Sparkplug

It’s misleading to suggest that all policemen were either big kind

sensitive hulks like Maloney or young bumbling aspirants like myself. Every

profession has its share of good and bad guys and the police force is no

different.

I met many colourful rogues who bucked the system but were still

tolerable to work with, but there were others who were simply mean no good

bastards. One such man in the later category was Sparkplug Jones. I don’t

know how he got the name; he was already a fixture on the Mounted Unit

when I started.

Will Rogers is quoted as saying, “I never met a man I didn’t like!” He

had not met Sparkplug.

I think he had been forced to join the Mounted Unit when he lost his

license after being convicted for drunken driving. That’s what I heard and

the story seemed consistent with my observations of his current behaviour.

There was more than one occasion when I was enlisted to help hoist him into

the loft to sleep one off when he was too drunk to drive home. Once, playing

the Good Samaritan, I bundled him into the back seat of my car and drove

him to his home only to have his distraught wife refuse to take him in. On

our return to the stable he sobered up just enough to curse me for getting him

into trouble with his wife.

I found his drinking and disgraceful behaviour deplorable but it was

the way he treated the horses that really bothered me. As the old saying

goes, “There’s something about the outside of a horse that tells you about

the inside of a man.”

Sparkplug was assigned Lancer, one of the kindest, most easygoing

creatures you could ask for. A child could ride the animal but Sparkplug

kept the poor beast in a constant state of stress and anxiety. He would ride

through the streets holding the reins too tightly and digging his oversized

spurs into the horse’s flanks. Lancer would have to dance on the spot to

accommodate Sparkplug’s conflicting commands. He liked the image of

himself on a prancing steed. After what should have been a quiet ride, the

horse would most often be returned to the stable dripping sweat and bleeding

around the mouth. If no one else was at the stable the horse would be put in

his stall still wet and neglected.

The horses had to have the hair on their manes and legs clipped

periodically and the job was the responsibility of the officer they were

assigned to. Lancer would stand quietly when officers other than Sparkplug

used the electric shears on him but he insisted on using a painful device

called a twitch clamped to his muzzle and sometimes his ears. Once when I

saw this happening I offered to clip the horse for him but he declined my

offer telling me to fuck off and mind my own business. Being the junior man

I complied with his request.

If everybody working at the station had been like him, working there

would have been unbearable. Thankfully they were not. I was finding out

that my initial impression of what the men working on the Unit had been

wrong and for the most part they were good hardworking guys and if

anything, slightly more sensitive than your average cop.

There was one man in particular whose personality stood out in stark

contrast to the mean spirited attitude of Sparkplug. His name was Frank

Lepper.

By the time I started with the Unit he had already done his fair share

of time on the street, over 35 years, and had opted to become Quartermaster,

a role that would keep him in the stable mending tack, attending to sick or

injured horses and making sure that the Unit was well supplied with all the

special, some times hard to find, equipment that we needed.

He seemed very old to me when I first met him but he couldn’t have

been too much more than fifty-five. Maybe it was the way he looked when I

first met him that had me pegging him as totally ancient.

He was sitting in one of the old captain’s chairs in the tack room with

a yellow felt numnah spread over his lap, using a sewing awl, stitching away

at a leather patch. His glasses were perched on the end of his nose and he

looked for all the world like the illustrations of Giappetto in the Pinocchio

books.

When he stood, rising to his full height to take my hand, he defied this

impression of frailness. His grip was not that of an old man. His hair was

grey white and his face had a few well-earned wrinkles but he appeared slim

and in good shape and had the bearing of a much younger man.

He was a crusty but likeable old bugger, a bit opinionated but his

opinions generally had a great deal of merit.

He was like an old mother hen with the new men and wouldn’t brook

any nonsense from them. When one of them would get too big for their

britches and start bragging about how well they could ride, Frank would

crack back at them, “You couldn’t ride a street car, --- with the doors

closed!”

He had a routine: every lunch hour he would finish up his dinner by

eating an orange. You could always tell exactly how many horses were in

the stable at the time by the number of pieces of orange peel that ended up in

his thermos cup. When he was through eating he would go to each of the

horses in their stalls and they would get their share of the peel from the flat

of his hand.

I really like him and looked upon him as a mentor. He was a wealth of

knowledge about the Mounted Unit and also his days on the R.C.M.P.

