Lines and Shadows (1984)

by Wambaugh, Jospeh

  Jimmy Carter went out; Ronald Reagan came in. Mexico went down. People could hardly remember the name of The Last of The Gunslingers, and even his former Barfers started to doubt that Manny would ever become mayor or police chief. In fact, given all the enemies Manny Lopez had made among the brass when this sergeant had so much power, no one was surprised when he didn't place very high on the promotion list.

  Manny found his life becoming empty. He felt as disoriented as a scorpion in a jar. He thought that maybe money was the answer. Manny Lopez became the third to quit the police department. He became an entrepreneur. He started buying and selling grease.

  Manny started a little business collecting cooking grease from local restaurants, grease which was then refined and mixed with cattle feed. All those animal fats mixed with molasses and stirred in with feed was supposed to fatten up even the scrawny cows of Mexico. But it turned out that there were too many other grease hustlers lurking around McDonald's and Jack-in-the-Box, so Manny had the idea of processing the stuff south of the border in Tecate.

  But there aren't any Kentucky Fried and Burger Kings down there and Manny couldn't find his grease. In fact, what excess grease they have in Mexico they recycle until there's nothing left. Or they sell it to the people. Manny was at it for two years. Manny was a failed grease hustler.

  Manny Lopez discovered that his talent lay in law enforcement, but he couldn't go back. There was his pride and ego. So he opened a private investigation agency and figured to make a financial killing, what with being a fabled Gunslinger. He was shocked to discover how quickly people could forget myths and legends.

  Finally, Manny Lopez secretly contacted his old friend and mentor, Chief of Police William Kolender. The chief truly liked and admired Manny but the civil service rules prohibited his return as a sergeant. He would have to come back as a patrolman. And that, of course, was unthinkable for a man who had been a legend.

  Chief Kolender said of the BARF experiment: "It ruined Manny's career."

  And that was that. The chief was a very smart fellow who understood, even if Manny didn't, that life is no picnic for Gunslingers Emeritus, and that Manny could never start again at the bottom.

  Perhaps Manny was just a young fellow with lots of brains and style and courage who found himself thrust into an extraordinary moment in time-confronted with the potent force of the bitch Celebrity, and the power of myth, and with it the seductive ideas of destiny and invincibility. And then that incredible moment when mortality was falling away into canyon darkness like shredded alien rags, a moment he feared but never wanted to end.

  In his home there is a wall covered with pictures and scrolls and plaques and medals. And up there somewhere is the knowledge that it will never be again.

  Manny's old enemies-and he made a bunch on both sides of the border-no doubt had a chuckle at the thought of him hustling grease. Say it ain't so, Manny! The Last of The Gunslingers? A failed grease peddler? Manny's coming in for a landing. A crash landing.

  But Manny Lopez wasn't through being Manny Lopez.

  Five years after the experiment ended, one of his former Barfers, perhaps trying to prove he wasn't so young and impressionable anymore, happened to have a few drinks with his old boss, and decided after too many tequila shooters to put the failed grease peddler in his place.

  This ex-Barfer's wife, like many of the wives, used to be just as much afraid of Manny as was her husband. Well, nobody was afraid of a failed grease hustler, and his former subordinate felt like lording it a bit.

  He said, "By the way, something I always wanted to find out. My wife told me that at one a the Barf parties you made a serious move on her. She never told me for a long time. Now I wanna know, Manny!"

  And what could a failed grease peddler say to that? No, it's a lie! Or: I'm shocked! Or: let's let bygones be bygones?

  Manny Lopez, who had so many times thrown punches and fired shots when he was literally falling to earth, just looked at his ex-subordinate with a tinge of melancholy and said, "I never wanted you to know this. Your wife told one a the girls that she wanted me more than the rings on her fingers. I wouldn't even talk to her after I heard, and I guess she couldn't deal with my rejection. I never wanted you to know this, mi hijo."

  And with that, Manny sadly put his hand on the young man's shoulder and patted him consolingly, and left quietly.

