The New Centurions

by Joseph Wambaugh

  “How much time do you have on the Department?” asked Gus, looking at the three service stripes on Kilvinsky’s sleeve which meant at least fifteen years. But he had a youthful face if it weren’t for the silver hair and the glasses. Gus guessed he was in good condition. He had a powerful-looking body.

  “Twenty years this December,” said Kilvinsky.

  “You retiring?”

  “Haven’t decided.”

  They rode silently for several minutes and Gus looked at the city and realized he knew nothing about Negroes. He enjoyed the names on the churches. On a corner he saw a one-story, whitewashed frame building with a handmade sign which said, “Lion of Judah and Kingdom of Christ Church,” and on the same block was the “Sacred Defender Baptist Church” and in a moment he saw the “Hearty Welcome Missionary Baptist Church” and on and on he read the signs on the scores of churches and hoped he could remember them to tell Vickie when he got home tonight. He thought the churches were wonderful.

  “Sure is hot,” said Gus, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.

  “You don’t have to wear your lid in the car, you know,” said Kilvinsky. “Only when you get out.”

  “Oh,” said Gus, taking off the hat quickly. “I forgot I had it on.”

  Kilvinsky smiled and hummed softly as he patrolled the streets, letting Gus sightsee and Gus watched how slowly he drove and how deliberately. He would remember that. Kilvinsky patrolled at fifteen miles an hour.

  “Guess I’ll get used to the heavy uniform,” said Gus, pulling the sleeve from his sticky arms.

  “Chief Parker doesn’t go for short sleeves,” said Kilvinsky.

  “Why not?”

  “Doesn’t like hairy arms and tattoos. Long sleeves are more dignified.”

  “He spoke to our graduating class,” said Gus, remembering the eloquence of the chief and the perfect English which had deeply impressed Vickie who sat proudly in the audience that day.

  “He’s one of a vanishing kind,” said Kilvinsky.

  “I’ve heard he’s strict.”

  “He’s a Calvinist. Know what that is?”

  “A puritan?”

  “He professes to be Roman Catholic, but I say he’s a Calvinist. He won’t compromise on matters of principle. He’s despised by lots of people.”

  “He is?” said Gus, reading the signs on the store windows.

  “He knows evil when he sees it. He recognizes the weakness of people. He has a passion for order and the rule of law. He can be relentless,” said Kilvinsky.

  “You sound as if you kind of admire him.”

  “I love him. When he’s gone, nothing will be the same.”

  What a strange man Kilvinsky is, Gus thought. He talked absently and if it weren’t for the boyish grin, Gus would have been uncomfortable with him. Then Gus watched a young Negro strutting across Jefferson Boulevard and he studied the swaying, limber shoulder movement, bent-elbowed free swinging arms, and the rubber-kneed big stepping bounce and as Kilvinsky remarked, “He’s walkin’ smart,” Gus realized how profoundly ignorant he was about Negroes and he was anxious to learn about them, and about all people. If he could just learn and grow he would know something about people after a few years in this job. He thought of the squirming muscle in the long brown arms of the young man who was now blocks behind him. He wondered how he would fare if the two of them were face to face in a police-suspect confrontation when he had no partner and he could not use his sidearm and the young Negro was not impressed with his glittering golden shield and suit of blue. He cursed himself again for the insidious fear and he vowed he would master it but he always made this vow and still the fear came or rather the promise of fear, the nervous growling stomach, the clammy hands, the leathery mouth, but enough, enough to make him suspect that when the time came he would not behave like a policeman.

  What if a man the size of Kilvinsky resisted arrest? Gus thought. How could I possibly handle him? There were things he wanted to ask, but was ashamed to ask Kilvinsky. Things he might ask a smaller man, after he got to know him, if he ever did get to really know him. He had never had many friends and at this moment he doubted that he could find any among these uniformed men who made him feel like a small boy. Maybe it had all been a mistake, he thought. Maybe he could never be one of them. They seemed so forceful and confident. They had seen things. But maybe it was just bravado. Maybe it was that.

