Officer Jones

Chapter 21

Rockfield Fair

Labor Day Weekend

The Rockfield Fair festivities didn’t start as I’d hoped.

I attended the traditional football game with my parents on Friday night. My father was full of his usual energy and wore the green and gold sweatshirt with large ‘R’ on the front, as he did to every game during my youth. My mother was bundled up in a heavy sweater and turtleneck, but she remained anything but warm toward me.

Things with my brother Ethan actually became a little frostier. He’s been the head football coach at Rockfield High for ten years, and had numerous league titles to show for it. But when longtime Rockfield principal Wayne Mulville spotted me, he dragged me into the locker-room prior and interrupted Ethan’s pre-game speech. Mulville declared that “American hero JP Warner” wanted to say a few words to the team. When I waited for Ethan after the game to explain, I learned that he’d ducked out another entrance like a senior skipping out of study hall.

But I was still looking forward to the official opening on Saturday morning, marked by a parade down Main Street. My father was ready to go with blanket-in-hand at six in the morning. I struggled with the early departure, but after gulping down three cups of coffee like they were shots of bourbon, I was ready to go. I wanted to avoid being recognized, so I dressed incognito, wearing a baseball cap and dark sunglasses.

I’d never been a fan of parades, but after the events of the past few months I was just glad to be back home, and actually enjoyed sitting on the dew filled grass while watching fire-trucks and marching bands mosey by at a snail’s pace. When it concluded, we headed toward the town hall with the rest of the crowd.

First Selectman Maloney stood on a makeshift stage that was covered in patriotic red, white and blue bunting, and delivered the opening speech into a crackling microphone. It was the usual fluffy promotional speech, stolen from my father’s playbook. But before he finished, Maloney announced an award to be handed out for the first time this year, in honor of Lisa Spargo. It would be presented to the member of the community who performed the most exemplary work in eradicating drunk driving. He read a laundry list of statistics about alcohol related accidents in the United States, along with a brief history on Lisa. The name Noah Warner was never mentioned.

My father pulled my mother close. I could tell it caught them off guard. A pristine Saturday morning suddenly began raining bad memories.

A tear rolled down my mother’s cheek. My father had told me that she still felt guilty that when she’d heard the news of Lisa’s death, she’d initially felt relieved that it wasn’t Noah who was the one killed. Sounded to me like a normal response of a parent. I was just glad Noah was nowhere to be found. He never rose before noon by choice, so there wasn’t much chance of him being here.

Maloney stood in his dark suit, looking like a taller version of the kid I grew up with. The outfit reminded me that he used to wear a suit and tie to school to try to kiss up to our teachers. He called for a moment of silence and bowed his head of slick-backed hair. When the silence ended, he brought Lisa Spargo’s mother onto the stage.

She was a dark-haired Italian woman who wore a floral colored sundress and sandals. She looked very much like her attractive daughter had. But even from a distance, I noticed the deep scar of sadness embedded on her face.

After gut-wrenching words about the dreams Lisa would never get to fulfill, and more statistics on drinking and driving fatalities, she presented the award to a local policeman named Kyle Jones.

Officer Jones walked over to Mrs. Spargo and they hugged dramatically for what seemed like minutes. When they released their embrace, the crowd clapped.

I continued to have a bad feeling about Jones. But why? There was nothing unusual about his physical appearance-a slender man of average height. He seemed to care about the community, hence the award. I again blamed it on the conspiratorial J-News lingering within me. The transition from reporter to farmer was going to be more difficult than I thought.