  "I shoulda blew you away in those canyons when I had the chance!" the cop yelled, after he'd recovered.

  But Manny was gone. Stifling him with the bar tab. And Manny's former subordinate learned that a scorpion in a jar is still a scorpion.

  If one possessed any charity at all it was best to remember Manny Lopez as he was when they were forcing him into that moment in time and trying to create a legend. When he was sitting in the blackness of a tube, in the blackness of the night, and suddenly vanished. When he was jerked from the pipe by a powerful masked bandit and tumbled down into the land of Mexico and was surrounded by El Loco and three armed cutthroats-literally enveloped by murder. And then for his eyebrow to do its reptilian side-winding crawl into that perfect question mark because, Sabes que? Manny Lopez had them right where he wanted them.

  Chapter TWENTY TWO

  DJA VU

  THE FATE OF THE OUTSIDERS WAS PERHAPS THE MOST disquieting. As time passed, certain traits, responses, emotions they acquired during the BARF experiment seemed to keep coming up. In 1982 three officers had to undergo psychological counseling in an effort to assess certain traits which might cause either embarrassment to the police department or mortal danger to the officers themselves.

  Robbie Hurt had managed to crack up another car, his beloved Porsche, in the parking lot of his local saloon. He and his wife, Yolie, were long divorced, but the thing was he never really left her alone. They lived apart yet he kept calling, and sometimes the three of them-Robbie, Yolie and Robbie's lady friend-would go to dinner or to a movie. And if they were out dancing after dinner he could still display something like jealousy if Yolie was dancing with someone else. Robbie wasn't sure of very much in his personal life, not since the old days when he was seduced by the Bitch, more so than any other Barfer except Manny Lopez.

  Robbie entered a program of psychological counseling, primarily to deal with premature cynicism and his drinking problem, before it could claim his life in another car crackup. He talked to his shrink about BARF and his "problem" and how it had never abated and how it seemed all mixed up with feelings from those days when he was out in the darkness listening and never knowing. And feeling this unbelievable frustration which had to be worse than the present danger the others were experiencing. And how at the end of the shift he just had to drink hard stuff because of this frustration, especially when some of the others would let him know he was an outsider. He didn't talk much though about the thing that was infinitely more destructive than frustration: the Bitch, and how he was seduced. He vowed to cut down on the drinking and believed he would as soon as he found Real Happiness in his forthcoming second marriage.

  Ken Kelly was yet another Barfer who quit the San Diego Police Department.

  Ken Kelly said, "I was angry when BARF ended. Real angry and I stayed angry. What was the point of it? Why did we do it? I felt betrayed."

  The National City Police Department is said by San Diego cops to be a hard-nosed police department, a rednecked police department. It's still in the Truman administration, they say. Policemen carry Colt .45's in National City. Or .357 magnums. Big guns. The crime rate is the highest in the county. Ken Kelly joined the National City Police Department, where he quickly made sergeant.

  In 1982, Ken Kelly underwent something so extraordinary that he wasn't ready to believe it for a while and was ordered again to have his head shrunk until he believed it.

  Sergeant Ken Kelly was on duty the night of January 23, 1982, in an unmarked police car. That car was later named The Gunship because of Ken Kelly. There was a theft of beer from a 7-Eleven Store. Not a robbery, just a theft of som
e beer. Three guys in a sports car merely ripped off some suds and boogied. The store manager called the cops, who spotted the car and the car took off and the chase was on. Eventually three patrol units were in the chase, as well as Ken Kelly in The Gunship. The shoplifters looked as though they were going to give it up finally. But on a street where they were pretty well blocked off by police cars, the guy behind the wheel changed his mind after slowing down. He decided to go for it and rammed a police car. Then he backed up and Ken Kelly thought he'd run over a cop because he heard a loud thump.

  It turned out to be a cop bumping into his own car, but Ken pulled out his .357 magnum and cranked one off. And fortunately for him as well as for the petty thieves, he missed. He would later get a one-day suspension for firing that shot, but after what was to happen the next night, he would be sent to a head doctor.