  But what would happen if someone’s life, maybe Kilvinsky’s life, depended on his conquest of fear which he had never been able to conquer? Those four years of marriage while he worked in a bank had not prepared him to cope with that. And why hadn’t he the courage to talk to Vickie about things like this, and then he thought of the times he had lain beside her in the darkness, particularly after lovemaking, and he had thought of these things and prayed to have the courage to talk to Vickie about it, but he hadn’t, and no one knew that he knew that he was a coward. But what would it ever have mattered that he was a coward if he had stayed in the bank where he belonged? Why could he do well in wrestling and physical training, but turn sick and impotent when the other man was not playing a game? Once in P.T. when he was wrestling with Walmsley he had applied the wristlock too firmly as Officer Randolph had shown them. Walmsley became angry and when Gus saw his eyes, the fear came, his strength deserted him and Walmsley easily took him down. He did it viciously and Gus did not resist even though he knew he was stronger and twice as agile as Walmsley. But that was all part of being a coward, that inability to control your body. Is the hate the thing I fear? Is that it? A face full of hate?

  “Come on granny, let the clutch out,” Kilvinsky said as a female driver in front of them crept toward the signal causing them to stop instead of making the yellow light.

  “One-seven-three west Fifty-fourth Street,” said Kilvinsky, tapping on the writing pad between them.

  “What?” asked Gus.

  “We got a call. One-seven-three west Fifty-fourth Street. Write it down.”

  “Oh. Sorry, I can’t make any sense out of the radio yet.”

  “Roger the call,” said Kilvinsky.

  “Three-A-Ninety-nine, roger,” said Gus into the hand mike.

  “You’ll start picking our calls out of all that chatter pretty soon,” said Kilvinsky. “Takes a while. You’ll get it.”

  “What kind of call was it?”

  “Unknown trouble call. That means the person who called isn’t sure what the problem is, or it means he wasn’t coherent or the operator couldn’t understand him, or it could mean anything. I don’t like those calls. You don’t know what the hell you have until you get there.”

  Gus nervously looked at the storefronts. He saw two Negroes with high shiny pompadours and colorful one-piece jump suits park a red Cadillac convertible in front of a window which said, “Big Red’s Process Parlor,” and below it in yellow letters Gus read, “Process, do-it-yourself process, Quo Vadis, and other styles.”

  “What do you call the hairdos on those two men?” asked Gus.

  “Those two pimps? That style is just called a process, some call it a marcel. Old-time policemen might refer to it as gassed hair, but for police reports most of us just use the word ‘process.’ Costs them a lot of money to keep a nice process like that, but then, pimps have lots of money. And a process is as important to them as a Cadillac. No self-respecting pimp would be caught without both of them.”

  Gus wished the sun would drop, then it might cool off. He loved summer nights when the days were hot and paper-dry like this one. He noticed the crescent and star over the white two-story stucco building on the corner. Two men in close-cropped hair and black suits with maroon neckties stood in front of the wide doors with their hands behind their backs and glared at the police car as they continued south.

  “That a church?” asked Gus to Kilvinsky, who never looked toward the building or the men.

  “That’s the Muslim temple. Do you know about Muslims?”

  “I’ve read a little in
the papers, that’s all.”

  “They’re a fanatical sect that’s sprung up recently all over the country. A lot of them are ex-cons. They’re all cop haters.”

  “They look so clean-cut,” said Gus, glancing over his shoulder at the two men whose faces were turned in the direction of the police car.

  “They’re just part of what’s happening in the country,” said Kilvinsky. “Nobody knows what’s happening yet, except a few people like the chief. It may take ten years to figure it all out.”

  “What is happening?” asked Gus.

  “It’s a long story,” Kilvinsky said. “And I’m not sure myself. And besides, here’s the pad.”

  Gus turned and saw the one-seven-three over the mailbox of the green stucco house with a trash-littered front yard.

  Gus almost didn’t see the trembling old Negro in khaki work clothes huddled on an ancient wicker chair on the dilapidated porch of the house.

  “Glad yo’all could come officahs,” he said, standing, quivering, with sporadic looks toward the door standing ajar.

  “What’s the problem?” asked Kilvinsky, climbing the three stairs to the porch, his cap placed precisely straight on the silver mane.

