#matthew berdan

[anthropolowhat]

Dinner service

Towards the end of dinner service, Matt took a second to lean against the counter and breathe. It had been a long night, but the food was perfect. They'd gotten out all of the tickets on time, and with the final table seated and fed, Matt knew it was time to start cleaning up. Julie came in to say her goodbyes for the evening. She'd been the first cut, so after all the silverware had been rolled she was able to head out for the evening. "Night!" she called out, waving and smiling at Matt. Matt felt his heart flip over in his chest. He smiled back, managing a wave. She closed the door and Matt sighed. Ever since she'd started dating his brother Elliott, it had been torture to see her at work. Back home, he filled notebook after notebook with useless poetry. Some counselor in one of his stints in prison had suggested writing things out when he was sad, and he found the technique worked, to a point. After that, only a good punch could work it out. But tonight before he could either write or fight there was still work to do, and so Matt turned back to his station, cleaning up the debris that had managed to slip past him. He and Roberto were lugging several large bags of trash back towards the dumpster when Matt almost ran over Maria, the small hostess about his age. He turned the corner with the bags and Maria squeaked. Roberto laughed behind them. "Hey!" she said. "Woah!" Matt said. "Didn't see you there, I'm sorry." "Don't worry about it," Maria said. "Just watch where you're goin, okay?" She smiled and held the door. "Let us know if you boys wanna go out for a drink. Some of us are going out tonight." "We'll be there," Roberto said. Matt shot a look at the other man. "Who said anything about we?" Roberto smiled and pushed Matt with the bags of trash. "Come on man, I don't want to go out smelling like a bunch of fish bones." Maria laughed and headed back in the building while the two men headed out back to the dumpster. "Man, I don't want to go out tonight," Matt said. "I'm tired." Roberto threw the bags in the dumpster and wiped his hands on his pants. "Hey, I'm just trying to be a good wingman for you, that's all." Matt looked at Roberto. "What do you mean?" Roberto laughed. "Man, are you serious? Ever since Maria started she's had a thing for you." Matt thought back over the last few months since Maria was hired. She did stop by the kitchen to chat with him, but he figured she was just being nice. "Seriously, she told Amber about it," Roberto said. "Who's Amber?" Matt said. "That server that worked here for a few months, the one I took home a couple times?" Roberto said, grinning. "The one that did the--" "--oh yeah," Matt said, stopping him before he could tell the story again. "Yeah, I remember that girl." "Well anyways, I know you're hung up on Julie, but you should give Maria a chance," Roberto said. "I'm not hung up on Julie," Matt said. "Okay," Roberto said, his voice making it clear he didn't believe Matt at all. He headed back towards the restaurant, and Matt followed. "Man, you got a smoke on you?" Roberto asked. "My pack is out." "Of course," Matt said, handing him a cigarette. Matt took one for himself as well, and after lighting it took a long pull. "So Maria," Matt said, "wants us to go out tonight." "Yeah," Roberto said. "So we're in, right? I already texted Amber and she said she'll meet us out." "Wait," Matt said, "so you're still seeing her?" "Would you give that up?" Roberto said. Matt shook his head. "I guess not." Roberto looked at Matt, and put an hand on his shoulder. "Listen man, I don't know what it is you're going through, but I do know what might help." Matt looked at his friend and sighed. "Well," he said, "it sure as hell couldn't hurt."

[anthropolowhat]

After work, on a Tuesday

Matt came home from work around midnight, wired from that night's service at the restaurant. Even though it was the day after Labor Day, they'd been slammed with reservations and the kitchen was busy up until the last order, half an hour after they officially closed for the evening. Matt pulled off his shirt, wincing at the effort. He'd managed to burn himself when the new guy got water too close to the fryer. Matt had shoved the kid out of the way when he saw the bowl tip towards the fryer, but he wasn't fast enough to keep the damn thing from exploding. Matt walked into the bathroom and examined the burns on his arms in the mirror. He knew there would be new scars to add to the old ones. After he surveyed the damage to his forearms, he took stock of the rest of his body. He knew he wasn't nearly as attractive as his brother. For a minute, he wondered whether they were really even related. Though Matt knew they were brothers through and through, he still resented his frame, short and stocky compared to Elliott's willowy silhouette. Back in California, in high school, girls always seemed to favor his brother. Matt's frown turned into a grimace as he looked over his torso. His beer gut seemed larger than it used to be, and his prison tattoos had faded even more than he had remembered. He ran his hand over the scar from the knife wound on the upper part of his stomach. Even though it had been nearly ten years old now, it still hurt from time to time. Part of him wondered whether the pain persisted because he'd started that particular fight. "Jesus," Matt said out loud, to no one in particular. He grabbed a shirt off the floor of his bathroom, and padded back into his bedroom. Matt lay down on his bed, on top of his comforter. He tried not to think about work. He tried not to think about Julie. He tried his best to think of nothing, and when that didn't work, he went to the kitchen for something that would make him forget about everything.  

