May 2, 1985
The phone is ringing, too many beers
the night before. I struggle to
comprehend.
An officer is dead, I have to dress
quickly and catch up with the story. A young photographer with soft brown hair
meets me at the TV station where we both work. A rusted and dusty Chevy Cavalier
will take us down the road, winding through Black Hills in the early morning,
cups of coffee clutched in our laps.
In the days before cell phones, I
ask for details over the two way radio, the lone morning anchor doing her best
to fill me in. I hear the name, pause, “what?”
“Oren Hindman” the voice replies and
I realize I know the young Highway Patrol officer who is lying in a morgue just
miles away.
I don’t really know him, in the
sense that we are friends, but I grew up in a small South Dakota
This is not just a nameless,
faceless man doing his job. He is real, his brother is real, his family is
getting the news right now and I feel sick. I know that feeling.
In the middle of the night a Highway
Patrol Officer came to my family’s door, delivering the news that my oldest
brother was dead, killed in a horrible car crash just outside my little
hometown. I flash on the memory of my mother’s face as she tried to absorb the
news and I wish I could say something comforting to Oren’s family.
Just about a month from now I will
marry my soul mate. He’s the only one I ever considered marrying and our days
are filled with plans, love and laughter.
Later, I hear stories of Oren’s
family, how his wife and daughter were absolutely devoted to him, his daughter waving
goodbye from the window as her Daddy went off to work.
A stupid kid with a knife ended this
young man’s life. My God, it was a simple DUI, couldn’t you do the time? One
flash, one moment and an entire community is stunned by grief.
I never grasped this concept, as
many times as I sat in a courtroom and watched the wretched walk by, sentenced
to life instead of a few measly months.
Oren and his brother Mark were known
as good guys in my small town high school. I wasn’t in the crowd either of them
hung out with, but when our paths crossed they were nice, polite and never
uttered a harsh word in my direction.
I will never forget that funeral. The
lines of Highway Patrol Officers with gloves pulled tight over their wrists,
standing at attention as the casket passed.
Then I spot Mark, the boy in so many
of my yearly class photos.
His head hangs in sadness as he
follows the coffin out of the church. I flip open my reporter notebook and
watch as a small, wet stain appears about mid page.
Linda Carter
