If you are not already somewhat familiar with the ins and outs of my job, I work for a little known branch of the federal government whose name I would rather omit; not so much as a matter of national security, but because the truth of the matter is, no one knows or really cares who we are or what we do to begin with.

But I digress.

I wake up and head over, business as usual. 0600. I get my coffee (government swill) and go to the communications center, a stale little room crammed full of radios, computers and file drawers full of law enforcement records and other shit that would make your jaw drop. I check the message traffic, my personal email, update the tide table for the area, check the sunset, sunrise and moonrise. The world has clicked on while I slept. Good.

As I prepare to take the first watch, my boss leans over my shoulder and quietly mumbles for me to pass the watch on to someone else, get a bag phone and the keys to the government SUV. He's got a job he wants me to do.

OK. I get my instructions. I've gotta take one sick guy to the med. clinic in Port Angeles, two hours to the east. Big deal. But that's not all. I must first drive an hour to the west and pick up a guy I know very little about; seems he checked himself into the hospital for clinical depression last night. It's all very hush-hush, and I can understand this. I get a lot of weird jobs; don't ask me why. But I do them, and I do them right.

Now, without delving into the mental health of what amounts to a total stranger, you should know at least the following facts:

One, this guy was on the way out of this particular job at the convenience of the government. Unsuited for the work and more than a little soft upstairs, he had been a problem since day one. To give you a physical picture, think Full Metal Jackets' Private Pyle, with glasses and about 100 lb. weight loss. His co-workers referred to him as Creepy--behind his back of course, and not in the cool but jealous way they referred to Fox Mulder as Spooky.

Two, I am not the kind of guy who takes any great joy in malicious behavior toward other people. I mean, all I wanted to do was pick this cat up, not have him talk to me a whole hell of a lot, and drop him off where he wanted to go. I figured his problems were his own and a job was a job. I'm not some government poster child; in fact if it weren't for this ridiculous uniform I'd be on the other side of the fence. Suspicious. As it is, I have to watch what I say at work, and not allow too much of my personality out, lest I gather distrustful feelings like white on trash.

Fuck it. Draw your own conclusions.

Anyway, I toss my backpack in the back seat, head west, pick up passenger number two and start driving east again. It is now eight A.M.

The drive to the clinic is a grueling two hours, along treacherous mountain roads and hairpin turns that make your nerve endings stand on end the first time you see them. It's old hat to me now, but not in this extended cab Ford Battleship, complete with heavy duty winch, police scanners, duel fuel tanks and light bar. It lacks a tape player, and only receives prayer stations and bad rock on its' limited stereo.

I arrive at the clinic about an hour and forty-five minutes later. The suspension is more than a little tight, so my spine feels like a freakin' accordion already. I drop off patient one, and patient two and I receive our orders. I have to drive to Tacoma, WA and check this guy in to the mental ward of the local army hospital. Great.

So we drive, and for the most part, he's quiet. Every fifteen minutes his cell phone rings with some forgotten classical tune, and he mumbles into it for five minutes and hangs up, mumbling. I don't think he has bathed in days.

I make light talk.

I hate light talk.

Three hours later we cross the Tacoma city limits, and because I am new to this town and my passenger is from here originally, I have to rely on him for directions.

We get to the army hospital and it turns out they've never heard of the guy. They are pleasant enough in a leering PsyOps vulture kind of way, but he balks, stammering and backpedaling. "I was tricked", he exclaims. "They said if I didn't like it, I could just turn around and walk out. I don't want to be here." This would the first of a hundred times this phrase was used in the following nine hours.

First floor admitting of this massive Medi Mall sends us to the fifth floor, the fifth to the first and the first back to the fifth, the fifth to a different wing altogether. I am tired and my head is pounding. I wish like hell I would have had more than one oily cup of Joe to get me going. The cantina ran out of Lucky Charms weeks ago, and it's been Golden Grahams since.

These army grunts look pretty snazzy in their 'you can't see me wearing green camouflage in the urban jungle' duds. I look and feel like ass, and my charge smells like it. One GI Joe at the counter sidles up alongside of us, gets a whiff of something less than squared away, looks over at Creepy, and glances at me. I shrug apologetically.

So my charge goes in to see the on call shrink, and they let him play with dolls (he touched me *here* and made me sad.) or read a Rorschach blot or what ever they do, and like--two hours later, he comes out and waves me back to the office. Hell, I was just supposed to hand this guy off and get on the road by now. I've still got to drive home.

