4th Degree Burn

4th Degree Burn
Hawkeye Police Dept.
Suspect Interrogation
Case file AV492-813 Date 10.27.03
Suspect: Clyde Hampton

"Well, I guess it really started when I 'as a kid. Five or six, about. Mom used to make chili for us, but she didn't like it too meaty. She never cared for meat, always more of a vegetable person, so she put in a lot of beans but kept out a lot of the meat. I liked her chili, which I remember eating first at about five, and never thought much about it.

"Dad took me to a diner when we went to Sioux Falls to see family, 'cause he didn't think we'd like much of the food at Aunt May's, and he ordered me a bowl of chili. Well it didn't taste a thing like mom's. It had more meat, not many beans, and this... kinda... well, full flavor to it that got me. But what I 'member most about it, it was spicy. They must've put Tabasco in it, more Tabasco than tomato sauce, 'cause it kicked me square in the face, like a punch or somethin'.

"Anyway, I got to likin' chili more, but mom's was never good enough, not like she made it, after that. I got her to buy me some Tabasco, and made that brown chili red with all the sauce I put in. It was good, made me sweat like. Always have liked spicy things since, chili, eggs, I even put them little neon green pepper things on my sandwich and whatnot. Good stuff.

"So today I get the urge for some chili, right, about the time my route takes me past Frank's General. So I park the dump in two spots in the lot and run inside to get some peppers and beans, I've got meat an' all. After work, I get in my own truck and go home to make a big mess a chili for the next day or two. Ain't no problem to bring chili to lunch, in one of 'em plastic tubs my last girl left in my kitchen when she moved out. They're microwave safe an' all.

"I got the chili goin', and went to add peppers. In all my experiences, the only peppers to put in chili without ruinin' the taste are these little red ones, look kinda like a big thumb with a stem and such. Habaneros. They don't have much seeds, right? So I cut two a 'em up and pick the pieces up and such, puttin' 'em in the pot with my fingers. Like I'd always done, nice 'n easy.

"Now this whole time, I'd been drinking milk, 'cause it went bad the day before but still smelled and tasted good 'n all, so I finished it off while I cooked. That's the only thing to treat a pepper burn, right? Milk. And bread, if you eat it slowly. But the burn is what I like, why else put peppers there at all..."

******

Officer Larry Horn
Interview, 10/28/03

"I've been an officer in Hawkeye for on about fifteen and a half years, roughly. We don't see much action, which is good for the citizens. Dull, but that goes with a lot of city jobs. Moments of panic and action, but they're separated by days of uttin' nothin'.

"Last night I got this call, on my cell phone, 'cause a lot of people know me, instead of through dispatch like they should have, that there's a dog on the loose 'round about 8th and Nichols, barking up a storm and disturbing Alice Greniger's bird watching. Now Alice isn't one to pass an opportunity to complain, but she's not without necessity sometimes, and we don't have any animal control specialists. We share ambulances with Bennett County ya know, hard enough to get that, much less animal folk. Oh well, it was nice out, so I drove on over to catch it.

"There's a gas station at the corner, across the street from Alice's house that her husband built back when Langweg was mayor and city jobs actually paid well. Or so my daddy told me. She was just Alice in the white house by the stop light to us then. Apparently that dog done ran right through her back yard a yappin' like the devil and scarin' away some rare somethin' or other, so she told me when I walked around to her back porch. She pointed across Nichols to the gas station, sayin' that's where the dog ran off to.

"Fine, I'll take a look I told her, and walked across the intersection. Sure enough, there was some barkin' behind that old station, like the dog found a rabbit or something. I walked around the corner past their detached bathroom that's been busted for a year, and came up around the big cigarette sign on the fence. You betcha that dog was there alright, and hell if he wasn't carryin' on and such like the dickens. Can't say I blame him, it was damn confusing for even me..."

******

Neda Hampton
Email sent to Vern Trigg, Oct. 29, '03

Vern,
I got the most distressing news last night from Clyde. He is due in court tomorrow, but released for the time on his own recognizance. Seems the police and he had a little misunderstanding, but I don't see what he did wrong. Bless him, he doesn't make sense all the time, but he's got a good heart you know, not like the criminals the police should be locking up.

Remember that time in the '90s when Clyde got his job and we had a BBQ, and you and Rose came over and brought that rack of ribs? Remember how Clyde loved your special sauce, but still dumped all those accursed pepper flakes on his portion? Well, you know he likes the spicy foods, has since we went to Sioux Falls when he was seven, and it seems like this was his downfall. Everyone has an Achilles' tendon, and his are those little peppers he cooks with.

He says those habaneros are the hottest peppers he can find around these parts, and that the police spray uses chemicals that come from such things. I told him time and again that he doesn't need to be eating anything the police use to spray criminals with, but he always just laughed. Not now, I suspect.

Let me be straight, he had a bit of an accident with them the other night, of a gentle nature. You see, when he got done chopping those little things...

******

Dillon Paulson
Witness Testimony
Hawkeye Municipal Court
10-31-03

"...Okay. Dillon Paulson, 341 Terrace Ranch, Hawkeye. South Dakota. I'm sixteen years old sir. I work at Casey's gas station on Nichols street, we're open twenty four hours but I only work evenings after school. Yes, Hawkeye Senior sir, I'm on the show rodeo team in the spring.

