Volume Three - WordPress.com — Get a Free Blog Here

“I’m coming,” said a middle-aged, overweight police officer, walking sleepily toward the counter while
tucking in his shirttail, looking very much as if the nurse’s conjecture had been correct. “You say he’s been
shot?”
The nurse replied, “That’s what he says. I haven’t looked at him yet.”
Clint said, “Yes, sir, I’ve been shot—small caliber, no big deal. Could you call Detective Roy for me please?”
It seemed like an innocent enough request. Detective Roy (Roy being his last name) was an established star
within the DPD, but apparently Officer Rip Van Winkle was more concerned with exerting a little of his
authority. He was a full head shorter than Clint and visibly intimidated, and like a small dog confronted by a
larger one, he used bravado in an attempt to mask his own fear. It wasn’t working very well for him. Standing tall
and puffing out his chest, he poked a finger toward Clint’s.
The cop said, “You’re telling me who to call? Listen here, punk. I’m in charge here, and I decide who needs
to be called. Roy’s a narc. He’s got nothing to do with crimes against persons. Who shot you anyway?”
Clint insisted, “Please, just call Roy. He knows me. He’ll take care of this.”
The nurse interjected, “Excuse me, boys, but there’s the small matter of a gunshot wound that we need to
address. You reckon you can talk while a doctor and I take a look over here at triage?”
“No problem, ma’am,” was Clint’s reply to the nurse, and then to the officer he asked again, “Could you
please? Just call Roy.” Clint was thinking to himself, “Please be there!”
With an exasperated sigh, the officer relented and reached for the telephone on the nurse’s desk. As he kept
an eye on Clint and the nurse, and the doctor who finally came along to take a look for himself, the officer dialed
the number for headquarters and asked to speak with Detective Roy. Luckily Roy happened to be at the station,
which was very unusual.
After a brief exchange the officer yelled across the short distance to the triage station, “He wants to know
who’s asking for him!”
Clint responded with, “Tell him it’s Clint Buchanan,” pronouncing his last name “Buck Hannon” and not
the more common “Bew Cannon.”
Although he understood it, Clint still hated it when people mispronounced his family name, especially since
there was a wildly popular soap opera character at the time whose name was Clint “Bew Cannon,” a pretend
Texan. The officer repeated the name into the phone, pronouncing it incorrectly.
Clint heard the officer say, “Yeah, the kid’s damn big!”
Clint was indeed a big young man by the standards of his time. Almost 21 but still growing, he stood a little
over six feet, six inches tall and weighed a solid 250 pounds, plus or minus a little from day to day. In both size
and demeanor, he was similar to Jimmy Dean’s “Big Bad John,” and since his feet were size 16EEEE, it was easy
to see how folks had come to call him Sasquatch.
Sasquatch hadn’t been Clint’s only nickname. At various times people had called him Bigfoot or Yeti or
Lurch, after the butler on the “Addams Family” television show, but he tolerated Sasquatch. In fact, he rather
liked it, and although Bigfoot is ostensibly synonymous, it seemed merely to poke fun at his big feet. On the
other hand, Sasquatch seemed to refer to his whole person. Yes, Clint was willing to split that hair. If it had to be
either, it had to be Sasquatch. He might have liked Yeti but thought it too arcane.
Many cops have nicknames. Clint’s buddy Detective Roy, for instance, was called Hulk. He was a barrelchested
weightlifter, and he despised his first name, Carroll. Hulk hated that his parents had given him a “girl’s
name,” and he had considered changing it to Carl. Most folks just called him by his last name or Hulk, and those
who slipped up and called him Carroll generally regretted it.
Clint had pretty much embraced Sasquatch, thinking it lucky that he had come upon his nickname so young
and so naturally. Clint, of course, wasn’t a cop yet, and now he wasn’t sure if he ever would be or even if he
really wanted to be. Still, he liked thinking of himself as a legend, and the moniker also addressed his elusive
loner quality as well as his size. Beast or human, though, this Sasquatch had a bullet in him that required
attention.
After an examination and some x-rays, the doctor decided that the removal of the bullet would not require
an operating room or a surgical team. Apparently the density of Clint’s chest muscles had put a quick halt to the
small, weak bullet. It had stopped just below the skin, and the doctor could take it out right there in the ER.