Forensic Cosmetology
What you sees is not necessarily what you finds!
.... by D. Grant DeMan
I received a poignant dose of unreal reality the other day: "One cannot prove anything exists except oneself. All that can be experienced could be a lie, an illusion, a dream. If we believe our perceptions, we have proof. But without belief, we have nothing. I cannot prove that you exist in the slightest," writes a colleague, giving me pause and considerable rigorous research for such examples within my personal mental recesses. She then added, "See me in Real Life without my glamour up and you would be repulsed and unnerved. With my glamour, things are much better, but it's ultimately deceptive, a facade which isn't really me. Such as you cannot prove me. Even if you met me in person, I could be a hallucination, a section of your own mind playing back to you."
Mighty interesting indeed.
Now picture a police squad room. Seven thirty in the morning watch change, several officers - happy with their coffee, donuts and cigarettes - swapping tales, as they are wont to do.
"Hey Merve, that's a right nice index finger you got there, all manicured and pink. Heh, heh, heh...."
"The sarge bought it for me from the trick and joke shop. It's one of those magician fingers that they carry hidden stuff in. It covers up the blown finger until it heals."
Mitch interjected, "Guess that'll learn you not to dry-fire a loaded weapon, 'specially not when you have your finger over the muzzle, hey Merve? A little cosmetic cover-up so's the Chief won't notice?"
Merve blushed, for he had taken a barrage of ribbing since the event. "You oughta talk, Mitch. Remember as how you were teaching that rookie how to aim and shoot and you blowed a hole through Chief Stronach's favorite calendar right there on the wall?"
"So didn't that happen a year or so back also?" Cried Mitch in protest.
"Yeah," shot back Marty - the third man in the blue trio, fondly termed the Triple-M Gang. "But we got some plaster and fixed the damn hole in the wall. Then we got ahold of the identical calendar and hung it over the spot. This last time you guys just left the damn thing, and the Chief discovered it when he noticed the wrong month was showing. There's the difference in that."
Jules grinned from ear to ear, his big ivories shining in the morning sun. "Talk about covering up guys? One night a Ford doing a hundred passed Old Spidy and me on the strip. So I steps on the gas and we held his tail through all that traffic until we was out in the clear. He'd gone through five red lights and was eastbound to hell. Well, you know Spidy. He's out with his S and W and firing away at the tail end and so the Ford stops. I drag the guy out and asks him where he stole the car.
"'I never stole no car!' he says, 'I just don't like cops.'
"Well we takes the guy down and locks him up for careless driving. By that time it's about three in the morning, and we wake up Body Bill, the guy at Padfield Motors, and gets him to plug up the bullet holes in the rear of that Ford before anyone can see what we done. Whew! The guy never made a complaint if he ever discovered what hit him. T'aint the shootin' what gits you in trouble, it's how you cover your hole."
"Like the time Safecracker Sammy was a goin' over a fence down at Murray's Creek, and Tony fired a warning shot through the tail of his Burberry. Sam made Tony repair that little rip down at the Tailors. Indivisible mending and all." The tales were going out of control then. Seems everybody had their favorite.
"When I was up in Wallaceton we had a Chief Constable who kept a big Chinese Mung Jar on a table just inside his office door..."
"Ming!" Shot back Mitch.
"Huh?" Freddy was stunned.
"Ming vase. The Chinese vase is called 'Ming' not 'Mung'."
"Are you crazy? I said he was the chief, not that he was rich or nothin'. It was a Mung vase where he kept his Mung beans for his sprouter, for he was some kind of vegetarian nut who grew them for lunch right there in the office. Now quit interrupting!
"As I said, one night somebody tipped the damn thing and beans flew everywhere. It took a heap of sweeping before we got it all up and glued back so's it looked half-decent. Then we props the broom up just so, that when the Chief opens up next morning - crash - the handle hits the vase and the whole thing goes blooey. For the next week poor Chiefy wimps around the office, saying, 'I don't know how that damn thing broke like that all to hell. A one in a million break, wasn't it?' and we go: 'We're so sorry your Mung vase got broke,' and bought him a new one for his birthday. Guess he's still shaking his head over that one."
Merve wiggled his phony finger, "Sorry to break up the party guys, but we gotta get some cars on the road. Keep your noses out of trouble for we are fresh out of plastic schnozzes!"
We all had a good laugh and departed with our memories of grand forensic historical cover-ups - applied glamour concealing the grime of law-enforcement.
Reckon we may all be excused for now and then administering a little makeup to life's warts and wrinkles.
