The Choirboys

by Joseph Wambaugh

  Meanwhile, back at the choir practice Father Willie was going to hell in a hurry. He had stripped off his shirt and shoes and was asking Ora Lee if she dared him to streak through the park as Harold Bloomguard composed a song called “I Left My Heart in Titty City.”

  “Put your shirt back on, Padre,” said his partner Spencer Van Moot. “I gotta quit feeding you all the cherries jubilee. You’re getting to look like a basketball.”

  “How’s your como se llama these days, Ora Lee?” asked Francis as he tried to squeeze a finger inside the leg of Ora Lee’s ruffled pants, causing her to honk him severely, making him cry out in pain.

  “How do you like being a sex object, huh?” the fat girl grinned.

  “See, you’re not a real Mexican!” yelled shirtless Father Willie who was staggering around looking for trouble. “You’re not even a Jap! A real Mexican like General Zapata could take a little hurt without whimpering!”

  “How’d you like to get your nuts crushed by this big moose?” said the injured choirboy, holding himself.

  “Who’s a moose?” demanded Ora Lee Tingle, glowering at Francis. “You call me names I’ll hit you so hard and fast you’ll think you was in a gang fight!”

  “Carolina’s putting on a little more weight,” Baxter Slate observed as he sat next to Sam Niles and the two quietly tried to drink themselves into unconsciousness.

  “Maybe she’s pregnant,” Sam observed.

  “What’re you trying to say, what’re you trying to say Sam?” Whaddayamean Dean cried out but quieted down when Baxter handed him a full bottle of bourbon.

  “If she’s pregnant I’ll take her soon as her milk comes in,” said Spencer Van Moot. “I can’t feed my wife and kids no more on a policeman’s pay what with the inflation and all.”

  “That’s cause you spend all your money on faggy clothes! A man your age!” said a voice from the darkness as Roscoe Rules got tired of waiting for someone to coax him back to the flock.

  Then Francis Tanaguchi staggered away from the other choirboys and they heard him retching on the grass.

  “Booo! Booo! Zapata my rear end!” giggled Father Willie Wright.

  And while the party entered its final phase, Alexander Blaney slept on the grass not a hundred feet away beside two friendly ducklings while his mother wept at home and imagined him locked in the cruel embrace of a tattooed merchant seaman in some skid row flop-house.

  At the end of that memorable choir practice some ordinary and extraordinary things started to happen.

  An ordinary thing was that Whaddayamean Dean broke out in several crying jags and sobbed, “What’re you trying to say?” every time a choirboy was foolish enough to send a remark in his direction.

  An extraordinary thing was that Spermwhale Whalen lost his diamond cutter and in fact lost the use of all his muscles. He could only sit against an elm tree and snarl at anyone who came near him. Spermwhale, the biggest strongest and bravest choirboy, was so drunk he was as helpless as the baby ducks out of water.

  Another ordinary thing was that Roscoe Rules became as mean as a rabid dog, and with Sam Niles drunk and Spermwhale Whalen helpless, it seemed for a time that no one was around who could tame the young policeman. He was going around jealously insulting Ora Lee and Carolina because they didn’t feel like pulling that train and in any event wouldn’t let anyone as mean as Roscoe have a ride.

  “Pig fuckers!” Roscoe Rules sneered. “If you don’t oink they won’t touch you! Gotta lead you up to a trough first to see if you’re worthwhile, huh?”

  Sam Niles looked up from where he lay on his stomach groaning, and said, “Roscoe, this just might be the night I get you in a lip lock and shut you up for good.”

  “Yeah, go ahead and try it, Niles,” Roscoe said. “You and your friend Slate together couldn’t handle me. Don’t think I don’t know you dopeheads go over there by Duck Island and smoke grass. You ain’t fooling nobody, you two.”

  “Who’s got grass?” piped Harold Bloomguard.

  “Better knock off that talk about grass, Harold,” Father Willie advised as he tried in vain to slap Spermwhale Whalen alive so he could scare Roscoe Rules and make him quit throwing his weight around.

  “I told you about smokin grass, Harold!” the paralyzed Spermwhale growled. “I got nineteen and a half years on the job and that don’t ring the bell. You bring any pot here and get me fired and lose my pension with only six months to go and I’ll buy a whole kilo a grass. And I’ll pound it right up your ass and bury your head in the dirt and let the fuckin ducks get loaded by eatin the seeds outta your shit! YOU GOT ME?”

