The New Centurions

by Joseph Wambaugh

  “We all had enough to drink,” said Poppy. “I know something’s going to go wrong.”

  “You’re really a lovely girl, Poppy,” said Anderson as he spilled half his drink on her gold purse.

  “Bunch of fuckin’ drunks,” said Poppy.

  “I’m sorry, Poppy,” said Anderson. “Really I am.”

  Anderson finished his drink and ordered another round even though Poppy had not touched her last one, and finally Anderson drank his and Poppy’s two manhattans when Fluffy dared him to. Gus had a headache and still felt nauseous as he remembered hearing a whore in the wagon saying she once gave twenty-two head jobs in one night, and he looked at Fluffy’s mouth which had actually touched the inside of his. He sloshed more of the drink around in his mouth and pushed Fluffy away each time she leaned over and squeezed his thigh and now he found he was becoming angry at everything while only moments ago he was happy. He glared at Anderson’s sparse moustache and thought what a miserable son of a bitch he was.

  “I’m not feeling too good, Poppy,” said Anderson who had been patting her hand and telling her that business was bad and he only made fifty thousand last year as she looked as though she didn’t believe him.

  “Let’s all get out of here,” said Poppy. “Can you still walk, Fluffy?”

  “I can dance,” growled Fluffy, whose head seemed to be sinking lower into the mass of her body.

  “I’m getting sick,” said Anderson.

  “Kiss the son of a bitch,” whispered Gus suddenly into Fluffy’s ear.

  “What?” asked Fluffy, swiping at an indomitable drop of moisture which clung to the ball of her nose.

  “Grab that bastard like you did me around the arms and give him a big sloppy kiss and make sure you stick your old tongue right in there.”

  “But I don’t even like the shithead,” Fluffy whispered.

  “I’ll give you an extra five bucks later,” whispered Gus.

  “Okay,” said Fluffy, leaning over the table and knocking an empty glass on the floor as she pinned the arms of the surprised Anderson and ground her mouth against his until he could manage the leverage to plop her back in the chair.

  “Why did you do that?” Anderson gasped.

  “’Cause I love you, you shithead,” said Fluffy and when the waitress passed with a tray of beers for the adjoining table, Fluffy grabbed a beer from the tray and stuck her chin in the foam and said, “Look at me, I’m a billy goat.” Anderson paid for the beer and tipped the angry waitress two dollars.

  “Come on, Fluffy,” said Poppy after the waitress left, “let’s go to the restroom and wash your goddamn face and then we’re getting Lance and going to the motel right now. Understand, Lance?”

  “Sure, sure, Poppy, whatever you say,” said Gus, grinning at the outraged Anderson and feeling happy again.

  When they were gone Anderson lurched forward, almost fell to the floor and looked painfully at Gus. “Plebesly, we’re too god-damn drunk to do our job. Do you realize that?”

  “We’re not drunk, Sergeant. You’re drunk,” said Gus.

  “I’m getting sick, Plebesly,” pleaded Anderson.

  “Know what Fluffy told me, Sergeant?” said Gus. “She told me she worked in a whorehouse all day and blew twenty-two guys.”

  “She did?” said Anderson, holding his hand to his mouth.

  “She said she gives around the world or straight French ’cause it’s too much trouble to screw and she’ll go right up the old poop chute if a guy wants it.”

  “Don’t tell me that, Plebesly,” said Anderson. “I’m sick, Plebesly.”

  “I’m sorry she kissed you, Sergeant,” said Gus, “I’m sorry ’cause those spermatozoas are probably swarming down your friggin’ throat right this minute and swishing their tails against your friggin’ tonsils.”

  Anderson cursed and stumbled sideways, heading for the exit. His handcuffs fell out and clashed to the floor. Gus stooped carefully, retrieved the handcuffs and weaved his way through the tables after Anderson. Even on the sidewalk outside Gus could hear Poppy’s curse when she found the table empty. Then Gus crossed the street, carefully following the wavy white line to the opposite curb. It seemed like a mile to the darkened parking lot where he found Anderson vomiting beside his car and Bonelli looking at Gus with affection.

  “What happened in there?” asked Bonelli.

  “We drank with two whores.”