So, in we go to Major Button-pushers' office, or whatever they call him and he's on the phone dicking around with his email for ten minutes while he talks. "Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah." Click. Open file. "Yeah. Uh-huh. Exactly. Sure, sure. Uh-huh. Right. Exactly."

Finally he hangs up and apologizes.

He knows he's got the rank; he could have played Doom for an hour and a half while we did push-ups if he wanted it that way.

Smiling the smile of a man who no doubt owns a copy of "Chicken Soup for the Soldier", and who has probably read and re-read "I'm OK, You're OK" at least a hundred times, he tells me that they are going to release this cat into my care, and I am to take him to his parents house twenty minutes from here, and turn him over. Creepy, as a show of good faith, would be responsible for figuring out a ride back the hospital tomorrow at nine for a follow up, and that was that.

Simple enough. His last words to my charge were, "AVOID CONFRONTATION." Well, that and 'I'll be on call'.

So we get back in the Ford Destroyer and head to his parents place. I've made phone call after phone call and kept my people informed. It lets them sleep at night when I do that. So I hand over the phone and tell him to call ahead, make sure his parents are going to be home with dinner on the table, whatever it takes.

His step dad answers the phone, and I almost feel bad for this poor kid. The guy is belligerent toward him, refusing to let him stay at their house. So we drive for a few. He asks if I can pull over and let him use the can. Sure. He directs me to an apartment complex, and much to my surprise, unlocks the door and walks in. Nice of him to tell me he lived here.

Now, in the meantime he's let it slip that his wife is dancing with another partner, to put it mildly, while he has been away, and again, I feel for him. And, while we're in the apartment they share, he says they are headed back any minute.

So my charge faces me and asks, how much do you want to just go? Just leave me here, how much do you want? Can't you just say I knocked you out and ran away?

"AVOID CONFRONTATION." Hmmm. No, I think that clearly violates the Majors' directive. There's nothing left to do. I call the Home Team again.

"Hey, listen. It's Mac."

I am, at times, beyond rank. My bosses don't refer to me by my title, which is cool, because my title sucks. It's either by my first name, or as I've said, Mac. And not for some pathetic B-boy street creed, but as part of my lineage. Every Scot gets called MacSomething somewhere along the line. I get this treatment because I know more, handle more, and on occasions such as this, do more than other people in my pay grade.

Enough said.

"I've got a problem. No, we're fine, yeah, uh-huh. Listen. His step dad doesn't want him at home, and well, his wife is seeing someone else and they are due home any minute."

I hold the phone away from my ear, wincing at the frantic screaming coming the receiver. "Get out, get out. Get underway, I'll call you in 10 minutes," orders my boss

So we head back out, circling a neighborhood somewhere east of Tacoma for ten minutes until the phone rings again.

My charge answers, the conversation is brief and pleasant. He hands the phone to me, and I pull over. I hate it when people talk and drive at the same time.

My boss tells me to RTB, flat out. Return to base, come home and just bring this guy back. It'd be wrong as hell to leave him there adrift in a shit storm like this, and hey, I agree.

I hang up and get as far as the words, "I'm taking you bac--," before all hell breaks loose. By this time, I have placed the Ford Aircraft carrier in drive, and eased it back into the rush hour traffic.

Creepy goes nuts, unhinged, like a f-cking Samsonite commercial, bellowing and hitting the dash, screaming at me that he'll do something, that he'll kill himself if he has to go back. I try to calm him down, assuring him that he'll be safer there than here, but he just gets louder.

"You don't know what's good for me, how come everyone tells me they know what's best for me! You don't know, I know! I'm not going back, man!" I could kind of sympathize, but hey, he did check himself in for depression, am I wrong?

And so he bails out of the truck--we're only doing like five m.p.h., and he starts walking back the other way. Shit. I grab the phone and hit re-dial.

"He bailed, goddamit. No, I am not shitting you, he bailed out. He said if he had to go back he was gonna do himself and that we had no business telling him what to do and he bailed. What now? Yeah, I can see him, but I'm headed the wrong direction. Absolutely. He said he would do something to himself; those were in fact his words. You're sure? 911? OK. I'll call you back."

I gunned the engine and whipped into a side street. We had been driving along a densely wooded back road next to a series of apartment complexes. I fishtailed this 4 ton motherf-cker in someone's' driveway, flower bed and all, and headed back the other way.

Fuck it; I even flicked on all the lights.

I ease up along side him and tried to persuade him to get back in the truck. I reasoned with him, cajoled and tried to out logic him. Nope. So I dialed Public Enemy's' favorite community service and started telling the dispatcher who I was, what was happening and where I thought I was.

