The New Centurions Part 14

"Let's clear the air, Fehler, we got a whole month to work together. Tell me something truthfully, if they'd been white would you've been quicker to take positive action?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you're so G.o.dd.a.m.n careful not to offend black people in any way that I think you risk your G.o.dd.a.m.n life and mine mine so's not to look like a big blond storm trooper standing there frisking a black man in a public place in front of all those black people. What do you think of that?" so's not to look like a big blond storm trooper standing there frisking a black man in a public place in front of all those black people. What do you think of that?"

"You know what's wrong with you, Light? You're ashamed of your people," blurted Roy, and it was out before he could retract it.

"What the h.e.l.l do you mean?" asked Light and Roy cursed himself but it was too late now and the words he was repressing had to be released.

"Alright Light, I know your problem and I'm going to tell you what it is. You're too d.a.m.ned tough on your people. You don't have to be cruel to them. Don't you see, Light? You feel guilty because you're trying so hard to pull yourself from that kind of degrading ghetto environment. You feel shame and guilt for them."

"I'll be d.a.m.ned," said Light, looking at Roy as if for the first time. "I always knew you were a little strange, Fehler, but I didn't know you were a social worker."

"I'm your friend, Light," said Roy. "That's why I'm telling you."

"Yeah, well listen, friend, I don't look at a lot of these people as black or white or even as people. They're a.s.sholes. And when some of these kids grow up they'll probably be a.s.sholes too, even though I feel sorry as h.e.l.l for them right now."

"Yes, I understand," said Roy, nodding tolerantly, "there's a tendency of the oppressed to embrace the ideals of the oppressor. Don't you see that's what happened to you?"

"I'm not oppressed, Fehler. Why do white liberals have to look at every Negro as an oppressed black man?"

"I don't consider myself a liberal."

"People like you are worse than the Klan. Your paternalism makes you worse than the other kind. Quit looking at these people as Negroes or problems. I worked a silk stocking division out on the west side when I first came out of the academy and I never thought of a Caucasian a.s.shole in terms of race. An a.s.shole is an a.s.shole, they're just a little darker here. But not to you. He's a Negro and needs a special kind of protective handling."

"Wait a minute," said Roy. "You don't understand."

"The h.e.l.l I don't," snapped Light, who had now pulled to the curb at Washington and Central and turned in the seat to face Roy squarely. "You been here over a year now, haven't you? You know the amount of crime in the Negro divisions. Yet the D.A. won't hardly file a felony a.s.sault if it's a Negro victim and suspect involved. You know what the detectives say, 'Forty st.i.tches or a gunshot is a felony. Anything less is a misdemeanor.' Negroes are expected to act that way. White liberals have said, 'That's alright, Mister Black man,' and they're always careful to say Mister. ' Mister. 'That's alright, you have been oppressed and therefore you are not entirely responsible for your actions. We guilty whites are responsible,' and what does the black man do then? Why, he takes full advantage of his tolerant white brother's misplaced kindness, just like the white would do if the positions were reversed because people in general are just plain a.s.sholes unless they got a spade bit in their mouths. Remember, Fehler, people need spades, not spurs."

Roy felt the blood rush to his face and he cursed his stammer as he struggled to master the situation. Light's outburst had been so unwarranted, so sudden . . . "Light, don't get excited, we're not communicating. We're not . . ."

"I'm not excited," said Light, deliberately now. "It's just that sometimes I've been close to busting since I started working with you. Remember the kid at Jefferson High School last week? The robbery report, remember?"

"Yes, what about it?"

"I wanted to tell you this then. I was choking on my frustration the way you patronized that little b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I went to high school right here in southeast L.A. I saw that same kind of shakedown every day. The blacks were the majority and the white kids were terrorized. 'Gimme a dime, motherf.u.c.ker. Gimme a dime or I'll cut yo' a.s.s.' Then we gave whitey a punch in the mouth whether or not we got the dime. And these were poor poor white kids. Poor as us, sometimes from mixed marriages and shack jobs. You didn't want to book that kid. You wanted to apply your double standard because he was a downtrodden black boy and the victim was white." white kids. Poor as us, sometimes from mixed marriages and shack jobs. You didn't want to book that kid. You wanted to apply your double standard because he was a downtrodden black boy and the victim was white."

