Working

by Studs Terkel

  I don’t believe in entrapping. To entrap is to induce someone to commit a crime. The prostitute was a great source of information. This is funny, but I’d rather have a prostitute working the street. This is her trade and it’s been going on since Adam and Eve. If I were President, I’d legalize it. As long as she’s operating, I don’t have to worry about someone being raped or a child being molested. They render a service as long as they’re clean and don’t hurt people.

  I used to call the girls at two in the morning and say, “I need four or five for the night.” And they’d say, “Okay Vince, we’ll be here. Come back in about two hours.” They’d all be lined up and I’d lock ’em up. I’d grab one of the broads off the street and I’d say, “Charlene, you’d better hustle because I’m coming back later and if I catch youse around—boom—you’re gonna get nailed. The beef is on.”

  The good suffer for the faults of the bad. You get one hooker out there that’s a bad one, starts jackrolling, working with a pimp, you’ve got a bad beef. As long as the broads are operating and nobody’s hurt . . . If Sam wants to go out and get something strange, he’s gonna go. I can’t put a ball and chain on this man. His own conscience has got to be his guide.

  I don’t discriminate, black or white broads. They were good to me. They were my source of information. They can go places where my eyes and ears can’t go. The best eyes and ears the policeman has got is the street, because the blue is known even when you don’t have it on. So you send your other people out.

  When they get pinched, they’re not hurt so much. When they put up a twenty-five-dollar bond, they know I’m not gonna be in court and they get their money back and they’re back on the street. They take the bust and it’s a cover for them.

  There was a gang of thieves in Old Town. At the time, there was sixty or seventy unsolved robberies. They were working in conjunction with prostitutes. They’d rob the trick. They would sometimes cut, beat, or shoot the victim. My two partners and I set out one night and I was the decoy. I was picked up by two prostitutes. I took on four guys in a gun battle. One guy stuck a shotgun in my stomach and it misfired. The other guy opened up on me with a .38. I killed the man with the shotgun, wounded the other guy, and took the other two. I volunteered. I was decorated for it and given a chance to make detective. But I didn’t make it.

  I’m human. I make mistakes like everybody else. If you want a robot, build machines. If you want human beings, that’s what I am. I’m an honest cop. I don’t think any person doing my job could face the stuff I face without losing your temper at one time or another. I’ve used the word nigger, I’ve used the word stump-jumpin’ hillbilly, I’ve used vulgarity against ’em. It depends on the element.

  I’ve never studied psychology, but I apply it every day of my life. You can go into an atmosphere of doctors and lawyers and educators and get a point across verbally. They understand. You can also work on the South or West Side,* where you can talk your fool head off and get nothing. They don’t understand this nicety-type guy. So you walk with a big stick. Like the adage of a mule: He’s a very intelligent animal, but in order to get his attention you have to hit him on the head with a stick. Same thing applies on the street.

  You walk up to some of these people and they’ll spit in your face. If you let them, then I’ve lost what I am as a policeman, because now I’ve let the bad overrule me. So I have to get physical sometimes. It isn’t done in a brutal sense. I call it a corrective measure. You get these derelicts on the street. I’ve dealt with these people for years. You whack ’em on the sole of the foot. It isn’t brutal, but it stings and he gets the message: he’s not supposed to be sleeping on the street. “Get up!” You get him on his feet and say, “Now go on back to junk heaven that you live in and get some sleep.” Someone coming down the street sees me use the stick on the sole of his foot is gonna scream that I’m brutal.

  There were five gentlemen standing on the corner, all black. One guy stepped in front of my car, and said, “You white mother so-and-so, you ain’t goin’ nowhere.” Bleep-bleep on the horn. I say, “Listen fella, move!” He didn’t move. The challenge was there. I’m alone, I’m white. And he’s one of these people that read in the magazines: Challenge the policeman. I got out of the squad car and I told him, “You . . .” (Hesitates.) I rapped to him in his tongue and he understood. I called him everything in the book. I said, “Get up off the curb or you’re gonna go to jail.” He made a very emphatic point of trying to take me physically. It didn’t work. When his four buddies saw him go on the ground, I got the message across: I’m the boss on the street. If you’re the jungle cat, I’m the man with the whip and the chain. If that’s the way you want to be treated, I’m gonna treat you that way. If you want to be physical, mister, you better be an awful good man to take me.

