The Job: True Tales from the Life of a New York City Cop

by Steve Osborne

  The bar in Pete’s is shaped like a big square, and they were sitting across from the front door. When the guy tries to get up, Dad beats him down the entire length of the bar, makes a right turn, beats him along the other side of the bar, puts his head through the cigarette machine, and throws him out the front door and into the street. Butch is laughing like hell while telling me this story. He thinks it’s hysterical. He could give a fuck about the cigarette machine.

  Later, when I get home, Dad is sitting in his easy chair watching television with a sad look on his face. I couldn’t help it, I had to hear his version of the events, so I said, “I hear you had a little excitement in Pete’s last night.” He just shakes his head in disgust. I thought he was going to regret this juvenile behavior he engaged in, but no. Without looking at me, just staring straight ahead at the television and still shaking his head, he says, “You know, I’m starting to look soft. These young punks don’t take me seriously anymore. They think I’m a…cupcake.”

  I can’t help but laugh at the analogy. I try to assure him that he doesn’t look like a “cupcake,” but he’s facing the facts, soon he’s not going to be able to do stuff like that anymore. Soon he’s going to have to learn to walk away and he doesn’t like it. But he assures me he still has one more good fight left in him, and by the look in his eye and the scowl on his face, I believe it.

  Dad could be described as old-fashioned and stubborn. At home there was no such thing as democracy. There was no open discussion or exchange of ideas. It was his way or the highway. But he loved his children more than anything in the world, so this presented him with quite a dilemma when my sister dropped a little bombshell on him one day. She was coming out of the closet!

  This definitely went against his number one rule for dating, which simply stated, “If you have to explain ’em—don’t bring ’em home!”

  He was devastated and confused. He even thought about blaming himself. Maybe if he hadn’t taught my sister how to shoot guns as a kid, this wouldn’t have happened?

  There were no gay people in our neighborhood that anybody knew of, and if there were they sure didn’t hang out in Pete’s, so Dad had no experience dealing with this subject. So he dealt with this the only way he knew how: he ran away from home!

  He packed his little red Honda Civic with as many of his belongings as it could hold and took off. My mother and sisters were pissed! Out of all the crazy stuff he had done in his life, this was the last straw. I, on the other hand, found it all quite amusing. I had always found the crazy stuff he did amusing.

  Once or twice I had commented to my mother that people in the neighborhood thought I was just like him. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, they would say. Hearing this, my mother would get mad and shoot right back, “Oh no, you’re not!”

  Three weeks had gone by and nobody knew where he was. I would call my mother daily and ask if she heard from him. To this she would reply, “Heard from who?” and then change the subject. She was getting madder by the day.

  Finally my phone rang. It was him. My father had a hair-trigger temper. Just ask the guy in the bar who wanted a light. I didn’t want to say anything that might set him off, so I kept the conversation light. How are you? How are you feeling? Do you have all your medication? Most of my questions were answered with a grunt or one- or two-word answers.

  Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to ask, “Where are you?” To this he replied, “Wyoming!”

  I almost lost it. “WYOMING! What the hell are you doing in Wyoming?” And in a very casual, matter-of-fact tone he answered, “I went for a drive.”

  I couldn’t believe it. When normal people want to go for a drive they go to Bear Mountain or out to Montauk. They don’t drive two thousand miles to Wyoming. Dad was anything but normal.

  I tried to keep the conversation going, but he wasn’t ready to talk just yet. He called me because he was lonely. I was actually a little jealous, picturing him out west surrounded by snowcapped mountains and wide-open spaces, but when I asked him how he liked Wyoming, he said it sucked. Then he said he was busy and had to go. Click, the line went dead.

  He called me because no one else would talk to him. My mother was fed up with all the crazy stuff he had done in the past, and this was the icing on the cake. My sister, who had bared her soul to him, was busy packing her bags and looking for a new place to live, and my other sister was siding with the women just on general principle. That left me.

