~!~ cherry chan ~!~ (seresa) wrote in remains_freenet, @ 2016-10-24 20:53:00 |
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[FILMED SEPTEMBER 5, 2019: The view of the sidewalk leading up to the Kulseth house looms within the frame as Cherry walks. Her voiceover begins without much preamble:] What are the odds of someone you knew from before, someone you hadn't seen in years, being in the exact same place where you ended up after zombies pushed you out of your home state? And that he's working in the APD against the MC guys you'd been living with for years? [She pauses a few feet away from the door.] It should've occurred to me that the Kulseths were somewhere around Austin, as it hadn't ever been a secret that they lived there, but maybe, considering where I ended up, I didn't want to know if he was around. Times are different, though, these days, and it's time to find out what makes the police chief -- and the father of my best friend, because 'small world' and all -- tick. [The visual changes, then, to a few minutes later. Cherry takes a seat across from Joel, a man she still thinks of as 'Mr. Kulseth' automatically, and holds the camera in her hands. The first visual is a shot of the man himself, framed dead center in his living room, and she offers him a small smile behind the camera's lens.] Can you tell me your name? Joel Kulseth. [The first question reminds Joel of how he might begin an interrogation; his shoulders relax with the thought, and the usual frown of his mouth softens.] And what do you do in Austin, Mr. -- [She catches herself just in time.] Joel, I mean. [Joel’s eyes move from the camera for only a second before he answers.] I’m the Chief of Police. [His answer doesn’t feel so difficult to say now that he’s been wearing the title for a few months.] What kinds of responsibilities come with that? [her questions are intentionally open-ended; she hopes he'll begin to give her more than just the basics as they continue and grow more comfortable with each other.] A laundry list. I oversee the Austin Police Department as a whole, making sure rules, regulations, and proper procedures are upheld. I do everything from making sure my officers are doing the sh-things they should be, to keeping track of what vehicle repairs we’re racking up. [Even to him it sounded boring. But cop work rarely looked like what was portrayed in movies.] I also participate in police patrols and searches, whenever possible. Have you ever been anything else than a cop? I worked a diner job in high school, but I joined the force straight out of college. [He relaxes more, smiles a little.] My father was a cop, my uncles were cops, and my brothers too, so you could say wearing blue was in my blood. [Cherry relaxes a little once they begin to toe the waters of stuff she doesn't know about, yet.] Where did you grow up? Big family? Big enough. Most of the Kulseth side stayed around Los Angeles, including my pops. My ma was Italian though, so I had just as much family on the east coast. But I never saw much of ‘em. My pops though, his side of the family was a real tight knit group, there were always people around even when you didn’t want them to be. Who did you see the most of, growing up? [Joel has to think before he answers. It’s been more than a few years since he was a kid in LA.] My uncle Rob and his wife, probably. He was my pops youngest brother. Used to keep a close eye on me when I was a kid, ‘cause me and my step-dad were at odds more than we weren’t. [It still feels weird to pry, but she goes for it nonetheless.] Why? [Joel fights his reaction to shrug.] I was a punk kid. He showed up not that long after my pops died and I resented him for it. [She can't help but make a face, imagining Mr. Kulseth as a 'punk.' It relaxes her, though. Makes this feel less weird.] Did you guys ever figure out how to get along, or was it always kind of tough between you? We got along once we weren’t living in the same house. It helped that I grew up and realized he was only trying to make sure I made the right choices. We weren’t close though. That sounds familiar. [It's said with only a touch of bittersweetness.] How many brothers did you have? Any sisters? Two brothers. One older, one younger. No sisters. Some days I wish I would have had at least one though, probably would have done me some good while I was trying to raise my girls. [Even though she knows the answer, she still asks:] How many children do you have? Three girls. [He has the kind of expression most parents get when they start talking about their kids.] My older two are grown, and my youngest acts like she is some days. I never believed that parenting was hard until after Ahna, my oldest, was born. I was so scared the first time I held her. [She smiles, recalling Mina's older sister.] What year was that? Were you already working as a cop when you guys had her? 1990. I was fresh out of the academy, on the force for less than six months. I used to come off of my shift and sleep a couple hours, then take baby duty when Shannon needed her rest. We hadn't planned on having kids that soon. She must've been pregnant when you joined up, right? Or just about there? [It's weird to consider him as he must have been right out of college, but she can almost picture it as she studies him now.] [He gives a small nod] She was. [he hesitates before he continues] Real family drama too, at least for a while ‘cause my ma was upset I knocked a girl up without being married, without being done with school and working a steady job. Was that one of the reasons you joined when you did? No, I’d already done most of the prelim stuff before I found out. Shan would have kicked my ass if I rushed into something just for her sake. She was real independent. [he smiles a little and glances at Cherry instead of the camera lens] My two older girls, they got her best traits, in their own ways. [She returns the smile off-screen, shifting for a moment into the role of Mina's best friend.] Will you tell me more about her? [A hugely