Let's recap. I'm doing maybe 3 miles an hour down a back street somewhere in Tacoma, a place to which I've never been, during rush hour in this Ford Death Star, 911 in one hand and the dopey manic depressive psychomotherf-cker I'm supposed to hand over to the United States Army is being funny guy, walking along the side of the vehicle; traffic is backed up like half a mile behind me, people are honking and waving like I'm really in charge of this parade of fools, I'm trying to wave them around the vehicle--shit, which hand am I steering with?

Finally, as we near the mouth of yet another apartment complex about ten minutes later, I see this maroon Astro van come whipping up the road toward me. He cuts into the mouth of it, cutting off me and my charge, and out hops the Tacoma Yakuza.

Well, OK. A clean-cut Asian plainclothes cop with a gigantic badge and a 9mm clipped to his belt. But he looked pretty damn menacing.

He jumps out of the van, cuts off Creepy who turns this way and that, thinking to himself that if he doesn't actually see the cop, the cop must not be able to see him, and is still walking along.

Nope. The Yakuza grabs him and love taps him against the front of his van. I gas the engine and whip around the other side, cutting off the exit.

Big sigh of relief. I tell the dispatcher what's going on, and then two more county Mounties roll up in twin Black Mariah's. I pass this on, and hang up. Now what?

I turn off the engine, dial back to my people, and let them know what's happening. They want me to follow, and make sure my charge gets handed over to the MPs', or military police, and then get some kind of phone number or a point of contact, like a receipt of transfer. OK.

I jump out and walk over to the cop, feeling like we'd just apprehended some tri-state killing spree suspect and give him the quick rundown. He asks me if I have any phone numbers we can call to the hospital, any point of contact.

Hell no, man. When we left everything was fine.

I look at this cop and I think about the subtle psychology behind the uniform, the Command Presence as Henry Rollins calls it. Clean shave, clean cut, pressed uniform. The 'expert-shot' pin on his shirt. The air of power. The 'I am right and you are wrong, hand over all forms of identification and step away from your car' vibe these guys emit. Scary.

We both agree that we have to take Creepy back to the hospital and turn him over to the MPs, so I beam back aboard the Ford Enterprise, get turned around in traffic, and off we go.

'Don't go too fast," was the last thing I said."I don't know my way around Tacoma." Shit. I made a weak statement, and the cop smelled it.

So with Creepy in the back of the squad car and me, weaving in and out of traffic, trying to keep up with Berretta and, consequently, ignoring where the hell we're going, we roar off.

We get on the freeway. He picks it up. 60. 65. 70. 75. We're doing eighty, in and out of traffic, and somehow, the safety minded motorists of Tacoma manage to pass me in traffic, and get between us. One car, then two. OK, I can still tail someone two cars away. Then three, four. Jesus, seven cars is a bit much.

I've got it to the floor, holding on tight (I suddenly realize I still have the lights on--there goes all my cool) and I feel a throbbing shimmy from the front of the car. I glance at the dash. All the dials are good. Oil, battery, temp and fuel. The throbbing is getting louder. At this point, I don't give a f-ck if the tire blows, I'll follow this son of a bitch on the rims. I am now duty bound to turn this whack job over to The Man, for good or for ill.

The cars begin to peel away--I hit the front strobes for a minute, until it's just Serpico and me. We get off, make a series of turns and I see the base ahead.

I turn off the lights; the date is September the ninth. That shouldn't matter, but it does. Especially when the gates guards are all beret wearing, M-16 toting action figures on a boring gate detail.

I flash my ID at the guard. "The guy in the back of that squad car is my charge, I have to turn him over to the MPs'." He waves me in. The cop takes about fifteen turns and we finally pull up at the emergency entrance of the hospital. I jump out, check the tires. I'm fine. Nothing is wrong with the truck. Things are looking up.

Barney Fife and I march Creepy in through the door of an Army triage unit, and the floor nurse meets us. He's about seven foot something and shimmering bald. Says his name is Bull. He's got the whole ER action gear thing going on; comfy flowing scrubs, running shoes and a mess of first aid gear in a pouch at his waist.

He talks to Creepy in even tones, gives him the run down. The cop gets my statement, and he rolls. Bull puts us in a room down the hall with two bad paintings and a telephone. "Do not leave. If you have to leave, tell me or one of my crew. I have people dying out here, and I can't spare the time just yet, but I will get to you."

Creepy hops on the phone and calls, of all people, his estranged wife and starts telling her a load of shit about how he got here. He hates people, I wouldn't just let him go on the street, on and on it goes. I don't give a f-ck, let him whine.

