The New Centurions

by Joseph Wambaugh

  “We got a call,” said Galloway.

  “What?”

  “Tell her to repeat,” said Galloway.

  “Four-A-Forty-three, repeat, please,” said Serge, his pencil poised over the pad which was affixed to a metal shelf in front of the hot sheet.

  “Four-A-Forty-three,” said the schoolmarm, “one-two-seven South Chicago, see the woman, four-five-nine report.”

  “Four-A-Forty-three, roger,” said Serge. And to Galloway, “Sorry. I can’t pick our calls out of all that noise, yet.”

  “Takes a little time,” said Galloway, turning around in a gas station parking lot, heading east toward Chicago Street.

  “Where you living?” asked Galloway, as Serge took a deep puff on the cigarette to finish it before they arrived.

  “Alhambra. I got an apartment over there.”

  “Guess Chino’s too far to drive, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Married?”

  “No,” said Serge.

  “Got parents in Chino?”

  “No, they’re both dead. Got an older brother there. And a sister in Pomona.”

  “Oh,” said Galloway, looking at him like he was a war orphan.

  “I have a nice little apartment, and the apartment house is crawling with broads,” said Serge, so his baby-faced partner would stop being embarrassed at prying.

  “Really?” Galloway grinned. “Must be nice being a bachelor. I got hooked at nineteen, so I wouldn’t know.”

  After turning north on Chicago Street, Galloway gave Serge a puzzled look as Serge craned his neck to catch the house numbers on the east side of the street.

  “One twenty-seven will be on the west,” said Galloway. “Even numbers are always on the east and south.”

  “All over the city?”

  “All over,” Galloway laughed. “Hasn’t anybody told you that yet?”

  “Not yet. I’ve been checking both sides of the street on every call. Pretty dumb.”

  “Sometimes the senior officer forgets to mention the obvious. As long as you’re willing to admit you know nothing, you’ll learn fast enough. Some guys hate to show they don’t know anything.”

  Serge was out of the car while Galloway was still applying the emergency brake. He removed his stick from the back seat and slid it in through the baton holder on the left side of his Sam Browne. He noticed that Galloway left his baton in the car, but he guessed he should adhere to the rules very closely for a while, and the rule was carry your batons.

  The house was a one-story faded pink frame. Most of the houses in East Los Angeles seemed faded. This was an old part of the city. The streets were narrow and Serge noticed many aged people.

  “Come in, come in, gentlemen,” said the snuffling puckered old woman in an olive-drab dress and bandaged legs, as they stepped on the tiny porch one at a time, shouldering their way through a forest of potted ferns and flowers.

  “Step right in, right in,” she smiled and Serge was surprised to see a mouthful of what he was sure were real teeth. She should have been toothless. A fleshy goiter dropped from her neck.

  “It’s not so often we see the policemen these days,” she smiled. “We used to know all the police at the Boyle Heights station. I used to know some officers’ names, but already they’re retired I guess.”

  Serge smiled at the Molly Goldberg accent, but he noticed Galloway was nodding soberly at the old woman as he sat in the ancient creaking rocker in front of a brightly painted unused fireplace. Serge smelled fish and flowers, mustiness and perfume, and bread in the oven. He removed his cap and sat on the lumpy napless sofa with a cheap oriental tapestry thrown over the back to dull the thrust of the broken springs he felt against his back.

  “I’m Mrs. Waxman,” said the old woman. “I been right here in this house for thirty-eight years.”

  “Is that a fact?” said Galloway.

  “Would you like something? A cup of coffee, maybe. Or a cupcake?”

  “No thank you,” said Galloway. Serge shook his head and smiled.

  “I used to walk down the police station some summer evenings and chat with the desk officer. There was a Jewish boy worked there named Sergeant Muellstein. You ever know him?”

  “No,” said Galloway.

  “Brooklyn Avenue was really something then. You should have seen Boyle Heights. Some of the finest families in Los Angeles was living here. Then the Mexicans started moving in and all the people ran out and went to the west side. Just the old Jews like me are left with the Mexicans now. What do you think of the church down the street?”

  “Which church?” asked Galloway.

