The New Centurions

by Joseph Wambaugh

  “Let’s do that,” said Roy.

  “You two want inside or outside?” asked Simeone to Gant.

  “Outside. What do you think?”

  “What did you ask him for?” said Ranatti.

  “He respects his elders,” said Gant as they began strolling through the park. It was a warm summer evening, and a slight breeze cooled Roy’s face as it came off the pond. Many of the ducks were asleep, and aside from the steady flow of nearby traffic it was quiet and restful here.

  “It’s a beautiful place,” said Roy.

  “The park?” said Ranatti. “Oh, yeah. But it’s full of faggots and thieves and assholes in general. No decent people dare hang around here after dark.”

  “Except us vice officers,” said Simeone.

  “He said decent people,” Gant reminded him.

  “Once in a while some squares that’re new in town might come around here after dark with the family, but they soon see what’s happening. They used to lock up the johns at night, but some brainy park administrator decided to leave them open. The open restrooms draw fruits like flies.”

  “Fruit flies,” said Simeone.

  “We used to only have a hundred fruits a night around here. Now we got a thousand. Maybe we can get the restrooms closed again.”

  “That’s it over there,” said Gant to Roy, pointing at the large stucco outbuilding squatting near a clump of elms that rustled in the wind which had grown stronger.

  “Roy, you and me’ll wait behind those trees over there,” said Gant. “When they come out of the trap we’ll see them and run over and help them.”

  “One time,” said Simeone, “there were only two of us here and we caught eight fruits in there. One was gobbling another’s joint, and the other six were standing around fondling anything they could find.”

  “A real circle jerk,” said Ranatti. “We snuck out of the trap and didn’t know what the hell to do with eight of them. Finally Sim spots a pile of roofing tiles at the corner of the tool shed and he sticks his head in and yells, ‘All you fruits are under arrest.’ Then he slams the door shut and backs off to the pile of tiles and starts heaving them at the door every time one of them tries to get out. He was really enjoying it, I think. I ran to the call box on the corner and put out a help call and when the black and whites got here we still had all eight fruits trapped in the crapper. But the wall of the building looked like a machine gun squad had strafed it.”

  “See what I told you before about sticking with me and staying out of trouble,” said Gant, walking toward the clump of trees where they would wait. “Why don’t you go in with them for a while, Roy? You might as well see what it’s all about.”

  Ranatti removed his key ring from his pocket and unlocked the padlock on a massive tool shed which was attached to the side of the building. Roy entered the shed and was followed by Ranatti who held the door for him and closed it behind them. It was deep and black in the shed except for a patch of light six feet up on the wall near the roof of the shed. Ranatti took Roy’s elbow and guided him through the darkness and pointed to a step and a three-foot platform leading up to the patch of light. Roy stepped up and looked through the heavy gauge sheets of wire mesh into the interior of the restroom. The room was about thirty by twenty feet, Roy thought. He envisioned the dimension might be a question by the defense if he ever had to go to court on an arrest he made here. There were four urinals and four stools behind them separated by metal walls. Roy noticed there were no doors on the front of the stalls and several peepholes were drilled in the metal walls which separated the toilets.

  They waited silently for several minutes and then Roy heard feet shuffling on the concrete walk leading toward the front door. An old stooped tramp slouched in toting a bundle which he opened when he got inside. The tramp took four wine bottles from the dirty sack and drained the half mouthful of wine which remained in each of them. Then he put the bottles back into the bundle and Roy wondered what value they could have. The old man wobbled over to the last stool where he removed his filthy coat, lunged sideways against the wall, righted himself, and took the floppy hat from his tremendous shaggy head. The tramp dropped his pants and sat down in one motion and a tremendous gaseous explosion echoed through the restroom.

  “Oh Christ,” Simeone whispered. “Just our luck.”

  The stench filled the room instantly.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Ranatti, “this place smells like a shithouse.”

  “Were you expecting a flower shop?” asked Simeone.

  “This is a degrading job,” Roy muttered and went to the door for some fresh air.

  “Well, the old thief’s got enough asswipe stashed to last a week,” said Simeone in a loud voice.

