Grab Life By The Balls

For more background and information on the characters in this story, please read the following:

What Mother-in-Law Wants

Badge of Betrayal

Clarissa Gets Served

*WARNING* The characters and events in this story are fictional. There is frank discussion in this story about sexual abuse and rape, some of which may be discomforting. While not described in detail, it does involve one of the characters relating his history of abuse to the protagonist. This discussion is not intended in any way, shape or form to elicit sexual arousal and serves only to provide context and background for how an adult, educated and professional male could allow himself to be victimized well into adulthood.

Sexual abuse and rape are crimes and should be tolerated by no one. No means NO! If you or someone you know is a victim of sexual abuse or rape, please contact the authorities and report it.

If you or someone you know has been a victim, and you think stories involving this subject matter may serve as a trigger of past trauma, please do not read this story. For everyone else, I hope you enjoy my offering, dark though it may be.

*****

There's a saying that goes '

To err is human. To really foul things up requires a computer.

'

That sentiment pretty much describes how things have been around the Mason County Sheriff's Department lately - 'fouled up'. I was thinking these things as I stared at my computer screen that had locked up for the umpteenth time today. The damned little cursor was stubbornly stuck in the same position on my screen and had been for nearly five minutes.

I decided to say the hell with it and initiate a hard shutdown and reboot. I didn't really have much choice, even though I wouldn't have been able to save the most recent work I was doing on my departmental budget for the upcoming fiscal year. My budget was due to the county supervisors six months prior to the start of the new fiscal year and our recent rash of computer and network glitches wasn't helping me in the least bit.

I was close to completion, thankfully, but the recent issues still had me irritated, nonetheless. It was equally frustrating for my Chief Deputy, Lieutenants and Deputies as they all had issues trying to get their reports completed in a timely fashion.

A knock on my door announced the presence of my day shift Lieutenant, Chris Hayes.

"Got a minute, Pat?"

"Actually, I do," I said, sitting with my back to him. "I'm rebooting my computer for the zillionth time today."

"You, too, huh? This is getting to be nothing short of insane, Pat."

"Don't I know it," I said, swiveling around in my chair to face him.

"Anybody even talked to Dean about this? It's getting worse every day, Pat." Chris was referring to the county's network administrator, Dean Strobe. "I've got guys pulling car stops that take damned near 20 or 30 minutes just pulling down data on their cruiser terminals. At most, a stop shouldn't take more than 5 to 10 minutes."

"I know, I know. The shitty part is that we can't even go 'old school' and just have the dispatchers relay subject info like we used to because the dispatchers are in the same predicament you guys are in the field."

"What do you want us to do, Pat?"

"Just keep doing the best you can, for now. I'll call Mitch Monahan and bitch to him and just tell him that I'm taking matters into my own hands, as a matter of public safety. I'm as sick of this as you are."

"We'd appreciate that, Pat," Chris said, rising from his chair. "Just out of curiosity, what do you think Dean's issue is, anyway?"

"I really don't know," I sighed. "About all I do know is that he has been calling in sick a lot. And the few times I have seen him, he looks like absolute hell. I might have to just pull him aside at some point and see if I can get to the bottom of this."

"All I know is something needs to be done. Everything in this place depends on it."

"I'll let you and the other shift commanders know what I find out."

"Okay. Thanks Pat."

"No problem," I said, swiveling back around to my work station, only to be greeted by the blue screen of death, indicating that now my computer was not even booting up at all. Whatever the issues were with my computer, I could only hope that my completed budget work was still saved somewhere on the county's servers.

Dean Strobe used to be about as dependable as the atomic clock. Now, it is minute-to-minute to see if we can even get anything done around here. The issues came on gradually, maybe a glitch one week that was solved quickly and then nothing for two or three weeks. About a month ago, however, things got really bad and we started experiencing network issues or individual computer issues on an almost daily basis.

My specialty is law enforcement. Truth be told, I'm an absolute idiot when it comes to anything technical, especially computers. Fortunately, I know people who have always been able to help me out in a jam and that's where a young woman named Tonya Fulbright came in. Correction - Tonya Fulbright-Hayes, to be precise. She was now the wife of Lieutenant Christopher Hayes.

