This column was originally published in Writer’s Block in the September 7, 2017 edition of The Chronotype, of Rice Lake, Wisconsin.
As I consumed my first ever chicken waffle cone at the great Minnesota indulgence on Labor Day, I told my boyfriend that I think I was born to live in the dichotomies of life. I took a bite of sweet and crunchy waffle cone and a juicy morsel of fried chicken all swimming in a glorious herbed sausage gravy, knowing that lying in wait just a few inches down was a chocolate malt ball. Slowly it melted from the heat of my hand and that delicious gravy. And the juxtaposition of all those flavors combined with the anticipation of that outrageous outcome was almost too much. It almost overshadowed the bitter, malty fantastic India pale ale I washed it down with. Almost.
It turns out I like complicated. And I like challenge. To which the universe has said this week to me, oh yeah?–rubbed its celestial palms together and said, “Oh let’s see!”
The last time I took on time single-handedly, there was a little less good coffee in the world. This time, coverage of crime by the Chronotype may have been a little lacking. My apologies.
Covering for Eileen, who is taking some much deserved time off, I have managed to just keep up. But it is heavy. My heart has carried extra weight this week as I immersed myself in the worst of Barron County. It is so difficult to read what people, people who I know in a community this size are doing to each other out of such deep hurt. People who I may brush by in the grocery store or gas station who are destroying themselves and the nearest to them.
The one light to this beat has been the police log. I read a critique of The Chronotype somewhere recently that criticized the publication of the police log, saying that it was wrong to treat the dispatchers and subsequent emergency service response as a parody. Here’s the thing, we don’t stray far from the log at. all. Maybe tightening things up just a bit, but other than that, it’s what goes on record.
Some of us are better at tightening things up than others. Unlike my seasoned fellow journalist-in-crime, I have not spared any words, hence why entries may be a bit longer than normal. I’ve been told to write more Hemingway-esque, which I’m working on. But it turns out, there are some things in the police log you can’t do due diligence with unless you tell it all.
I think dispatchers are really good at what they do. So good in fact, that I know they have to have a special breed of humor to get though what they do every day, from multiple suicide calls per day (This is a big problem by the way! Watch for a block on this), to chronic callers who abuse the convenience of three numbers, these saints hear it all. Everything. They are the liaisons to the messiest and most dramatic parts of life and the help they need, the farthest thing from a parody as you can get actually. They’re the real deal, and we would be remiss to treat them as anything but.
So we select from the upwards of hundreds of calls per day that get logged, those pertaining to interesting things in the City of Rice Lake and we write them down. And some you can directly link to the crime that follows in subsequent issues as criminals move through the system, and some get resolved on the phone within minutes.
It turns out I don’t know complicated. I live in the safest dichotomies this life has to offer, between gravy and chocolate. Not between meth or cocaine or choosing life over pain or abuse or rape or starvation or dealing with mental illness without interception, medication. I get to write about the best things humans choose to do with their lives, hand select the feel good stories. But not this week. This week I told the stories that no one wants to hear, but everyone wants to read.
Gently Rise, Softly Call 