  “Didn’t they hit on you? Didn’t you get an offer?”

  “Yes, but there’s too much between us now. I couldn’t bear to arrest them.”

  “You drank Anderson under the table, kid,” Bonelli grinned.

  “Under the friggin’ table. I really did, Sal,” Gus squeaked.

  “How do you feel?”

  “I’m getting sick.”

  “Come on,” said Bonelli, throwing a big hairy arm around Gus’s shoulder and patting him on the cheek. “Let’s go get you some coffee, son.”

  15

  CONCEPTION

  THE TRANSFER TO Seventy-seventh Street station had been a demoralizing blow. Now, after his fourth week in the division Roy could still not believe they would do this to him. He knew that most of his academy class had been transferred to three divisions but he hoped he might escape the third one. After all, he was well liked in Central Division and he had already worked Newton Street and didn’t dream they would make him work another black division. But then again, he should have expected it. Everything the Department did was senseless and illogical and none of the command officers cared in the least about intangibles like morale as long as they were efficient, icily efficient, and as long as the public knew and appreciated their efficiency. But Christ, Roy thought, Seventy-seventh Division! Fifty-ninth Place and Avalon, Slauson and Broadway, Ninety-second and Beach, One Hundred and Third, all of Watts for that matter! It was Newton Street magnified ten times, it was violence and crime, and every night he was wading through blood.

  The stores, the offices, even the churches looked like fortresses with bars and grates and chains protecting doors and windows and he had even seen private uniformed guards in churches during services. It was impossible.

  “Let’s go to work,” said Lieutenant Feeney to the night watch officers. Feeney was a laconic twenty-year man with a melancholy face who seemed to Roy a decent watch commander, but he had to be because in this hellish division a rigid disciplinarian would drive the men to mutiny.

  Roy put on his cap, jammed the flashlight in the sap pocket and picked up his books. He hadn’t heard a single thing that was said at roll call. He was getting worse about that lately. Someday he’d miss something important. They must occasionally say something important, he thought.

  Roy did not walk down the stairs with Rolfe, his partner. The laughter and voices of the others angered him for no apparent reason. The uniform clung wetly on this hot evening and chafed and hung like an oppressive blue pall. Roy dragged himself to the radio car and was glad it was Rolfe’s turn to drive tonight. He hadn’t the energy. It would be a sultry night as well as hot.

  Roy wrote his name mechanically in the log and wrote Rolfe’s name on the line below. He made a few other notations, then slammed the notebook as Rolfe drove out of the station parking lot and Roy turned the windwing so that what breeze there was cooled him a little.

  “Anything special you want to do tonight?” asked Rolfe, a young, usually smiling ex-sailor who had been a policeman just one year and who still had a bubbling exuberance for police work that Roy found annoying.

  “Nothing special,” said Roy, closing the windwing when he lit a cigarette which tasted bad.

  “Let’s drive by Fifty-ninth and Avalon,” said Rolfe. “We haven’t been giving the pill pushers too much attention lately.”

  “Okay,” Roy sighed, thinking that only one more night and then he was off for three. And then he began thinking of Alice, the buxom nurse who for six months he watched leaving the apartment house across the street from his, but whom he never tried
before last week because he was keeping well satisfied by fair and fragile Jenny, the steno who only lived across the hall. Jenny was so available and so convenient and so eager for love at any hour, sometimes too eager. She insisted on lovemaking when he was exhausted from an overtime shift and any sane person should have been long asleep. He would stumble into his apartment and close the door quietly and before he could even get into his pajamas she would be in his bedroom, having heard him enter and having used the key he never should have given her. He would turn around suddenly when he felt her presence in the silent room and she would burst into a fit of giggling because she had scared hell out of him. She would be in her nightgown, not a well-shaped girl, far too thin, but very pretty and insatiable in her lust. He knew there were other men too despite what Jenny said, but he didn’t give a damn because she was too much for him anyway, and besides, now that he had met Alice, milky, scrubbed and starched Alice, and had luxuriated in her yielding softness one fortunate night last week, now he was going to have to discourage Jenny.

