassed for even asking that now as he shows me the ring on his finger and I seriously wonder into what kind of world I’ve walked into, Reid is definitely not straight, Connor is gay and the hottest thing and Jamie is a mystery but I know he’s not straight either because he has the same rainbow band as Connor.

“So, you’re married? Guessing he doesn’t know you flirt with guys at work?” I say embarrassing myself even more now. “He? Who says I’m married to a dude bro…? I’m married to a chick; I just don’t put labels on myself and what I’m into and she gets that” he says as I quickly understand what he means now.

Driving down to the mounted police yard which is about 20 minutes away, we just chat about things and how he is hoping that his promotion will be finalised and instead of just being acting sergeant he becomes the real thing. After getting to the stables, I help Reid pack up the stuff into the back of the van and head back to the station, part of me is really curious about what he gets up to especially now that he’s married but I don’t want to push the envelope too much.

“So, what about you Trent? Is there anyone special in your life these days?” he asks me as I shake my head “Not really, just dabble in things you know” I say not realising that he knows about Harry.

Reid nods his head “Yeah, it must’ve been tough after your partner passed away right?” I look at him suspiciously because I make sure that I don’t talk to anyone about that because I’m only young still and everybody treats me so differently, if they find out.

“How do you know about Harry?” I ask him really annoyed that someone must have told him and snuck into my history “I don’t talk to anybody about it, that’s my private life and I keep it to myself” my tone of voice getting up as I start to get annoyed that someone has backstabbed me or gone into my life story.

Reid looks upset as I do that “Sorry man, I just knew from when I worked with Darcy, I was on patrol with him when he found out… I shouldn’t have brought it up”. I genuinely see the anguish on his face as he regrets bringing up the topic and I feel bad for lashing out at him.

“Don’t be sorry, I’m the one who should be sorry, I just don’t like talking about what happened with Harry because people don’t treat you like an ordinary person when they find out, that’s all” I say as we get back on good terms and arrive just before the briefing at 8.

I head into the room and instead of seeing Sergeant Wilson, there is a younger-looking woman there with the sheet. “Good evening everybody, there will be extra patrols around the parklands tonight as drivers are holding illegal races and burnout events, so we will have officers in a more visible patrol”.

The night shift goes a lot smoother than expected because I’m actually with Sergeant Branning who was delivering the briefing tonight and things are interesting with her because she is doing a lot of testing on me about protocols and procedures. The first biggest test of my career so far is just ahead as we are the first car on the scene of a fatal car accident, looking at the wreckage is confronting and rocks me at first seeing somebody in their car, either on their way home from work or to work knowing that they have a family at home.

This is the first time I’ve ever had to deal with this in a real-life situation outside of the academy where everything is staged. I thought that I was a tough person but seeing this inside me breaks me and I need a few moments to compose myself with things.

Naturally, of course, the second units on the scene are Joe and one of his good mates Andrew Parkes who is just as big a scumbag as Joe always wanting to make snipes at me. Joe takes an indirect path from his car to the scene which goes via where I was standing to make a comment “Oh look, can’t handle his first crash scene… knew you weren’t a copper” he says as I ignore him and just act as if I’m on the radio.

Walking back across to the crash, Sergeant Branning puts her hand on my shoulder “You alright Trent?” she asks as I nod, just shaken a bit by how serious everything was there. “The SCU should be here soon, so they will take over everything but if you can just go to the houses around the place and just see if anybody saw or heard anything,” she asks as I knock on people’s doors.

“Evening sir, apologise for the disturbance tonight but I’m Probationary Constable Hannan from The Junction Police command, I am just going around door to door trying to gain any information possible on the accident just down the road and whether you heard anything,” I ask to the residents of 9 of the 10 houses with the last house vacant.

Passing the information onto the Serious Crash Unit that has just arrived and Sergeant Branning, she decides that we need to go back to the station and put in our reports and gives me a break from the scene. In the car I’m sitting silently, I don’t even know if I blink from how shaken up that I am from seeing what happened tonight.

I head to the bathroom and wash my face as I pass Connor “Tough night?” he says as I nod and look at him, my face must be deathly pale. “First body tonight?” he asks as I nod.

“Fatal car accident out on Denman Road,” I say as he puts his arm around me… “I would like to say it gets easier but it never does, you just learn to deal with it,” he says as I smile. “Plus, you’re with Eve tonight, she’ll help you through it much more than anyone else”.

The rest of the night is pretty calm, putting in our reports of what happened and putting in the witness statements about the accident. We don’t head out again because by the time we finish doing what we need to it’s nearly the end of the shift.

Heading home during daylight hours is an unusual feeling starting work at 8 pm and finishing it at 8 am is weird watching everybody heading to work whilst you’re are driving back against the flow of traffic. My mind though driving home can’t stop thinking about the poor person yesterday in the accident and the scene that I saw for the first time.

You get taught what it is going to be like at the academy and see pictures but nothing really prepares you for it the first time, wondering what kind of person they were doing, what plans they had in life and whether they had a family.