  On the night of January 24th, the very next night, at a time when Ken Kelly didn't even have all his paperwork completed from the shooting the night before, he was back in the field, having just gotten a fight settled, when he heard one of his men in pursuit yet again. Two security cops from "Death Valley Hospital"-so called because the cops say more people die of violence there than are born-happened to be in a market when a bunch of kids came in, snatched some beer and took off in a Dodge van. The security cops decided to play like real cops and started chasing the kids, and some real cops eventually joined in. Another batch of suds stealers, and that was all.

  At the time of the chase the city cops didn't know for sure why the kids had begun running in the first place or who they were. The pursuit rambled all through National City and into San Diego. A National City cop took over as lead chase unit out on Highway 805. Ken Kelly paralleled the chase and found himself in his old stomping grounds of San Diego, blowing by at a hundred miles per hour.

  This was just like the night before. This was eerie. This was d,j... vu. This was impossible.

  On Market Street, Ken Kelly jumped on the brakes and slammed to a near stop, cranking hard to the left. The chase was southbound on Forty-first Street. Ken Kelly parked the car diagonally, using it as a barricade, and ran around in the headlights and here it came! Just like the night before. Or was it the night before? Or was it a dream?

  The van was loaded with kids. The van swerved from side to side. Ken Kelly took out the .357 magnum. Like a dream. They were so close he saw the little numbers on the headlights. He fired once before he knew he'd done it. The van passed him. He fired twice more and knew he'd fired, but didn't feel the big-gun kick, not a bit.

  The first shot hit the E in DODGE and took it out. The second was to the left and lower. The third shot entered the side of the van just as it flew past.

  The van ran out of gas finally. One of the kids inside the van was a sixteen-year-old boy who had been crouched between the seats. The .357 slug crashed through his jaw, through his hand, and smashed into his femur. The boy was the cousin of a police sergeant. His hand was crippled and his face was disfigured.

  Ken Kelly spent all of 1982 on an emotional roller coaster. There was strenuous debate as to whether he should be charged with a felony. The district attorney finally decided not to charge him.

  He spent time with a psychiatrist by order of his police department and he told the psychiatrist all about the dreamlike events of January 24th which, following the events of January 23rd, couldn't possibly have happened, but did. He talked about his days on the Barf squad and what it meant and didn't mean and it was all very confusing.

  "We'd rather be tried by twelve than carried by six!"

  Ken Kelly said. "That's what we always said working Barf. We took them down hard: fists, saps, gun butts, whatever it took. Until such time as the guy was dead or pretended he was dead or flat-ass surrendered unconditionally. They waited us to shoot people. Everybody did. Maybe they did say it but we came to know it."

  Somehow Ken Kelly got through the year. He worried that his head wasn't quite right, but gradually began feeling better. Then on a spring day in 1983 he started feeling very bad. At first he thought it was the flu. Then he felt worse. He went to a doctor and discovered that his blood pressure read like a major league batting average. Ken got scared. A cardiologist examined him and found that physically he was in good shape. The cardiologist advised Ken to see a psychiatrist. It was suggested that he might not be fit for police work anymore.

  One night Ken Kelly was driving home in his car. He turned on the radio and a song was playing. The song was "Hit Me With Your Best Shot." He thought it was very ironic. He listened to it on 1-5 southbound. He listened to it all the way into Chula Vista. In Chula Vista he suddenly started crying. He couldn't stop crying. He got home and he was still crying. .

  His older sister and his wife, Joyce, tried to stop him from crying but they couldn't. Pretty soon all three were crying. It went on until he was too exhausted to cry anymore.

  The Barfers had been given a lot of awards at the conclusion of the experiment. Not just local stuff. Not just Manny's award in New York. The Attorney General of the United States presented them with an award for their work, even as the United States government chose to ignore the rape-robber-murder situation in the canyons. Perhaps it was the last chance to get some P. R. mileage out of the experiment.

  At all of these award ceremonies and banquets and parties there was one person conspicuously absent: the BARF creator, Lieutenant Burl Richard Snider. In fact, he was never even mentioned by the speechmakers.