  “I was just kidding, Spermwhale,” Harold gulped.

  “Well I know Slate and Niles smoke grass, the fucking degenerates,” said Roscoe Rules.

  Actually Roscoe was partly right. Baxter and Sam did go down by the duck pond occasionally for an illicit drug. But it wasn’t marijuana. Baxter had been dating a nurse who lived in his apartment building who was an inveterate pill popper and kept Baxter supplied with sedatives and hypnotics. So it was red capsules and yellow ones which Baxter and Sam swallowed with their booze down by the duck pond, both knowing the risks involved when they mixed the drugs with heavy drinking. In fact, Baxter Slate only seemed to want the barbiturates when he had been drinking excessively.

  Roscoe walked over to Father Willie Wright who was telling Ora Lee Tingle how cute she was as the fat girl’s head started to drop on her shoulder.

  Roscoe sniffed and said, “Padre, fucking that pig without a rubber is like playing the Rams without a helmet. Hope you got protection.”

  “Well I like her!” shouted Father Willie, lurching to his feet combatively. “She’s better’n Frank Buck any old day. She really brings em back alive!”

  “Siddown, you drunken little prick,” Roscoe Rules said, shoving the chaplain to the ground, making Father Willie yell, “Darn you, Roscoe! Gosh darn you, you bully!”

  “Hey, Tanaguchi!” the jealous Roscoe yelled as he saw Francis stroking Carolina’s quaking buttocks. “I hear when Carolina was living with that Greek bartender he used to butt-fuck her all the time.”

  “Never on Sunday!” Carolina answered and Francis’ giggles made Roscoe angrier.

  “Her box is so big she wouldn’t even feel your hand unless you wore a wristwatch,” Roscoe grumbled.

  “You can bet you ain’t gonna know, Roscoe!” said Carolina, throwing Francis off her as she sat up and rearranged her clothing. “Cause Father Willie told me you got clap!”

  “I didn’t say that!” Father Willie protested. “I just told how when we were at Daniel Freeman Hospital that time you talked to the doctor about the strain you were having down there. And he said, ‘Do you have a discharge, Officer?’ and you said, ‘Yes, Honorable.’ And then you turned red when the doc and me cracked up. Oh God, that was funny!”

  The chaplain rolled up in a little ball and cackled hilariously until Roscoe Rules was standing over him saying dangerously, “Padre, I thought I warned you not to tell anyone that story.”

  Then Father Willie sobered up and said, “Gosh I forgot, Roscoe. I’m sorry.”

  “I oughtta punch your lights out,” Roscoe said, eyes like a cobra.

  “I’m sorry, Roscoe.”

  “I oughtta kneedrop you right now.”

  “What a cunt!” Spermwhale Whalen said to Roscoe, stirring around against the tree, trying to get control of his legs so he could come over and throw Roscoe Rules in the duck pond.

  Father Willie started sniveling and said, “I’m really sorry, Roscoe.”

  Spermwhale Whalen got disgusted with the chaplain and glared at him, saying, “What a cunt!”

  And Carolina Moon squatted by the liquor case and found the Scotch all gone and thought Roscoe Rules was ruining the choir practice. She started to cry great drunken tears.

  Spermwhale Whalen looked at her and said, “What a cunt!”

  Carolina sniffed and said, “Thank you, Spermy. At least somebody appreciates me.”<
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  Whaddayamean Dean suddenly said, “What’s it all about, Roscoe? What’s it all about?”

  “Oh the hell with all a you,” said Roscoe Rules. “You’re all a bunch a scrotes!”

  The meanest choirboy took a full bottle of bourbon, the last in fact, and stalked off into the darkness to think about what he’d like to do to all of them and drink bourbon and absently pull on his whang while he fantasized.

  “Gimme Scotch,” said Ora Lee Tingle suddenly as her head stopped lolling.

  “Ain’t none,” said Carolina who stopped crying and got happy again now that Roscoe was gone.

  “Gimme beer,” said Ora Lee Tingle as Francis Tanaguchi lurched toward the duck pond to soak his head so that he wouldn’t miss the rest of the choir practice by passing out like his partner Calvin Potts who dozed next to one of Ora Lee Tingle’s big legs.

  “I wish we had a stereo,” said Spencer Van Moot, mummified on the grass, his blanket wrapped tightly around him until only his face was exposed. “I’m older than you kids. I’d like some old music.”