  “Hah! You don’t have to say. I understand you got a job to do.” The old woman smiled knowingly at Galloway and winked at Serge.

  “They dare to call the place a synagogue,” she croaked. “Could you imagine it?”

  Serge glanced through the window at the light-studded Star of David atop the First Hebrew Christian Synagogue at the residential corner of Chicago Street and Michigan Avenue.

  “You see what’s right across the street?” said the old woman.

  “What?” asked Serge.

  “The United Mexican Baptist Church,” said the old woman, with a triumphant nod of her chalk-white head. “I knew it was going to happen. I told them in the forties when they all started moving.”

  “Told who?” asked Serge, listening intently.

  “We could have lived with the Mexicans. An Orthodox Jew is like a Catholic Mexican. We could have lived. Now look what we got. Reform Jews was bad enough. Now, Christian Jews? Don’t make me laugh. And Mexican Baptisters? You see, everything is out of whack now. Now there’s just a few of us old ones left. I don’t even go out of my yard, no more.”

  “I guess you called us because of Mrs. Horwitz,” said Galloway, adding to Serge’s confusion.

  “Yes, it’s the same old story. There ain’t nobody can get along with the woman,” said Mrs. Waxman. “She tells everybody her husband has a better shop than my Morris. Hah! My Morris is a watchmaker. Do you understand? A real watchmaker! A craftsman, not some junk repairman!” The old woman stood up, gesturing angrily at the center of the room as a trickle of saliva ran uncontrolled from the corner of her wrinkled mouth.

  “Now, now, Mrs. Waxman,” said Galloway, helping her back to the chair. I’m going right over to Mrs. Horwitz and tell her to stop spreading those stories. If she doesn’t, why I’ll threaten to put her in jail.”

  “Would you? Would you do that?” asked the old woman. “But don’t arrest her, mind you. Just give her a pretty good scare.”

  “We’re going over there right now,” said Galloway, putting on his cap and standing up.

  “Serves her right, serves her right,” said Mrs. Waxman, beaming at the two young men.

  “Good-bye, Mrs. Waxman,” said Galloway.

  “Bye,” Serge mumbled, hoping that Galloway had not noticed how long it took him to catch on to the old woman’s senility.

  “She’s a regular,” Galloway explained, starting the car and lighting a cigarette. “I guess I been there a dozen times. The old Jews always say ‘Boyle Heights,’ never Hollenbeck or East L.A. This was the Jewish community before the Chicanos moved in.”

  “Doesn’t she have a family?” asked Serge, marking the call in the log.

  “No. Another abandoned old lady,” said Galloway. “I’d rather some asshole shoot me in the street tonight than end up old and alone like her.”

  “Where’s Mrs. Horwitz live?”

  “Who knows? West side probably, where all the Jews with money went. Or maybe she’s dead.”

  Serge borrowed another of Galloway’s cigarettes and relaxed as Galloway patrolled slowly in the late summer dusk. He stopped in front of a liquor store and asked Serge what brand he smoked and entered the store without asking for money. Serge knew that this meant the liquor store was Galloway’s cigarette stop, or rather it belonged to the car, Four-A-Forty-three. He had accepted the minor gratuity when each
partner he had worked with offered it. Only one, a serious, alert young policeman named Kilton, had stopped at a place where Serge had to pay for cigarettes.

  Galloway came back after repaying the liquor store proprietor with a few minutes of small talk and flipped the cigarettes into Serge’s lap.

  “How about some coffee?” asked Galloway.

  “Sounds good.”

  Galloway made a U-turn and drove to a small sidewalk restaurant on Fourth Street. He parked in the empty parking lot, turned up the police radio and got out leaving the door to the car open so they could hear the radio.

  “Hi, baby face,” said the bleached blonde working the counter, who spoiled her eyes by drawing her eyebrows at a ridiculous angle.

  If there was one thing most Mexicans had it was good heads of hair, thought Serge. Why had this one destroyed hers with chemicals?

  “Afternoon, Sylvia,” said Galloway. “Meet my partner, Serge Duran.”

  “Qué tal, huero?” said Sylvia, pouring two steaming cups of coffee which Galloway did not offer to pay for.