  All of the Barfers still loved Dick Snider, and they decided to pitch in for a plaque. They wanted to present it to him at the big bash for the attorney general's award. A deputy chief wouldn't permit it. Though the deputy chief had never set foot in the canyons and had been seen around Southern substation about as often as Halley's comet, he was the one introduced as the man in charge of the BARF experiment. The deputy chief stood up and took a bow and people applauded wildly.

  Dick Snider-for all the fuss he made in getting the experiment started, and for all his talk about helping aliens - was never looked upon with fondness by the administration. It held no brief for a lieutenant who refused to be a lieutenant and chose to crawl around the hills with lizards and rattlesnakes. And yet the administration was right. He never stepped into middle management and acted like a lieutenant. He didn't learn to compromise, and couch his terms tactfully, and use discretion.

  He had initiated the publicity blitz that brought political notice, which brought the Barf squad into existence. And of course when BARF was hot, nobody could touch it. BARF had a life of its own. And these inspectors and deputy chiefs remembered all this. And how even after a direct order to muzzle himself, Dick Snider refused to understand the political expediencies. He only understood putting crooks in jail. For sure, the Dick Sniders of this world are a pain in the ass to administrators and bureaucrats.

  The betrayal he felt was more acute than that of the others. After all, they were out in those miserable canyons for a myriad of reasons: to prove something to absent fathers or dead fathers or fathers soon to die. To prove themselves worthy of white respect. For career advancement. Finally, for love of the Bitch, and appointments with Destiny. And sometimes, only incidentally, to relieve some suffering of innocents.

  As Manny himself admitted, "Only Dick Snider had pure motives and he kept them till the end."

  Dick Snider believed all along that if the people of La Jolla were worth risking lives for, so were the aliens in the canyons. He was the one to decide what the bottom line was: we should only do it and continue it if it's worth dying for.

  For him it was. Within one month after BARF was ended, a terrifying thing happened. He had just come back into the Southern substation after a five-hour search for some crooks in San Ysidro. He went into the office to put away his gear and was getting ready to go home when he felt like somebody smacked his chest with a sledgehammer and left the iron inside. He got dizzy. He felt a buzzing in his head. A ferocious pain down the side of his neck. His heart began poundi
ng irregularly. He got up and started walking from his office to the captain's office. He sat down.

  The captain's secretary looked at him and said, "Are you okay?"

  He was not okay. He didn't remember much else except an ambulance ride with Renee Camacho. He couldn't breathe. He was in the hospital for three days. He thought it was a massive heart attack. It wasn't even a minor one. The doctor talked to him about hyperventilation. The doctor talked about stress. The doctor asked the big cop whether he had experienced any unusual frustrations, disappointments, fears in recent months.. It was almost too funny to answer.

  Dick Snider went back to duty. The city of San Diego said that the attack could not possibly be job-related. Dick Snider was taken out of Southern substation and ended up in communications, which was under the street, below a fire station.

  Dick Snider was far from the canyons and his cops and the border and all the things that obsessed him for so many years. This unofficial "mayor of San Ysidro" and his grand experiment were no more. And for the aliens, nothing had changed.

  Dick Snider's career was in the basement. In fact, a couple of levels lower than a basement. He looked at his new surroundings down there below the street and said, "Good. I thought they might as well bury me. And they have."

  As President Ronald Reagan was completing his first year in office and it was apparent that this administration was no more concerned with this obsession than the last one, Dick Snider had another of those moments. It happened at home at ten o'clock in the morning. He thought it was the Big One for sure. It was worse than the last one. He became paralyzed. He could hardly talk by the time he got to the hospital. They had to explain to him what hyperventilation really was, and how sometimes the best thing that can happen is that you pass out, allowing the oxygen and nitrogen to right themselves.

  And Dick Snider squinted through his own cigarette smoke and felt that his heart was about as sound as a peso and said in his country drawl: "Believe me, pardner, I'm trying to believe it. But I kinda hate to keep passing out just to get myself right"