"You don't understand," said Roy bleakly. "Negroes hate the whites because they know they're faceless nonhuman creatures in the eyes of the whites."

"Yeah, yeah, I know that's what intellectuals say. You know, Fehler, you're not the only cop that's read a book or two."

"I never said I was, G.o.dd.a.m.n it," said Roy.

"I tell you Fehler, those white boys in my school were without faces to us. us. What do you think of that? And we terrorized those poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. The few I ever got to know didn't hate us, they were afraid of us, because of our numerical superiority. Get off your knees when you're talking to Negroes, Fehler. We're just like whites. a.s.sholes, most of us. Just like whites. Make the Negro answer to the law for his crimes just like a white man. Don't take away his manhood by coddling him. Don't make him a domestic animal. All men are the same. Just keep him on a mean spade bit with a long shank. When he gets too spirited, jerk those reins, man!" What do you think of that? And we terrorized those poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. The few I ever got to know didn't hate us, they were afraid of us, because of our numerical superiority. Get off your knees when you're talking to Negroes, Fehler. We're just like whites. a.s.sholes, most of us. Just like whites. Make the Negro answer to the law for his crimes just like a white man. Don't take away his manhood by coddling him. Don't make him a domestic animal. All men are the same. Just keep him on a mean spade bit with a long shank. When he gets too spirited, jerk those reins, man!"

AUGUST 1962.

10.

THE LOTUS EATERS.

SERGE LISTENED TO the dreary monotone of Sergeant Burke who was conducting roll call training. He looked around the roll call room at Milton and Gonsalvez and the new faces, all of whom he knew by now since his return to Hollenbeck. He remembered how Burke's roll call training used to bore him and still did. But he was no longer annoyed by it. the dreary monotone of Sergeant Burke who was conducting roll call training. He looked around the roll call room at Milton and Gonsalvez and the new faces, all of whom he knew by now since his return to Hollenbeck. He remembered how Burke's roll call training used to bore him and still did. But he was no longer annoyed by it.

The five months from January to June which he had spent in Hollywood Division was by now a grotesque candy-striped memory which seemed to have never happened. Though he had to admit it had been educational. Everyone in Hollywood is a phony, a fruit, or a flim-flam man, a partner had warned him. At first the glamour and hilarity fascinated him and he slept with some of the most beautiful girls he would ever see, satin blondes, silky redheads, dark ones he avoided, for those were all he had in Hollenbeck Division. They were not all aspiring actresses, these lovely girls who are drawn to Hollywood from everywhere, but they all yearned for something. He never bothered to find out what. As long as they yearned for him for a few hours, or pretended to, that was all he asked of them.

And then it all began to depress him, especially the intense look of the revelers when he got to know them. He shared an apartment with two other policemen and he could never go to bed before three o'clock because the blue light would be burning, indicating that one of them had been lucky and please give them some more time. They were very lucky, his roommates, who were equally handsome, wholesome-looking, and accomplished handlers of women. He had learned from them, and by being a roommate had been satisfied with the chaff when the chaff was a pale trembling creature who was all lips and b.r.e.a.s.t.s and eyes. It didn't even matter if she ate bennies frantically and babbled of the prospective modeling job which would thrust her into the centerfold of Playboy. Playboy. And there was another who, in the middle of the heated preliminaries of lovemaking said, "Serge, baby, I realize you're a cop and all, but I know you're no square and you wouldn't mind if I smoked a little pot first, would you? It makes it all so much better. You should try it. We'll be so much better lovers." He thought about letting her do it, but the bennies were only a misdemeanor and marijuana was a felony, and he was afraid to be here while she did it, and besides, she had annihilated his ego and desire with her need for euphoria. When she disappeared into the bedroom for the marijuana, he put on his shoes and coat and crept out the door, an ache in his loins. And there was another who, in the middle of the heated preliminaries of lovemaking said, "Serge, baby, I realize you're a cop and all, but I know you're no square and you wouldn't mind if I smoked a little pot first, would you? It makes it all so much better. You should try it. We'll be so much better lovers." He thought about letting her do it, but the bennies were only a misdemeanor and marijuana was a felony, and he was afraid to be here while she did it, and besides, she had annihilated his ego and desire with her need for euphoria. When she disappeared into the bedroom for the marijuana, he put on his shoes and coat and crept out the door, an ache in his loins.