Sometimes when Sparkplug was up to one of his nasty tricks with the

horses, I would see Frank marching out of the stable shaking his head and

rolling his eyes but he would never take the man to task as he would have

had it been anyone else.

At first I couldn’t figure out why Frank, or for that matter, the Police

Force, would put up with a character like Sparkplug but as time went on it

became clear to me.

The man was a narcissistic sycophant of the first order. While it was

understood that the mounted policemen were to function, in most respects,

like other members of the force, making arrests, traffic control etc., there

was meant to be a strong emphasis on public relations. Everyone loved to

see the horses on the streets. While the rest of our Unit were doing their best

to maintain a good rapport with locals, Sparkplug was terrorizing the

neighbourhood by issuing literally hundreds of parking tickets every day.

The stats looked good on the division’s monthly reports and apparently were

the reason that those in charge overlooked his multitude of sins.

I couldn’t stand the man and quite often, at the end of a shift, when he

walked through the lunchroom with his bony fingers clutched around a

huge stack of yellow tickets, I would take him to task. I would say things

like, “I hope you’re proud of yourself!” or “How many people did you piss

off today?”

I think my remarks had caused him to dislike me because one

afternoon I was leaning back in a chair writing in my memo book and,

seeing him approaching with yet another huge pile of tickets, I delivered

another sarcastic salvo in his direction then resumed writing. When I looked

up to see if my remarks had had any effect on him, all I saw was a bundle of

knuckles flying in my direction. Before I knew what was happening, I was

on my back with Sparkplug hammering away at my head and shoulders.

I should mention that Sparkplug’s life of debauchery had left him

bereft of any muscle or conditioning that he once might have had so it didn’t

take too much effort on my part to turn the tables on him and return a little

bit of what he had been dishing out.

Our little disagreement was a signal for the rest of the cops present to

leave the room and wait in the stable until we settled our differences. That’s

why, after we had rolled around the floor and exchanged punches for some

considerable time, I was surprised to hear someone behind me cheering me

on and shouting, “Give it to the bastard!”

Holding onto Sparkplug’s skinny wrists, I glanced over my shoulder

and saw that my vocal fan was not one of the other policemen. In fact he was

an irate citizen who had come to the station to complain about being

repeatedly ticketed and harassed by Sparkplug. His presence had a sobering

effect on both my opponent and myself so we unravelled long enough to

direct him to the Complaints Department.

As the door closed behind him, I grabbed Sparkplug’s shirtfront and

pulling him toward me, shouted, “You’re under arrest for assault!” He

shoved me backwards and through clenched teeth growled, “Guess again,

you little prick, you’re under arrest!” This debate might have gone on for

some time but it ended when the cold contents of three buckets of cold water

came flying in our direction followed by the rest of the crew. They separated

us and explained how complicated it would be for us to arrest each other.

The water had cooled me down and I realized how ridiculous we both had

been acting, so I backed off and decided to let the matter drop.

Traditionally, what happens in the stable stays in the stable so I went

home for the weekend looking forward to letting bygones be bygones and

resuming a normal routine. I hadn’t considered the rodent like tendencies of

Sparkplug. He contacted the Inspector at his home and shovelled his slanted

version of what had happened into his willing ear. On Monday morning my

horse remained tied up and instead I was riding the carpet in front of the

Inspector’s desk defending myself. Fortunately I had recently received a

commendation for a bit of clever police work and bearing that in mind, he let

the matter drop.

I hurried back to the stable. I was as mad as hell. As I burst through

the door I bumped into old Frank. “Where’s Sparkplug?” I shouted. “I

suppose he’s up in the loft with the rest of the rats.” I tried to push by him

but he grabbed the doorjamb and his arm blocked my way. “Let it go, son,

you can’t win; I’ve seen lots of guys like Sparkplug over the years and

eventually they get their come comeuppance.” He was right, he always was,

so I let the matter drop and decided to watch and wait.

Several years later and after I had left the Force, a policemen from

Mounted Headquarters came to my door with the news that Sparkplug had

been struck by a vehicle and killed when he had staggered out of his car on

the busy 401. I ask when it had happened and the cop said he wasn’t sure

but that it must have a short time ago. He said he had been telephoned and

asked to tell me about the accident by an old mounted cop who was now

stationed at the Courts Bureau. “You might know him,” he said. “His name

is Frank Lepper.”

Frank Lepper