  I couldn’t wait to call my mother and tell her he was okay, but all she said was, “That son of a bitch better not call me.” I couldn’t help but laugh. Life with him wasn’t always easy, but it was an adventure.

  The only one who seemed to be worried about him was my wife. She had developed a special relationship with him. She looked at him as a wise old father figure, asking his advice on everything, and he loved it.

  Soon after meeting him for the first time, she witnessed him getting mad over something stupid. In response she walked over to him and flicked his ear with her thumb and forefinger, causing him to wince in pain. She followed this with a stern warning: “Be nice.”

  You would have thought she punched a grizzly bear in the nose by the shocked look on everyone’s face, but he just crumbled. It was amazing. She had him wrapped around her little finger.

  After the phone call my wife was yelling at me, “You better do something about this!”

  Over the next two weeks his phone calls to me became more frequent. I could tell he was desperate to come home, but didn’t know how or he was afraid to face the music. As big of a pain in the ass as he was to live with, his family was everything to him. Without us he would wilt away like a flower without water. He was a general without any troops.

  Finally, during one of our conversations he agreed to meet me somewhere so we could talk this out. I opened a map and decided Las Vegas would be as good a place as any to meet. I figured we might as well have some fun while we talked.

  I called my mother and gave her the good news. Her reply was “Don’t do me any favors.” My mother is an Italian from Brooklyn, and in her own way she was ten times tougher than he was.

  When we met in the airport terminal I could see from a distance he was old, tired, and lonely. He looked better when he was in intensive care after his heart attacks, but not by much. His shirt and pants were baggy from his losing weight. He obviously hadn’t been eating or sleeping right. Running away from home wasn’t half as much fun as he thought it was going to be, but when he saw me he perked right up. He was glad to see me.

  Him and I weren’t the touchy-feely type, so we skipped the hugging and hand shaking and got to business. He had a great idea. We were going to start at one end of the strip and have one beer in every bar we found till we reached the other end. Considering the size of the Vegas strip I thought it sounded like an overly ambitious goal, but I figured what the fuck, it would be a good way to loosen him up so we could talk.

  We were only at the third bar and halfway through our third beer when I popped the question. “Why don’t you think about coming home?” His answer was simple and direct. “Okay.”

  I was pissed! I said, “Okay? You’ve got to be kidding me, you couldn’t tell me that over the phone, you made me travel two thousand miles to tell me ‘Okay’?”

  I could tell by that sly grin he knew exactly what he was doing. He said, “I’ll come home, but you have to drive with me. If you don’t drive with me I’m not coming home.”

  I figured what the hell, this sounded like a bonding experience—him and me driving cross-country. And by the way he looked, I knew he probably only had a few good years left in him.

  However, I had one stipulation: I wanted to see the Grand Canyon. He balked. “I’ve been there already.” I put my hand up in protest. “If we don’t go to the Grand Canyon, I’m not driving back.” He gave me that crooked-tooth grin. “Okay.” And with business taken care of we continued on our journey down the Strip.

  This was
my first trip to Vegas and it was exciting. Halfway down the strip we stopped in front of the Treasure Island hotel to watch their show. Out front every hour or so they had these two giant ships filled with guys dressed up like pirates, and they would swing from ropes, wave swords, and shoot cannons, pretending to board each other’s vessels.

  There were at least a thousand people standing out front watching the excitement, and just as the cannons were firing and pirates were flying through the air, my father nudges me with his elbow and says, “Get a load of this guy.”

  He’s pointing to a guy standing in front of him blocking his view. When I look over I notice the man he is talking about. He’s about six foot seven, wearing a giant cowboy hat, size thirteen cowboy boots, a plaid shirt, tight jeans, and a big shiny silver belt buckle. This dude is huge and he obviously takes his Western heritage very seriously.

  I shrug my shoulders and mouth “So what?,” wondering what he’s talking about. Dad looks at me, looks at him, then looks at me again and says in a very loud voice, “The closest this guy has ever been to a horse is a fucking merry-go-round!”