open ended question, she knows, but Cherry's favorite part of an interview is when she doesn't guide the person, just lets them expand on the people and places that matter most to them.] [he’s quiet, considers it. He doesn't want to say anything Ahna or Mina wouldn't be comfortable people knowing.] Shan was too good for me. A firecracker of a woman, so smart she made everything look easy. Made me wonder why she bothered giving me the time of day when I was just a punk hovering near academic probation. When she set her mind on something that was it - it's why we never got married; she didn't believe that taking my name and signing a piece of paper should make a difference. [he has a faraway look for a few seconds] Shan had the best sense of humor too. Dry, but so witty. She kept the people around her on their toes. [he takes a breath] She would have done anything for our girls, too. She loved them more anything. [Cherry knows why he's using the past tense to refer to her, but she can't quite bring herself to make Joel clarify for the average viewer. Not yet, anyway.] What traits of hers do you see in your two oldest daughters? Ahna, my oldest, she has opinions in spades. She always has. It made parenting her a real challenge sometimes. [there’s more he could have said, but he leaves it there.] And Mina, she’s so smart and so driven. Her persistence reminds me of her mother, too. [he reigns in some of the emotions that are just hovering at the surface before they’re really apparent.] Sometimes it’s just the little things - a look or a smile, or some gesture that feels like they picked it up from her. [Cherry bites her lip briefly, but proceeds onward:] Do they remember her well? I think they remember some things well, but they were both young when she died. [She meets his gaze unflinchingly, despite her previous nerves.] When did that happen? How? [Joel looks at Cherry for a stretch of seconds before he answers.] Car accident. Hit and run. She was on her way home from work, headed to pick up the girls from daycare. It was 1998, towards the end of summer. [Everyone's lost somebody these days, but it doesn't make it any easier. Especially when it happened before the world went to shit. She's trying hard, but there's no way she can maintain impartiality now. Not when it's this close to home.] I think she'd be proud of you. You and the girls, everyone. Even now, after everything, your family's sticking together. [She can't help the jealousy that creeps into her voice, either.] You should be proud of that. [he smiles, it’s brief, but unlike a few of the others times in the interview it’s unreserved. A look at what’s beneath the exterior.] I am. It’s been important to me to keep my family together and safe. [She turns then, less to break the eye contact between her and Joel and more to pan slowly around the apartment now that the conversation is touching on more than just him in the here and now.] Who lives here with you? My wife, Mariah, and my ten year old daughter, Kaisha. Does your wife work in the Capitol? [he nods.] Yes. She’s a lawyer with the Department of Justice. A lawyer and a cop. [she smiles, even though she knows colluding with the Hellhounds used to be a crime.] How did you meet? At the gym. [he admits with a smirk.] She walked right up and started talking. I wasn’t the best conversationalist, but it didn’t seem to bother her. Only found out after we’d started dating that she’d been using me to avoid some meathead that kept hassling her for a date. [Cherry returns the smirk, though it's a bit odd to commiserate about romance with her best friend's father.] It must have worked out if she stuck around. [she pauses, thinking through the interview so far, then adds:] Is it at all difficult to balance being a cop and being a father and husband? All the time. [he admits, showing some vulnerability in his answer.] My family matters most, but there’s been times that my job has had to take priority. It’s the nature of the beast. I can’t always drop everything when a kid is sick, or my wife’s had a bad day, but I signed on for that when I took the job. Have you ever regretted the decision? No, I haven’t. I think there are always things with a job that will interrupt life. There’s no guarantee another career would have been more ideal. What attracted you to being a cop? There must be something besides your family. [she offers him a smile.] You don't exactly strike me as the kind of guy who'd do something just because others were. [He laughs a little before answering] I wanted to do right by people, to make some kind of a difference in the community. I struggled with academics, otherwise I probably would have been a teacher instead. Is that still what you like best about what you do? Helping the community? Yeah, it's still the thing that keeps me coming back. Even when I was working the shittiest undercover cases, I’d keep going because of that. Did you work undercover here in Austin, too? [she knew he did before they moved, and she kicks herself internally for allowing her familiarity with him to continue to slip into the interview.] I mean, where all have you worked? [an unreadable expression crosses his face, like he caught her slip but isn't going to make something of it] After I served my time as a beat cop I worked Vice in LA, then Las Vegas after that, when I had an old superior of mine reach out. It had been a bad year, I needed the change of scene. We moved to Austin in 2009, when Mariah received a job opportunity down here. I’ve worked my share of undercover cases in Texas, but not any more than LA or Vegas. [She's admittedly curious about whether he ever attempted any undercover work with the Hellhounds, once the world went to hell.] Did you enjoy being undercover more so than what you do now? I think I’m more naturally suited to undercover. [he’s trying to be neutral with his answer.] But I haven’t been chief long enough to compare the two. Ask me again when I have more than a few months under my belt. How did it suit you