  Roy looked back into the restroom and saw the tramp still sitting on the toilet, slumped against the side wall snoring loudly. A huge wad of toilet paper protruded from the top of his ragged undershirt.

  “Hey!” Simeone called. “Wake up you old ragpicker. Wake up!”

  The tramp stirred, blinked twice and closed his eyes again.

  “Hey, he’s not sleeping real sound yet,” said Ranatti “Hey! Old man! Wake up! Get your ass up and out of here!”

  This time the tramp stirred, grunted and opened his eyes with a snap of his head.

  “Get the hell out of here, you old crud!” said Simeone.

  “Who said that?” asked the tramp, leaning forward on the toilet, trying to peek around the wall of the toilet stall.

  “It’s me. God!” said Ranatti. “Get the hell out of here.”

  “Wise son of a bitch, huh?” said the tramp. “Jus’ wait a minute.”

  As the tramp was struggling back into his pants, Roy heard footsteps and a pale, nervous-looking man with a receding hair-line and green-tinted glasses entered the rest-room.

  “A fruit,” Ranatti whispered in Roy’s ear.

  The man looked in each toilet stall and seeing only the uninteresting tramp in the last stall, walked to the urinal on the far side of the room.

  The tramp did not buckle his belt but merely tied the leather around his waist. He slammed the floppy hat back on his head and picked up the bundle. Then he saw the man standing at the last urinal. The tramp put down the bundle.

  “Hello God,” said the tramp.

  “Beg your pardon?” said the man, still standing at the urinal.

  “Ain’t you God?” asked the tramp. “Didn’t you tell me to get the hell out of here? Well I might not look like much, but no son of a bitch tells me to get my ass out of a public shithouse, you son of a bitch.” The tramp put down his bundle deliberately while the terrified man re-zipped his trousers. As the man skidded toward the door across the slippery floor of the restroom the tramp threw a wine bottle that crashed on the doorjamb and showered the man with glass fragments. The tramp hobbled to the door and looked after his fleeing enemy, then returned to his bundle and hefted it to his shoulder. With a toothless triumphant grin he staggered from the restroom.

  “Sometimes you get a chance to do good things for people in this job,” said Simeone lighting a cigarette, making Roy wish he would not smoke in the stifling dark enclosure of the shed.

  It was perhaps five minutes when another step was heard. A tall, muscular man of about thirty entered, walked to the sink and ran a comb deliberately through his wavy brown hair without glancing to his left. Then he examined the wide collar of a green sport shirt worn beneath a lightweight well-fitting lime sweater. Then he walked to each toilet stall and looked inside. He then walked to the urinal which had been occupied by the pale man, unzipped his trousers and stood there not urinating. Ranatti nodded in the darkness to Roy but Roy did not believe he could be a fruit. The man stood at the urinal for almost five minutes craning his neck occasionally toward the door when a sound was heard outside. Twice Roy thought someone would enter and he now knew of course what the man was waiting for, and he shivered in the back of his neck and decided when another one came in he did not want to watch, was not
curious enough to watch because already he felt slightly nauseated. He always had the idea that fruits were all swishes, hence identifiable, and it sickened him to see this average-looking man in here, and he did not want to watch. Then an old man entered. Roy didn’t see him until he was through the door and stepping lightly to the urinal at the opposite end of the line. The old man was perhaps seventy, dressed nattily in a blue pinstripe with natural shoulders and matching vest, and a blue silk tie over a pale blue shirt. His hair was pearl white and styled. His hands were lightly veined and he picked nervously at invisible lint on the impeccable suit. He looked at the tall man at the other urinal and smiled and the light glinted off his silver collar pin and Roy was struck with a wave of revulsion not imperceptible like before, but gut wrenching as the old man, still holding his hands near his groin out of Roy’s line of sight, hopped along the urinals until he was standing next to the tall man. He laughed softly and so did the tall man who said, “You’re too old.” Roy whispered incredulously to Ranatti, “He’s an old man! My God, he’s an old man!”

  “What the hell,” Ranatti whispered dryly, “fruits grow old too.”