[anthropolowhat]

When the middle is an end.

Matt had a bourbon waiting on the table when O'Reilly walked through the door of the tavern. "Shit," the officer said, sliding into the booth and picking up the glass. "What a rough shift." Matt grunted. "Yeah." He held out his arm, newly bandaged. "Grease fire," he said. O'Reilly whistled. "Ouch," he said. Matt shrugged. "Right at the end, had a really bad run," O'Reilly said. He looked down at his drink, swirling the liquid in the glass. "Suicide attempt. Just terrible." "Yeah," Matt said. "Can't even imagine." "I mean, I've been there," O'Reilly said. "I mean there are times when it seems pretty dark. But I just don't get--I mean, I don't know." Matt shook his head, staring off into space. O'Reilly wondered what he was thinking about, but knew better than to ask. Matt took another long drink from his glass. He sat it down on the table and motioned for the waitress. "Sometimes it's just you and the devil," Matt said. "And you gotta decide which one of you is gonna come back." O'Reilly looked at Matt, who stared back at him. Neither man said a word for a minute. "Know what I mean?" Matt asked. O'Reilly nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I do." 

[anthropolowhat]

After the fight

Matt woke up with a start, sliding into consciousness with a sickening crunch. His mind was wrapped in the vice of a hangover. His mouth was dry, his mind was empty. He couldn't feel anything other than his incredible headache and overwhelming nausea. He knew he'd feel  that way for the next couple hours. He still felt a little drunk, but shook the feeling as best he could because the clock told him he was dangerously close to being late to work. He got up and showered. He put on the same clothes he did every week. He got in his car and headed towards Paula's. He was in pain, but that was the point, really. Today he wouldn't worry when Julie passed by, all bright and bubbly. He wouldn't feel the oil from the grill when it spit at his hands and his arms. He wouldn't worry about what he was doing with his life, or why he was such a screwup. He'd just skate from one smokebreak to the next, wasting some of the best years of his life in an effort to find an absence of feeling. 

[anthropolowhat]

At the bar

"You can't trust how you feel," Matt said to O'Reilly, picking at the edge of a beer label. "You just can't. I end up telling myself that every freakin' day. Maybe it's somethin' you need to tell yourself, you know?" Matt was proper drunk now. The two men had stumbled down the street to another one of Matt's haunts, and he and O'Reilly set out to finish what the two men had started separately at the other bar, before the officer had been attacked by a man whose wife he'd arrested once before. Matt had rushed to the officer's rescue, and the two men quickly left the scene before there was any more trouble. "I don't know," O'Reilly said, picking at the french fries he'd ordered about an hour before. "I don't know what she wants from me. I love her more than life itself, but the job, I mean, sometimes I don't know what I'm doing. Sometimes I don't know what I'm saying when I get home. I don't want to be like this, but, it just happened." Matt didn't say anything for a minute. He took another sip of his beer. The room was sliding sideways, the alcohol proving an effective analgesic to the pain of his normal existence. "So she kicked me out," O'Reilly said. His words were slurring now. "And I don't know what I'm gonna do without her." "Just gotta slow down," Matt said, "don't take the job home with you so much. I'm sure she'll come to her senses." O'Reilly glared at Matt, his eyes glassy. "What the hell do you know?" O'Reilly said. "You're just a street thug. You're just a god damn--" The officer stopped when he saw Matt flinch. "Strong fuckin' words," Matt said, his voice low and dangerous. "But I'm gonna just get up and go, 'cause you did me a favor and I don't think you're acting right--" Matt began to push himself up from the table when O'Reilly reached out and grabbed his arm. "No," O'Reilly said, reaching out. "Man, please stay, I'm sorry." Matt looked down at the other man at the table. He seemed so broken, so far from the uniformed man in charge. The man in front of him was someone he recognized, and the thought that O'Reilly had fallen that far caused a burning in Matt's chest that had nothing to do with the alcohol. He sat back down, motioned to the barkeeper, and ordered another drink for both of them. 

[anthropolowhat]

Reasonable force

By the time that Officer O'Reilly pulled Matt off his attacker, the former felon had managed to land more than a few punches on the other man's face.

"Alright, alright!" O'Reilly exclaimed, throwing Matt to the side. Matt stumbled, but remained upright. He looked dazed, his right hand bloodied and already beginning to bruise. 

