Slow Motion Riot

by Peter Blauner

  My 11:30 appointment is a homeless guy who calls himself Freddie Brooks or James Stewart, depending on the day he’s arrested. By his own admission, Freddie (the name I prefer) has a “very chronic substance abuse problem.” He’s whippet-thin and his head droops like a rag doll’s. He wears a dirty red bandana over his scalp and his eyelids look swollen. He has been arrested almost continuously for ten years on robbery, assault, and disorderly conduct charges, but he’s still on probation.

  “You know, Freddie, we’re just going to recommend they send you to jail next time,” I say, balancing his file on my knees.

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Freddie says in a sad, sluggish voice as he sinks down in the chair. “I been to all the clinics for the cocaine and the heroin. But I ain’t rehabilitated.”

  “I thought things were going well in the last drug program you were in.” I scratch my head with the bottom of my pen. “You told me it was a good program. Why didn’t you stay with it?”

  “I drank.”

  “You gotta do something about this substance abuse. I’m worried about you, Freddie.”

  “I know.” Saliva bubbles gather in the corner of his mouth.

  I glance down at his file. “Why didn’t you show up at your last court date?”

  “I was in the hospital.” Freddie closes his heavy lids as if for the last time. The records say he’s thirty-three, but he has the face and body of a man in his sixties. His blue-black skin seems to be peeling off in places, leaving rusty patches underneath. I smell something a little funny and hope he hasn’t wet himself.

  “Well, then how did you manage to get arrested again the very next day?” I ask loudly enough to wake him.

  “See, I was standing in front of a liquor store on Pitkin Avenue, around Stone …”

  I lean back in my chair and try to get a mental picture of the neighborhood. East New York. I was there maybe once. It reminded me of Dickens’s descriptions of nineteenth-century south London. “That’s like a really squalid place,” I hear myself say.

  “Yeah, and it’s serious too,” Freddie says with an unexpected burst of energy. “I was standing in front of a liquor store with my girl and one of her kids knocked over the sign for the shoe salesman next door. So he comes out and hits my girl in the head with a hammer. So we all jumped in there on him and he bit my finger …”

  I hold up my hand like a stop sign. “Freddie, all this sounds a little strange. Why did the guy get so upset about them knocking over a sign?”

  Freddie does not have much of an answer for that, or anything else. His days are dissolving into a haze of bad drugs and incoherent crimes. His nights are divided between a shelter on the Lower East Side and the floor of Penn Station. There’s no point in using the blackboard or trying to draw up a schedule for him. He’s only reliable now in keeping his appointments with me, probably because he knows I care about him as much as anybody else in his life does. Which isn’t saying a lot, but we do have a kind of loyalty to each other.

  “Freddie,” I say, shaking my head, “you’re committing suicide right in front of my face.”

  “That’s correct,” Freddie says with a certain wasted eloquence. “And I know you don’t condone that.”

  The city doesn’t care whether Freddie is salvageable or not. It just doesn’t want him taking up valuable cell space in a prison with more deserving people waiting. I try to look out for Freddie, but I refuse to kid myself about what I can do for him.

  “The only assurance that he will not end up in jail is the fact that he will probably die soon,” I write in my report.

  I spend the next few minutes trying to reduce the paper mountain on my desk. I hit Andy Benjamin’s file and decide it’s time to call him up and hassle him. He answers on the sixth ring.

  “Andy,” I say. “You get a job yet?”

  For the next few seconds I hear what sounds like a dog panting. “No,” Andy says a little breathlessly.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “I’m jerkin’ off.” More panting. He really is jerking off.

  “If you don’t knock it off and find a job soon, I’m gonna come over to your house myself,” I say impatiently.

  He gasps a little. “And do what?” he asks.

  “I’m gonna tell your mother what you’re doing.”

  As his gasp turns into a cry of pleasure, I hang up on him.

  I use the break to run downstairs and get a new pack of Marlboros, a bag of potato chips, and a Budweiser from the deli around the corner on Worth Street. My teeth ache from chewing on pen caps all morning and my back is in knots again.