  “Looks like a good crowd this evening,” said Rolfe. Roy wished he would be quiet when he was thinking about Alice and her splendid gourd-shaped breasts which in themselves provided him with hours of excitement and wonder. If Jenny was two feverish eyes, Alice was two peace-giving breasts. He wondered if there lived a woman whom he could think of as a whole person. He didn’t think of Dorothy at all anymore. But then he realized he never thought of anyone as a whole person anymore. Carl was a mouth, an open mouth that criticized incessantly. His father was a pair of eyes, not devouring him like Jenny’s, but entreating him, mournful eyes that wanted him to submit to the suffocation of his and Carl’s tyranny.

  “If only I could add an S to the Fehler and Son sign,” his father had pleaded. “Oh Roy, I’d pay a fortune for that privilege.” And then he had come to think of his mother as only a pair of hands, clasped hands, moist hands, talking hands which cajoled, “Roy, Roy, we never see you anymore and when are you leaving that city and coming home where you belong, Roy?”

  Then he thought of Becky, and he felt his heart race. He could think of her as a whole person. She was scampering about now and she seemed so happy to see him when he came. He would never let a week pass without seeing her and to hell with Dorothy and her fat-assed henpecked fiancé, because he would never let a weekend pass without seeing Becky. Never. He would bring her presents, spend whatever he wished, and they could go to hell.

  The evening dragged even though many radio calls were being given to Seventy-seventh cars. He was afraid to ask for code seven for fear they’d get a call. His stomach was rumbling. He should have eaten lunch today.

  “Ask for seven,” said Rolfe.

  “Twelve-A-Five requesting code seven at the station,” said Roy, wishing that he had packed something better than a cheese sandwich in his lunch. It was too close to payday to be buying dinner. He wished there were more eating spots on Seventy-seventh Street. He had long since decided that free food was not unprofessional. Everyone accepted meals and the restaurant proprietors did not seem to mind. They wanted policemen in the place or they wouldn’t do it. But he and Rolfe had no eating spot in their district that would even feed them at a discount.

  “Twelve-A-Five, continue patrol,” said the operator, “and handle this call: See the woman, unknown trouble, eleven-o-four, east Ninety-second Street, code two.”

  Roy rogered the call and turned to Rolfe, “Shit! I’m starving.”

  “I hate unknown trouble calls,” said Rolfe. “They always make me nervous. I like to know what to expect.”

  “This goddamned jungle,” said Roy, flipping his cigarette out the window. “You don’t get off on time, you miss your meals, fifteen radio calls a night. I’ve got to get a transfer.”

  “Do you really feel that way?” asked Rolfe, turning to Roy with a surprised look. “I like it here. The time passes fast. We’re so busy that it’s time to go home when I feel like I just came to work. All this action is pretty exciting to me.”

  “You’ll get over that crap,” said Roy. “Turn left here. This is Ninety-second.”

  There was a woman in a clean white turban standing in the front yard of the house next to eleven-o-four. Rolfe parked and she waved nervously as they got out of the car.

  “Evening,” said Rolfe as they approached the woman, putting on their caps.

  “I’m the one that called Mr. PO-lice,” she whispered. “They’s a lady in that house that is terrible drunk all the time. She got a new baby, one of them preemeys, jist a tiny bug of a chil’, and she always drunk, ’specially when her man at work, and he at work tonight.”

  “She bothering you?” asked Roy.

  “It the baby, Mr. PO-lice,” said the woman, her arms folded over the ample stomach, as she glanced several times at the house. “She dropped that chil’ on the ground last week. I seed her, but my husband say it ain’t none our business, but tonight she was staggerin’ around’ that front porch wif the chil’ again and she almost fell right off the porch and I tol’ my husband I was calling the PO-lice and tha’s what I done.”

  “Okay, we’ll go have a talk with her,” said Roy, walking toward the one-story frame house with a rotting picket fence.

  Roy walked carefully up the dangerous porch steps and stood by habit to one side of the doorway as Rolfe stood to the other side and knocked. They heard the shuffling of feet and a crash and then they knocked again. After more than a minute a woman with oily ringlets opened the door and stared at the policemen with watery little eyes.

  “What you want?” she asked, weaving from side to side as she held tightly to the doorknob for support.

  “We were told you might be having some trouble,” said Rolfe with his young easy smile. “Mind if we come in? We’re here to help you.”