better? Leadership doesn't come natural to me, I have to really work at it. Working a case, earning trust, putting the pieces together, those kinds of things come much easier. Did you ever do that kind of work before the US government came in and you were promoted? [She pauses, knowing this may be a bit of a sticking point between them and for her old friends watching, then adds:] With the Hellhounds. No. I was never in with the Hounds. Olinger put people in there, but they weren't law enforcement. [She purses her lips behind the camera; Cherry was never in the inner circle of the Hellhounds, but it was impossible to not know about the drama with the rat and his wife.] Were you aware that he had infiltrated the Hellhounds? Or was that kept separate from the police? [He shakes his head.] Some of the higher ranking officers might have been informed, but as a lieutenant I only had my own suspicions, not any concrete knowledge. But I believe that if there had been actual law enforcement oversight it would have been run differently. Cops don’t run cases like that. Like what? [She can't help but be curious.] How would you have done it, and how is that different from what happened? From an outsider's perspective, and only operating on what’s been included in the files that were seized from Olinger himself, there weren’t enough -if any- safety measures put in place to protect the greater city of Austin from retaliation if his operation was exposed. His man was working without any kind of back up, near as I can tell, and very little oversight. If it had been me inside the Hellhounds club, any decisions that would affect the success of the operation would have been made by a commanding officer. My only responsibility would have been to gather information on the organization and their criminal dealings, and to have an exit strategy if for one reason or another they sniffed me out. [he pauses.] Professional detachment would have been required, because if you get personally invested in a case it’s an immediate loss in percentage of success. In the case of Olinger’s man it seems pretty clear in the reports that he wanted leadership of the club, and I wouldn’t have expected him to hand that authority over to Olinger if they had managed to overthrow Hawkins and his crew. [he takes another breath like he realizes it’s a lot of words he’s just strung together.] There’s more, but those are the things that stick out the most. [Despite everything that's changed -- where she lives, the Hellhounds' new lawfulness, her new connection with Mina -- Cherry can't help but feel sick to her stomach as Joel outlines how he would've handled the situation. She's always known he was a good cop, and she feels guilty for thinking that she's glad it wasn't him who'd infiltrated the MC. She's silent for a moment, considering this, before she continues.] There was no love lost between the APD and the Hellhounds then, was there? No. Cops and criminals don’t generally get along, but with some organizations you’ll find some respect between the two. Hawkins made it clear what kind of relationship he wanted with the Austin Police when he executed one of our men out in the Greenbelt, though. Before Austin -- before the uprising, I mean. Did you ever have to deal with anything like the MC we had here? [Joel had been expecting that question might come, so he was already nodding before Cherry had finished.] We had a crew in Nevada. Called themselves the Road Devils. They were gunrunners mostly, and less volatile than the Hellhounds, but still a lot of trouble. Did you work vice with them? [he shakes his head.] Not undercover. I worked back up on a few stings, though. The first couple years I was in Vegas they kept their heads low; most of their senior leadership had been brought up on charges in 2001 and given prison sentences. The rest of the crew wanted to act like they were on their best behavior. [She can't help but think it all sounds very familiar.] Why do you think those kinds of outlaw organizations form? Honestly? I think a lot of it has to do with feeling like they’re in control of their own freedom. Other times I think it’s because they don’t fit anywhere else in law-abiding culture. But there’s not a hard and fast set of reasons. The roots of most clubs go back to just after World World II, when soldiers were coming back and feeling like they didn’t have a place. Is what you think happened here, with the Hellhounds? They didn't feel like they were in control of their freedom? No, I think it had more to do with Hawkins than that. He gathered a lot of guys that were already fringe, created a brotherhood, with people who’d watch their back in a pinch. They were a tight crew. [he stops in the middle, rethinks her question and what he’s just said.] Maybe it was about being in control of something, after all. They definitely didn’t want to fall under the authority of the law. Well, it's not as though the law those days was all that great or fair. [old habits and reflexes die hard, apparently; Cherry bites her lip, remembering just who she's talking to.] [Joel frowns at Cherry’s defensive statement. He knows the shortcomings of his department, and what that probably looked like to anyone who sympathized with the Hellhounds.] I don’t disagree. It had very serious problems, but believe me, I’ve read as many of the case files from that period as I could. Many of the arrests and actions that were made in the name of the law being upheld are things that could keep me up at night if I let them. My department as it stands will not be creating their own idea of what’s lawful and what isn’t. [it isn't the reaction Cherry was expecting from a lifelong police officer, but it makes her feel a little better. Still, her skepticism persists though she knows that even if Joel had disagreed with the way things had been then, he wouldn't have been able to do all that much about it.] So what would you have changed about the past three years, if you'd had a say? Simple answer? [he raises an eyebrow and