I left my gun with the lieutenant because no guns are allowed in the cell area, and walked my prisoner back to the holding cells. The cell attendant was old and crusty just like the desk officer, but not as smart. He couldn’t pass the sergeant’s or lieutenant’s test and was a cop just like me, so I just told him I had a collar and walked right past him.
I found an empty cell, marched my prisoner in, and uncuffed him. He stood on one side of the iron bars looking out, while I stood on the other side looking in, both of us staring at each other, waiting. We both knew what was going to happen next, and neither one of us was happy about it. I told him to hand over his jacket, shirt, pants, shoes, everything he had on. I had to check every pocket, cuff, and hem. I was looking for guns, knives, needles, razor blades, ballpoint pens, matches, paper clips, cigarette lighters—anything sharp or pointy or that could conceivably be used as a weapon, plus anything that could be used to facilitate escape. I also took his shoelaces, belt, and even the string from his hood so he wouldn’t try to hang himself, or choke me.
Slowly and methodically I checked every possible hiding spot in his clothing. When I was done he stood there barefoot, in his bikini Speedo shorts, waiting for what was coming next. He had been collared many times before, and he knew the routine. I had made many collars before, and I knew the routine. That’s when he turned around, dropped his shorts, and bent over, and from about six feet away I shined my flashlight up the last place a perp could hide something. When I was a kid watching Columbo or Adam-12, I don’t remember ever seeing them shine a flashlight up some prisoner’s ass. Real police work isn’t half as glamorous as people think it is.
I gave him back his clothes and slammed the cell door shut as he got dressed. The door must weigh a few hundred pounds, and when you slam it shut there’s a loud boom as the floor and walls shake. I do it on purpose, as it lets the prisoner know he’s not out on the street anymore—he’s in my world now.
I went out to the arrest-processing area with a stack of paperwork that had to be filled out and found an empty desk and typewriter. On the wall was a poster of a distraught-looking cop, deep in thought, and underneath him was the phone number for the suicide hotline. This was a good place to put it.
After about two hours of typing I was starting to get hungry, so I went out to the vending machines and got a bag of chips and a soda. I had given my perp the “if you act like a gentleman, I’ll treat you like one” speech, and ever since the swallowing episode out in the street, my guy was acting like a gentleman, so I got him a soda and a bag of chips as well.
When I went back to the cells he was lying on the wooden bench staring up at the ceiling. You could tell he was contemplating his dismal future. I could also tell he was skinny as a fence post. It looked like he hadn’t eaten in days. When you become a crackhead you forget about everything: eating, sleeping, bathing, and even sex takes a backseat to getting high. I pushed the soda and bag of chips through the bars and said, “Hungry?”
It was like I rang the dinner bell. He leaped up, holding on to his pants while trying not to step out of his shoes, because I had taken his belt and laces, and then snatched the chips and soda. He squeezed the bag in his hand, crushing the chips into dust, then opened it, and poured them down his throat. Then he popped open the soda, drank the whole thing, and burped me a “Thanks.” It was obvious the guy hadn’t eaten in a while, so I handed him my chips and soda and went back to doing paperwork.
And don’t believe all the crap you hear about cops beating prisoners. Some guys want to be hard-ons, so you have to put them in their place, and explain the rules to them, but most of my perps have been through the system before and just want to make it as painless and comfortable as possible. So I feed them, give them a cigarette, and talk nice to them. I usually tell them, “Don’t worry, you’ll be out in a few days.” Most of the time they know I’m full of crap, but it gives them something to hope for and it makes life more pleasant for everybody.
And not to sound like a softy, but my perp wasn’t such a bad guy. A lot of individuals I deal with are evil, rotten-to-the-core motherfuckers that walk the earth bringing misery wherever they go. This guy wasn’t one of them, he just did some stupid things in life and got caught. And as I watched my skinny friend lying on the hard wooden bench trying to get comfortable, I was a little pissed because Brooks Brothers wasn’t in the cell also, trying to hold up his pants.
I finished up my paperwork, and it was time to head down to Manhattan Central Booking. I grabbed my partner and perp and headed out to the car, but not before stopping by the desk to get my gun back and have my paperwork signed by the lieutenant. I still had to wait to be acknowledged this time, but not as long as when I first came in. Desk officers always want to get the prisoners out as soon as possible—one less thing to be responsible for.
We jumped into the car and headed downtown. My partner was driving and I was sitting in the back with the perp. The whole ride down my stomach was growling. Processing a collar takes time and I hadn’t had a chance to eat, but lucky me, I spotted a hot-dog wagon parked outside the courthouse. I told my partner to pull over, I needed some nutrition. You can’t do police work without your vitamins and minerals.