  “I know how the PO-lices helps,” said the woman, bumping the doorway with her wide shoulder during a sudden lurch sideways.

  “Look, lady,” said Roy, “We were told your baby might be in some danger. How about showing us that the baby’s okay and we’ll be on our way.”

  “Get off my porch,” said the woman as she prepared to close the door, and Roy shrugged at Rolfe because they couldn’t force their way in with no more cause than her being drunk. Roy decided to stop and buy a hamburger to go with the cheese sandwich that he had begun to crave. Then the baby shrieked. It was not a petulant baby scream of anger or discomfort, but it was a full-blown scream of pain or terror and Rolfe was through the door before the shriek died. Pushing past the drunken woman he bounded across the small living room into the kitchen. Roy was just entering the house when Rolfe emerged from the kitchen carrying the incredibly tiny nightgown-clad baby in his arms.

  “She laid the baby on the kitchen table next to her ashtray,” said Rolfe, awkwardly rocking the moaning brown-skinned infant. “It got hold of the burning cigarette. Hand’s burned, and the stomach too. Look at the hole in the nightgown. Poor thing.” Rolfe glared at the angry woman over his shoulder as he cradled the baby in one big arm away from the mother who looked on the verge of drunken decision.

  “Give me my chil’,” she said stepping toward Rolfe.

  “Just a minute, lady,” said Roy, grabbing her by a surprisingly hard bicep. “Partner, I think we’ve got enough to book her for child endangering. Lady, you’re under ar . . .” She drove an elbow into the side of Roy’s neck and his head struck the edge of the door with a painful shock and he heard Rolfe shout as she lunged for him and Roy stared transfixed as he saw the fragile, screaming baby being pulled by the woman who had the left arm and Rolfe who had the right leg in one hand while his other hand clawed the air in horror and helplessness.

  “Let it go, Rolfe,” Roy shouted, as the woman jerked backward viciously and Rolfe followed her, unwilling to surrender the wailing infant completely.

  Finally Rolfe released the child, and Roy shuddered as the woman fell heavily back into a chair holding the baby by one leg across her lap.

  “Let
her keep it, Rolfe!” Roy shouted, still unable to decide what to do because they would surely kill it, but Rolfe had pounced on the woman who was digging and punching at his face, still holding the baby in a death grip, first by the leg, then by the arm when Rolfe pulled a hand free. Roy leaped forward when she grabbed the now silent baby by the throat.

  “My God, my God,” Roy whispered, as he tore the fingers free one at a time while Rolfe pinned the woman’s other arm and she cursed and spat and he had the last finger twisted free and was lifting the trembling little body in one hand when the woman’s head snapped forward and her teeth closed first on Roy’s hand and he shouted in sudden pain. She released him and bit at the child as Rolfe grabbed the woman’s neck, and tried to force the head back, but the large white teeth flashed and snapped again and again at the baby, and then the baby shrieked once more, long and loud. Roy pulled the infant and the night-gown ripped away in the woman’s mouth and Roy did not look at the baby, but ran to the bedroom with it and put it on the bed and came back to help Rolfe handcuff her.

  It was after midnight when they got the woman booked and the baby admitted to the hospital. It was too late to eat now and Roy could not eat anyway and he told himself for the tenth time to stop thinking about what the baby’s body looked like there on the shockingly white table in the emergency ward. Rolfe had also been unusually silent for the past hour or so.

  “Someone else tried to bite me once,” Roy said suddenly as he puffed on a cigarette and leaned back in the car as Rolfe was driving them to the station to complete the reports. “It wasn’t like this at all. It was a man and he was white, and there was no excuse at all. I was trying to get away from him. It was in a restroom.”

  Rolfe looked at him curiously and Roy said, “I was working vice. He was trying to devour me. People are cannibals I guess. They just eat each other. Sometimes they don’t even have the decency to kill you before they eat you.”

  “Hey, there’s a waitress I know pretty good down at a restaurant at a Hundred-fifteenth and Western. I go there after work for coffee all the time. How about us stopping there for a few minutes before we go to the station? We could at least drink some coffee and unwind. And who knows, maybe we’ll get hungry. I think she’d bounce for a free meal if the boss isn’t there.”