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COFFEE MUG PROFILING

By Rob DelGaudio
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When you work at home any distraction is fair game, so an automated phone call from the local police chief announcing a manhunt in progress in your neighborhood deserves special attention. The fact our neighborhood exists of two houses on a dead-end street in a bucolic Boston suburb means any police presence is worthy of a stroll outside to see what all the fuss is about, which is exactly what I did when I saw the collection of state and local patrol cars parked askew, doors flung open, radios cackling, and engines running.

Coffee cup and glasses in hand I stood watching from my side yard the real-time episode of Cops come to life, as crew cut patrolmen searched the woods beyond my neighbor’s backyard, and other patrol cars raced in and out of our formerly sleepy little nook of the Commonwealth. The phone call had alerted me to be aware of “a white male, in a blue wind breaker, with salt and pepper hair” who had stolen a car and attempted to break into a house. He’d be my age. Good. Not some young thug with quick reflexes, but an older dog probably huffing and puffing as he makes his misguided sprint for freedom. My wife had actually saw him go darting past the end of our driveway earlier. She even called out to him. I’m not sure what she was thinking, but later in the day I heard her tell someone on the phone that the guy was “well proportioned.” Excuse me? Talk about making your husband feel insecure. I’m the sedentary, law abiding blob in the basement, and Him, the Guy, Mr. Fugitive, is the dashing non-conformist hunk with the salt and pepper hair who whisks on by on the lam, Mr. Excitement breezing through Dullsville.

She was headed out to the car to go to a dentist appointment, and Bam, there goes the fleeing matinee idol, just as the Chief had described him. She yelled for me, but I was deep in my basement office trying to get the workday groove going. Manhunts are other people’s problems. I’ve a project due. My wife is always calling out to me with breathless news bulletins. Yesterday it was the East Turkmenistan Separatists whose Olympic terror plot had been foiled by Chinese authorities. Ok, so our daughter does happen to be in East Turkmenistan at the moment, but the Olympics are in Beijing. Sheesh. Before that it was the Times Square recruiting depot bombing. Yawn. I’m used to it, I’ve learned to detect the urgent, come-right-away calls from the quasi-urgent and the hopelessly mundane stuff, like dinner. I’d never get anything done otherwise.

But this time I could tell by her tone. So after the third or fourth call (coming on the first call sets a very bad precedent, unless there is a shriek involved), I sauntered upstairs. She could barely get it out, she seemed ready to explode with excitement. She’d seen him. The guy. She wanted me to go after him. She wanted me to call the cops. No, I should go after him. She wanted to go after him. But she couldn’t, she had to go to the dentist. I encouraged her to stick with her original plan of going to the dentist and leave the man hunting to the professionals and by all means, be sure to call in the sighting. It was her sighting, and I’m sure the last thing they’d want is a second hand description. Isn’t that hearsay? How would I handle the follow-up questions? What if I had to make a sworn statement? The Chief didn’t ask for second-hand accounts, he wants eye-witness testimony, laden with detail and particulars. She had to make the call. Off she went, cell phone aglow. And I went back downstairs. Until I heard some thumping noises from somewhere. Well, I thought, there is a fugitive on the loose. Upstairs, I peered carefully around corners before venturing to the front window. It was the whump of cruisers clogging up the cul-de-sac. They were hot on the trail my bride had called in. I must admit, she does have a nose for action. I stepped outside for a better look so I’d be able to give her the full report I’d knew she’d demand upon her return.

I kept my ears and eyes tuned to the woods surrounding our house, particularly the backyard, in the event I might detect some blur of movement or an out of the ordinary twig snap. None of the cops present seemed to take notice of me, or to be heeding any attention towards the stretch of scrub oak and pine trees that extended out from behind our house. My deadline was two weeks away, I could afford a little time to watch their flank and check out the machinations of a dragnet. I drifted towards our back lot line, all the better to observe the angles of approach. A burst of radio chatter sent a number of cars racing away, only to suddenly jam of the brakes and have the officers leap out into our side yard. Wow! The guy must be close. Real close. He might come barreling out of the woods any instant. I contemplated take-down maneuvers should I end up in his path. Maybe I could splash coffee into his face, then dive at his legs, wrap him up and dump him to the driveway pavement. Crap, I could break my glasses in such a melee, and the coffee mug for sure would be busted. No worries, isn’t that what restitution was all about? I moved to the front yard to see the action unfold.

A K-9 officer in a day-glow yellow police jacket, one hand clutching his holster, dashed towards the far side of our house about 30 yards from where I stood, transfixed with curiosity. He was shouting about something in our back yard. Our Back Yard! Right then I heard a crash coming from the woods just behind our house, no doubt, a definite crunch and pop of underbrush being trampled. It was then that the officer seemed to finally compute my presence. He shouted into his radio and ran towards me and my coffee mug. I blurted, “The woods, I heard something in the woods.” He ran past me, “Where did he go?” “I heard something behind the house, in the woods” I replied. His radio stammered back something, then he wheeled on me, “On The Ground!!! Get On The Ground!!”

