Tethered

During the first leg of an adventure I am now fortunate enough to take once a week instead of five, I sat in a coffeeshop in the Mission and battled connecting to an unsecured wifi network and saw a motorcycle cop park out front and prepare himself for a similar beverage procured behind the counter from where I was sitting.


I watched as he took his helmet off, and laid it on the handlebars, and I wondered what would happen if, as soon as he turned his back, some rogue individual scurried up and snatched it.

It's not like it's his service firearm, but a motorcycle cop without his helmet is like a Ron without his Jeremy, if you catch my meaning.

After ordering his coffee, he strided over to a corner seat, which offered an optimal defensive and viewing position and proceeded to nosh on his bagel.

I remarked at the uniform, which reminded me of the staties in Boston: near knee-high boots, bloused pants, jacket shoulders punctuated with Judge Dredd-like authority, and a helmet, which did nothing but remind me of the T1000 with all its inventive talents proferred by a mimetic poly-alloy.

Without the helmet he looked like an over-grown child in a very realistic Halloween costume, or maybe an zealous uncle taking the kids out for trick or treating. At the very least it was evident that he was older than I, and probably was enjoying his tenured position while the retirement pension window shortened with each passing shift.

Would he miss the helmet? What would happen to it after retirement? Would the department let him keep the uniform if he wanted?

I could stand losing corporate supplied laptops and mobile devices: I could always find the same ones elsewhere. The helmet, however, is probably less replaceable.
Which leads me back to my original thought: why simply leave it on the handlebars? Must be some American frontier artifact...like tying off your hoss in front of the saloon.