There were lots of other girls, waitresses and office girls, some of whom were ordinary, but then there was Esther, who was the most beautiful girl he had ever met. Esther who had called the police to complain about the peepers who were a constant annoyance to her, but her apartment was on the ground floor and she dressed with her drapes open because she "just loved the cooling breezes." She seemed genuinely surprised when Serge suggested she draw her drapes at night or move to an upstairs apartment. It had started out pa.s.sionately between them but she was totally unique, with her moist lips and face and hands. Her eyes too were moist as was most of her torso, particularly the ample b.r.e.a.s.t.s. A fine layer of not unpleasant perspiration covered her during the lovemaking so that sleeping with Esther was like a steam and rub, except it was not as therapeutic-because even though a night-long bout with Esther left him exhausted, he did not feel cleansed from the inside out as he did when he left the steam room at the police academy. Perhaps Esther could not open his pores. Her heat was not purgative.

Her style of love had begun strangely enough, but then a few of her more bizarre improvisations began to repel him slightly. One bawdy Sat.u.r.day, he had become drunk in her apartment, and she had become drunk too except she drank only a fourth as much as he. She made frequent trips to the bedroom which he did not question. Then that evening when he was preparing to take her and she was more than ready, they had tumbled and clawed their way to the bed and suddenly the things she was whispering through the drunken mist became coherent. It wasn't her usual string of obscenities and he listened stunned to what she suggested. Then it was not pa.s.sion but frenzy he saw in the moist eyes and she stepped half naked to the closet and dragged out various accouterments, some of which he understood and others he did not. She told him that the young couple next door, Phil and Nora, whom he had decided were a pleasant pair, were ready for a "fabulously exciting evening." If he would only say the word they would be there in a minute and it could begin.

When he left Esther's apartment a moment later she was uttering a stream of grotesque curses that made him shiver with nausea.

A few nights later Serge was asked by his partner, Harry Edmonds, why he was so quiet and although he answered that there was nothing wrong, he was deeply aware that he was unhappy in Hollywood where life was ethereal and complicated. The most routine call became impossible in this place. Burglary reports would often turn into therapy sessions with unhappy neurotics who had to be subjected to a crude psychoa.n.a.lysis to determine the true deflated value of a wrist.w.a.tch or fur coat stolen by a Hollywood burglar who often as not turned out to be as neurotic as his victim.

At ten minutes past nine, that night, Serge and Edmonds received a call to an apartment on Wilc.o.x not far from Hollywood station.

"This is a pretty swinging apartment house," said Edmonds, a young policeman with sideburns a bit too long and a moustache that Serge thought ridiculous on him.

"You got calls here before?" asked Serge.

"Yeah, the manager's a woman. A d.y.k.e, I think. She only rents to broads far as I can see. There's always some beef here. Usually between the manager and some boyfriend of one of the female tenants. If the girls want to have girl parties, she never b.i.t.c.hes."

Serge carried his eight by eleven notebook under his arm and tapped on the manager's door with his flashlight.

"You call?" he asked the lean, sweater-clad woman who held a b.l.o.o.d.y towel in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

"Come in," she said. "The girl you want to talk to is in here."

Serge and Edmonds followed the woman through a colorful green-gold and blue living room into the kitchen. Serge thought the black sweater and close-fitting pants very becoming. Although her hair was short it was silver-tipped and styled attractively. He guessed her age at thirty-five and wondered if Edmonds was right that she was a lesbian. Nothing in Hollywood could surprise him anymore, he thought.

The quivering brunette was seated at the kitchen table holding a second towel, ice-filled, to the left side of her face. Her right eye was swollen shut and her lower lip was turning blue but was not badly cut. Serge guessed the blood must have been from her nose which was not bleeding now and didn't look broken. It wasn't a particularly good-looking nose at best, he thought, and he looked at her crossed legs which were nicely shaped, but both knees were sc.r.a.ped. The torn hose hung from her left leg and had fallen down around the shoe, but she seemed too miserable to care.

