Cop Out - The End Of My Brilliant Career In The NZ Police (The Laughing Policeman)

by Glenn Wood

  At that point the sergeant’s car, Mobile Beat and a dog van screamed up. The policewoman had seen me surrounded by the gang members and thought I was about to be beaten to a pulp. The crowd was still milling around me when the sergeant pulled up and he claimed the only reason they’d backed off was because reinforcements had arrived. I tried to explain that I had everything under control but he wouldn’t believe me. I was given a lecture about putting myself and my colleague in unnecessary danger by acting too hastily. I could understand his point and I should have taken things more slowly, but he gave me no credit at all for diffusing the situation. Now it was now being thrown back in my face as another reason why I shouldn’t be given my permanent appointment. It seemed so unfair.

  The District Commander asked me if I had anything to say for myself. I was dumbfounded. I hadn't been prepared for such an onslaught and wasn’t very good at thinking on my feet. I had no clever answers to give him so I went for honesty.

  I agreed I had made some mistakes but told him I believed I could still be a good policeman given another opportunity. He sighed and told me I had a fortnight to respond to the report and that a final decision on my future would be made depending on my reply. No pressure.

  I left his office feeling really down. I couldn’t believe so many of my supposed colleagues had conspired against me. I thought about giving up but remembered how hard I’d worked to get into the police. The very tough year I’d spent at Trentham Training College and all the hours I’d invested in study. I still wanted to be a policeman. It was all I knew and all I’d ever thought about doing. It was my identity. I forced myself to look on the bright side, though had to struggle to find one. I only had a fortnight to repair two years of damage.

  The first thing I did was travel to Wellington to be fitted out with a new uniform. A disproportionate amount of emphasis had been put on my scruffy appearance so that was the first thing I needed to fix. I convinced myself all my career needed was a haircut and a new set of clothes.

  My friends were very supportive during this time and Eula even accompanied me to Wellington for my new uniform fitting. I bought her seafood chowder at a roadside restaurant on the way home which made her horribly ill but she didn’t complain and continued to bolster my confidence whenever she could. Carey was great too, although I could tell that deep down she thought that it would be a good thing if I left the police. She worried about me all the time when I was working plus she was finishing teachers' college at the end of the year and wanted to go back to New Plymouth. I could only come with her if I transferred or left the job. I didn’t really want to go. Most of my friends were in Palmerston North and I was enjoying living in a student town. No, I was going to stay policing in Palmerston North.

  My new uniform fitted like a treat. I stood in front of my mirror and admired myself. The creases on my trousers were shaper than the hell bitch’s tongue and my buttons gleamed like diamonds, or at the very least zircons. I was raring to go, but first I had to get rid of this annoying being fired thing.

  I was a paragon of virtue for the next two weeks, even managing to rise above the pity I was receiving from my section. They all knew of my predicament and even my sergeant was being nice to me, hypocritical, two faced bastard that he was. My friends in the station were genuinely upset but there were some who took a malicious pleasure in my dilemma.

  The day for my next interview with the District Commander came around. A few days earlier I had submitted a report explaining my situation and pleading (in a manly way) for them to give me a second chance. I spent hours crafting the document and was sure it would do the trick.

  The weather was pleasant that day and I was dressed in my new uniform wearing a shirt rather than a tunic. The shirt had been ironed to within an inch of its life and I placed a fresh new biro in my pocket in case I had to take notes.

  The call came: 'Constable Wood, please report to the District Commander’s office.'

  I passed my friend Bill in the corridor and he stopped to wish me luck. As we were talking he stepped back in horror and pointed to my chest. The biro I had placed in my pocket had exploded. I don’t know what happened. I have never seen a pen self-destruct like this one had. It didn’t just leak; it blew up splattering ink all over my pocket. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t have a change of shirt at the office and I was already running late for my appointment. I had no option but to face the District Commander as I was.

  He was not impressed, waving away my hurried explanations with a grumpy sigh. He proceeded to tell me that nothing I had said in my report had changed his mind (I don’t think anything would have made a difference) and he was offering me the opportunity to resign.

  I was astounded. This was it. I was being removed like a piece of dog pooh from the boot of the New Zealand Police.

  He was still talking, but I wasn’t really listening. The only thing I took in was the fact that they weren’t going to grant me my permanent appointment, so if I didn’t resign I’d be fired. It was the 16 October 1982. I’d been a police constable for less than two years.

  He had my resignation already typed. All I was required to do was put my signature on the bottom. I signed and walked out of his office and onto the street in a daze. I became dimly aware that a student march was in progress. They were cheering as they passed the police station and a cry arose from the middle of their ranks: 'This hat is the property of Constable Wood.'

  ‘Not any more it isn’t.’ I said and tromped dejectedly home.

  EPILOGUE

  'You can’t leave it like that,' said my wife, her voice breaking with emotion. I wasn’t sure what she was talking about.

  'The Laughing Policeman,' she said. 'He’s sick, sad and unemployed. It’s, well, it’s just not very uplifting.'

  'It’s what happened,' I replied in that black-and-white way men have. The one that seems to annoy women so much.

  After a long discussion about emotional investment and the need for closure I was convinced to put my reader’s minds at rest.

  The Laughing Policeman was dead, but in his place were resurrected the Snickering Security Guard, the Tittering Traveller, the Giggling Gardener, the Perpetually Perky Painter and the Cackling Copywriter.

  There was life after the police and it was good. I miss the adrenaline rushes and the camaraderie. And if I’m truthful, the respect and the power. But there are a lot of things I don’t miss. A recent trip back to Palmerston North police station to research this book reminded me of what a hard job it was and still is. If anything it’s worse. The police are under-funded, under-resourced and under-appreciated. The work they do is dirty, dangerous and antisocial. The stress on their bodies, minds and families is chronic and their wages haven’t kept pace with the private sector.

  Crime and criminals are worse. These days the police are far more likely to face an armed offender and the back-up won’t be there when they do. The deterioration of the mental health system has released dangerous and unstable people onto the streets and criminals are better organised and better funded. No wonder the police have trouble attracting recruits.

  For these, and so many other reasons the police did me a favour by forcing me to resign on that sunny spring day all those years ago.

  Despite, or probably because of my Gonzoness, I am now in a job I love. I have a lovely wife, a beautiful daughter and wonderful friends. Quentin and I are still best mates and are desperately clinging to the last vestiges of our youth by braving the surf at every possible opportunity. The Jacks are scattered throughout Australasia but remain firmly in touch and we get together when we can. I very occasionally see my police friends but enjoy it immensely when I do. I was in the bridal party for Sheep’s, Quentin’s and Rob’s weddings. I was also supposed to make a speech at Bruce’s wedding but minutes before I was due to go on I was rushed to hospital with a stomach complaint. How apt.

  Carey and I didn’t marry. Our romance ended the year after I left the police. She went back to New Plymouth and I stayed
in Palmerston North. It’s true, long-distance love affairs don’t work. Short distance ones however fare much better and after a brief period of being single I courted then married Eula. We have been wed now for (Glenn yells out 'How long have we been married?' and gets the inevitable 'Too long,' reply) many happy years.

  My ulcer is gone and it's been weeks since I last injured myself. I’m happy, healthy and much wiser. The only computers I blow up these days are my own and I have given up bludgeoning rabbits to death.

  How’s that for uplifting.