  The old man left after being repulsed another time. He stopped in the doorway but finally left in dejection.

  “He didn’t really do anything lewd,” Simeone whispered to Roy. “He just stood next to him at the urinal. No touching or anything. He didn’t even jerk off. No good for an arrest.”

  Roy thought the hell with it he had seen enough and decided to join Gant on the cool clean grass in the invigorating air when he heard voices and feet scraping and decided to see who or what would enter. He heard a man say something in rapid Spanish and a child answered. The only thing Roy understood was “Sí Papa.” Then Roy heard the man walking away from the doorway and he heard other children’s voices talking Spanish. A boy of about six skipped in the restroom not looking at the tall man and ran to a toilet where he turned his back to the watchers, dropped his short pants to the floor revealing his plump brown behind, and urinated in the toilet while he hummed a child’s song. Roy smiled for a moment, but then he remembered the tall man. He saw the tall man’s hand moving frantically in the area of his crotch and then he stepped away from the urinal and masturbated as he faced the boy but hurriedly returned to the urinal when a child’s shrill laugh pierced the silence from the outside. The boy adjusted his pants and ran from the restroom still humming, and Roy heard him shout, “Carlos! Carlos!” to a child who answered from a long way across the park. The child never saw the tall man who now grunted while he stood at the old place and his hand moved more frantically than before.

  “See? Our job is worth doing,” Simeone grinned viciously. “Let’s take that bastard.”

  As the three men broke from the shed door, Simeone whistled and Gant came running from the clump of swaying elms. Roy saw a man and three children across the expanse of darkness strolling across the grass carrying shopping bags. They were almost out of the park.

  Simeone led the way into the restroom with his badge in his hand. The man looked at the four vice officers and fumbled with the zipper of his trousers.

  “You like kids?” Simeone grinned. “I’ll bet you got some little bubblegummers of your own. Want to bet, Rosso?” he said and turned to Ranatti.

  “What is this?” asked the man, his face white, jaw twitching.

  “Answer me!” Simeone commanded. “You got kids? And a wife?”

  “I’m getting out of here,” said the man, walking toward Simeone who shoved him back against the wall of the restroom.

  “No need for that,” said Gant, standing on the threshold.

  “I’m not getting rough,” said Simeone. “I just want to know if he’s got a wife and kids. They almost always do. Do you, man?”

  “Yes, of course. But why are you arresting me? Lord, I didn’t do anything,” he said as Simeone handcuffed his hands behind his back.

  “Always handcuff fruits,” Simeone smiled to Roy. “Always. No exceptions.”

  As they were leaving the park, Roy walked behind with Gant.

  “How do you like working fruits, kid?” asked Gant.

  “Not too good,” Roy answered.

  “Look over there,” said Gant, pointing toward the pond where a slender young man in tight coffee-colored pants and a lacy orange shirt was mincing along the edge of the water.

  “That’s what I thought all fruits looked like,” said Roy.

  The young man stopped every thirty feet or so, genuflected, crossed himself, and prayed silently. Roy counted six genuflections before he reached the street where he disappeared in the pedestrian traffic.

  “Some of them are pretty pitiful. That one’s trying to resist,” Gant shrugged, offering Roy a cigarette which he accepted. “They’re the most promiscuous creatures that ever walked the earth. They’re so goddamned unsatisfied they’re always seeking. Now you see why we try to work whores, and gambling, and bars as much as possible. And remember, you can get the shit kicked out of you working fruits. On top of all the rest of the crap you got to put up with, it’s dangerous as hell.”

  Roy’s mind drifted back then, back to college. He had been reminded of someone. Of course! he thought suddenly, as he remembered the mannerisms of Professor Raymond. It had never occurred to him before! Professor Raymond was a fruit!

  “Can we work whores tomorrow night?” asked Roy.

  “Sure, kid,” Gant laughed.

  At midnight, Roy was getting tired of sitting in the vice office watching Gant do his paper work as he talked baseball with Phillips and Sergeant Jacovitch. Ranatti and Simeone had not returned since taking the fruit to jail, but Roy heard Jacovitch mention their names during a phone conversation and he cursed when he hung up and muttered something to Gant while Roy glanced over vice reports in the other room.