gives a humorless kind of smirk.] I would have cleaned house a lot sooner. I would have made sure that the laws this country was built on were being upheld properly. The Hellhounds weren’t the only group using fear to their advantage. [she's feeling better the more Joel says that's to her liking, but it isn't yet enough to satisfy her curiosity -- both professionally and personally.] Would you mind being a little more specific? What from the past, exactly, did you feel was unlawful? There was a handful of arrests and incarcerations that were made that had little to no evidence of actual crimes to back them up. There were never any formal charges brought up, and no court hearings, so the most that the patrolmen and department should have been able to do was hold them twenty-four hours for questioning. [he’s irritated even recalling those situations in particular, because they still reflect poorly on his department.] Due process was completely ignored, and had we had competent leadership it wouldn’t have been. What about the reasons why we -- the Hellhounds -- why they went outlaw in the first place? Restricting food and supplies to only the people who were willing to go along with their demands… [Cherry's wondering if she'll ever touch on something Joel won't want to answer, but she can't help but keep trying her luck.] Didn't that ever seem odd to you? Of course it did. [he’s tense and bordering on frustrated, which he thinks probably reads in the video picture.] It’s no excuse, but I had my family to think about. I couldn’t stick my neck out without some concrete evidence of misconduct, or backup. If I had Olinger wouldn’t have hesitated to make me a non-issue. [This much is true, and the memory of just how shaken Mina was at the thought of losing Joel back in May is enough for Cherry to back away from the topic. Still, she knows she's just as tense as Joel is, though she did expect something like this after he contacted her to set up this interview. So she pivots to a related, but different topic, and offers him a truce of a smile behind the camera's lens.] Was there anything good in Olinger's regime? If we hadn't had it, even those of us who were on the outside of it, looking in… What do you think Austin would be like, now? I think the structure that it created was a good thing, even though I don’t agree with how it was enacted. It kept some civilization where we might have otherwise lost it, and had we lost it I don’t think we would have a city, to be perfectly honest. There are larger cities than ours that fell because they didn’t have anything in place. And what about the way we are, now? Do you feel the law is fair? Yeah, I do. It might not be perfect, but it’s not any different than what you’d see in any other city now. I won’t tolerate or advocate for unjust decisions or abuse of power. That shit’s not going to fly while I’m around. [Cherry nods a little, considering this.] And is there the possibility of being able to challenge someone else in leadership who may grow power hungry, if such a thing happened again? Or if you, God forbid, started making decisions that weren't in the best interest of the city? Yes. We won't see a repeat. Personally if I'm not able to perform my responsibilities respectably anymore I would want someone to remove my ass from the position. I could give a damn about the title, I only want to do what's best for my city. Do you think that the amnesty offer that was extended to the city's criminals is what's best for Austin? [it's a casual phrasing for a question that's anything but that, but she's hoping to catch him off guard.] [that question is a lot tougher for Joel to answer. He knows if he addresses it the wrong way it could give the wrong impression to the US Government or the general public.] I think it was a smart political move, and most of of the criminals that were given amnesty have also proven that they’re willing to play ball and work with the rules set in place. [in a strategic move he decides to address the rogues before Cherry has a chance.] We’ve already seen there was some risk involved with the decision to extend it to the Hellhounds, and have had some disturbing incidents because of that, but we’ve also had full cooperation from many of their members and that’s what I appreciate most. [Cherry nods behind the lens, appreciating the answer though she guesses he can't speak as frankly as he'd like to.] Considering how easy it was to paint people with the 'criminal' brush just a couple of months ago… I mean, I'm pretty sure I would've fallen under that category. [she isn't sure how much he knows about her life before, but she knows he's not completely ignorant.] Or the people in the tunnels who were just trying to survive. The Ghouls and their quality of life in Austin is something I regret not addressing sooner, but we have things in place now to correct that. [he steers away from agreeing or disagreeing that Cherry could have been considered a criminal.] I hope people know that the leadership of the city isn't against them any longer. We’re all trying to make a difficult situation better. Maybe once this interview's published, it'll be a little easier to see that. [it certainly is for her. She'd been predisposed to trust him, having known him before the rising, but if she only knew him as the new police chief? Cherry's sure she'd defend him still. She looks up at him and shoots him a grin, one very reminiscent of the mischief she used to get to when she was just his daughter's roommate and best friend.] I just have one more question. You ever take civilians out in that cop car of yours? [he laughs, grateful for a question he doesn't need to navigate around.] Couple of times. I can give you one, if you want Ms. Chan. Um, duh. [she laughs, the sound crystal clear through the camera's audio, before the visual cuts to an outside shot. They're in the car, cruising down the road, and for one brief moment before the video shuts off, it almost seems as though the world outside is normal again.] |