We were sitting in a little café in Wickenburg Arizona eating lunch when my wife looked at me and said, “I can’t believe you’re actually going to this reunion after you told all of your buddies that there was not a chance in hell that you would go.”
“I know but I just can’t resist the chance to see some of those guys again after forty-six years,” I told her as I took a bite out of the burrito. The phone calls from three of the guys I worked with in the California State Police started coming in four months before the reunion was scheduled in Las Vegas Nevada.
When my buddy in New Mexico told me that one of the guys we worked with in Los Angeles was planning this reunion my first comment was “Is Richard still alive?
After a few minutes my buddy said, “I know you never liked the state police, but there will be a few old timers that you knew there and it should be a lot of fun.”
I asked what the purpose of this reunion was, since I had been gone from the state police since 1979. Frank said it was to commemorate the date in 1995 when the state police merged with the highway patrol. Most of us believed at the time that this was because the state police wore Smokey the bear campaign hats and the highway patrol wore service style hats. The highway patrol wanted the campaign hats.
There was always a lot of friction between the two state agencies, but the state police could trace their history back to the California Rangers, and the killing of the bandit Joaquin Murieta in 1853, seventy-six years before the highway patrol was founded. I went on to tell him how some clown in the personnel office had somehow screwed up my records and caused me to be sent to the state police academy, even though I had explained to the captain that I had graduated from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s academy two years before joining the state police.
Before we left Los Angeles, my buddy Frank told me that there was a lieutenant named George Miller that ran the academy. Frank went on to say that Miller always found a cadet to fuck with on the first day at the academy, and when we arrived in Sacramento Miller found me. Lt. Miller picked on me and tried his hardest to break me from day one. I think it was because he knew that I had two years with another law enforcement agency and had been an MP in the Marines. That may have been how I became his victim.
There were some real shit birds in that class from Northern California, but Miller ignored them and concentrated on me. At the fourth week of training, Miller announced to the class that I would be the new class sergeant for one week. The other class sergeants were retired military men and Miller didn’t bother to harass them. On Friday afternoon after training, the guys from Los Angeles took off to go home for the weekend. I didn’t see any reason to go to Los Angeles. I was single and lived by myself at the time.
Lopez, one of the female cadets, asked me if I wanted to go to town for a couple of beers that night. We were at El Rancho Sacramento, not knowing that Lt. Miller lived at the motel. We were sitting at the end of the dark bar when we heard Lt. Miller order a beer at the other end of the bar. Miller may have already been drunk since he was an alcoholic and he didn’t see us. Lopez looked at me and held her finger to her lip as a signal to keep quiet. I wanted to go over and sucker punch him in the kidneys and leave him lying on the floor, but Lopez grabbed my arm and asked me not to cause any trouble.
Two off duty highway patrolmen that knew Miller walked up to the bar and said hi as they ordered beers. Lopez grinned and punched me on the shoulder when we heard one of the patrolmen say, “Hey George, where did you find that class sergeant, that dude calls cadence just like a Marine drill instructor.” I’m sure Miller's big red nose got even redder as he mumbled something that neither Lopez or I could understand. As we left the bar, we walked past Miller and the patrolmen, and one of them said, “isn’t that your class sergeant George?
The following Monday, an Inspector from headquarters in Sacramento came to the classroom and told Lt. Miller that he wanted to speak to me. I thought that the shit had hit the fan and that Lt. Miller was sitting me up to be fired. The inspector turned out to be a nice guy and he explained to me that personnel had made a mistake by sending me to the academy and that I could go back to work at the Los Angeles headquarters, or I could finish the academy. I was half way through the academy and compared to Marine Corps boot camp and the L.A. Sheriff’s academy, the state police academy was a cake walk. I told the inspector that I may as well stay in the academy. I didn’t tell him I was having a lot of fun hanging around with Kevo and Lopez.
Lt. Miller was fit to be tied when I walked back into the class and took my seat. That night he walked into my dorm room and in front of my roommate Glen, asked why I didn’t choose to go back to L.A. He was already drunk as I stood up and said, “get the fuck out of my room George.”
His face turned bright red as he looked at Glen and said, “Pederson, you’re a witness if Vaughn assaults me.”
