Second Chance: A Military Football Romance

"Yes, sir. What is this about?" I stepped back and let them in.

Three uniformed officers entered behind the one that spoke. He brandished a folded piece of paper. "We're going to take a look around."

I almost laughed. The loft apartment was a wide-open room. A kitchen island separated one end from a wall of appliances. The other end was divided by a short hallway with two bedrooms off either side and a bathroom at the end. An L-shaped sofa delineated our living room. There was no dining room table, just a wide area rug where a few bits of my roommate's exercise equipment were scattered. Every inch of the apartment besides the bedrooms was on display.

The officers drifted to opposite corners of the apartment and started poking around. One eyeballed the built-in bookshelves that stood against the wall to my bedroom. Another strolled through the kitchen and opened kitchen cabinets at random. He left them hanging open. The third officer walked along the picture windows and I half expected him to wave to his partner on the curb watching the squad cars.

It had to be a joke.

The bald policeman handed me the folded paper before he turned and opened our entryway closet. Suddenly, all of the officers were going through things with both hands. Books were taken off shelves, drawers dug through, and clothes pushed aside to reveal the back edges of the closet. I opened the paper and discovered a very real search warrant.

"You're looking for drugs?" I asked.

The policeman near the windows was running his hands along the top of my television. "Pretty nice setup you have here. Play video games?"

"Online, multiplayer," I said.

"What exactly do you do for a living, Mr. Redd?" the bald officer reappeared from the back of our coat closet.

"I'm a sponsored player for the game Dark Flag," I said.

"You're telling me you sit around all day playing video games and someone pays you for it?"

"Yes, sir. I have the pay stubs to prove it. Though from the looks of this search warrant, I don't have to show them to you," I said.

"You might want to ask your lawyer about that," he said with a mean smile.

"Why exactly do you think there are drugs here?" I asked.

All four police officers scoffed and continued their digging without another word. Another stereotype of the gaming world: I sat around high while I played or somehow funded my sitting around by selling drugs on the side.

I sat on one of the stools at the kitchen island as they delved deeper into their search. All of the books came off the shelves, and the officer sneezed as he flipped through the dusty pages.

"Yeah, those are more for display than anything. I mean, I don't know what else to put on that many shelves," I said.

The policeman in the kitchen had light duty, as there were only two pots and a cast iron skillet in the lower cupboards. The upper cabinets had a random collection of pint glasses, a few mismatched plates, and coffee mugs with ridiculous sayings printed on them.

"Looks like he's a gourmet," he said. The pantry was bare except for a bag of brown rice, a few loose power bars, and a box of popcorn. The refrigerator had a stack of lunchmeat packages, a loaf of bread, and two dra

wers of fresh vegetables. "What, no cheese puffs and rocket fuel soda?" he asked.

I shrugged. "I'm more of a stir fry guy. Better protein stops snacking."

He eyeballed my trim waistline and scowled. "Sure, buddy. There's an awful lot of takeout containers in the trash."

"My roommate," I said.

As if that was a cue, the officers divided up and headed by pairs into the two bedrooms. I waited for 20 minutes until they reappeared.

The bald one was on his cell phone calling in a K-9 unit. "Gotta be thorough. Don't want to waste taxpayer money," he said.

The officers then ignored me and talked about football until the K-9 unit arrived. A German Shepherd with intelligent brown eyes and an eager pace pulled its partner into my apartment. After the third zig-zagging trip around, it looked up at its partner with a lopsided expression of boredom.

He turned the dog towards the bedrooms and it dragged him down the short hallway. It was in and out of my roommate's room in five minutes. Four minutes into my room, there was a low woof. The officer reappeared with the prancing dog; a sport coat in his hand.

I recognized the sport coat as the one my roommate had lent me. It had been in contention for wearing to the memorial service until I decided to wear my suit. If something was found in the pockets of his coat, he'd catch hell at work and most likely get fired.

"Nothing in it, but Gertrude likes it for something. Marijuana, most likely," the officer said.