  When I get back to the office, just after 12:30, my supervisor Emma Lang is waiting. She’s a tall, handsome black woman in her mid-thirties, wearing shiny high heels, a long navy blue skirt, and a blazer with shoulders as thick as a linebacker’s. She always seems to be frowning, but I’ve never figured out if that’s because she likes me less than I like her or if she’s just generally embittered.

  The latter is more likely since she’s worked at the department seven years longer than me, and she makes less than thirty thousand dollars a year.

  She looks around the cubicle and wrinkles her nose. “Two more weeks and then no more smoking in here,” she says.

  “I know.”

  She stares intently at my legs like she’s about to complain about my wearing jeans again. “There’s probably going to be some personnel changes in the next month,” she says abruptly.

  “Because of the turnover?” I put down the bag with the beer in it and a little damp spot appears on its outside. My stomach flutters. I’d applied for a supervisor’s post at the Brooklyn juvenile program weeks before. Maybe she’s going to tell me if I got the job.

  “Eight people gone and summer’s just starting.” She leans against the doorframe and studies her fingernails for a second.

  I’m not surprised. A lot of people burn out early at probation. You can only stand by and watch so many disasters waiting to happen. The economics of it are enough to drive most people out. Cops, lawyers, and psychiatrists all make a lot more money and get better benefits, though probation officers sometimes do all three jobs.

  “You’re probably going to be transferred over to the field service unit soon,” Ms. Lang says, sounding more like she’s giving an order than making a prediction.

  My heart sinks. “What about that juvenile supervisor’s post?”

  “I forgot you applied for that too. Cathy Brody got it. She does have seniority.”

  I nod patiently, even though I feel like punching something. “But why am I getting field service?” I wasn’t aware of any vacancies in the unit, which picks up clients who’ve violated their probation in some way.

  “One of the field guys went over to parole in February and they’re still looking for somebody to replace him,” she says. “I remember you telling me you were interested in that job before, so I put your name in.”

  A chill creeps up between my shoulder blades and I reach for the Silly Putty again. I’d have a cigarette if she wasn’t standing here now.

  “I also put in your name because I think you’ve done a very good job here,” she says.

  “I have?”

  “Your clients have the lowest recidivism rate in the borough office.”

  “Luck of the draw.” I shrug.

  “No, you are my best guy here,” she says flatly, like she’s looking up a boring fact in the encyclopedia. “I’ve monitored your cases and read the reports. I told the administration that you can be tough, and you know how to tread lightly, like with this Charlie Simms and Maria Sanchez. You have the gift for connecting.”

  “Thanks.” I clear my throat loudly and blow ashes from my ashtray onto my knees. “I wasn’t aware you liked me.”

  “I don’t,” she says. “You’re a white boy from Queens. Can’t like you. Don’t like what you are. Nothing you can do about that, nothing I can do about that.” Her voice drops into a deep Southern register. “You know
what I’m saying. But I am recommending you.”

  Ms. Lang is not the type to invite you into her office for a heart-to-heart. Like a lot of the black people I know in positions of authority, she’s constantly rigid with tension, like she’s expecting somebody above her to use any excuse to kick her out. She came from a poor Alabama family and put herself through Columbia’s graduate program in social work. She got rid of her drawl and her doubts along the way. But when she went into the city government, she hit a brick wall, mainly because she’s black and a woman. Now she lives alone, has hardly any friends, and keeps her part of the bureaucracy running smoothly. Liked by many, loved by few, and only hated by the hard-core bigots in the office.

  “I can ask for another six hundred dollars or so for you when you go into the field,” she says.

  I quickly calculate that with an extra twelve dollars a week I can just about afford to double the number of cigarettes I smoke. “That’s fine,” I tell her. “But what’s going to happen to my caseload?”