This must mean there could be shooting, I thought. Gunfire?! As in “shots fired” or “shots were exchanged”. On Cranberry Lane? Come on. Be serious. A loud party on Cranberry Lane. Yes, that fits. A dead beaver in the middle of the road, on Cranberry Lane, yeah that I believe. But 9mm shots careening through the air, ricocheting of trees, and smashing into a flatfooted homeowner with a lukewarm mug of coffee in one hand and his reading glasses in the other, on Cranberry Lane, no that’s a complete disconnect. Utterly absurd.

“On The Ground!!” the officer insists with that unyielding authoritarian voice that makes you, well, get down on the ground. Ok, so I take a knee, which seemed like it should suffice. It put me behind the minivan parked to the side of our garage, which seemed like, if the gun fire did erupt, would take the brunt of the pounding. A thought of our ubiquitous suburban transport machine raked with bullet holes and windows blasted out dashes through my mind. How would that affect my insurance rating? Does my homeowners policy cover damage from tear gas canisters and bean-bag guns?

“Get Down!!” an unseen chorus chimed in, meaning, get down on the ground and into a prone position. Not, “Get Down! We’re concerned for your safety!”, but “Get Down you maleficent nobody who’s lead us on this ridiculous romp!” Immediately. No stalling. No exceptions. The chorus converged on all sides, radios’ trumpeting garbled lyrics in the key of “we’ve got him.” Suddenly the vortex of several towns’ worth of police, and a State Police detachment refocused its center onto my severely underdressed being with the utmost seriousness and adrenaline infused urgency. From the woods emerged the source of the trampling and thrashing, a pair of red-faced patrolmen who had been mounting a rear-assault action and were looking rather annoyed. They should be. Those woods are filled with ticks carrying Lyme disease according to my wife. And this is particularly bad time of year for exposure. And they weren’t even wearing any hats! This is not the turn of events I expected for my late-morning distraction.

Having never before been commanded to Get On The Ground, I was first struck by the awkwardness of such an act. It has this quality of groveling, of being beholden to the whim of others and at their complete mercy. Which, of course, is precisely the point. Captured. The omnipotent force of protection had suddenly transformed from an ally to a belligerent invader of my sacrosanct external domicile. Wait until my wife sees the boot marks in her flower bed! Where’s Alan Dershowitz when you need him? In an instant I was The Suspect. Me?! The basement, bog dwelling, works-at-home guy who was innocently indulging in the mother of all work day distractions. What did they expect me to do, stay hunkered down at my keyboard, praying my way of life doesn’t get trampled by some swamp romping lunatic. I mean, the police chief called. He said, Be Aware, or was it Be Advised? Either way, the implied message was if you’re not doing anything critical keep a lookout for Mr. Bad Guy, who might be sprinting through a crocus patch near you. To my way of thinking, the Chief’s alert was clearly a call to action. The local marshal was mustering an eyeball posse armed with speed dialers. I surely wasn’t going to be aiding the cause if I stayed planted in my basement. No, it was my civic duty to get out and get involved in the unfolding community crisis. Which I had, as unobtrusively as possible, in my own yard mind you, when I’d suddenly become the Bin Laden of Metrowest. Surrounded and prostrate, I found myself staring down the tip of the spear of the local homeland defense force, now jacked on pursuit and, most likely, extra large regulars from the nearby Dunkin’.

I proved to be a bad Get Down On The Ground-er, as I just couldn’t bring myself to Assume The Position. This elicited the expected refrain from the uniformed chorus, but I could tell their heart was not into it. I mean I did have a coffee cup in my hand, and I’m sure the officers who had not been fully consumed with the chase, and whose heart rates were beating no differently than as if it were another traffic detail, were able to use advanced powers of reason to deduce that were I the fleeing suspect it would take an supreme act of bravado to casually worm myself into the position of the lone bystander on an empty dead-end street. The very same street I would have been seen fleeing down only 20 minutes earlier. Not that it isn’t possible, or perhaps had even been tried before. Think of it. It’d be a great tactic. Just mingle in, act natural, all the better if you’ve thought ahead to Plan C and brought some props along, coffee and reading glasses for instance. Have your lines ready in advance, stay calm, and just act like one of the yocals – “Who me? Just a concerned homeowner, sir. Hustled over from across the way when I heard all the noise and commotion, that’s why I’m a bit short of breath at the moment. You boys nab him yet? Can I be of any assistance? How’s your investment plan working out? Do you feel you’re getting the maximum return in this volatile market?” Then slip off as quietly as you slipped in.

