Tracy Flick Can't Win by Tom Perrotta

Author:Tom Perrotta
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2022-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

PART THREE: The Overwhelming Favorite

- 18 -

Glenn Keeler needed to keep busy. That was what he always said when people asked how he managed it, working all week at his handyman business (GlennWillDoIt.com), and then volunteering his nights and weekends as an Auxiliary Police Officer, doing the thankless jobs the full-timers preferred to avoid: traffic duty, parade security, that kind of thing. Guarding a downed power line until the utility company arrived, the live wire thrashing around on the street like an angry snake, spitting out sparks. Escorting a funeral procession to the cemetery. Filling in on the graveyard shift when someone got sick at the last minute. It was all okay with Glenn.

I like to keep busy, he would say. And I don’t need a lot of sleep.

He hated hanging around his condo at night, no one to talk to, nothing to do but stress eat, watch Fox News, and listen to the chatter on the scanner. Then it would be bedtime, and he’d be all revved up with nowhere to go. Sometimes, when his insomnia got really bad, he’d get in his Explorer and drive around for a few hours, cruising up and down the quiet streets, keeping an eye on things. The Grover PD only deployed two cars overnight, and he knew how lazy the younger guys could get. They’d idle for hours in the Wendy’s parking lot, shooting the shit through their open windows, leaving the town unprotected.

It wasn’t the same, patrolling in a civilian vehicle, calling in suspicious activity instead of intervening directly. But he could do it if he had to. That was why he kept a portable strobe unit mounted on his dashboard. He’d flashed it a few times, mostly at people he knew, just for fun, but once or twice with strangers whose driving he didn’t like. They’d pulled right over, no hesitation whatsoever. And they’d been very respectful when he asked for their license and registration.

I’m sorry, Officer. I’ll be more careful next time.

One of these days he’d get someone who wasn’t so polite, some mouthy asshole with a bad attitude. And that would be fine with Glenn too, a whole different kind of fun.

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