He hangs up, and since I left the bag phone on board Deep Space Ford, I have to use one of the phone cards in my wallet.

Oh, yeah. I always carry shit like this. Knife, calling card, compass, pen, notebook, matches, Band-Aids. What can I say? I'm paranoid.

Anyway, I call the command. By this time, the CO, the XPO and everybody with an initial in their name is in on it like some crazed betting pool. Word around the office is, I'm a rock star. Good. Put this glory toward my transfer. I've got better things to do with my time.

My boss tells me as soon as I get some kind of clearance or a piece of paper, I can begin the long drive home. It is now 1900. Sorry, seven P.M.

I look over, and that motherf-cker Creepy has walked out of the room. I hang up mid-call and head after him.

The hall is empty. I find him I the next room. We are between the admitting room, and the triage unit. Some GI Jane walks in, tells the receptionist she's here for the amputation class, and wants to know if anyone else is here yet.

Creepy comes back through the door with a sneer on his face. "I had to get a drink, you got a problem with that?"

I yanked him back into the waiting room, shoved him into a chair and let it fly. I told him I didn't give a good goddamn about his problems, he was the one who checked himself into this mess, I was just the poor bastard assigned to watch him. And yes, I did have to do my job, and no, I didn't give a f-ck if he was getting out or not. I had a job to do and like it or not, I was gonna see this ugly f-cker through to the end.

I must have been pretty loud, a few heads popped in and asked if we were all cool in here, to which I answered in the affirmative.

I calmed down, and tried to kindly, calmly explain to Creepy that while I wasn't a flag waving patriot, didn't give a f-ck if he liked me or not or who he thought had it out for him, at least he was still alive.

He wasn't getting a Big Chicken Dinner, or bad conduct discharge, and that as soon as he was out, he could do what he pleased with his life.

All he had to do right now was please, just sit down and stay there. "If you make it rough for me, it ends with you. Fine. But I still have to face the music and I have plans, see? I've got places to do, people to be. So take a deep breath, rinse your face off, whatever. Just calm down and cut me a f-cking break.

That seemed to work.

I let him talk about what ever he wanted, then I got all deep on him, and started telling him some of my theories; that none of this was real, we give purpose to all things to serve our own interests as we see fit, that all of space and matter were just molecules and that Man, on the whole, is the source of a fantastic cosmic joke. You know, the usual crap that comes out of my mouth.

Around nine, I stuck my head out to the main floor. I heard some reference to a machete wound, so I stuck close to the walls as I walked. Interns whipped past me with serious faces on missions of life and death. I found Bull, and he said he'd find someone else to stand in. I went back to the room to wait.

A few minutes later, he walks in with this five foot nothing Samoan guy. Wide. Solid.

"This is one of my good guys. He's gonna be surgically attached to your hip," Bull gestured to Creepy. "If you do anything that remotely resembles, smells or looks like harm to yourself, him or any of my staff, my crew, anyone. He's gonna step back out of the room, yell a few words into the hallway at the top of his lungs, and no less than fifty people are gonna come screaming in here and bum rush you."

"We'll duct tape you to a gurney and you can shit yourself for the rest of the night for all I care. I have lives to save, and a lot of sick people out there. They are trying to live, and you have at some point expressed a wish to die, am I right? If I had more people, it'd be different. But it's a full moon or something, so this is how it has to be. Got it?"

Shit, even I was impressed. He looked at me and said I was relieved, I could go. I got some paperwork and headed for the parking lot.

The truck was still there, and the tires were still solid. Nothing was dragging underneath and the hood had cooled. I hopped in, and called the command.

"The MP's have him, I'm RTB. I'm going to navigate my way off this base, find some fuel and get out of the city and I'll call you back."

I did just that, and just as things were looking up, I got off on the wrong exit and spend twenty minutes circling the Tacoma Dome, finally heading north (I carry a compass, remember?) which took me up a hill. I looked around, found a bright spot, headed for that. As I hoped, it was a gas station which was cool, because both tanks were bone dry and I had no money of my own, just Uncle Sam's fuel card.

I filled up, got directions and headed home. It was now 2000, or 10 P.M. The drive home was pleasant, foggy and cold. The roads were deserted and I did 70 all the way home, arriving about three. A.M.

And that, my friends, is how not to spend a Monday.

Thomas McKenzie is currently working for a small branch of the federal government as a photographer, researcher, historian and general techno-bitch, and is awaiting orders to Defense Information School. He dwells in the Pacific Northwest and is probably very angry right now. His work can also be read at www.tlchicken.com under the pen name 'Smokin' Joe Blow'.