  Ranatti and Simeone rushed in just after midnight. “Ready to raid The Cave?” Ranatti grinned.

  “I got a call, Rosso,” said Jacovitch quietly. “Some whore called and asked for the sergeant. Said her name was Rosie Redfield and that you guys tore the wiring out of her car and flattened her tires.”

  “Us?” said Ranatti.

  “She named you,” said Jacovitch soberly to the young men who did not seem overly surprised.

  “That’s the whore that thinks she owns Sixth and Alvarado,” said Simeone. “We told you about her, Jake. We busted her three times last month and she got her cases consolidated and got summary probation. We’ve done everything to try to get her to hustle someplace else. Hell, we got two vice complaints about her hustling on that corner.”

  “Did you know where she parked her car?” asked Jacovitch.

  “Yeah, we know,” Ranatti admitted. “Did she say she saw us fucking up her car?”

  “No, if she did, I’d have to take a personnel complaint against you. You realize that, don’t you? There’d be an investigation. She just suspects it was you.”

  “This ain’t no game we’re playing out there,” said Simeone. “We’ve done our best to get rid of that bitch. She’s not just a whore, she’s a booster and a hugger mugger and everything else. She’s a rotten bitch and works for Silver Shapiro and he’s a rotten pimp and extortionist and God knows what all.”

  “I’m not even going to ask you if you did it,” said Jacovitch, “but I’m warning you guys for the last time about this kind of stuff. You got to stay strictly within the law and Department regulations.”

  “You know what, Jake?” asked Ranatti, sitting heavily in a chair, and propping a crepe-soled shoe on a typewriter table. “If we did just that, we wouldn’t convict one asshole a week. The goddamn streets wouldn’t be safe even for us.”

  It was five minutes till one when Roy parked his private car at Fourth and Broadway and walked toward Main in the direction of The Cave. It was a warm evening, but he shivered as he stood waiting for a green light. He knew the rest of the squad was ready and already in position and he knew there was no particular danger in this, but he was unarmed
and felt terribly alone and vulnerable. He walked timorously through the oval doorway of The Cave and stood for a moment adjusting his eyes to the blackness, bumping his head on a plaster stalactite which hung down next to the second entryway. The spacious interior was jammed with people and he shouldered his way to the bar, already beginning to perspire, and found a space to stand between a leering red-haired homosexual and a Negro prostitute who looked him over and apparently did not find him as interesting as the balding man to her left who nervously rubbed his shoulder against her large loose breasts.

  Roy started to order a whiskey and soda, remembered Ranatti, and asked for a bottle of beer instead. He ignored the glass, wiped the mouth of the bottle with his hand and drank from the bottle.

  Roy saw several booths and tables occupied by lesbians, the butches fondling the femmes, kissing shoulders and arms. Homosexual male couples filled a good part of the room but when one couple tried to dance, mannish female waitresses ordered them to sit, pointing at the “No Dancing” sign. There were prostitutes of all descriptions some of whom were plainly men masquerading as women, but the Negro next to him was certainly a woman, he thought, as she shook a shoulder strap free so the bald man could see more of the vast brown orbs.

  Roy saw a group of leather jackets behind a latticework partition which seemed to be drawing a group of onlookers and he squeezed past several people milling in the aisles and beating the tables with glasses to the strident sounds of an outrageous red jukebox. When he got to the latticework he peered through and saw two young men, long sideburned twins with chain belts, arm wrestling on a swaying table with a burning candle at each side of the table to scorch the back of the loser’s hand. Two men watched fascinated from a booth to Roy’s right. One was collegiate-looking and blond. The other was equally clean-cut, with thick dark hair. They looked as out of place as Roy felt he must look, but when the curling hair on one wrestler’s hand began sizzling in the flame of the candle, the young blond man squeezed the thigh of the other, who responded with an excited gasp, and as the candle burned flesh, he held the ear of his blond friend and twisted it violently. No one but Roy seemed to notice, as the onlookers worshiped the searing flame.