I grabbed my office phone and quickly hit the speed dial for the office of the county administrator, Mitch Monahan. Mitch Monahan did for Mason County and the county supervisors what the Red River Falls city administrator did for the town, the mayor and the council.

"County administrator's office," a young lady answered.

"Good afternoon," I replied. "This is Pat Quinn. May I please speak with Mitch?"

"I'm sorry, Sheriff. Mister Monahan is in a meeting right now with the county engineer. Can I put you through to his voice mail?"

"Actually, I really need to speak with him. Could you please see if he'll take my call?"

"I'll try," the receptionist said, sounding put off. I waited on the line for about 30 seconds before Mitch picked up.

"Pat! How's it going?"

"Not so good. Did I hear correctly that your receptionist said Chuck Pope was in there with you?" Chuck Pope was the Mason County engineer. All county buildings, construction and road projects fell under the purview of Chuck Pope and his office.

"Yes, he is, Pat. He and I were just having a discussion about all of the computer issues everyone seems to be having."

"Well, speak of the damned devil," I said. "That's exactly why I wanted to talk to you myself."

"Here, Pat, let me put you on speaker phone so we can all brainstorm a little bit."

"Afternoon, Pat," Chuck Pope said in his booming and gregarious voice. Chuck Pope was a big man, 6'3" and 250 pounds easily. He had played football as a defensive lineman at Kansas State University back in the 1980s.

"Hey, Chuck. You having the same issues we are?"

"Yeah, we're all stuck in this love boat, Pat. Any suggestions on how to deal with it?"

"Actually, I do," I said. "But first, do either of you know what Dean Strobe's status is?"

"Not sure what his issue is, Pat," Mitch answered. "I just know that he called in sick earlier this week and hasn't been back in the office since. He's been gone three days now."

"Any idea if he plans on coming back this week yet?"

"His assistant said no when I talked to her this morning," Chuck said. "She made it sound like he'd be gone all week."

"Well if that's the case," I continued, "I'd like to take matters into my own hands. If you gentlemen don't have a problem with it, I'm pretty sure I can get the problem taken care of and have us all back up and running within a matter of hours, maybe a day at the most."

"Do what you have to, Pat," Mitch replied. "Keep me posted. If you need to hire outside help, just make sure it is someone you can trust."

"I'll do that, Mitch. Is the contractor rate still the same or did it go up this year?"

"Same as last year, Pat," Mitch answered.

"Gotcha. Okay, I'll get working on this and things should be better by the time you all get to work in the morning."

"Sounds good, Pat," Mitch said.

"Take care, Pat. Good talking to ya," Chuck answered.

"Thanks guys," I said, hanging up.

My next action was to get Chris Hayes back into my office so I went out to his cubicle where he was bullshitting with two of his Deputies. I didn't mind since there wasn't much they could do and their shift would be ending at 15:30 anyway, so there was little point in sending them back out on patrol for another fifteen minutes since the next shift was already on duty, anyway.

"Chris? Can I chat with you for a minute?"

"Sure, Pat," he said. "I'll see you guys tomorrow," he said, finishing his chat with the two Deputies.

Once inside my office Chris said, "What'd ya find out, Pat?"

"Mitch happened to be talking with Chuck Pope, the county engineer, and they're all in the same bowl of shit soup we are. I told Mitch that I had a plan to get us all back on track if he'd let me bring in some outside help, to which he agreed. My question is, would Tonya be up for a little contractor work tonight?"

"Kinda late in the day, Pat. We were looking forward to just kinda chilling out tonight, ya know?"

"I get it and I'm sorry. But I kinda promised Chuck and Mitch that I'd do my best to have things back to normal by the time they got into work tomorrow. I promise you that she'll get the standard contract rate, which will be at time-and-a-half for after hours work."

"I know damned well if I say no that you'll still call her anyway. And there's no way she'll turn you down. Anybody else she'd tell to get fucked, but not her little Patty-Pie. So I guess I give you permission to call her," he said, defeated. "Just out of curiosity, what's the contractor rate, anyway?"

"I figured you'd want to know, you greedy bastard. The county lets us pay $60 an hour, but that will be time-and-a-half for everything after 4 pm."

