SHORT STORIES VOL 1 INCLUDING: ROMANCE, COMEDY, DRAMA, SCI-FI, HORROR & MORE

Chapter 1: Junior and The Doll

When I was a deputy sheriff in the county where I used to live, we had an interesting case thanks to a young man I will call Junior. It turns out that Junior had a habit of shoplifting from adult stores in several counties, and it finally came to a head in my county.

Junior was a young man of about nineteen when he paid one of our local adult stores a visit. Having a large military base in my community, it is nothing new for a nineteen-year-old man to go to an adult establishment. However, what Junior did was a different story.

When Junior walked into the store, his attention immediately went to the $600 virtual doll in an acrylic case near the register. Let’s be honest. We would all notice that if it was the first thing you see when you walked in the door. Unfortunately, Junior really liked this doll.

He browsed the store for quite a while and picked out something to buy. When he took it to the register, he wanted to write a check to pay for it. When and where this took place, writing a check was relatively commonplace, so the young lady behind the counter working as the clerk that day did not bat an eye. She said that was fine, but she would need to make a copy of his driver’s license and the check.

Junior, without hesitation, pulled out his wallet and handed her his license. He then proceeded to write the check. Everything seemed normal… for now.

When the store clerk stepped into the office to copy the check and license, she heard the door chime sound. She called out to the person she had thought had entered, saying that she would be right there, and didn’t think anything about that until she stepped back out of the office. The first thing the clerk noticed was Junior was not at the register where he had been. As soon as she began to glance around the store to look for him, thinking he had decided to get something else, she saw it. The virtual doll, acrylic case, and all were gone, and so was Junior.

This poor clerk was in total disbelief. Not because Junior had most likely stolen the $600 doll. It was because she was holding his driver’s license and check, which had his home address, social security number, and phone number on them. Junior had given her everything to find him except a map to his house.

This folks, is one of those things you cannot make up.

The clerk was utterly dumbfounded. She quickly went back into the office and called the store owner. The first thing he did was begin laughing. No one would be that dumb. The owner told the clerk to look at the security camera footage right then and tell him what she saw. The video confirmed it. Junior waited until the clerk stepped into the office and made his move. He quickly grabbed the doll and display, almost dropping it when he did. He then staggered his way out of the building and shoved it into the backseat of his car before speeding off.

By this time, the clerk and the store owner were both laughing at the situation. Yes, Junior had stolen a $600 virtual doll, which was a felony. However, he had also fully identified himself and had even given them the information of where he lived so he could be arrested with ease.

That is when they called the sheriff’s department. The dispatcher could hardly believe what she was hearing as the store clerk explained what had happened. She began laughing and asking if they were joking. The clerk at the store assured her it was not a joke.

A deputy was briefed at the department before he was sent to the adult store. He was laughing the entire time. No one would voluntarily hand over their identification and address to a person seconds before they commit a felony and leave that information behind. Yet, that is precisely what Junior had done.

The deputy arrived and took the report, with everyone doing their best to stifle the laughter over how absurd the situation was. It was serious. Junior had stolen an item, the value of which made the crime a felony. However, no one was hurt, and going to prison for stealing a virtual doll from an adult store is not exactly what you want to tell people when they ask why you went to jail.

Knowing where Junior lived made things easier when it came to the investigation. The only problem was that Junior lived in the next county. That meant explaining the entire situation to the other departments that would need to be involved. How do you do that with a straight face? You don’t.

Officers from all the departments that needed to be involved were quickly informed of the situation and gathered. They all met at the city police department in the town where Junior lived. They were ready to handle searching his house and removing the doll. At least, that’s what they thought. They didn’t know who Junior lived with until they arrived at the house.

When the officers arrived at Junior’s residence, they knocked on the door and called out, “Police.” They did this several times, and after a short while, they began to hear a faint, rhythmic clicking from inside the house. It got louder as they waited, indicating that whatever was making the sound was approaching the door. Finally, one of the officers heard a tiny, faltering voice call from inside, “I’m coming.”

The officers all glanced at each other in confusion. The voice they heard was not that of a nineteen-year-old man. It was the voice of the very frail elderly lady who lived there. When the door opened, it confirmed that it was a woman who could have been a grandmother to any one of them. The clicking was the sound of her walker on the wood floor as she made her way to the door.

The lady looked stunned as she asked the officers, “Can I help you, boys, with something?”

All of the officers looked at each other. In that split second, they all silently nominated and voted for the city police chief to be the one to do all the talking and explain the situation to this woman. How do you explain to a frail, elderly woman that a young man who lives in her house has stolen a virtual doll from an adult store? The answer is: Very carefully, so the current situation doesn’t turn into a completely different kind of call, and an ambulance is needed.

The police chief braced himself and asked, “Ma’am, do you know Junior?”

The lady’s face lit up at the mention of his name. “Oh, yes! He’s my grandson, and he lives here with me. He is such a good boy. He helps take care of me. Why do you want to know if I know him? Did something happen to him?”

The poor lady became visibly upset at the thought of something happening to her beloved grandson. The chief reached for her arm to help steady her as she looked as if she might faint.

The chief quickly told her, “No, ma’am! Junior’s fine. But we do have reason to believe he might have taken something that did not belong to him.”

Grandma physically gasped at the thought of that. “No! Not my Junior! He would never take anything that wasn’t his. He was not raised that way, and I have made sure to instill good values and decency in him.”

The chief took a deep breath in a futile attempt to prepare for what he was about to say to Junior’s Grandma. This might have been one of the most difficult things he had ever done. He was about to tell this woman something that would be the complete opposite of what she knew about her grandson. Of course, by this time, being in a small town, all the neighbors had come out to watch the show and find out what was happening.