  “Ah jist came home and ah saw a man in the house. Ah don’ know him. He jist was sittin’ there starin’ at me and ah got scairt and run out heah and ovah nex’ do’ and ah use mah neighbah’s phone and while I was waitin’ ah look back inside an’ theah he sits jist rockin’, an’ Lord, ah think he’s a crazy man. He don’ say nothin’ jist sits an’ rocks.”

  Gus reached involuntarily for the baton and fingered the grooved handle, waiting for Kilvinsky to decide their first move and he was embarrassed by his relief when he understood, when Kilvinsky winked and said, “Wait here, partner, in case he tries to go out the back door. There’s a fence back there so he’d have to come back through the front.”

  Gus waited with the old man and in a few minutes he heard Kilvinsky shout, “Alright you son of a bitch, get out of here and don’t come back!” And he heard the back door slam. Then Kilvinsky opened the screen and said, “Okay, Mister, come on in. He’s gone.”

  Gus followed the gnarled old man, who removed the crumpled hat when he crossed the threshold.

  “He sho’ is gone, officahs,” said the old man, but the trembling had not stopped.

  “I told him not to come back,” said Kilvinsky. “I don’t think you’ll be seeing him again around this neighborhood.”

  “God bless yo’all,” said the old man, shuffling toward the back door and locking it.

  “How long’s it been since you had a drink?” asked Kilvinsky.

  “Oh, couple days now,” said the old man, smiling a black-toothed smile. “Check’s due in the mail any day now.”

  “Well, just fix yourself a cup of tea and try to get some sleep. You’ll feel lots better tomorrow.”

  “Ah thanks yo’all,” said the old man as they walked down the cracked concrete sidewalk to the car. Kilvinsky didn’t say anything as he drove off and Gus said finally, “Those d.t.’s must be hell, huh?”

  “Must be hell,” Kilvinsky nodded.

  “We got a coffee spot down the street,” said Kilvinsky. “It’s so bad you could pour it in your battery when she dies, but it’s free and so are the doughnuts.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Gus.

  Kilvinsky parked in the littered coffee shop parking lot and Gus went inside to get the coffee. He left his cap in the car and felt like a veteran, hatless, striding into the coffee shop where he watched a wizened, alcoholic-looking man who was listlessly pouring coffee for three Negro counter customers.

  “Coffee?” he said to Gus, coming toward him with two paper cups in his hand.

  “Please.”

  “Cream?”

  “Only in one,” said Gus, as the counterman drew the coffee from the urns and placed the cups on the counter as Gus self-consciously tried to decide the most diplomatic way to order doughnuts which were free. You didn’t wish to be presumptuous even though you wanted a doughnut. It would be so much simpler if they just paid for the coffee and doughnuts, he thought, but then that would counter the tradition and if you did something like that the word might be passed that you were a troublemaker. The man solved his dilemma by saying, “Doughnuts?”

  “Please,” said Gus, relieved.

  “Chocolate or plain? I’m out of glazed.”

  “Two plain,” said Gus, realizing that Kilvinsky had not stated his preference.

  “Tops for the cups?”

  “No, I can manage,” said Gus and a moment later discovered that this chain of coffee shops made the hottest coffee in Los Angeles.

  “It’s sure hot,” he smiled weakly, in case Kilvinsky had seen him spill coffee on himself. His forehead perspired from the sudden flash of pain.

  “Wait till you’re on the morning watch,” said Kilvinsky. “Some chilly winter night about 1:00 A.M. this coffee will light a fire in you and see you through the night.”

  The sun was dropping on the horizon but it was still hot and Gus thought a Coke would have been better than a cup of coffee but he had already noticed that policemen were coffee drinkers and he guessed he may as well get used to it because he was going to be one of them, come what may.

  Gus sipped the steaming coffee a full three minutes after it sat on the roof of the police car and found that he still could not stand the temperature; he waited and watched Kilvinsky out of the corner of his eye and saw him taking great gulps as he smoked a cigarette and adjusted the radio until it was barely audible, still much too low for Gus, but then, Gus knew he could not pick their calls out of that chaotic garble of voices anyway, so if Kilvinsky could hear it, it was enough.