"Shit, sorry man," Matt said. His words were slurred. He was more than slightly drunk. 

O'Reilly didn't look much better, still under the influence and dazed from the straight punch to his face. 

The man on the ground was motionless for a moment, then pulled himself up, shakily, to his feet. He wiped his mouth and blotted his bloody nose. 

"Fuck you," he said. "You arrested my wife, and now she's gonna be gone for three years." 

Officer O'Reilly searched his mind to try and find a memory to match the man standing in front of him, but he retrieved nothing. 

"I don't know what you're talking about," O'Reilly said. "But you're fucked. You know I'm going to arrest you, right?" 

"You can try," the man said, squaring up to the Officer again. This time, O'Reilly was ready, and when the man lunged O'Reilly brought the man to his knees with a swift punch to his midsection. 

The man fell down with a cry, then got up and ran out of the bar. 

O'Reilly looked up to see the whole bar staring at him. Then, he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Matt, reaching out as if from across the universe. 

"Listen," Matt said, "there's a place down the street. Maybe got a better--what you call it? Atmosphere." 

"Yeah," O'Reilly said, "yeah, that sounds good." 

[anthropolowhat]

self-medication

It was strange, the officer thought, the way regret had a way of sitting right on the top of his heart, high enough to catch in his throat and hitch his breath, a slow suffocation that seemed relentless. He tried to wash it away with what was poured in the glass in front of him, but something cold and heavy pooled at the bottom of his stomach, some saturnine substance that rendered the alcohol impotent. He had an Irish name and an Irish heart, and on this night, he sat at the bar, ordered another drink, and struggled against what was so close to the surface. He didn't know where he was going to stay that night. His wife had kicked him out, and he'd walked to the pub without a plan. After his fifth drink, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to see who it was, but it all turned to black when a fist connected with his chin. When he woke up on the bar floor a second later, his assailant was on the ground, having been tackled by someone who'd tried his best to go unnoticed when the officer had first entered the bar an hour ago. 

[anthropolowhat]