Perhaps some of the cooler heads detected the lack of swamp muck on my shoes and the absence of forest debris on my clothing. Nonetheless I was urged, firmly but politely, to get in closer proximity to the surface of the driveway. My driveway. Me kissing the pavement in my own yard. Where is a home surveillance camera when you need it? How far could it go? Will they cuff me, toss me into the undoubtedly smelly back seat the K9 car and whisk me away to some dank cement bunker for Further Questioning? Will my attempt to set my coffee mug down be misconstrued as a hostile action and a fusillade of Teflon coated slugs shred me up like so much cabbage? What was my tolerance for stress positions and repetitive lines of questioning? What if the lab screws up the DNA swab? What if I ended up locked away in Walpole for 30 years, our family destroyed, and our assets gobbled up by bottom-feeding bankruptcy scavengers? All because I couldn’t resist the pull of roaring police car engines, squawking radios, and purposeful Serve and Protectors leaping into action front and center right in my front yard.

Though my shortcomings are extensive, I do have enough sense to know when to zip my trap and get with the program. I also have enough relatives in the family who are law enforcement types to know the request that had been made was as polite and kind as it was likely to get. In fairness, they would have been well within their rights to say, “Sir, you’ve done a rather idiotic thing wandering into the middle of our chase, SO GET THE (expletive deleted) DOWN ON THE (expletive deleted) GROUND NOW!!!” But they never did. They politely insisted and I readily obliged, still clutching my glasses and coffee, and, somehow, knowing to keep all my movements slow and obvious.

What was not obvious was the K-9 officer’s line of reasoning behind his questioning. I’ve seen this before in State Police officers, this hyper mistrust of their fellow man and a delayed ability to connect the obvious dots. It must be the training, the preparation for the lonely hours in the cruiser trolling desolate stretches of I-495 then having to do a solo approach on a suspicious looking Camry at 3 in the morning. Highways are like the ocean, you never know what might be at the end of the line so its best to assume it’s going to be hostile. For a few brief moments I sensed that this State policeman felt he had the Perp. Someone, had observed “a man with a coffee cup” behind the house they were all now gathered around. I did indeed have a coffee cup. Guilty. I also was wearing a wind-breaker style jacket. Damn. But the police chief had called, he said a BLUE wind breaker, mine was black, with a big Reebok logo stitched across the back, that has to count for something in the mismatch column. I was the right age and build. Unless you talk to my wife. When push comes to shove I have my doubts she’d put me in the “well proportioned” category. But I most definitely do not have salt and pepper hair, greasy brown it was at the moment, and surely, my calm, confident demeanor was overwhelming evidence of my complete innocence. Ok. There is still the bit about the coffee cup, but come on, think about it. Some freaked out housewife looks across a naked expanse of woods and sees, Oh My God!!! A Middle Aged Man In A Wind Breaker… with a coffee cup!! In The Neighbor’s Backyard!! The house of the people we’ve lived next door to for 15 years but I still don’t really know. Call the militia!! We need an air strike! He has a coffee cup!! It might be loaded!

Ok, just to be safe, after all you never know who you’re dealing with, I understand they may have felt compelled to act on that sparkling bit of intelligence. It was something fresh and it was the right neighborhood. I am a middle aged white guy. But, just for argument’s sake, you’d think maybe, one of them, one of the seasoned vets perhaps, would think it through just a bit more. A man standing around with a coffee cup.. hmm.. a ceramic mug filled with coffee, after a twenty minute getaway dash? Well… Starbucks has been expanding rather aggressively in the region… and they do have that very attractive, but expensive, line of Peruvian ceramic latte mugs…

I could see the adrenalin squeezing out the K-9 officer’s sense of logic. The other officers started to shuffle their feet and murmur into their shoulder-mics. Goose Chase. The captain’s gunna go crimson. They’d just expended at least five precious minutes scrambling after a lunk-headed homeowner instead of the real bad guy. Egg cracked on to the collective faces, mine included. I was the Distraction. The blundering, do-gooder boob who momentarily derailed the entire chase machine, and, quite possibly, provided that glint of an opening which Mr. Bad Guy seized and used to his advantage. All for a little late-morning distraction break.

Or he could still be lurking out there, in the woods just beyond our backyard.

Thankfully, the phone rang a little while ago. It was the police chief calling me to let me know they had bagged their bounty. Way to go. I’m going to miss the reassuring thwopping of the police chopper’s rotors as is it did lazy eights over the woods out back, and the impressive show of force at the end of the street, which had become the CP for the Op (that based on a casual observation of their set-up when I brought them up a jug of coffee and all the fixings, just to show a bit of support and encouragement. The lads seemed to need it. They’d been at it for about 4 hours or so with out any luck).

The Chief called one last time to say thanks for all the cooperation. He called all my neighbors too, and everybody in town. He’s a great guy, keeps us informed and on our toes. But I’m going to have to call him back. His lads never returned the coffee jug.

Ok. Break’s over.