"Her boyfriend did it," said the manager, who waved them to the wrought iron leather-padded chairs which surrounded the oval table.

Serge opened his notebook, leafing past the burglary and robbery reports and removed a miscellaneous crime report.

"Lover's quarrel?" he asked.

The brunette swallowed and the tear-filled eyes overflowed into the blood-stained towel.

Serge lit a cigarette, leaned back and waited for her to stop, realizing vaguely that this might not be complete complete melodrama since the injuries were real and probably quite painful. melodrama since the injuries were real and probably quite painful.

"What's your name?" he asked, finally, as he realized it was ten o'clock and their favorite restaurant preferred that they eat before ten-thirty when the paying customers needed most of the counter s.p.a.ce.

"Lola St. John," she sobbed.

"This is the second time that b.a.s.t.a.r.d beat you, isn't it, honey?" asked the manager. "Give the officers the same name you were using when you made the last report."

"Rachel Sebastian," she said, dabbing at the tender lip and examining the towel.

Serge erased the Lola St. John and wrote the other name across the top.

"You prosecute him last time he beat you?" Serge asked. "Or did you drop the charges?"

"I had him arrested."

"Then you dropped the charges and refused to prosecute?"

"I love him," she muttered, touching the lip with a pink tongue tip. An exquisite jewel formed at the corner of each eye, gumming with mascara.

"Before we go to a lot of trouble, are you going to go through with the prosecution this time?"

"This time I had it. I will. I swear by all that's holy."

Serge glanced at Edmonds and began filling in the boxes on the crime report. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-eight."

That was the third lie. Or was it the fourth? Sometime he meant to count the lies at the completion of a report.

"Occupation?"

"Actress."

"What else you do? When you're between acting jobs, I mean."

"I'm sometimes night manager and hostess at Frederick's Restaurant in Culver City."

Serge knew the place. He wrote "carhop" in the s.p.a.ce for victim's occupation.

The manager uncoiled and crossed the kitchen to the refrigerator. She refilled a clean towel with ice cubes and returned to the battered woman.

"That son of a b.i.t.c.h is no good. I won't have him back here, honey. I want you for a tenant and all, but that man cannot come in this building."

"Don't worry, Terry, he won't," she said, accepting the towel, which was pressed to her jaw.

"Has he beat you on only one prior occasion?" asked Serge, beginning the narrative of the report, wishing he had sharpened the pencil at the station.

"Well, actually, I had him arrested another time," she said. "I'm just a sucker for a big good-looking guy, I guess." She smiled and fluttered the unclosed eye at Serge and he guessed she was signaling that he was big enough to suit her.

"What name were you using that time?" asked Serge, thinking she was probably blousy at best, but the legs were good and the stomach was still pretty flat.

"That time I was using Constance Deville, I believe. I was under contract to Universal under that name. Wait a minute, that was in sixty-one. I don't think . . . Christ, it's hard to think. That man of mine knocked something loose. Let's see."

"Were you drinking tonight?" asked Edmonds.

"It started in a bar," she nodded. "I think I was using my real name, then," she added thoughtfully.

"What's your real name?" asked Serge.

"G.o.d my head hurts," she moaned. "Felicia Randall."

"You want to see your own doctor?" asked Serge, not mentioning that free emergency care was available to crime victims because he did not want to take this woman to the hospital and bring her back.

"I don't think I need a doct . . . Wait a minute, did I say Felicia Randall? Christ almighty! That's not my real real name. I was born and raised Dolores Miller. Until I was sixteen, I was Dolores Miller. Christ almighty! I almost forgot my real name! I almost forgot who I was," she said, looking at each of them in wonder. name. I was born and raised Dolores Miller. Until I was sixteen, I was Dolores Miller. Christ almighty! I almost forgot my real name! I almost forgot who I was," she said, looking at each of them in wonder.