  “You can hold on to the half who really need you.” She adjusts a flap on one of her blazer’s pockets. “You’re not going out into the field full-time right away. I’d like you to really keep an eye on this Darryl King. We just got a message that he’ll be coming in tomorrow instead of today.”

  “Okay.”

  “Tommy Markham is still upset from talking to him a couple of weeks ago,” she says, “so when King comes in, you might want to lean on him a little. Let him know that he’s expected to be a good boy here. Break him in a little bit for whoever gets him after you.”

  “All right,” I say.

  But what I’m really thinking is that it’d score me some points if I could turn this guy around myself. Especially since everybody else assumes this is a hopeless case.

  There’s a rapping sound and then a thirtyish white man in a dark business suit, with thinning pale hair and a raw sunburn, appears in the doorway. I recognize him from the hallways outside the administrative offices. Ms. Lang introduces him as Deputy Commissioner Kenneth Dawson. For some reason he reminds me of the cartoon character Deputy Dawg and I have to suppress a smile.

  “How do you do?” says Dawson, extending a weak, sweaty hand. “We’re so glad to hear you’ve volunteered for the field unit.”

  “Well …” I’m about to correct him, but then again, why bother? This is all confusing enough already. I’ve heard Dawson’s name in connection with the department’s annual budget report. I didn’t know he ever spoke to regular P.O.s like me.

  “You’re getting a very special opportunity,” he says.

  “I’m looking forward to it,” I answer, for lack of any other inspiration.

  “Wonderful.” Dawson sways back on the heels of his wing tips and laughs through his nose. “By the way,” he says, “when you go out into the field, you know you’re going to be required to carry a sidearm.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Guns don’t scare you, do they?”

  “Of course not.” I notice that the brown bag containing my beer has turned soggy and is threatening to dissolve while the two of them are standing here. With a trembling hand, I reach for what’s left of my third cup of coffee this morning.

  All three of us smile awkwardly at each other and then Dawson congratulates me once more on the new assignment. “I’m glad you’re going to be part of the magic we do here,” he says. It takes me a second to remember where I’ve seen a phrase like that recently. “Probation—Be Part of the Magic.” It’s that idiotic new slogan on the stickers around the offices downstairs. Dawson, clearly the man who thought of it, smiles tightly and departs.

  Emma Lang lingers in the doorway a moment. She rolls her eyes in Dawson’s direction, tilts back her chin, and mouths, “Okay?” She turns to leave, but then sticks her head back in.

  “Oh, one more thing,” she says. “I got a phone call from that Richard Silver’s lawyer a half hour ago.”

  “Yeah, what did he want?”

  “He says you’ve been harassing his client …”

  My beer looks like it’s just about sweated its way through the brown paper bag on my desk. The outline of the Budweiser can is unmistakable now. I feel my face burning as she gives me a stern look.

  “Keep up the good work,” Ms. Lang says.

  7

  BOBBY “HOUSE” KIRK, high on crack again, was kicking out the windows and terrorizing the other passengers on the downtown number three train.

  “Stop that foolishness and come over here,” Darryl King said to him. “I wanna have a talk with you all.”

  The lights went on and off as a crazy old man with matted hair danced around with his dick hanging out of his pants and the little Puerto Rican guy sitting by the door buried his face in El Diario. “Get Busy” played on a giant radio. Bobby “House” Kirk, who was seventeen, enormous, and psychotic, stood facing Darryl with his back against a metal pole. He had an H carved in his hair, and a gold ring with four finger holes spelled his nickname across his knuckles. A third boy named Aaron Williams, who was skinny and fourteen, with a harelip and a flattop, stuck his head in between them. “Yo, whass up?”

  Darryl steadied himself and thought about what he was supposed to say now. There must’ve been a hundred nights just like this. With the three of them ricocheting back and forth under the city like unguided missiles.

  He put his hand through an overhead strap, feeling the train’s rumbling power.

  The other people in the car were giving him that scared look again. The kind that made him feel all calm inside. A lady with lacquered-up hair clutched her handbag and turned away from him. It would be so easy just to take it right off her, right now.

