when you work the graveyard shift, it is never a good idea to live over twenty minutes in any direction of where you work.
One night the radio squawks and the Lieutenant comes on and says:
"Badge 43 what's your 40?"
No answer from Badge 43.
I rouse myself from my stupor where I am squatting in a doorway in Zone A "The Hill" and think real hard who Badge 43 is. I have a vague idea that is Guard Falks (a thin non-white guy who also works the graveyard shift). He usually gets one of the outlying zones, tonight he is either in Zone F "AgriCamp" or Zone G "the Concrete Wasteland."
The Lieutenant never calls us by our names over the radio, only our badge numbers.
"Badge 43 what's your 40?" In case you don't know- thats a ten code for location. When the big L asks you better have exact location on the brain or you're toast.
Badge 43 never answers. I mentally picture the Lieutenant cussing up a storm as he dispatches a unit to go look for Badge 43. He never sends a unit unless he is quite sure you are dead, dying or going to want to be dead.
I know this cause he came after me once.
Word had gotten around that I was enjoying my post a little to much and he came out for a look. Now the irony of this is they want us awake and alert even though all we do is unlock doors. Still, we cannot enjoy sitting around all night waiting for twilight to start actually working. So all us Smurfs have come up with ways to stay cool, awake, warm, not bored.
Bored being the operative word.
Hence the reason, I am squatting in a doorway.
The night the Lieutenant came for me I had been posted in Zone C "The bomb-block" a university lab building that supposedly had a reactor in it. Everything was magnetically locked shut, so I wasn't guarding anything that I could even get into. So I had brought my cart with me.
The cart had a little tv monitor on it, game system (n64) and VCR on it plus an extension cord. I like the cart because it was easy to unload and move in and hide so I could have something to fill the hours with other than a book or worse the patterns on the wall. Anyway, let's just say the big L was less than impressed that I was alert and being entertained while babysitting the Bomb-block. So here I am squatting in a doorway in the dead of night. At least he didn't confiscate the cart. but staying awake is a bitch.
Turns out Badge 43 would agree with me, most nights he would show up to roll call, then goto post, sit from radio check, then go home to his apartment (within 4 minutes of his post) and go to bed, with an alarm set for our radio checkins - except for tonight when he forgot to set the alarm and missed his check. When he rolled back in this morning he turned in his keys and his uniform. The Big L doesn't forgive sleepers.
Now all I have to do is drive back 20 minutes to my house without falling asleep at the wheeel after freezing my ass off in a doorway all night. Yaay me!
One night the radio squawks and the Lieutenant comes on and says:
"Badge 43 what's your 40?"
No answer from Badge 43.
I rouse myself from my stupor where I am squatting in a doorway in Zone A "The Hill" and think real hard who Badge 43 is. I have a vague idea that is Guard Falks (a thin non-white guy who also works the graveyard shift). He usually gets one of the outlying zones, tonight he is either in Zone F "AgriCamp" or Zone G "the Concrete Wasteland."
The Lieutenant never calls us by our names over the radio, only our badge numbers.
"Badge 43 what's your 40?" In case you don't know- thats a ten code for location. When the big L asks you better have exact location on the brain or you're toast.
Badge 43 never answers. I mentally picture the Lieutenant cussing up a storm as he dispatches a unit to go look for Badge 43. He never sends a unit unless he is quite sure you are dead, dying or going to want to be dead.
I know this cause he came after me once.
Word had gotten around that I was enjoying my post a little to much and he came out for a look. Now the irony of this is they want us awake and alert even though all we do is unlock doors. Still, we cannot enjoy sitting around all night waiting for twilight to start actually working. So all us Smurfs have come up with ways to stay cool, awake, warm, not bored.
Bored being the operative word.
Hence the reason, I am squatting in a doorway.
The night the Lieutenant came for me I had been posted in Zone C "The bomb-block" a university lab building that supposedly had a reactor in it. Everything was magnetically locked shut, so I wasn't guarding anything that I could even get into. So I had brought my cart with me.
The cart had a little tv monitor on it, game system (n64) and VCR on it plus an extension cord. I like the cart because it was easy to unload and move in and hide so I could have something to fill the hours with other than a book or worse the patterns on the wall. Anyway, let's just say the big L was less than impressed that I was alert and being entertained while babysitting the Bomb-block. So here I am squatting in a doorway in the dead of night. At least he didn't confiscate the cart. but staying awake is a bitch.
Turns out Badge 43 would agree with me, most nights he would show up to roll call, then goto post, sit from radio check, then go home to his apartment (within 4 minutes of his post) and go to bed, with an alarm set for our radio checkins - except for tonight when he forgot to set the alarm and missed his check. When he rolled back in this morning he turned in his keys and his uniform. The Big L doesn't forgive sleepers.
Now all I have to do is drive back 20 minutes to my house without falling asleep at the wheeel after freezing my ass off in a doorway all night. Yaay me!
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