"Last Monday? I remember Clyde coming in, he had this desperate kinda look about him, like he was bein' chased or somethin'. Asked about our bathroom, I told him it was broken. He bought a gallon of milk, yes, I remember that. The date was all smudged off, but it was fresh. We only sell fresh milk, your honor, and beer and soda.

"He was wearing this t-shirt, gray with something on it, and jeans with the top button undone. I remember ringin' up his sale and makin' fun of him for the whole button thing, but he seemed like he was somewhere else, didn't even stick around to get his change. He just ran out the door before I could give him the receipt. Weird, but he does drive those big trucks, and my pappy always...yeah your honor, sorry.

"So a minute later Officer Horn rolls up across the street, to Alice's place, and then comes walkin' over this a way. I haven't got a beef with her, and haven't papered her house in a while, so I had no idea why Larry was walking towards the store an' me. But he went to the left, same direction as Clyde a minute before, like he was looking for someone or somethin'..."

******

Hawkeye Police Dept.
Suspect Interrogation
(tape continued from side 1)

"So I'm done an' cleaning up an' every little thing, when I have to pee. I go to the bathroom and pee, and it doesn't hit me at first. These things take time, like how you eat two or three spoons of chili 'fore you start burnin' inside. Well I finished up and washed my hands a'terwards, but I'd done the damage already then. Not but three minutes later I was cleanin' up the spilt sauce an' all, when my penis starts burnin'.

"It was the capsicum in the peppers, same as'n you use to spray them drug kids with. My penis burned like it'as on fire, like when you pee and it burns but on the outside. Pepper's never meant to be used like that, an' I guess the habanero juice on my fingers was just 'nough to do the trick on me. Whoa, it burned, and there's not much you can do then, the damage's been done. But ya can't just let it burn like that, not there, so I took a shower right quick. Water only spreads the burn in your mouth, and it sure does work same for the rest of you too.

"By now it was most uncomfortable thing e'er, and not much I could do about it, so I go to the refrigerator for some milk, right, to soak it in. But the milk 'as all by then. I don't know how good bread would be in this particular, so I threw my pants an' shirts on an' drove fast as e'er to the gas station for a gallon a milk. It's only two blocks or so, and I'm guessin' 'cause a later that I left my door open a bit when I left.

"Dillon, that Paulson kid, was workin' the counter there and got I guess quite a fright from seein' me run in like that, but I got the milk and just handed him four dollars 'fore I ran outside. There really was no time to drive back, I was almost cryin' 'cause it burned so bad, like a chemical burn, eh. They're bathroom's busted, been for years, so I run 'round back the store an' cut the top off that jug with my knife..."

******

Officer Larry Horn
Interview, 10/28/03

"...I've heard of the man from Wyandotte, in Oklahoma, caught indiscrete like with a pumpkin one night, but I've never seen the kind of perversion that was goin' on back of that store. I saw the back of this guy's shirt, a gray t-shirt I immediately was suspicious of on account of it being too cold out for t-shirts this time of year. The dog was running between his legs, lapping something off the ground and a carrying on. The man, Clyde Hampton as it turned out later, had his hands in front of his body where I couldn't see 'em, so I drew my gun and called out to him. In all my time in Hawkeye, I never drew my gun more than twenty seven times, more or less, but this was just a might suspicious for the back of a convenience store.

"I called out to Clyde turn around boy, and sure enough I saw his muscles tense and head snap up. He turned around, holding this milk jug in his hands, top cut off and..."

******

Neda Hampton
Email sent to Vern Trigg, Oct. 29, '03

...so he tells me, this is on the phone from jail mind you, that Otto had run through a neighbor's yard and she'd called the police on account of the disturbance. That's how the officer wound up coming around the back of that store, and must have had quite a fright. Clyde said he heard the officer yell, and so he turned around slowly, still soaking himself in the milk while Otto barked and carried on. I hoped that the officer would laugh so hard he'd forget to press charges, but obviously he isn't keen on milk offenders.

I asked him on the phone, I said well, did you at least get the burning to stop, and he said that it did until he dropped that gallon right on poor Otto's hind. Then the burning came back from the breeze and all. I just don't know what to make of this Vern, Clyde's never been to jail before...

******

Hawkeye Police Dept.
Suspect Interrogation
(tape continued from side 1)

"An' Officer Horn ordered me to fix my pants, which I did, 'cept for the big stain on the front and runnin' down my leg. That didn't bother me any, but the breeze whippin' 'cross there before, while we was standin' there starin' at each other, that was uncomfortable as all. Cold air, kind' like the shower water, right, brings the burning back.

"Otto was fine, the gallon was mostly spent from when I cut it open by the time I had to drop it. Po' critter was right under the jug, an' ya gotta do what a man with a gun says, eh. But Officer Horn was nice 'bout Otto, let him come in the back of the car with me. He dropped Otto off at my place, on account of jails being for people and not dogs ya see, an' told me my door was standin' wide open. 'xplains that.

"So that's, in a nut shell like, 'bout how I got here. Ain't no crime a man's gotta put out a burn, ya know. 4th degree like."

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