Later that month, while patrolling Hollywood Boulevard at about 3:00 A.M. A.M. with a sleepy-eyed partner named Reeves, Serge had taken a good look at the people who walk the streets of the glamour capital at this hour. Mostly h.o.m.os.e.xuals of course, and he was getting to recognize some of them after seeing them night after night as they preyed on the servicemen. There were lots of other hustlers who in turn preyed on the h.o.m.os.e.xuals, not for l.u.s.t but for money which they got one way or the other. This accounted for a good number of beatings, robberies, and killings and until the hour of sunrise when his watch ended, Serge was forced to arbitrate the affairs of these wretched men and he was still revolted with all of it a week later when he returned to Alhambra and rented his old apartment. He talked with Captain Sanders of Hollenbeck Division who agreed to arrange a transfer back to Hollenbeck because he said he remembered Serge as an excellent young officer. with a sleepy-eyed partner named Reeves, Serge had taken a good look at the people who walk the streets of the glamour capital at this hour. Mostly h.o.m.os.e.xuals of course, and he was getting to recognize some of them after seeing them night after night as they preyed on the servicemen. There were lots of other hustlers who in turn preyed on the h.o.m.os.e.xuals, not for l.u.s.t but for money which they got one way or the other. This accounted for a good number of beatings, robberies, and killings and until the hour of sunrise when his watch ended, Serge was forced to arbitrate the affairs of these wretched men and he was still revolted with all of it a week later when he returned to Alhambra and rented his old apartment. He talked with Captain Sanders of Hollenbeck Division who agreed to arrange a transfer back to Hollenbeck because he said he remembered Serge as an excellent young officer.

Burke was winding up the roll call training which n.o.body ever listened to and Serge did not at this moment even know the subject of the lesson. He decided he would drive tonight. He didn't feel like making reports so he'd do the driving. Milton always let him do exactly as he wished. He liked working with Milton and he even liked Burke's slow deliberate ways. There were worse supervisors. It was good to be back in the old station.

Serge was even beginning to lose his dislike for the area. It was not Hollywood, rather it was the opposite of glamorous. It was dull and old and poor with tall narrow houses like gravestones and the smell of the Vernon slaughterhouses remained. It was the place where the immigrants came upon their arrival from Mexico. It was the place where the second and third generation remained, who could not afford to improve their lot. He knew now of the many Russian Molokan families, the men with beards and tunics and the women with covered heads, who lived between Lorena and Indiana Streets after Russian flats had been changed to a low-priced housing project. There was a sizable number of Chinese here in Boyle Heights and Chinese restaurants had Spanish menus. There were many j.a.panese, and the older women still carried sun parasols. There were the old Jews of course, few now, and sometimes nine old Jews had to scour Brooklyn Avenue and finally hire a drunken Mexican for a minyan of ten to start prayers in temple. These old ones would soon all be dead, the synagogues closed, and Boyle Heights would be changed without them. There were Arab street hawkers selling clothing and rugs. There were even gypsies who lived near North Broadway where many Italians still lived, and there was the Indian church on Hanc.o.c.k Street, the congregation being mostly Pima and Navajo. There were many Negroes in the housing projects of Ramona Gardens and Aliso Village whom the Mexicans only tolerated, and there were the Mexican-Americans themselves who made up eighty percent of the population of Hollenbeck Division. There were few white Anglo-Protestant families here unless they were very poor.

There were few phonies in the Hollenbeck area, Serge thought as he slowed on Brooklyn Avenue to park in front of Milton's favorite restaurant. Almost everyone is exactly as he seems. It was very comforting to work in a place where almost everyone is exactly as he seems.

11.

THE VETERAN.

"TWO YEARS AGO TONIGHT I came to University," said Gus. "Fresh out of the academy. It doesn't seem possible. Time has pa.s.sed." I came to University," said Gus. "Fresh out of the academy. It doesn't seem possible. Time has pa.s.sed."

"You're about due for a transfer, aren't you?" asked Craig.

"Overdue. I'm expecting to be on the next transfer."

"Where you want to go?"

"I don't care."

"Another black division?"

"No, I'd like a change. Little further north, maybe."

"I'm glad I came here. I can learn fast down here," said Craig.