"Jesus! Ninety bucks an hour? No way will she say no to that. I guess you can consider that your penance for fucking up my evening."

"Deal. Just call her and get her in here, ASAP."

Chris made the phone call to Tonya and told her the county was in dire straits with its computer and network situation. She, too, was a little irritated at the thought of giving up an evening alone with Chris. But, true to his word, she perked up when Chris told her that she would be doing me a personal favor by getting this whole situation un-fucked by morning.

I even shouted from the background while Chris was on the phone with Tonya that both Chris and I would be more than happy to stick around the sheriff's office for however long it took Tonya to get the issues taken care of, a comment that earned the old stink-eye look and a flip of the bird from Chris as I said it. Tonya was only too happy to agree to that and commented on how much fun we could have and what kind of trouble the three of us could get into.

The last comment, although totally expected, also was a very slight cause of concern as Tonya had previously intimated that there wasn't much in the way of rules when it came to her and Chris. Understanding that I made a quick phone call to my fiancée, Shannon Sullivan.

"Hey, babe! What's up?"

"Oh, not much, sweetheart. I just wanted to give you a quick call and let you know that I'm going to be working late tonight."

"Aw, seriously?"

"Yeah, I know. But I was wondering if you and Bridget might be interested in grabbing some pizza or Chinese and having supper with Chris, Tonya and me."

"Yes! Anything to see you! I'll pick up Munchkin from my mom and we'll grab some food on the way. We should be there around 7:30 or so. Will that be too late?"

"No, that should be fine. I'll let Chris and Tonya know that dinner's on us."

"It's a date, love! See you soon! I love you!"

"I love you, too, sweetheart!" And I hung up.

Tonya arrived 30 minutes after Chris called her and immediately got to work. She was able to use my own authorization and started my computer in safe mode to run what she called an administrator level diagnostic test of the network, whatever the hell that is.

Almost immediately she started spotting numerous technical glitches, software issues, firewall problems and a host of other computer and network issues that were way the hell over my head. A lot of it had to do with simple issues such as outdated firewall and virus protection but many of the problems were more severe. Tonya had us completely shut down all of the computers in our office and ordered us to shut down every county-owned computer in the county, if possible.

It was a monumental task that required me contacting everyone from the supervisors on down to the county treasurer, auditor, engineer and so on. It took me nearly an hour to get ahold of everyone that could make it happen. By 7 pm, we were fairly certain that all or most of the computers affected were shut off.

It was shortly after that point that Tonya ran into issues with the county Auditor's office and the county conservation office, which Tonya figured were most likely hardware issues that could be anything from malfunctioning equipment to a simple network connection that had come unplugged. She needed to get into both areas personally to see if she could diagnose and fix the problem.

The revelations about the hardware issues came about just as Shannon and Bridget showed up with food from the Golden Dragon, which was about as "haute cuisine" for local Chinese food as you could get in Red River Falls. Well, it was better than Mandarin Express over at the Red River Mall's food court, anyway.

"Patrick!" Bridget screeched as she ran to me for a big bear hug.

"Hey, kiddo! Thanks for coming to see me!"

"Mom said she missed you so we decided to bring you supper since we couldn't eat at home."

"That was very thoughtful of you and your awesome mom!"

"Hey, babe," Shannon cooed as she came over for a kiss.

"Hey yourself, gorgeous," I said. I set Bridget down and she proceeded to explore the room.

"Burning the midnight oil tonight?"

"It's all these damned computer issues," I explained. "Our Director of Information Technology, Dean Strobe, seems to be checking out on us. Not sure what has been going on with him, exactly. But he is one guy whose absence is definitely noticed by the entire county."

"Any idea what his problem is?"

"Not sure, love. But he's been calling in sick an awful lot. And even when he's not sick, he is almost impossible to get ahold of. Every time I see him he just looks like death warmed over. Hopefully, we'll get to the bottom of it soon."

"Good," Shannon said, kissing me deeply. "Because I have plans to make better use of your off-duty hours," she winked. Oh, the possibilities, indeed!

"Hey, Bridget. Run to the room next door and tell the man and woman in there that we have supper ready."

"Okay, Patrick," she said, scurrying off on her little mission.

Tonya and Chris both rushed into our cramped briefing and conference room when the cute little courier had told them dinner had arrived. In fact, Chris had Bridget on his shoulders as they came in.