Glen opened the door and said, “Goodnight George.”
It was early in the afternoon when we pulled into my favorite casino, Arizona Charlies. The reunion was being held a few miles away, and no one knew that I was coming. My wife dropped me off in front of the venue, and I told her I would take a taxi back to Arizona Charlies. She was heading to the Wynn, her favorite casino.
“Oh my God, is that you Vaughn? Mary said as she stood at the door. “The last I heard, you were somewhere in the middle east working for the Army,” she said as she hugged me.
I didn’t say much, just “nice to see you Mary,” as I offered to buy a ticket for the reunion.
“You didn’t have dinner and missed the speeches, so you can just make a donation for the drinks if you want to.” I handed Mary forty bucks and she gave me a name tag and a magic marker to write my name on. Mary grinned at me as she helped me place the name tag on my shirt.
“Welcome Ben Dover,” she told me as she pointed me towards the ballroom.
I spotted their table as soon as I walked in, Frank stood up saying, “I see you made it after all.”
“Holy shit,” Kirk stated, “You told me you weren’t coming.”
Glen, my old roomie from Sacramento was there and he said, “the last time I heard of you, you were hiding out somewhere in Mexico.”
“I was,” I told him as he gave me a big bear hug. “Are you still in Southern California? I asked.
“Shit no, I moved to Northern Nevada before California went to shit,” Glen told me. Everyone at the table had moved out of California since retiring.
“I can’t believe it. Is that You Vaughn? Richard, the oldest remaining state police officer and organizer of the reunion asked. “Somebody told me that you were working at China Lake a few years ago.”
“Yeah, a lot has happened since then,” I told everyone as the boys asked me to sit at their table. We all sat there looking at each other and making comments about the grey or white mustaches and the lack of hair on most of our heads. Little Jimmy Smith walked over to the table and shook hands all around. No one seemed to be overly excited to see him. After he walked away, Glen said, “did anyone notice the name tag.”
I answered, “Yeah, he calls himself Sgt. Smith”
“Proof that it was possible for the state police to seek your highest level of incompetence. That man never made an arrest or wrote a crime report the entire twenty something years he was in the state police,” Danny told everyone.
Mary had asked people to bring any photos from the old days that they may have. Frank pulled out a picture of me, Tony Koudelka and him together at Tony’s house in California back in 2001 and passed it around the table. In the picture Tony is sitting between me and Frank and he’s holding this little ceramic statue of a goofy looking character in a state police uniform holding his penis in his hand.
Tony called this character the prick of the year award, and he gave me a picture of his statue with the prick of the year award going to me, written on the back of the picture. Tony was an old man at that time. He served in the German army in world-war two, before joining the French Foreign Legion after being released from a prisoner of war camp, only to be captured again at Dien Bien Phu by the Viet Minh. Everyone agreed that Tony was not a man to be fucked with when he was in the state police. Tony was long gone by the time the reunion came around.
We had a good time shooting the shit and talking about the good old days when we served together back in the 1970’s. Everyone at the table was gone from the state police by the end of the seventies. I was ready to leave and I made my rounds saying goodbye to my old buddies. I knew I would probably never see most of them again, but we all promised to stay in touch through email as we exchanged addresses.
I caught a taxi back to Arizona Charlies and went directly to the blackjack table. After a few hands a middle-aged cocktail waitress asked if I wanted a drink. I asked for a Heineken and she returned to the table saying the beer was on the house. The man at the end of the table watched as I tipped her with a five-dollar bill. I caught him watching me and I asked if he needed something. He said, “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to stare, but you look familiar. Do you live around here, or where have I seen you before?
“I get that often from my days on television.” I lied to him.
“I knew it, can I get your autograph? " he asked as the waitress handed him a cocktail napkin. I asked him what his name was and he told me Sean. The waitress smiled at me, as I handed him the napkin after writing in cursive, “Sean, best wishes, Higgins, Magnum P.I.”
The End
Bio:
This writer Leroy B. Vaughn is not the hillbilly singer from the 1950's, the former motorcycle officer from Orange County, California, or the dentist from Los Angeles, all with the same name.
Leroy B. Vaughn is a raconteur, part time skip tracer and trained observer. He now spends his days writing and catching rattlesnakes in the American southwest.