Heading inside, I go straight up and have a shower and whether I can actually deal with all this because if this is how it affected me then how can I continue on doing this job. Letting the water run over my shoulders and body, I stand there and close my eyes just thinking about it all and I know Connor said that it would get easier but I don’t know if it will.

Just putting a pair of shorts on, I lay down on my bed trying to go to sleep and it starts off alright but my mind is just replaying everything that happened last night, with the call-out to the accident, being the first on the scene and just seeing the person in the car is just going through my head. I try everything to go to sleep but I can’t so go down to the gym for a little while.

Spending a few hours at the gym, working out then doing work in the office takes my mind off things for a while before I crash out on the couch that we have in the office. Lying there for a couple of hours, I wake up and Joel is sitting in there using his laptop at his desk “Morning sleepy” he says surprised to see me here.

“How long have you been here for?” I ask him as he sits there typing away doing the accounts which is his speciality out of the two of us. “Well, I’ve been here for about an hour and a half and you were asleep already there, so guessing you’ve been here a while,” he says as I pick up my phone as it reads 1:46 pm. I shake my head and sit up actually feeling a bit better than I had before I laid down on the couch asleep.

“Everything ok mate?” Joel asks me as I just nod. “Yeah, had my first night shift and well had my first tough case,” I say as Joel nods and saves me from going into details again. Taking my mind off cop stuff, he talks about the gym and wants to talk about things other than work which I appreciate.

Heading out to the gym, I take on training a few of the regulars in the class as I work through the afternoon before heading home to get ready for another night shift. Hoping that Friday night is much easier than Thursday night, I wander in and it’s all different on a Friday night with most people going in and out together as they come in.

I sit down in the briefing room, hoping that the next person isn’t someone like Joe or Andy but thankfully there’s a familiar face. “What’s happening mate?” Jamie asks me as he walks in and Sergeant Branning tells us to go out together and just patrol the pub district of the city.

Jamie and I mostly spend the night on foot patrolling, helping security around the place move people on and having a good time just spending time getting to know him. “There’s plenty of advantages to doing this patrol you know,” Jamie says as we walk past a couple of clubs just making sure everything is ok.

“What do you mean by that?” I ask a bit confused whether he thinks that it gets us brownie points with the hierarchy or there is something else going on when you’re out in the street. Jamie looks at me and laughs “It’s just that on these nights, you get to learn which places are problems so you know where to avoid… plus look at some of those legs” he says glancing at some of the girl's legs around the pubs whilst I can’t help but have a perv on some of the guys that are out.

“Somebody should’ve warned me about you,” I say to him as he shoves me a bit and we both laugh as he has a good time. “Come on man, don’t you think that’s a good-looking set of legs,” he says as I laugh and shake my head trying to avoid the conversation.

 “Should we head up Queen Street and check out the bars up there and if there’s anything going on up there?” I say as Jamie nods and we walk up the street and down Queen Street.

As we walk up Queen Street nudges me “Well, are you going to admit that they’re a good set of legs” he says as I just laugh, knowing that he is not going to let it go but thankfully the radio cuts us off saying that support is needed down the street back at one of the pubs we just walk past.

Getting there, it’s just two blokes thinking that the other was harassing the girl that both of them were into and interested in and chatting up and have taken it outside and started beating into each other. Getting them separated is an interesting experience which is lucky that it’s both me and Jamie who are solid muscular guys and are able to match them and pull them apart although we both end up copping it from the guys, Jamie cops an elbow to the cheek and I cop it and elbow in the stomach which doesn’t hurt but the whack in the nuts doesn’t help.

Luckily, we manage to get some assistance a few minutes later and put the guys into the vans as Jamie is checked out by the ambulance that was called, but thankfully there is no real damage to his face other than a split cheek and a bit of swelling.

In the station, we do all the paperwork that we need to do and the two guys are kept in overnight, both of them charged with assault and assaulting a police officer for their stray elbows. Sitting in the station as Jamie holds an icepack to his cheek as he tries to work and I can’t help but laugh.

“You know you never answered my questions,” Jamie says referring to the question hours ago about whether I liked looking at the girls tonight. “Oh, the question about the girls? Not too bad I guess” I say thinking that I answered his question until he makes an assumption.

“Oh… you’re not single are you?” he says as I try to avoid that question as well which raises his eyebrows. “Now I know why you and Connor are so close,” he says as I look across at him and go to speak but he answers “It’s fine man, you know me and Connor are tight so I won’t tell anyone he says smiling at me thinking that he knows.

“Don’t say anything to Connor, nobody else here knows and I haven’t told them that I’m gay and I don’t really want to unless I have to because you know what those fuckwits are like” I say as Jamie nods his head and understands where I am coming from.

“I won’t tell anyone man, it’s your business and doesn’t change me being mates with you,” he says patting me on the back as he puts the icepack back in the fridge. We finish our shift and I get changed, waiting for Connor to make sure everything is ok for us going to the footy tonight.

Waiting a while, he comes in shaking his head “The man I’ve been waiting for” I say as he smiles at me. “Well lucky me,” he says as I watch his hot body as he gets changed. “I just wanted to make sure that everything is still good for tonight at the footy and wanted to get your number so you could send me the tickets” although I want his number so that we can talk a fair bit more.