This is an excerpt from my memoir, Officer Banfield — the honest story of my years as a corrections and police officer, hitting bottom in alcoholism, and the long road to recovery.
My friend got home with his wife and he invited some other friends over to play some video games. I went up to the bedroom with the dispatcher thinking maybe we could just talk this out, maybe we could work this out.
Now, most of the time when I was a police officer, I had this 38 revolver that was my backup gun, at least at the University of South Carolina, and I usually had this on me about everywhere.
I even managed to drop it one night in the strip club, but we will get into that in a little while. I had it with me and it was normal because I was a police officer who was used to having a backup gun.
I was constantly afraid, "What if someone finds you?"
Now, never mind, there was no reason to have it on this trip, but I normally had it with me all the time, so why not?
I had my gun and I smartly left it in the car when we got to my friend's house. Well, for some reason, after I had been drinking and we got home, I was just feeling so crazy and out of control.
I thought it would be a good idea, "You know what, I don't know if anyone has a gun in this house. What if someone breaks into this house in the middle of the night and my gun is in my car? That'd be fucking stupid, wouldn't it?"
So, I got my gun. I just quickly went out to the garage and put my gun, my 38 revolver in my pocket. My intention was to take this gun upstairs and put it in my bag, so that in case anything bad happened I would have it.
I got the gun, and then I forgot about it. The dispatcher and I, we were talking upstairs and I was crying. I was telling her that I loved her and she was just not having it, and I was a disaster. I was so vulnerable and messed up, and she was not responding very well to it.
I was hoping we would have sex, but it was just a mess. We were sitting pretty close to each other and it was dark. We were on the bed and I don't know what happened, if she put her hand on my leg. I think she put her hand on my leg and I think things might have been starting to go better.
I think she was trying to comfort me and she put her hand on my leg, and then she felt the bulge in my pocket. She was very observant and she
noticed that it wasn't there before.
She put her hand on that bulge in my pocket and she said, "What the fuck is that? When did you get your gun? What are you doing? Get rid of that shit. Why do you have this in there? What are you trying? To rape me or something?"
I said, "No, what the fuck? I was trying to just take this upstairs and put it in the bag, but I forgot because we were having a big ass argument. Look, I'll take it. I'll put it in the bag right now. I'll put it back downstairs. I don't know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this. It was in my pocket. I wasn't even thinking about it."
She flipped the fuck out at me having my gun in my pocket and she lost her shit after that. Maybe she was thinking I was trying to rape her or something, which would be dumb as fuck, right?
Because, you know, we already did it. She obviously wanted to do it again. This was ridiculous, right?
But that's what happened on a ridiculous day.
She flipped the fuck out and was going crazy about the gun. She went downstairs and she was screaming at my friends that I brought my gun upstairs, and my friends got pissed off.
"What the fuck? Why are you bringing your gun upstairs?"
I flipped out on the dispatcher at this point.
I angrily said, "Are you fucking shitting me? You told my friends? You're making me look stupid in front of my friends? What the fuck is wrong with you? I fucking hate you."
I was just screaming at her about what a disgusting bitch she was and
telling her how I fucking hated her.
This reminds me of my parents actually. Then, she got over the top of it at some point.
She said, "I'm done with this shit. I'm calling my parents. They're going to come pick me up, two hours away and I'm going to go home."
I was losing it. She went outside and was fucking crying, it was just a disaster. I went outside trying to comfort her, "Look, I'm sorry. You know, I don't know what I was doing."
She won't have it. She was just really mad, and then the weirdest part of this, she came back upstairs with me after we went outside for a while and changed her clothes to get ready to leave. I was so fucked up on the bed.
I was like crying and miserable. I was definitely not in the mood right at that moment and I didn't know what was going on with that. But she changed her clothes out of her beautiful outfit she was wearing out to dinner into something more comfortable that she could ride home in the car with her parents for the rest of that time.
She got her clothes back on and at one point, she sat on the bed and she screamed at me.
She said, "Jerry, you need to stop drinking!"
It was so clear, like, "Here is your sign from the universe."
My dad was telling me that I abused alcohol and she was screaming at
me, "You need to stop drinking."
There it was and I said, "Okay. Okay. I'll stop. Okay. Okay. I'll stop drinking. Okay."
I could not even get it together to try to be nice to her, say goodbye to her. She went downstairs to say goodbye to the other people as her parents were getting close.
I thought, "Whatever. I'm not even saying goodbye to you."
I stayed up and I just cried and cried, and the sense of hopelessness just set in on me, that there was never going to be anything good in my life again.
I couldn't imagine my life ever being good again after this. She drove away with her parents and I was just broken. All I could do was cry and all I was constantly doing was crying. My mind was miserable, and then I had a hangover too, I was starting to feel a little sick and I couldn't eat at all.
I got in the car the next morning. I apologized to my friends. My friend’s wife was really pissed at me over all the things that happened the night before. She was livid with me. She won't see me or talk to me or say anything to me.
My friend said, "I'm sorry, dude. You just really pissed her off last night, man. You should just go."
I said, "Okay."
So, I drove and I cried the whole way back to Columbia. I was miserable. I hated my life and I was sunk in the depths of despair, but I knew there was no escaping it that way. I was utterly in a miserable pit. I couldn't ever imagine it getting better and life looked utterly
hopeless.
I hated everything. I hated that I did that with her. I hated that things worked out that way. I hated eating. I hated the mundane pleasures of life. I couldn't imagine how I was going to go back to work after this because we worked together. We did 12-hour shifts together at night, and yet no one at work knew about this. I was miserable.
This Kesha song sums it up perfectly.
It was all about feeling broken and faded, like you had wasted the love of your life.
That song is called "Dancing with tears in my eyes."
I thought of that song a lot over the years and I don't know if I've ever been that broken in my life before. I was absolutely shattered and it was miserable, and it did not get better right away either.
I think Audible has a maximum time on these chapters, so I guess I might have to break this up. We are just going to keep going on this thing straight through. I guess I can break the chapters up and do a new intro on it.
We are just going to wrap it up here. This is part one of this story. In part two of this story, we will finish up my career in law enforcement.
I appreciate you getting so far into this. I hope this honest sharing of my miserable truth is maybe entertaining, maybe funny, maybe helps you to feel good about how your life is.
This wild ride is not finished yet.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.