Growing Like Weeds

I have an idea for a short story where the plot twist involves the police acting on a tip that their suspect is sleeping in their car in front of a church. They have eight minutes to get there. Maybe less. Rushing over with lights, no sirens, they find a Nissan Pathfinder — windows tinted, engine still running. Other cars follow arrows to exit to the main street from behind the church — a speed bump, a thick pedestrian crosswalk signaling consideration, and a healthy congregation.

From close enough, you can make out a person sitting in the car, hands out of sight but, sure enough, sleeping with their head tilted against the seat rest and their mouth wide open. The police, armed to the teeth, close in. The first officer, his department-issued helmet compressing sweat down from his forehead, slams his fist against the driver’s side door, shouting, “POLICE, GET OUT OF THE CAR NOW!”

“Now, I said now!” His knuckles crack against the glass.

A shrieking sound punctures the silence of the situation from inside the car. The entire episode wakes up the sleeping baby in the backseat, and the mom who conked out in front of the daycare housed in the church basement. Seeing the baby in her rearview mirror, asleep on arrival, she decides to take a quick cat nap herself. The baby could eat a sweet breakfast of cereal with a side of peaches when he wakes up. She sets no timer, but keeps the car running for the air conditioning. Out of the car in one swift motion, she flings the baby’s door open, unsnaps the buckle at his chest and pushes the buckle between his legs. The shrieking is sharpened by its escape from inside the car.

“How fucking inconsiderate,” she yells, throwing a backpack over her right shoulder, then the baby to lock it in. Her neck red hot, with bloodshot eyes, as if her looking at the officers was hot enough to cook steak. With a free hand, she pats the check in her front pocket made to cover the month’s tuition, and a gift card for teacher appreciation day in one of the back pockets. She is calm enough to hold a settling baby, angry enough to destroy armor, and beyond reproach of those trained to disarm her.

Walking to the front door, she bellows — not to any one man in particular still standing beside the car — if one of them has enough sense to close the doors. Stupefied, one officer closes the driver’s side door, gently. Another, the back door. They haven’t started placing blame for the bad intel or thought to call off backup, who arrive minutes after the mom has gone inside. A breeze cools their faces and affixes the sweat into pores, resetting their collective cognition. His bruised knuckles replace the gun in his holster as a second check escapes from beneath the car, dancing in the air like a kite — whimsically free from detection.

Before a house of God, with children inside pinching peach slices, nary a one even considers that their suspect has gotten away.