  The guy heard every word he said because Dad said it loud enough for everyone to hear, and now Roy Rogers looked pissed. A couple of other people standing nearby were laughing, which only made this guy even madder. The guy looked at Dad, then looked at me. Then he looked at Dad again, sizing us up. My father was not a very imposing figure at this point in his life, with his baggy shirt and pants topped by a goofy golf hat to protect him from the sun. But there was still something intimidating about him, so the Marlboro Man turned and walked away.

  I looked at Dad and said, “Are you crazy, did you see the size of that guy? You’re not what you used to be and don’t forget it.” He looked at me with that grin and said, “I’ve still got one more good fight in me. Don’t you worry about it.”

  —

  Reminiscing about Dad and my childhood made me laugh, brought a tear to my eye, and made the drive down to the Jersey Shore go faster. And before I realized it I was at the hospital.

  I pulled into the parking lot of Jersey Shore Medical Center and took a moment to get myself together. I didn’t know what to expect when I got upstairs, but I knew this wouldn’t be easy. In a very short time I would be the only man in the family, and falling to pieces just would not do. So I put my game face on and headed into the lobby. With no time to stop and get a pass, I “tinned” (flashed my shield at) the security guard at the front desk and hustled over to the elevator.

  When I walked into his room, he didn’t even notice me. He was slumped over in a chair with half his ass sticking out of the baggy, pale blue hospital gown. There was a small oxygen tube clipped to his nose and an IV attached to his arm pumping him full of morphine. Sadness washed over me. The toughest guy I ever met, and the menace of Pete’s Tavern could barely sit up straight anymore.

  My mother, two sisters, and a nurse were getting his bed ready. Getting ready to make him comfortable for the last time. I kissed everyone hello and asked how he was doing. They said if I wanted to talk to him I would have to hurry up because the morphine was taking effect and he would soon be completely out of it.

  I didn’t even take off my jacket. I knelt down next to him and struggled for something to say. I knew this was the last opportunity I would ever have to speak to him and time was running out. I also knew there wouldn’t be any hugging, kissing, or crying. We hadn’t done any of that before and I was pretty sure it wouldn’t start now. He knew I loved him and he loved me. There was no need to get mushy about it.

  If I could have had just one wish, it would be to have one last beer with him in Pete’s. That’s where we got along the best. There was never any friction between us there. But those days were long gone.

  I put my hand on his arm and shook it gently. I said, “How are you feeling? You okay?” The morphine apparently was doing its job. He was in La La Land. He slowly lifted his head and opened his eyes. His eyes were yellow and almost lifeless, but he perked up as soon as he recognized me. He tried to give me that crooked-tooth smile one more time, but it seemed like it was too much of an effort. His strength and consciousness were almost gone, but he forced himself to sit up straight.

  There was little time for him to tell me how much he cared about me and he knew it, so he didn’t waste words. With a sudden quickness he reached out, grabbed me by the jacket, and yanked me close to him. I couldn’t believe how strong he was all of a sudden. Two seconds ago he was half dead, now I didn’t know if he wanted to fight or what.

  His strength was dwindling, but he had something important to say and he wanted to make his message loud and clear. With a surprisingly steady hand and tight grip he pulled me in closer and whispered, “You listen to me and you listen good. Don’t you let this little thing that I’m going through here fuck you up. You’ve got a big day coming up on Saturday and you’ve got to keep your head screwed on straight.”

  I was stunned. This was not what I was expecting for our last conversation.

  He had to pause for a moment to take a few deep breaths. He was trying to rally the last bit of strength he could find in that broken body of his. He continued, almost growling this time, “Don’t let me mess you up…you got to promise me that.”

  I could not believe what I was hearing. He was about to die and the only thing on his mind was my lieutenant’s test. This was unbelievable! I didn’t expect this! With all the crazy stuff he had done in his life, he should be more worried about himself right now, but he wasn’t. His last conscious thoughts on this earth were about my stupid lieutenant’s test.

