Dead and Gone

The highway narrowed a lane or two. Still heading north, near as I could tell, but I couldn’t see the lake anymore to orient myself.

“We’re on Sheridan now,” Clancy said. “Ahead of schedule.”

I restrained myself from saying that, the way he drove, we’d be ahead of any damn schedule.

“First class isn’t till eight,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I know a place where we can get some coffee.”

“Who pays for the classes?” I asked him, sipping my hot chocolate.

“That’s a good question,” he said, chuckling ruefully. “We live on small grants. Sometimes they come in, sometimes they don’t. It takes a long time to train an officer to give the classes. They get paid for every one they teach, but it doesn’t even cover their travel expenses—sometimes you have to drive a three-hour round trip to teach a one-hour class. Everyone who’s observed the program, everybody who’s checked it out, they all love it. If we had a way to turn promises into dollars, we’d have the endowment we need. But, for now, we just scramble and hope.”

“How come the insurance companies don’t fund you? It sounds like a great investment for them. One drunk driver alone can cost them millions.”

“We get a little from them. Not enough. Not near enough. We can’t take tax money to do it—no way to get that past the city council. What we need is a commitment,” he said, his tone saying he had already made one himself. “Some foundation to promise they’re going to give us support for maybe ten years. Long enough for them to do their double-blind studies, prove on paper what we already know from actually doing it.”

“You fancy your chances?”

“I’m Irish.” He grinned.

The guard at the school entrance smiled and waved us in … once he made sure I was with Clancy. The teacher greeted us outside the classroom. He was a middle-aged, middle-sized man who looked tired. “Detective Clancy,” he said, “thanks for coming.”

“My pleasure,” Clancy replied. “Let me introduce Mr. Askew. He’s going to be working with us for a few days.”

“Are you a police officer, too?” the teacher asked.

“I’m a filmmaker,” I said quickly, before Clancy could respond. “We’re interested in the possibilities of making a docudrama about Licensed for Life.”

“Well, that’s a wonderful idea!” the teacher said, enthusiastically. “I’ve heard nothing but good things about it.”

“I’m sure,” I said, my tone implying that I’d need to make that decision for myself.

“You think I’m standing up here as a joke?” Clancy barked at the class, reacting to some giggling over in one corner. “You think all cops care about is taking bribes and eating donuts? You need to pay attention to this. Close attention, understand? This is serious business.”

He reached in his breast pocket, took out a large white napkin that said DUNKIN’ DONUTS in big red and orange letters. He began to clean his glasses with it as he glared at the students. The first student to spot it cracked up. In a minute, the whole class was laughing.

Somehow, Clancy took them from there through a series of anecdotes about drunk drivers that started out funny and ended ugly. By the time he got to a story about a “two-car, five-body” crash he was called out to investigate … and found his fifteen-year-old daughter in the back of a squad car, not badly injured herself, but assaulted by the image of her best friend’s face splattered against the windshield … they were rapt, totally focused.

He backed off then, playing them expertly, like a professional angler giving a fish some line. He asked them questions they should have known the answers to—the penalties for driving under the influence, for instance—then provided the answers when they dropped the ball.

The finale was a pair of goggles he called “Fatal Vision.” He told the class the glasses would show them what the world looked like through a drunk’s eyes. One kid volunteered to try them out. Clancy walked him through the whole routine—fingertips to nose, walking a straight line—and the kid flopped like a fish on a pier. Then he asked the kid some simple problems—counting backwards, naming the last four presidents—and you could see the kid struggling before he came up with the responses. “Easier with your eyes closed, right?” Clancy asked him.

“Right!” the kid agreed.

“Some drunks try to drive that way,” he said, harshly, offering the kid a high-five. The kid missed by three feet and would have fallen on his face if Clancy hadn’t caught him. The class roared.

Clancy finished strong, telling them one truth after another. Some of them were going to drink. This wasn’t about preaching abstinence—this was about survival. When he stopped talking, the class was dead silent. “Scared Sober,” I thought, sarcastically. But then they broke out into spontaneous applause, their faces serious, some teary.

The teacher’s face was a study in surprise—these kids were way too cool to clap, especially for a cop.

The bell rang for the next class. Clancy was surrounded by students, all trying to tell him something. Or ask him something.

The teacher just watched, his mouth gaping.

“Does it always go like that?” I asked Clancy, watching as we drove through a neighborhood so lush it seemed to bloom in the dead of winter.

“Pretty much,” he said, smiling. “It’s more art than science, and there’s horses for courses. Some of the guys, they can work anywhere. Others, you have to pick their spots. But I’ve never done a class where I didn’t get some response. Some … engagement.”

“You really believe in this, don’t you?”