  “I’m older than Christ Almighty,” groaned Spermwhale Whalen, at last able to wiggle his fingers and toes.

  “I’m old,” Spencer continued, “so I remember things you kids only saw in movies. Like the big bands. They were still around when I was young. Great times. Christ, I graduated high school in 1952. Imagine that.”

  “I was killing gooks in 1952,” Spermwhale muttered. “No offense, Francis. And that was my second war.”

  “If we had a stereo we could dance on the grass,” said Spencer nostalgically.

  “God, you can get sweet sometimes, Spencer,” croaked Ora Lee Tingle as she crawled over and lay on top of the blanket-wrapped choirboy making him gasp for air.

  “I’ve got a portable stereo,” offered Harold Bloomguard. “But my tweeter and woofer aren’t very big.”

  “Get some hormone shots,” offered Father Willie Wright, scrounging desperately through the debris of boxes and packages for some more beer.

  “Oh, that’s funny!” Carolina Moon screamed suddenly “Francis just says he told this waitress he wanted to be a counterspy and so he leans over the counter and spies up her dress. Oh, you horny little Nip!” and she honked him so clumsily he fell to his knees groaning in pain.

  “Boooo!” cried Father Willie. “Booooo! Mexican my rear end!”

  “Knock it off, Padre!” said Calvin Potts. “You jist woke me up.”

  “Well he oughtta be able to take a little pain, he’s Pancho Villa or somebody,” said the choirboy chaplain, belching up some beer on his bare chest and making them all boo him.

  The weight of Ora Lee Tingle on the blanketed Spencer Van Moot caused the choirboy to gag violently and the fat girl leaped off him surprisingly fast.

  “My cop runneth over!” whooped Ora Lee Tingle, causing Harold Bloomguard to collapse in hysterical laughter in her great pink arms.

  Just then Roscoe Rules, still holding his bourbon bottle which was only two thirds full, came staggering back among them. “Yeah? I’ll tell you what you are, you big titted scrote. You’re just a camp follower! A station house groupie! A cop sucker!”

  Then Roscoe wheeled and headed back toward the duck pond where Spencer Van Moot was already washing his vomity blanket. Roscoe paused only for an instant by Baxter Slate’s blanket and quickly grabbed a set of car keys and when he was sure no one was watching, threw them into the middle of the pond.

  Then Carolina Moon started showing off. The big girl quickly overpowered Francis Tanaguchi and got him in a wrist-lock Spermwhale had taught her, which came in handy with rowdy customers at the cocktail lounge where she worked. As the other choirboys cheered, Carolina played rough by forcing the groaning choirboy forward until his head was on the ground and his LAPD basketball jersey was falling down over his face. Then she picked him up by the belled bottoms of his faded white jeans and started bouncing him off the grass.

  “Yea, Carolina! Yea!” shouted Father Willie Wright who was still shirtless and barefoot, pacing around the wrestlers.

  Then while the puffing fat girl was shaking the upside-down choirboy against her plump dimpled belly some coins, keys, a comb and a package of prophylactics fell out of Francis’ pocket causing Carolina Moon to drop him abruptly on his head.

  “Rubbers!” exclaimed Carolina in sweaty disbelief, her stiff lacquered hair stuck to her face. “Rubbers! Ora Lee, this chickenshit is carrying rubbers!”

  “Pancho Villa, my rear end!” said Father Willie. “Booooo! Booooo!”

  “A cundrum!” cried Carolina Moon. “This is what you think of us! I oughtta pull it over your head, you little prick!”

  “Black Jack Pershing woulda whipped faggy Mexicans like Francis!” yelled Roscoe Rules from his exile in the darkness.

  “I’ll never forget the first time I met Carolina Moon,” said Spencer Van Moot romantically as he limped back from the duck pond, smelling of vomit and rancid water, causing Carolina to scurry away from him.

  “She was younger then and so lovely,” Spencer said with a liquid burp that scared everyone. “It was before your time, guys, and I was a younger buck and this gorgeous blonde girl with bazooms like volleyballs walks up to my radio car when we’re parked in the drive-in on La Brea, and she looks me right in the eyeball and says, ‘Gee, I thought I blew every cop in Wilshire.’ I just loved that girl from then on!”