46/96

Matt always had a hard time in handcuffs, so it meant something that when the officer took him into custody he didn't pick up a resist charge in the process. As they cruised towards the jail, Matt leaned his head against the side window. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He knew he'd lost everything, again, and as the shock wore off, the creeping despair began to take over. Hearing the heavy sigh from the backseat, Officer O'Reilly looked in his rear view window and frowned. Matt was still bleeding, and the officer knew he'd have a mess on his hands once he got the guy out of the car.  After the officer told Matt he was going to be arrested, the two men didn't exchange any more words. They drove in silence, the car scanner punctuating the quiet every few minutes. They seemed to hit every red light, and both the officer and Matt felt as if the trip was taking forever. Matt continued to sober up as the drive continued, and as the alcohol left his system, the pain in his head grew nearly unbearable. Though he tried as hard as he could to avoid it, O'Reilly couldn't help but think back to that run two years ago, when he'd seen his first real domestic violence case. The man he currently had in his car had beat the shit out of that suspect from two years ago. It was strange, the officer mused, how street justice always seemed to come around. Two years ago he'd been called to the scene as the first response to a domestic violence run. He'd only been off his probie status for about two weeks, and if he was honest with himself, he still didn't really know what he was doing. Dispatch sent him to a house on the near Northside of the city, and he rolled up on the house, O'Reilly felt his stomach drop. He threw his cruiser into park, took a deep breath, and marked out over the radio that he was there. He wasn't two steps out of the car when he heard a woman scream inside the house, and a man yelling in return. O'Reilly tried to ring the doorbell, and shouted for the people inside to open the door. He pounded on the door once, then twice, then three times in quick staccato bursts. He heard the woman scream again, but the scream was cut short by what sounded like a strike. In the next moment, the Officer heard someone fall to the floor. O'Reilly took in a deep breath. "Oh, shit," he said to himself. "Shit, shit." He kicked down the door and ran inside. He could see a man standing over the prone form of a woman on the floor. When the man saw O'Reilly, he took off towards the back of the house. O'Reilly followed down the hallway, through the kitchen and out a back door. The chase continued, across the small backyard, over the chain-link fence and down the alley. The suspect was running fast, fueled by adrenaline and fear, but O'Reilly was faster, and as he came up behind the man, he threw himself forward, tackling them both to the ground. Later, the officer would find out that the man was tweaked out of his mind of drugs, but at the time, all O'Reilly knew was that the man seemed to have some kind of super-strength, and no matter how hard he tried to get the man to calm down, he couldn't get him under control. O'Reilly felt the man go for his gun, and the suspect nearly had his hand around the handle when on instinct alone, the officer leaned back and punched the man in the face as hard as he could. The suspect passed out cold, and for a moment, O'Reily slumped over the suspect, as if he was afraid that the man would wake back up and start fighting again. He had just cuffed the suspect when backup arrived. The backup officer, older and out-of-shape, was red faced and wheezing when he came upon O'Reilly and the unconscious suspect. The older officer looked at the suspect, and then back at O'Reilly. "You okay?" he asked gruffly. "Yeah," O'Reilly said, looking down at the ground. "What happened?" asked the other officer. "He took off," O'Reilly said, feeling his stomach sink down to his shoes. He was afraid that he was going to get in trouble for cold-cocking the suspect. "I heard screaming inside the house," O'Reilly explained, "and so I kicked down the door." The older officer nodded. "Looks like the piece of shit gave you a run for your money." He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to the younger officer. "You're bleeding." O'Reilly took the cloth and wiped his face. When he looked at the cloth it was streaked bright red. "Shit," he said. "I didn't even realize." "Let's get the paddywagon over here," the Officer said. "You go back to the house, they need you there. I'll wait here with this guy, he isn't going anywhere." O'Reilly felt a sense of relief as he realized that the other officer didn't even seem to question why the suspect was unconscious. Both officers looked down at the suspect, now bound at both the wrists and the ankles and still passed out. O'Reilly nodded and headed back towards the house. Though it was already dark, the area around the house was illuminated by the flashing lights of several police cars as well as a fire truck and an ambulance. O'Reilly walked around to the front of the house and was met by another officer. "You the one that caught the perp?" the other officer asked. "Yeah," O'Reilly said. "Well, it's a good thing," the other officer said. "He nearly killed that woman. They're going to take her down to the hospital." O'Reilly looked over to where the ambulance was parked. It's bay doors were open and a woman sat on the end of the bed. O'Reilly felt himself recoil as he saw the woman. She had been beaten savagely.  Her left eye was swollen shut and the other was well on its' way. Her nose sat at an unnatural angle on her face, and O'Reilly knew it had just been broken. An evidence tech was working as fast as he could to document the injuries, but the paramedics were yelling at the tech to work faster. O'Reilly walked over to the ambulance, and put a hand on the tech's shoulder. "Maybe we got enough for now." The woman looked at O'Reilly and tried her best to smile. O'Reilly knew even this small gesture had to hurt like hell. "We caught him," he felt himself saying before he had the chance to think. A flicker of fear crossed over the woman's troubled features before she sighed. She nodded, and the paramedics closed the bay doors. "They always go back," O'Reilly heard a voice behind him say. "She'll be back with him. I've been out here before a hundred times. Never been this bad before, but it was bound to happen." O'Reilly turned around to see who was speaking, and when he did he saw a group of officers, standing by a squad car. When the other officers saw O'Reilly, still bleeding from his nose and in rough shape, they fell quiet. "Looking for Sarge," O'Reilly said, his voice low and rough. The officers pointed back towards the house, and O'Reilly made his way to his reporting officer. The man that O'Reilly caught would be brought for his initial hearing the next day. He made bail, and hadn't been seen since that night when he'd made the foolish decision to pick a fight with Matt Berdan. O'Reilly was lost in the memory, and as he sat at the light he didn't move for several moments, even after the red turned back to green. Seeing that they were stuck at a green light, Matt tried to get the officer's attention. "Uh, sir?" Matt asked, wincing as even the slight sound of his voice exacerbated his headache. The officer didn't respond. Matt tried again. "Sir!" he said, much louder this time. O'Reilly realized that he was stopped in the middle of the street and hit the accelerator  "Shit," he said as the car came up to speed. "Sorry man, I zoned out there for a minute." Matt looked at the officer, frowning slightly. He knew something wasn't right. The cop was gripping the steering wheel so tight his knuckles were white. Matt knew something was very wrong when they missed the turn into the jail parking lot. O'Reilly pulled into the a parking lot just down from the hospital. He put the car in park, and got out. He went back to the rear seat and pulled Matt out of the car. O'Reilly took off the cuffs and took a step back. "Get the fuck out of here," O'Reilly said. "I didn't see you, and you didn't see me. Get yourself to the hospital, and stay the fuck outta bars, or next time you're going in. And buddy, trust me--those charges are going to stick." Matt nodded silently. There was an understanding between the two men. In the next moment, Matt took off towards the hospital. O'Reilly got back in his car. He leaned over his steering wheel for a minute and closed his eyes. Then, he put the car in gear, and marked out on patrol.