The chief glanced around at the growing crowd of spectators and told her softly, “Ma’am, we have a search warrant to look for the item that we believe Junior stole. We will search his room first, and if we don’t find it, we will move on to the rest of the house. Do you mind if we all step inside before I go into details? I think this is something that needs to be kept more private.”

Junior’s Grandma, being the polite southern lady that she was, of course, did not object to that and slowly began to inch her way out of the doorway and into the living room. The stomachs of every officer who walked into her house dropped, and they were rendered nearly speechless by what they saw. Every wall was covered in religious pictures and crosses. There were statues and crosses on all the tables, windowsills, and fireplace mantle. Grandma even had a black velvet painting of Jesus walking on the water.

As Grandma clicked her walker further into the living room and toward the hallway, the police chief took that time to explain what had happened. He did his best to be delicate about the details of what a virtual doll was and why it would be in an adult store. Poor Grandma was revolted by the mere thought of such a thing even being made, much less stolen by her grandson, Junior. Grandma was in no way prepared for what was about to happen.

Grandma slowly led the way to Junior’s room, saying, “I know my grandson. He would never do that. Junior would never even think about bringing something like that under this roof.” Grandma pushed the bedroom door open, immediately clutched her chest, and gasped, “OH MY!”

There… on Junior’s bed… in all its glory… facing the door… was the virtual doll. That is not a sight you can ever unsee. No matter how hard you try, it will be burned into your brain forever, which is what happened to Junior’s poor, sweet Grandma. This is also when that other kind of call took place because things quickly went downhill.

The virtual doll instantly became secondary. The officers quickly helped Grandma to her seat in the living room, got her set up with her oxygen, and found her purse that contained her nitroglycerin pills. They helped her take one and called an ambulance even though she insisted she did not need it.

Through her gasps under her oxygen mask, Grandma looked squarely at the chief and told him, “I don’t want anything like that in this house. You get it out of here, and you can search every square inch of my home to find anything else he has like that. I don’t want any of it! Junior wasn’t raised like that, and I won’t have it.”

The chief happily obliged and delegated the duty of removing the doll to the other officers while he stayed with Grandma and tried to ease her mind about what had happened. It seemed to work until the officers walked past carrying the doll wrapped in the largest black trash bags they could find. What made things worse was that the warrant covered other items that had been stolen from adult stores in the area. They had videos of Junior stealing from several stores, but until the doll incident, they did not know his name. Due to the sensitive nature of the surveillance videos, they could not release them to the public so that Junior could be identified.

By the time it was over, they had found stolen items in the mattress, the walls, the dressers, the nightstands, under the bed, behind the headboard, and anywhere else he could hide something in his room, and Grandma would not find it. There were a lot of items recovered. When I say that, I mean a lot. The things he had stolen from the adult stores filled a shopping cart, not counting the doll.

Junior was not arrested when the search occurred because he was not home. He was arrested a few hours later without incident. The level of embarrassment and remorse for the thefts that he had was one that is very rare to see. The young man had issues, and he knew it. He just had no idea where to go to get any help. His parents had sent him to live with Grandma; needless to say, he could not really talk to her about it for numerous reasons.

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This case did not end when Junior was arrested. It continued to cause disruptions and chaos in the courtroom.

When the time came for Junior’s case to go to court, there was a problem. Evidence must be presented at the time of arraignment to show why the case should continue. The evidence in Junior’s case consisted of a large shopping cart full of items he had stolen from adult stores. The evidence needed to be presented in open court, and that was going to be difficult. The courtrooms are small and packed, and they often have children under the age of eighteen in them. What needed to be presented in Junior’s case was not exactly appropriate for a general audience.

The sheriff’s department kept a shopping cart in the evidence room to make transporting items to and from the courtrooms easier. They finally decided the best way to go about taking everything needed for Junior’s case to the courtroom was to load it into the shopping cart with the doll perched on top and cover it with a tarp that was secured by bungee cords. That way, they could hide it from everyone in the courtroom and simply detach the cables, then lift a corner of the tarp so the judge could see what Junior had taken from the stores. That was the plan. That is not what happened.

Things went well on the way to the courtroom. There were no problems besides needing two people to move the heavily laden cart. The members of the sheriff’s department were doing fine when they arrived at the judge’s bench, where he began to address them, and the prosecutor about the evidence and the bungee cords holding the tarp had been removed. That is when things went wrong. Doors were inadvertently opened on opposite sides of the courtroom, creating a strong cross-draft. That caused the now unsecured tarp to become a parachute and let everyone in the courtroom see the entire contents of the shopping cart.

Chaos ensued. There was laughing, screaming, and some sounds that had never been heard coming out of human beings before. The deputies grabbed the tarp and, as quickly as possible, covered the shopping cart, making sure to secure the bungee cords. The judge promptly told the deputies that he did not need to see any more of the evidence. He then did his best to restore order to his courtroom, which he did after a few minutes, a brief recess, and having the exposed cart of items removed from the room.

After court, a lengthy discussion was held among all the parties involved in Junior’s case, and they came to a decision that was best for everyone in the long run. Junior would not go to jail. Instead, he would go to a facility where he would get the help he needed. He would then be required to do community service and be on probation for a few years. Unfortunately, I have lost track of how things turned out for Junior, but the last thing I heard was that he was doing well and on his way to a normal, productive life.

And don’t worry. Junior’s Grandma did fine after her nitroglycerin and oxygen. The ambulance did arrive, and she was thoroughly checked out by the paramedics, who gave her a clean bill of health. She signed the form saying they had been there, and to be honest, she will probably outlive all of us. She also had no hard feelings toward her grandson, Junior, and was happy to do anything she could to help him with his treatment. All in all, it is as close to a happy ending as you could have in a case like this.