Free Duncan's Diary by Christopher C. Payne Page A

He spoke in the native broken English that is common in most American big city cabs. He would hysterically tell how once on the phone the answering attendant would quickly agree to his excused absence as she had trouble understanding what he was talking about. He mimicked his broken native tongue flawlessly.
    Janine, Sudhir’s wife, was attractive, smallish at about 5’ 4” and around 110 pounds. She was lighter skinned than Sudhir and had long thick black hair that she normally wore down. She worked as a human resources contractor and traveled periodically for whatever reason. Sudhir never understood why. She made decent money, though, and that kept Sudhir from having to excel at his own job, so he never questioned her actions or her whereabouts.
    To make matters even more complicated, from a pervious marriage his wife had a boy, Warren, who was 20 years old. Sudhir adopted him. They now had a boy and a girl of their own, Matt, 12, and Tracey, 9. His kids were quiet and unassuming, much as Sudhir was himself. The family tended to keep to themselves although Sudhir was close to his brothers-in-law and brothers and spent most of his spare time with his immediate or extended family or watching TV. He was a TV fanatic. Last year at the station there had been a departmental party, and one of the activities was TV trivia. Sudhir knew all the questions from cartoons, such as Shazam, or the cat’s name on The Brady Bunch. It had appeared in only one episode in the first season.
    You were either impressed by his vast array of useless knowledge or saddened at the realization of how he gained it. He sat for hours in front of the TV, drinking scotch endlessly to escape his reality. He wasn’t a happy man. He tolerated life and was pleasant on occasion.
    Sudhir had just made detective a year and a half ago. It was his sixth time taking the examination, and he had resigned himself to never taking it again. He only signed up the last time at the insistence of his captain who had urged him to try yet again. Sudhir had passed at the bottom of his class and apparently (due to some minority quota) had made detective. Four of his fellow police officers had scored substantially higher. This further made him an outcast within his department and ended up driving him to drink even more than he previously had.
    He had been on the Palo Alto police force for more than 12 years now. He graduated from San Mateo Community College and wandered aimlessly through a few dead-end jobs before falling into his current occupation. He had never aspired to be a cop, had never removed his gun from his holster, and had no desire to move up in the world. His wife seemed to suck all ambition out of his existence. It took everything he could muster to get up each morning and make it through the day.
    His one saving grace was his kids. He loved them unconditionally and spent time with them whenever he was sober enough to muster the effort. He always had dinner with them in the evening unless work kept him out late. Since he was never given a case of any significance, this was usually not a problem.
    His oldest adopted son, Warren, also attended the local San Mateo Community College. He was average in school, making B’s and C’s, and really was unsure of what he wanted to do in life. He had inquired several times about quitting school altogether and starting an apprenticeship program at the local garage where his uncle Thomas was a mechanic. He could make more money being a mechanic than he felt he would ever make after completing college and getting a job. He really felt college was a complete waste of his time and effort.          His two younger ones were still in the age of innocence. Dad was looked up to and respected, and as long as he hung out with them, it didn’t matter who or what he really was. Looking through the eyes of kids who are still naïve is a great tool to keep things in perspective. Once innocence is gone, there is no getting it