  But his sister said he couldn’t do it like that anymore. He had to stop and think about things. Use his mentality. Get into the science of the situation. Start using words like “dividend” instead of “give it up.”

  The hardest part was telling Bobby and Aaron. “Things’s be different now on,” he began. “We don’t be robbin’ nobody for nothin’ now. Understand what I’m saying? So don’t go shoot nobody over a pair of sneakers no more, okay?”

  Bobby was about to point out that it was actually Darryl who’d nearly beaten a boy to death over a pair of Nikes last year, but he got cut off. “We gotta have purpose when we go out now,” Darryl said, struggling to remember Joanna’s exact words. “We businessmen. Understand. We be doing business.”

  “Yo, Dooky,” Bobby Kirk said. “I don’t wanna sell no five-dollar vials for your sister. That shit’s small-time.”

  “Yo, House,” Darryl King said irritably. “Don’t call me Dooky no more. I’m eighteen, man.”

  The train grunted to a halt at the 125th Street station and a Spanish-looking guy with a black beard and what looked like a Rolex stumbled on, followed by a well-dressed black woman with a tan pocketbook. “Watch the closing doors,” the conductor said.

  “Let’s go rob,” Aaron started whispering to Bobby and Darryl. “Let’s go get paid right now.”

  He began dancing around like the music was getting him in the mood to do crimes.

  Darryl grabbed him roughly by the shoulder. “Don’t you fuckin’ listen, man? We talkin’ about the future. You gotta build that shit up. Then one day we don’t be riding no subway. We get a car like Pops Osborn.”

  Aaron’s eyes filled with awe. “Cutlass Supreme,” he said.

  “’S right,” Darryl told him. “So don’t be fuckin’ around.”

  Bobby Kirk folded his arms across his chest and looked aloof. “I still don’t wanna work for your sister,” he told Darryl.

  “Then you just be ignorant, Bobby. You too foolish to understand the economics of the situation. I ain’t even gonna go see you in jail ’cos I’m gonna be busy flying all around the world.”

  Bobby turned away from Darryl and started walking to the next car. “You just soft ’cos you on probation now,” he said over his shoulder. “You afraida your probation officer. That’s all.”


  “I ain’t even met the guy.” Darryl followed him with Aaron.

  “Oh no?”

  “No. I’m gonna go in tomorrow and see him.”

  “Yeah.” Bobby smiled and began wiping his face with a Wash’n Dri. “You scared.”

  Bobby’s words started a little fire in his mind. As big as Bobby was, Darryl thought about what it’d be like to kill him right here, right now. Or any of the other suckers sitting nearby. Just to do somebody right now. But his sister’s voice came back to him, telling him to chill and consider the situation.

  “I ain’t got no worries with my P.O.,” Darryl said coolly. “He’s gonna be scared a me.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know.”

  “Why?” Bobby asked. “What you gonna do?”

  “You’ll see,” Darryl said firmly, like he had it all figured out. “I took care of that cop before. Right?”

  The three of them stopped talking all of a sudden. They were standing on the small steel ledges between the cars now. Black space roared all around them. The amphetamized rush of the train rattled the chains and shook them from the knees on up, like a good drug. Nervous faces in the next car watched them through the window in the door.

  “Yo, D!” Aaron shouted, jiggling and pulling on his red-and-white Troop shirt.

  “What the fuck is it?” Darryl frowned.

  “Can we just rob one for old times?”

  Darryl snorted and pulled open the door to the front car. Without even thinking about it, he walked in like he owned the place. Shoulders hunched, knees slightly bent, weight up on the balls of his feet. The same charge going between him and the people in the seats. The way they avoided his eyes. Old ladies, white students, punks his own age he wouldn’t have thought twice about taking off a couple of weeks ago. And by the empty conductor’s booth, sitting with his girlfriend, that Spanish-looking guy who seemed to be wearing a Rolex. “Yeah, all right,” he said finally. “One more. Just wait till Times Square.”