  From now on, I’d walk up and down that street and the guys’d say (imitates black accent), “Hiya mister po-lice, how ya doin?” I don’t care if you’re yellow, pink, or purple, I’m a policeman and I demand respect. Not for me as an individual, but for what I represent. Unfortunately, the country’s going the other way. They’ll be throwing bricks and bottles at you and you’ll be told don’t do anything, they’re merely expressing themselves.

  Now this bit about advising people of their constitutional rights. I have been doing that for years. Nobody had to tell me to do it. I did it because I felt: Listen, baby, you open your big mouth and anything you tell me, I’m gonna use against you. I didn’t come right out and say, “Sir, I must advise you of your constitutional rights.” I didn’t stand there and let them go bang-bang and stick-stick with a blade while I’m tellin’ ’cm. I’m just as much a policeman to the black man as I am to the white man, to the yellow man, to the liberal, to the conservative, to the hippie or whatever. I choose no sides.

  I was respected as good cannon fodder. But where do I lack the quality of leadership? This is what bugs me. Is there something wrong with me that I can’t be a leader. Who is to judge me? I’ve had guys on this job that have begged to work with me as a partner. If that doesn’t show leadership . . .

  Remember when you were a kid and the policeman took you across the street? What is he doing in essence? He’s walking you through danger, is he not? Okay, I do the same thing. If I take you by the hand and walk you through Lincoln Park, nobody’s gonna mess with you. But if I don’t take you and walk you through the park, somebody’s gonna mug you. I protect you from the dangerous elements. All these do-gooders that say, “Oh yeah, we respect you”—you have the feeling that they’re saying yes with their mouth, but they’re laughing at you. They don’t respect me.

  I’d love to go out on the college campus and grab some of these radicals. It’s more or less a minority. When you apply logic and truth and philosophy, they cannot come back at you. You cannot fight truth. Who’s being brutal? Before I make an arrest, I’ll tell the guy, “You have a choice. You could be nice and we’ll walk. If you become combative, I’m going to use physical force against you to compensate. In fact, I’m gonna have to break some bones. You forced the issue.”

  Oh yeah, the Democratic Convention. (A show of hurt appears, in the manner of a small boy’s pout.) There was this radical garbage piece of thing, dirty, long-haired, not a human being in my book, standing by the paddy wagon. Not a mark on him. He spotted the camera and disappeared. In thirty seconds he came back. He was covered with all kinds of blood. He’s screaming into the camera, “Look what they did to me!”

  Lincoln Park. This group was comin’ down on me. I’m by myself. They’re comin’ down the hill, “Kill the pig! Off the pig!” Well, I’m not a pig. There’s only one of me and a whole mess of them. Well, c’est le guerre, sweetheart. I folded my arms, put my hand on my .38. I looked at them and said, “What’s happening?” They stopped. They thought I was gonna pull out my weapon and start blowin’ brains out. I didn’t lose my cool. I’m a policeman, I don’t scare. I’m dumb that way. (Laughs.) These kids were incited by someone to do something. T
hey said, “Those guys up there with the cameras.” I blame the media.

  There’s a picture in the Loop—Sweet Sweetback’s Badassss Song—it is strictly hate-white. Nobody pickets that. You can imagine an anti-Negro flick? These people can get away with anything they want. But if you try it, zero, you’ll get nailed. The radicals and the black militants, they’re the dangers. They could be standing here on the street corner selling this Black Panther thing. (Imitates black accent), “This magazine is fo’ de black man.” He wants to off the pig. And I’m standing there. How do you think I feel? You know what off the pig means? Kill the pig. I look at them and I laugh. I’d like to break his neck. But I’m a policeman, a professional. I know the element they are. They’re like the Nazi was with the Germans. The SS. No good.

