Chapter 26 - The Uniform
Three years after the bathroom night, Noah was eleven.
Harper was thirty-one.
I was thirty-five.
Margaret was sixty-five and still refused retirement.
One Saturday we attended a neighborhood fundraiser near Boston Common.
Public safety booths.
Food.
Children.
Noah wanted the fire department ladder truck.
Then stopped at a police booth.
Officer Perez was there.
Same officer from the bicycle incident.
She recognized Harper.
“Hi.”
Noah remembered too.
He stood beside me.
Not behind.
Officer Perez had small plastic sticker badges for children.
Noah looked.
Then:
“No thanks.”
She said:
“Okay.”
No offense.
No persuasion.
He walked away.
Twenty minutes later he came back.
Alone? Not alone; Harper watched from near booth. He asked:
“Can I have one for my friend?”
“Sure.”
She gave him two.
“Why two?”
“One for you if you change your mind.”
He stared.
She said:
“You can throw it away too.”
Choice.
Noah took both.
Later he put one on his sweatshirt.
Harper saw.
Said nothing.
I said nothing.
That was difficult for both of us.
On the way home Noah peeled it off.
Stuck it onto a water bottle.
“Badge doesn’t make you good.”
Harper glanced at him.
“No.”
“Doesn’t make you bad.”
“No.”
“It means job.”
“Partly.”
“And rules.”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
Then:
“Derek broke rules.”
“Yes.”
No grand hatred.
No fear.
No hero worship.
A badge became something smaller than the man who had once used it to fill an entire child’s world.
That was the climax.
Not Derek suffering.
Not me winning.
May you like
Noah making an object ordinary enough to stick on a water bottle.
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