  “Hi,” said Serge, sipping the burning coffee and hoping the remark would pass.

  “Huero?” said Galloway. “You a Chicano, Serge?”

  “What do you think, pendejo?” Sylvia laughed raucously, showing a gold-capped eyetooth. “With a name like Duran?”

  “I’ll be damned,” said Galloway. “You sure look like a paddy.”

  “He’s a real huero, baby,” said Sylvia with a flirtatious smile at Serge. “He’s almost as fair as you.”

  “Can’t we talk about something else?” asked Serge, irritated more at himself for being embarrassed than at these two grinning fools. He told himself he was not ashamed of being Mexican, it was simply less complicated to be an Anglo. And an Anglo he had been for the past five years. He had only returned to Chino a few times after his mother died and one of those times was for a fourteen-day leave with his brother when they buried her. He had tired of the dreary little town in five days and returned to the base, selling his unused leave to the Marine Corps when he was discharged.

  “Well, it’s good to have a partner who can speak Spanish,” said Galloway. “We can use you around here.”

  “What makes you think I can speak Spanish?” asked Serge, very careful to maintain the narrow cordiality in his voice.

  Sylvia looked at Serge strangely, stopped smiling, and returned to the sink where she began washing a small pile of cups and glasses.

  “You one of those Chicanos who can’t speak Spanish?” Galloway laughed. “We got another one like that, Montez. They transfer him to Hollenbeck and he can’t speak Spanish any better than me.”

  “I don’t need it. I get along well enough in English,” said Serge.

  “Better than me, I hope,” smiled Galloway. “If you can’t spell better than me we’ll be in lots of trouble when we make our reports.”

  Serge gulped down the coffee and waited anxiously as Galloway tried in vain to get Sylvia talking again. She smiled at his jokes but remained at the sink and looked coldly at Serge. “Bye-bye, baby face,” she said, as they thanked her for the free coffee and left.

  “It’s too bad you don’t speak Spanish real good,” said Galloway as the sun dropped through the smoggy glow in the west. “With a paddy-looking guy like you we could overhear lots of good information. Our arrestees would never guess you could understand them and we could learn all kind of things.”

  “How often you pick up a sitting duck?” asked Serge, to change the subject, checking a license plate against the numbers on the hot sheet.

  “Ducks? Oh, I get one a week maybe. There’s plenty of hot cars sitting around Hollenbeck.”

  “How about rollers?” asked Serge. “How many hot cars do you get rolling?”

  “Hot rollers? Oh, maybe one a month, I average. They’re just teenage joyriders usually. Are you just half Mexican?”

  Bullshit, thought Serge, taking a large puff on the cigarette, deciding that Galloway would not be denied.

  “No, I’m all Mexican. But we just didn’t talk Spanish at home.”

  “Your parents didn’t talk it?”

  “My father died when I was young. My mother talked half English and half Spanish. We always answered in English. I left home when I got out of high school and went in the Marine Corps for four years. I just got out eight months ago. I’ve been away from the language and I’ve forgotten it. I never knew very much Spanish to begin with.”

  “Too bad,” Galloway murmured and seemed satisfied.

  Serge slumped in the seat staring blankly at the old houses of Boyle Heights and fought a mild wave of depression. Only two of the other policemen he had worked with had forced him to explain his Spanish name. Damn curious people, he thought. He asked nothing of people, nothing, not even of his brother, Angel, who had tried in every way possible to get him to settle in Chino after leaving the corps, and to go into his gas station with him. Serge told him he didn’t plan to work very hard at anything and his brother had to put in thirteen hours every day in the grimy gas station in Chino. He could have done that. Maybe marry some fertile Mexican girl and have nine kids and learn to live on tortillas and beans because that’s all you could afford when things were lean in the barrio. Well here he was working in another Chicano barrio he thought with a crooked smile. But he’d be out of here as soon as he finished his year’s probationary period. Hollywood Division appealed to him, or perhaps West Los Angeles. He could rent an apartment near the ocean. The rent would be high, but maybe he could share the cost with another policeman or two. He had heard stories of the aspiring actresses who languish all over the westside streets.