  To me, when I was a kid, the policeman was the epitome—not of perfection—was a good and evil in combination, but in control. He came from an element in the neighborhood and he knew what was going on. To me, a policeman is your community officer. He is your Officer Friendly, he is your clergyman, he is your counselor. He is a doctor to some: “Mr. Policeman, my son just fell and bumped his head.” Now all we are is a guy that sits in a squad car and waits for a call to come over the radio. We have lost complete contact with the people. They get the assumption that we’re gonna be called to the scene for one purpose—to become violent to make an arrest. No way I can see that. I am the community officer. They have taken me away from the people I’m dedicated to serving—and I don’t like it.

  The cop on the corner took you across the street, right? Now, ten o‘clock at night, he’s still there on the corner, and he tells you to get your fanny home. He’s not being nice. The next time he tells you, he’s gonna whack you with the stick. In the old days, if you went home and told your dad the cop on the corner whacked you with a stick, you know what your father did? He whacked you twice as hard. He said, “You shouldn’t’ve been there. The policeman told you to go home, go home.” Today these kids defy you.

  I handed one parent a stick. I said, “Lady, when I leave this room and you don’t apply that stick to this young lady’s mouth, I will. I’ll also sign charges against you for contributing to the delinquency of this child. You don’t know how to be a parent.” If I was sitting at a table with my father and threw a temper tantrum, I got knocked on my rear end. When I was picked up I was told, “You eat it, ’cause it’s there.” The law is there. If you don’t want the law and you don’t like my country, get out.

  Take an old Western town. I just saw a thing with Richard Widmark on TV, which I thought was great. A town was being ramrodded by baddies. So they got ahold of this gunfighter and made him their sheriff, and he cleaned up the town. A little hard, but he was a nice guy. He got rid of the element and they told him he could have the job for as long as he wanted it. Then the people that put him in got power and they became dirty. They wanted things done and he said no. He wound up getting killed. This is what I feel about me and these do-gooders. They get power, I’m in their way.

  I’m the element that stands between the legitimate person and the criminal. Years ago, he wore a .45 and he was a gunfighter and he wasted people. Okay, I don’t believe in killing everybody. But I do believe we’ve gone overboard. They can shoot a guy like crazy but we cannot retaliate. I’m a target for these people. Go ahead, vent yourself. That’s what I’m here for, a whipping boy. I’m not saying life in itself is violent, but I deal in the violent part of life.

  There is a double standard, let’s face it. You can stop John Doe’s average son for smoking pot and he’ll go to jail. But if I stop Johnny Q on the street and his daddy happens to be the president of a bank or he’s very heavy in politics or knows someone, you look like a jerk. Why did you arrest him? Do you know who he is? I could care less who he is. If he breaks the law, go.

  I made a raid up at the beach. The hippies were congregating, creating sex orgies and pot and everything. The word went out, especially about hitchhiking. Okay, we used to raid the beach and lock everybody up, didn’t care who they were. One fella told me, “I’m gonna have your job. My father is out on the lake with the mayor.” I said, “Fine, when you go to court bring your father and the mayor. But as far as I’m concerned, mister, you’re doing a no-no, and you’re going to jail.”

  We knew pot was involved. They were creating a disturbance. It was after eleven o’clock at night. You got rules and regulations for one reason —discipline. I consider the law as rules and regulations—in the military, on my job, or as citizens. They were puncturing tires, breaking antennas off cars, throwing bottles, fornicating on the beach—everything! Hitchhiking was impeding traffic. So I started locking them up for hitchhiking. All of a sudden, lay off! The citizens made a peace treaty with them. I’m the one who gets chastised! I did the job the citizens wanted me to do, right? All of a sudden, “Hey dummy, lay off!”

  Jealous? Never. No way. I’m not prudish in any way, shape, or form. I’m far from being a virgin. (Laughs.) You’re not a marine to be a virgin, no way in the world. But I don’t believe in garbage. Sex is a beautiful thing. I dig it. But to exploit it in such a fashion to make it garbage, that to me is offensive. Jealousy, no way. I look at those people out there as I would be going to the zoo and watching the monkeys play games. That doesn’t turn me on. They’re all perverted people. I don’t believe in perversion. They’re making it strictly animal. Monkeys in the cage, boom, boom, boom, from one to the other, that’s it. I believe in one man and one woman.