  I shook my head yes and tried to assure him I would be okay. Actually I wasn’t sure of anything right now. I hadn’t been studying much in the last few weeks and right now the test was the last thing on my mind. At that moment I could not care less if I took the test or not. But I wasn’t going to tell him that!

  He tightened his grip on my jacket and growled again, “You’ve got to promise me that. And I’ll promise you something.”

  I didn’t know where he was going with this, but there was no stopping him now and the last thing I wanted to do was argue with him. In between sentences he had to take deep, deliberate breaths because his lungs were filling with fluid and breathing was becoming an extraordinary effort.

  He was on a roll now. “You got to promise me you’re going to hit this test good…and I promise you”—he paused, taking in a long, labored, deep breath, then continued—“I won’t die till Sunday.”

  After another long, labored breath he continued, “I’ll hold on till Sunday so I don’t screw you up, but after that all bets are off. I can’t take this shit much longer.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This was Thursday afternoon. He knew my test was on Saturday, and his plan was to wait till Sunday to die.

  I wasn’t sure either one of us was in any shape to keep this promise, especially him, but I agreed. And as soon as I did, he seemed relieved. He loosened his grip on my jacket, reached up, patted me on the cheek, and mumbled, “Good boy!”

  Just then his hand dropped, limp, to his side and he closed his eyes and that was it. He was finished. And that was the last conversation we would ever have.

  My mother, my sisters, the nurse, and I all lifted him to his feet and put him to bed for the last time. Mom tucked him in and fluffed his pillow as he drifted off to sleep, never to wake up again.

  I asked the nurse, “What’s next?” She told me there was nothing to do now but wait. Waiting seemed like an easy thing to do, compared to all the suffering he had gone through—the heart attacks, the transplant, and now the cancer. But it wasn’t. After just a short period of time his breathing became more labored. He struggled and gurgled for every breath as his lungs filled with fluid and his major organs slowly shut down.

  As a cop I had seen plenty of death in my life but this was different. Most of what I had seen were people who had been shot or stabbed or met some other type of violent, sudden de
ath. But there were no heroic efforts to save a life here, only letting nature take its course, and nature would not be rushed. We sat around his bed and watched as the intervals between each breath became longer and more labored.

  My aunt, uncle, and cousins, whom my family had always been close to, came to the hospital for support. The waiting room down the hall was filled with family members telling their favorite Tommy Osborne stories. I wasn’t the only one with tales about my father. It seemed everyone in the family had their own. At times the laughter coming out of the waiting room would echo down the hall of the peaceful, dimly lit hospice wing. It may have seemed disrespectful to others who did not know our family, but it was really a testament to a man who was truly a character and to how much his family loved him.

  Somewhere in the middle of all this, during a quiet moment, I made the suggestion that maybe we should get a priest. The response I received was a chorus of laughter and one of my sisters calling me an asshole. My father was not a religious person and had not been to church in fifty years except for the mandatory wedding or funeral.

  The last time Dad had been in intensive care, hooked up to an array of monitors and IVs, a priest had come to visit. The man of God was appalled when Dad informed him that the last time he attended Mass was when he was an altar boy in St. John’s grammar school. The fact that Dad was once an altar boy must have given the priest some hope, so he pressed on, “Son, at a time like this you should think about getting closer to God.” Dad’s response: “Padre, if I get any closer to God we’re going to be shaking hands. Thanks but no thanks.” The priest left and never returned.

  Minutes had turned into hours and hours slowly turned into more than a day. Watching him struggle and fight for every breath was torture for us. He laid there with his yellow eyes half open and his chest gurgling with every shallow breath. He was in great distress, and I wondered how long this could continue. Often, after an exceptionally long pause, it would appear his breathing and suffering had finally ended, only to continue with another gasp for air.