We’ve all heard of the Drama Queen and Drag Queen, but the relatively unknown “Scanner Queen” — as important as he is — has passed quietly under the radar for decades. In our opinion, George Zimmerman, the young man who was recently acquitted of murder in the death of Trayvon Martin, is — or was — a Scanner Queen.
You might ask, “What is a Scanner Queen?”
A Scanner Queen is a self-proclaimed Community Watchman. He always has a police scanner or police two-way radio on his desk or on his person. That is his religion. He’s a modern day version of the nosy old lady who was always the first to poke her head through the blinds whenever there was a strange street noise.
The Scanner Queen, however, is not simply nosy like the proverbial old lady from days gone by. He is an accident waiting to happen and a delusional hero. In other words, he is a mental case.
The typical Scanner Queen is sometimes easy to spot.
He likes his police radios and his big black belt; replete with all of its accoutrements. He clips on his tear gas and pepper spray canisters with their matching batons and handcuffs and his Taser — yes his beloved Taser. It took him six months to save up to buy that treasure and woe to anyone who thinks that he will not use it with brutal and unofficial authority.
It is important to remember that the Scanner Queen is there — in his mind — to protect your community, and sometimes he actually does perform a service. But, it‘s always best to deprive your local Scanner Queen of any firearms. It’s important to remember that guns don’t kill people, Scanner Queens with guns kill people.
Most Scanner Queens pass through their self-proclaimed careers without ever shooting anyone, but often a weapon is brandished and luckily a hubcap theft or a public urination is thwarted.
A Scanner Queen gradually increases in lunacy as he becomes more and more admired in the community for his dutiful services to that community.
In some sad cases, the Scanner Queen morphs into the man who poisons your noisy dog or your garbage-can -toppling tabby. In some sick way he is sorry for having killed your pet. In fact, when the sun rises, he will mysteriously be the first one to find your dead pet, and he’ll initiate an investigation on your behalf. A psychopath will kill your dog, but a Scanner Queen will kill your dog and then try to help you find out who killed it. Therein lies the deepest and darkest side of the oft beloved Scanner Queen.
Ironically, in spite of his gradually increasing lunacy, the Scanner Queen maintains a strong love for animals– especially big dogs — but he must obey those internalized and gnawing orders that force him to lord over other people’s pets who don’t seem know their civil place in a community. And while your children cry over the stiffened corpse of their beloved Fluffy, the Scanner Queen feels a quiet inner-vindication because he has added another merit badge to his belt. He is now the unofficial Animal Control Officer.
His big black belt is getting heavier now. The hook up to the ASPCA people is a very bulky tool indeed because it’s usually worn by large lesbians, but still he clips it on with a sense of duty and purpose.
On the surface, the average Scanner Queen is overtly kindly and thoughtful. He is blissfully unaware that absolutely none of the tasks he performs have been officially assigned to him. He minds his mother and accompanies her to the A&P and A.C. Moore when she needs more yarn or hot glue sticks.
He officiously works his shift at places like Radio Shack or Costco, but his mind drifts more often to his unofficial job as savior and watchdog, and his never-ending need to protect his neighborhood.
The Scanner Queen grows increasingly watchful and mindful of his neighbors and their property. His bedroom desk — the same one he’s had since 4th grade — is jam-packed with the latest gadgets designed for the business of police and fire and rescue. He is always prepared with portable back-ups and plenty of batteries. He’s an urban or suburban Boy Scout from the future — and sometimes….sometimes he has that gun, that troublesome gun.
The gun in the hand of the Scanner Queen is not to be feared, however, because the Scanner Queen knows instinctively who does or does not belong in the neighborhood at any given time and he also knows who is about to commit a crime. It’s psychologically demoralizing to be thrust into the mind of the local Scanner Queen. That caring and vigilant mind is endlessly cluttered with heinous visions of violence and all the mayhem that has yet to come. It’s like being Nostradamus, only dumber and even more inaccurate.
As the years roll on and the aging Scanner Queen finds himself to be less and less useful after a knee replacement surgery or a triple bypass operation, He looks for his successor — a boy he can unofficially anoint as the keeper of the watchman’s torch.
Thankfully, in his decades-long quest to free the streets from terror and horrible crime, he never had to use his gun. Mother is long gone, and in his closely watched neighborhood, nobody ever had to be shot or killed except Mother herself.
Of course he had to kill her. She was in the way, and she’d threatened to call doctors and psychologists and she e threatened to take away his gun. She even had the nerve to try and call the police — the very police for whom her son had unofficially worked for so long with such diligence and courage.
Thankfully, since he is so beloved in the community he protected so vigilantly for so long, he still cashes mom’s monthly Social Security check at the local savings and loan; content in the knowledge that her mummified remains will not be be discovered until he too is found dead on the toilet two weeks after his demise from a heart attack.
Exclusively for TheDamienZone by: Damien LeGallienne [copyright 2013]