  Gus saw a stooped ragpicker in filthy denim trousers and a torn, grimy, checkered shirt several sizes too large, and a GI helmet liner with a hole on the side through which a snarled handful of the ragpicker’s gray hair protruded. He pushed a shopping cart stolidly down the sidewalk, ignoring six or seven Negro children who taunted him, and until he was very close Gus could not guess what his race was but guessed he was white because of the long gray hair. Then he saw that he was indeed a white man, but covered with crusty layers of filth. The ragpicker stopped near crevices and crannies between and behind the rows of one-story business buildings. He probed in trash cans and behind clumps of weeds in vacant lots until he discovered his prizes and the shopping cart was already filled with empty bottles which the children grabbed at. They shrieked in delight when the ragpicker made ineffectual swipes at their darting hands with his hairy paws too broad and massive for the emaciated body.

  “Maybe he was wearing that helmet on some Pacific island when it got that hole blown in it,” said Gus.

  “It’d be nice to think so,” said Kilvinsky. “Adds a little glamour to the old ragpicker. You should keep an eye on those guys, though. They steal plenty. We watched one pushing his little cart along Vermont on Christmas Eve clouting presents out of cars that were parked at the curb. Had a pile of bottles and other trash on top and a cartload of stolen Christmas presents beneath.”

  Kilvinsky started the car and resumed his slow patrol and Gus felt much more at ease after the coffee and doughnut which domesticized the strange feeling he had here in the city. He was so provincial, he thought, even though he grew up in Azusa, and made frequent trips to Los Angeles.

  Kilvinsky drove slowly enough for Gus to read the signs in the windows of the drugstores and neighborhood markets, which advertised hair straighteners, skin brighteners, scalp conditioner, pressing oil, waxes and pomades. Kilvinsky pointed to a large crudely lettered whitewashed warning on a board fence which said, “Bab bog,” and Gus noticed the professional lettering on the pool hall window which said, “Billard Parler.” Kilvinsky parked in front of the pool hall, telling Gus he had something to show him.

  The pool hall, which Gus supposed would be empty at the dinner hour, was teeming with men and a few women, all Negro except for two of the t
hree women who slouched at a table near the small room at the rear of the building. Gus noticed one of the women, a middle-aged woman with hair like flames, scurried into the back room as soon as she spotted them. The pool players ignored them and continued the nine ball contests.

  “Probably a little dice game going in the back,” said Kilvinsky as Gus eagerly studied everything about the place, the floor caked with grime, six threadbare pool tables, two dozen men sitting or standing against the walls, the blaring record player being overseen by a pudgy cigar chewer in a blue silk undershirt, the smell of stale sweat and beer, for which there was no license, cigarette smoke, and through it all a good barbecue smell. Gus knew by the smell that whatever else they were doing in the back room, somebody was cooking, and that seemed very strange somehow. The three women were all fiftyish and very alcoholic-looking, the Negro being the slimmest and cleanest-looking of the three although she too was foul enough, Gus thought.

  “A shine parlor or pool hall down here is the last stop for a white whore,” said Kilvinsky following Gus’s eyes. “There’s what I brought you in here to see.” Kilvinsky pointed at a sign high on the wall over the door which led to the back room. The sign read, “No liquor or narcotics allowed.”

  Gus was relieved to get back in the air, and he inhaled deeply. Kilvinsky resumed patrol and Gus was already starting to know the voices of the female Communications operators, particularly the one with the deep young voice on frequency thirteen, who would occasionally whisper “Hi” into the mike or “roger” in coy response to the policemen’s voices he could not hear. It had been a surprise to him that the radios were two-way radios and not three-way, but it was just as well, he thought, because the jumble of women’s voices was hard enough to understand without more voices from all the radio cars being thrown in.

  “I’ll wait till dark to show you Western Avenue,” said Kilvinsky and now Gus could definitely feel the refreshing coolness of approaching night although it was far from dark.

  “What’s on Western Avenue?”

  “Whores. Of course there’re whores all over this part of town, but Western is the whore center of the city. They’re all over the street.”