STORY
BEHIND THE POEM THE HOLE
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I was working on nightshift,
with my partner of the evening, Garry Radons (later
to be featured in the poem “One Mag Radons”). We responded to
a noisy party call and when we arrived, it was mayhem. Teenage kids
standing on the street drinking, the music in the house so loud we could
hear it blocks away. As we rolled up, the kids outside scattered,
but the party inside continued. We started pounding on the door with
our flashlights and finally got some attention. By this time, cover
units were arriving.
.
Kids were spilling out the
doors and windows as we walked in. The source of the music was soon
found and neutralized. As we walked back outside, I saw one kid in
the process of kicking out the tail-light of our police car. I yelled
and he was off running, with me hot on his heels. We ran up the street
and cut back and forth and were running across the front yards of several
houses.
.
As we ran across one seemingly
innocuous front lawn, suddenly I felt the ground underneath me give way
and I started to fall straight down, just as I grabbed the collar of the
kid I was chasing. I held on for dear life, thinking that, “I don’t
know how far into the earth I’m going to go, but you’re coming with me”.
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When we came to rest, I
was buried to my waist in the dirt, but my left leg was on top, the right
leg below. My gun was buried and I was basically helpless.
If the kid got up, he would be able to inflict serious injury on me.
Thinking quickly, I stuck my finger against the side of his head and screamed
like a madman “If you move an inch, I’ll blow your head off”. He
froze at this point and didn’t move a muscle.
.
All around me I could hear
screams and shouts from running kids and police members. Then, badly
muffled by the dirt I could hear people calling me on the radio.
I couldn’t answer because I didn’t want to let go of the kid, and besides,
my radio was buried.
.
Finally, I was located.
A policewoman from my squad found me. Although you could see the
smile forming on her face due to my predicament, she never once burst out
laughing. She handcuffed the kid and then grabbed me under the armpits,
and with a mighty heave, lifted me free.
.
Unfortunately, the fall
was not without a price. I ruptured a disk in my lower back and have
been plagued by it ever since. I even spent nine days in hospital
flat on my back. But despite this, the initial circumstances were
still funny, so this poem was born.
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