  “You ever worked the west side?” he asked Galloway suddenly.

  “No, I just worked Newton Street and here at Hollenbeck,” Galloway answered.

  “I hear there’re lots of girls in Hollywood and West L.A.,” said Serge.

  “I guess so,” said Galloway and the leer looked ridiculous with the freckles.

  “You hear a lot of pussy stories from policemen. I’ve been wondering how true they are.”

  “A lot of them are true,” said Galloway. “It seems to me that policemen do pretty well because for one thing girls trust you right off. I mean a girl isn’t going to be afraid to meet a guy after work when she sees him sitting in a black and white police car in a big blue uniform. She knows you’re not a rapist or a nut or something. At least she can be pretty sure. That means something in this town. And she can also be pretty sure you’re a fairly clean-cut individual. And then some girls are attracted by the job itself. It’s more than the uniform, it’s the authority or something. We got a half dozen cop chasers in every division. You’ll get to know some of them. All the policemen know them. They try their damnedest to lay every guy at the station. Some are actually pretty good-looking. You met Lupe, yet?”

  “Who’s she?” asked Serge.

  “She’s one of Hollenbeck’s cop chasers. Drives a Lincoln convertible. You’ll run into her before long. Good lay, I heard.” Galloway leered again through the freckles and Serge had to laugh aloud.

  “I’m looking forward to meeting her,” said Serge.

  “There’s probably lots of stuff in Hollywood. I never worked those fancy silk stocking divisions so I wouldn’t know. But I’d be willing to bet there’s more here on the east side than anywhere.”

  “Let’s drive around the division, do you mind?” asked Serge.

  “No, where do you want to go?”

  “Let’s tour the streets, all around Boyle Heights.”

  “One fifty-cent tour of Hollenbeck Division coming up,” said Galloway.

  Serge stopped looking for a traffic violator and he didn’t check the hot sheet even once for the sitting duck he craved. He smoked and watched people and houses. All the houses were old, most of the people were Mexican. Most of the streets were too narrow, and Serge guessed they were designed decades before anyone dreamed that Los Angeles would be a city on wheels. And when t
hey did realize it, the east side was too old and too poor and the streets stayed too narrow, and the houses got older. Serge felt his stomach tighten and his face grew unaccountably warm as he saw the secondhand stores. Ropa usada, the signs said. And the panadería filled with sweet breads, cookies and cakes, usually a bit too oily for him. And the scores of restaurants with painted windows announcing that menudo was served on Saturdays and Sundays and Serge wondered how anyone could eat the tripe and hominy and thin red broth. Especially he wondered how he had been able to eat it as a child, but he guessed it was because they had been hungry. He thought of his brother Angel and his sister Aurora and how they would squeeze half a lemon in the menudo, sprinkle in oregano and slosh corn tortillas in the broth faster than his mother could make them. His father had been a tubercular whom he barely remembered as a smiling man with bony wrists, lying in bed all the time, coughing and smelling bad from the sickness. He only produced three children and little else in this world and Serge couldn’t at the moment think of another family on his street with only three children except the Kulaskis and they were Anglos, at least to the Chicanos they were Anglos, but now he thought how humorous it was to have considered these Polacks as Anglo. He also wondered if it was true that the large quantity of corn the Mexicans consumed by eating tortillas three times a day produced the fine teeth. It was Mexican folklore that this was the case and it was certainly true that he and most of his boyhood friends had teeth like alligators. Serge had been to a dentist for the first time while in the Marine Corps where he had two molars filled.

  Night was falling faster now that summer had almost gone and as he watched and listened a strange but oddly familiar feeling swept over him. First it was a tremor in the stomach and then up around the chest and his face felt warm; he was filled with anxious longing, or was it, could it be, nostalgia? It was all he could do to keep from laughing aloud as he thought it must be nostalgia, for this was Chino on a grand scale. He was watching the same people who were doing the same things they had done in Chino, and he thought how strange that part of a man could yearn for the place of his youth even when he despised it, and what produced it, and what it produced. But at least it was the only innocent years he had ever known and there had been his mother. He guessed it was really her that he yearned for and the safety she represented. We all must long for that, he thought.