  Carolina smiled shyly and said, “Spence, honey you’re a doll. But why don’t you think about going home to your wife and kiddies now? You smell awful ripe.”

  Spencer wrapped his blanket around him like a toga and downed a can of warm beer he found in the grass and belched perilously again. His pinky ring glittered and his little blond toothbrush moustache twitched as he breathed the night air and looked at the smog-filled night sky for the great star and yearned for his lost youth.

  “Gud-damn, Spencer stinks,” Calvin Potts complained. “I think we better call the coroner.”

  “It’s all right, Spencer. You look like Marcus Aurelius,” Baxter Slate grinned, raising his head surprisingly well from where he had dozed for over an hour. “You long for those days when we didn’t think we would fail. When we didn’t think we would die! When we were young.”

  “I heard you, Slate,” a slurred gravel voice shouted from the darkness. “So don’t start that faggy talk. And don’t think you and Niles can sneak off and smoke pot. I’m watching you!”

  “But who guards the guards, Roscoe?” Baxter yelled.

  “Who said that?” Roscoe suddenly confused the voices.

  “Juvenal,” Baxter Slate said.

  “Who you calling a juvenile?” snapped Roscoe Rules.

  “Now’s the time for drinking! Horace said that, Roscoe,” Baxter Slate yelled.

  “Horace! Horace!” answered Roscoe. “Never catch a cop with a name like that. Some faggy friend a yours, huh?”

  And with his bottle of bourbon three quarters gone Roscoe Rules decided to punch Baxter Slate’s faggy lights out once and for all. But he found his legs didn’t work and he fell heavily on his chest and panted quietly for a moment and went to sleep.

  “Yeah I remember the good old days, Spencer,” said Carolina Moon who also felt nostalgic. “We was wild young kids then, Ora Lee and me. Remember how we used to say we did more to relieve policemen than the whole Los Angeles Police Relief Association?” she asked her slightly older roommate who had fallen fast asleep and was snoring noisily.

  Carolina shrugged and said, “When they put that slogan ‘To Protect and To Serve’ on all police cars we had one made for our Pontiac saying, ‘To Protect and To Service.’ One time Ora Lee and me figured we sucked off more cops than the whole police wives’ association.”

  “Impossible!” cried Harold Bloomguard.

  “Well it’s true,” said Carolina. “We got seven thousand cops in this town, right? And I bet there ain’t five hundred whose wives belong to that group. Am I right, Spencer?”

  “Right,�
�� said Spencer starting to be offended by his own smelly toga.

  “Most of em are ladies, ain’t they Spencer? Probably only blew one, two policemen?” Carolina asked.

  “No more than that,” said Spencer Van Moot.

  “My wife never even did one,” Father Willie Wright noted. “That’s my trouble.”

  “See,” said Carolina to the assembly. “That means they couldn’t a did more than eight hundred at most. Christ, Ora Lee and me done more than that one summer when we were hanging around Seventy-seventh Station!”

  “They do have a lot of guys working down there,” Spencer had to admit.

  And it was finally conceded that the two girls had easily outfaced the entire police wives’ association. But just as the girls were thinking about pulling that train for a couple of their favorites Francis Tanaguchi came charging into their midst from the direction of the duck pond.

  “Come see what I did!” giggled the choirboy prankster.

  “Whaddaya mean? Whaddaya mean?” asked Whaddayamean Dean.

  “Not now, not now,” said Spencer Van Moot, leering at Carolina Moon.

  “Now! Now!” said Francis Tanaguchi, shaking all the drunken choirboys.

  “What’s it all about? What’s it all about?” cried Whaddayamean Dean.

  “Oh shit, oh shit,” said Calvin Potts as Whaddayamean Dean had them all talking double action.

  Carolina Moon got up and stumbled after Francis. And all the choirboys, even Spermwhale Whalen, walked or crawled toward the duck pond where Roscoe Rules slept soundly on his back with a large white duck hanging out his fly.

  “My word!” said Baxter Slate.

  “How’d you manage that, Francis?” asked Sam Niles, impressed out of his ennui.

  “Now that’s class!” mumbled Spermwhale Whalen gravely as he was finally able to stand up shakily like an enormous toddler.

  “I just took some bread and sprinkled it from the water to Roscoe’s crotch,” giggled Francis Tanaguchi. “Then I unzipped his pants and dropped some inside!”

  “He’d a caught you he’d a said it was a faggy thing to do,” Father Willie remarked.