  Do all long-haired guys bug you?

  I don’t want my sons to have it. Now, the sideburns I wear because I do TV commercials and stuff. I’m in the modeling field.

  He moonlights on occasion—modeling, appearing in industrial films, selling insurance, and driving semi-trucks. “I’m not necessarily ambitious. I do it Because I like it. I jump in a truck and I’m gone to Iowa, Ohio, Kentucky. It’s a great kick for me.”

  But I don’t like long hair. If it’s your bag, do it, but don’t try to force it on me. A long-hair person doesn’t bother me, but when you see that radical with the mop and that shanky garbage and you can smell ’em a block away, that bothers me.

  A few years ago there was this hippie, long-haired, slovenly. He confronted me. Don’t ever confront me when I tell you to move. That’s a no-no. To make a long story short, I—uh—(laughs) I cut a piece of his long hair off and I handed it back to him. With a knife. It was just a spontaneous reaction. He was screaming “brutality.” Anyway, a couple of weeks later I was confronted by this nice-looking fellow in a suit, haircut, everything. He said, “Officer, do you recognize me?” He pulled out this cellophane packet and handed it to me, and there was his hair in it. (Laughs.) I said, “That’s you?” And he said, “Yeah. You showed me one thing. You really care about people. I just had to go out and get a job and prove something to you.” That kid joined the Marine Corps.

  Sometimes I feel like a father out there. You don’t really want to paddle your kid’s rear end. It hurts you ten times more than it does him. But you have to put the point across, and if it becomes necessary to use a little constructive criticism . . . I will think of my father a lot of times. No way did he spare the rod on my rump. And I never hated him for it, no way. I loved him for it.

  My sons adore me. My wife can’t understand this. If they do something wrong in my presence—(mumbles) even though I don’t live in that house —they get punished. My wife said, “You’re so hard with them at times, yet they worship the ground you walk on.” When I used the belt on them I’d always tell them why. They understand and they accept it. My oldest boy is now on the honor rolls at Notre Dame High School.

  He gets a little stubborn. He’d confront me with things: “I want to wear my hair long.” “You want to wear your hair long, get out of my house. You know what it represents to me. Till the day you are twenty-one and you will leave my jurisdiction, you will do as I tell you. You understand?” “Okay Dad, you’re the boss.” That’s all there is to
it. There’s no resentment, no animosity. It’s just an understanding that I lay the law down. There are rules and regulations.

  But I’m not a robot, I think for myself. One thing bugs me. Burglary is a felony. If a burglar is trapped and becomes physical and is shot to death, that’s justifiable homicide. Mayor Daley made an utterance—shoot to kill—and they—click—blew it up. I don’t think he meant it literally.

  I can’t shoot an unarmed person. No way. Anyway, knowing people, they’ll say, “Forget it, we’re insured.” So why should I get involved over an insurance matter? I would love to go after people who perpetrate robberies or hurt other people. A theft, granted it’s a crime, but most of the people it hurts is the insurance company. Robbery is hurting a person.

  I prefer going after robbery more than homicide. When a guy commits murder, he’s usually done. He’s caught and goes to the penitentiary or the chair. But a guy that commits robbery doesn’t usually get caught the first time, second, third time. He’s out there over and over again. I want to grab the guy that’s hitting all the time, instead of the guy that’s doing the one shot. I love risk and challenge. Driving a semi down the road is challenging. You never know what’s going to happen. (Laughs.) Some guy passes you, cuts you off, you’re jack-knifed. You blow a tire, you’re gone. I don’t like a boring life.

  When I worked as a bartender, I felt like a non-person. I was actually nothing. I was a nobody going nowhere. I was in a state of limbo. I had no hopes, no dreams, no ups, no downs, nothing. Being a policeman gives me the challenge in life that I want. Some day I’ll be promoted. Somebody’s gonna say, “Maher has had it for a long time. Let’s give him something.” Some sort of recognition. I’ve proven myself. I don’t think it’s necessary for a man to prove himself over and over and over again. I’m a policeman, win, lose, or draw.