The Suspension: Day Three

Friday came and went for suspended Broken Springs Police Chief Jim Kingston, but not without a bitter change in temperature and an accident that resulted in the Chief being temporarily unsuspended for a brief period of time.

Yesterday’s sun and warmth was replaced with today’s bitter cold and wind as the temperature dropped nearly twenty degrees in one day. To most Broken Springs residents drastic shifts in climate are nothing new. This is Michigan, after all. But one man hoping against such a climate change was Kingston, currently serving a seven day suspension from the traffic light in the middle of town. Where Kingston’s armpits had sweated yesterday under a roasting 60 degree sun there now are clumps of ice, and foot long icicles hanging off of his bald spot.

Due to the weather conditions, Jim’s wife Cherry, herself very frigid, has been permitted to defrost the Chief twice a day. Under strict surveillance she’s hoisted to the same level as her husband, an ice pick in one hand and a snow brush in the other. For ten minutes, she’s allowed to ‘warm up’ her husband in any way she sees fit. But so far her only attempt to adequately warm him up resulted in their lips freezing together, an incident that demanded the assistance of the Broken Springs Fire Department, who hosed the couple until their lips unlocked and their tongues detached themselves from each other’s tonsils. Since that embarrassing episode, Cherry has lived up to her name each time she’s attended to her suspended husband.

Around dinnertime, Kingston faced another problem. The twelve pound fish line which held him by the left ankle gave way and he crashed on top of van full of illegal immigrants on their way to Labor Hill Vineyards. His disappearance didn’t go unnoticed, however, as a reporter from the Broken Springs Straight Shooter saw the entire incident from the window of Dicky’s Restaurant less than a block away. He then notified the authorities and an APB was put out for a frozen half naked Police Chief.

Apparently, when the Sheriff’s Department caught up to Kingston, he was claiming responsibility for the capture of 12 illegal immigrants, which he claimed to nab while unarmed after he pounced on the top of their vehicle passing under his intersection. Clearly delusional, the Chief was promptly returned to his traffic light as onlookers again watched their Chief Law Enforcer strung up against his will. This time, however, he was tied to the traffic light with twenty pound fish line supplied by Darren Gent’s Village Do It Worst Hardware. Many residents assured them that twenty pound test line ought to do the trick.

“If that there line can hold a thirty-nine inch Coho, then it can hold Jimmy,” commented fisherman “Snaggin’” Joe Higbey.

In all, Chief Kingston was unsuspended for 34 minutes, but Police Commission Chairman Ernie Hildecrust doesn’t think the mishap ought to dishonor the Chief, who’s so valiantly serving out his suspension against all odds. “We can’t blame Jim for the fish line breaking,” says Hildecrust by telephone. “I don’t believe he did anything to sabotage his confinement.”

But critics (those who weren’t arrested after yesterday’s riots) have spread a rumor around town that Cherry may have possibly passed Kingston a razor blade orally during their kiss, which he used to slice the line at the precise moment a vehicle was traveling through the intersection beneath him. Most everybody else insists on the Chief’s innocence, claiming that he’s not nearly that clever.

A press conference is scheduled tomorrow to update the public on the Chief’s condition.

Day Four