"Tonya? I don't know that I've introduced you two or not, but this is my fiancée, Shannon Sullivan. Shannon, this is Tonya Hayes, Chris's wife."

"Hi, Shannon. I'm Tonya. My God! You are gorgeous!" Tonya gushed.

"Oh, thank you! You are absolutely stunning, yourself! I love all of your body art!"

"Thank you. Some of them aren't quite finished yet, but they will be soon. I consider myself a living, breathing canvas."

"Where did you have them all done?" Shannon asked.

"I got a few done while I was still going to MIT. But the rest of them I've gotten since I moved back to Red River Falls over at The Skin Graft. Do you have any tats?"

"Oh, no, I've never been quite that adventurous," Shannon blushed.

"Oh, my God! You have perfect skin and an amazing body! My favorite artist would have an absolute joygasm if he got to ink you!"

Chris Hayes and I just looked at each other and shook our heads as the two women exchanged pleasantries. I could tell that Shannon definitely found Tonya interesting and was the type of person who would accept a friend at face value, eccentricities and all. Tonya, on the other hand, was most definitely flirting with Shannon. Shannon might not have been flirting back with Tonya directly, but she was more than receptive to her charms.

"Let's eat," Chris bellowed, clapping his hands and simultaneously breaking the building chemistry between the two women. "Got any Szechuan chicken in there?"

"I got a variety," Shannon said. "I got moo shoo pork, cashew chicken, General Tso's chicken, sweet and sour chicken, lo mein, orange beef and Mongolian beef."

"Sounds yummilicious!" Tonya chimed in.

We dug into the various entrees while Bridget regaled us with her stories from school. She was now nearly 9 years old and a very precocious 3

rd

grader. She didn't care much for any of the entrees the adults were eating but opted for a chicken pot sticker and some noodles as well as the lion's share of the fortune cookies.

Chris and I mostly ate in silence as we listened to Shannon and Tonya talk and talk and talk throughout the meal. It was apparent that they were becoming fast friends and even more apparent that Tonya was developing a serious girl crush on Shannon, the thoughts and possibilities of which, I am ashamed to admit, were excruciatingly tantalizing.

Before we knew it the time had flown by and it was nearly 9 pm. Tonya still needed to get into the Auditor's office, which was easy enough as I could open it for her. The Auditor's office was located in the courthouse along with the Sheriff's office. However, the county conservation office was almost a mile away and I would need Alton Bergland to get access for us.

I gave Alton a call and let Tonya into the Auditor's office so she could do her stuff. Sure enough, there was a simple network cable that had become kinked and frayed. Fortunately, Tonya was able to fix it easily and solve the Auditor's problem quickly.

I said my goodnights to Shannon and Bridget and walked them to the car, thanking them both with hugs and kisses for bringing us all supper.

"See you at home soon?"

"Give me about an hour or so. Hopefully, I'll be home in time to watch the Tonight Show with you."

"It's a date! I love you," she said, kissing me goodbye.

"I love you, too. Be home in a bit!"

Alton Bergland met Tonya, Chris and I at the conservation office. I could tell he was a little miffed at having to come in but I also know that he would have been more miffed if his network was still down in the morning. Alton was the county conservation director and was in charge of a lot of agricultural programs and also ran the county park system.

"I sure as hell hope you get Dean straightened out for this," Alton chided me.

"Well, I'm not sure it's my job to get him straightened out. I consider Dean a friend, though, and I'll certainly be talking to him about this."

"Somebody needs to straighten his ass out, Pat."

"Oh, come on, Alton. Dean is usually the best there is at this sort of thing."

"You call this mess the best there is?!! You got a funny opinion on what doing a good job is, Pat. Dean doing a good job would mean my ass would be at home in bed instead of getting my computers fixed at 10 o'clock at night."

"I said usually, Alton. It has only been in the last month or so that things have gotten out of hand. Mitch wants to have a meeting with everyone at some point and we'll get to the bottom of things."

"We better," Alton gruffed, "or my foot is gonna find the bottom of Dean's ass!"

"Oh, whatever, Alton," I said blowing him off. "I'm gonna see how Tonya's coming along."