When we pulled up next to the wagon, I rolled down the window and told the old guy to give me two with everything and a Diet Coke. Like an old pro who has done this a million times, he slapped them together and handed them to me through the open window. When I opened up the aluminum foil wrapping, the smell of onions, sauerkraut, and mustard was filling up the car—it was a beautiful thing. But as I hoisted one of those heavy dirty-water dogs up to my lips, I could see out of the corner of my eye that my perp was staring at me, and he was practically drooling. Obviously the chips and soda didn’t do the trick.
I could have been a hard-on and told him that dinnertime was over for him, tough shit, that the chips and soda were all he was going to get, but I didn’t. The fact is, I did not like him, but I didn’t dislike him either. He was a criminal and I was a cop. He does what he does and I do what I do, and I learned a long time ago that you don’t take these things personally—it’s only business.
Besides he was a good prisoner and didn’t give me any trouble, and it doesn’t hurt to be nice once in a while, so I said to him, “You still hungry?” He didn’t say anything, but his head bounced up and down, doing all the talking for him: “Fuck yeah I’m hungry!” So I said, “How do you like ’em?” He was still staring at the hot dog in my hand, he hadn’t taken his eyes off it, and that’s when he very politely said, “Those would be fine.”
As soon as I decided to feed him I realized that I had a problem: he was rear cuffed, and my kindness only goes so far. There was no way in the world I was going to hand-feed a crackhead a hot dog. I thought about my predicament for a second and realized there was only one thing to do: I had to uncuff him.
When I reached for my keys I could see my partner’s eyes glaring at me in the rearview mirror. He didn’t have to say a word, his eyes said it all: this is a stupid thing to do, you never uncuff a prisoner. And he was absolutely, one hundred percent right, but I had no choice. But before I did it, I leaned in and explained to my prisoner that if he tried anything crazy, I was going to fuck him up, big-time. Hunger pains would be the least of his problems. He knew exactly what I meant, there was no need to overstress the point, and that’s when he shook his head back and forth and said, “No, no, no, I promise, I’m just hungry.”
So I uncuffed him, and just like he never took his eyes off my hot dogs, I never took my eyes off him. I watched his two hands, one with a pair of cuffs dangling from the wrist, as he hoisted that heavy, aromatic, dirty-water delicacy to his lips. If his hands moved a half an inch toward the door handle, I was going to be all over him. You never, ever let your guard down when dealing with a prisoner, especially when you’re being nice. Never let them mistake kindness for weakness, that’s how you get hurt.
It was incredible, I never saw anything like i
t. I thought I was at a Coney Island hot-dog-eating contest because in seconds the two dogs were gone. I looked at him as he wiped mustard and onions off his chin and asked, “Still hungry?” Again his head bounced up and down: Yes! I probably could have fed this guy a tray of cinnamon stuffed shells and he would have eaten the whole frigging thing, but I couldn’t do that. There’s a law against cruel and unusual punishment. I got him two more, and while he was stuffing his face I ordered a couple for myself. The old guy was as happy as could be because money and hot dogs were flying back and forth through the open window. Finally, after six dogs and two sodas my prisoner was full.
My partner didn’t find any of this amusing, but I did. If it weren’t for the dangling cuffs that were smacking him in the chin as he ate, we probably would have looked like two guys sitting at Yankee Stadium enjoying a ball game and a couple of dogs. All we needed were two beers. In the middle of all this I had asked my partner if he wanted any, but he told me he doesn’t eat that shit. Too bad, he missed out. And when my perp was finally done, without me having to say a word, he leaned over and put his hands behind his back so I could put the cuffs back on, just like a gentleman. That little gesture impressed the shit out of me.
On the ride over to Central Booking he stared out the window watching the world go by and actually seemed content in life. His belly was full and he’d had a nice nap back at the precinct while I did paperwork. But when we reached Central Booking things changed. This was the foyer to the criminal justice system, and when the steel door shuts behind you, that’s when reality sets in. You’re surrounded by concrete floors and walls and iron bars, and the place stinks like horrible body odor. The claustrophobic ambience lets you know your days of fresh air and sunshine are over—there’s no green grass under your feet around here. And dirty-water hot dogs are the things you dream about.
I walked him over to the bullpen, which is a large holding cell about twenty feet by twenty feet, packed with prisoners waiting to go to arraignment. I led him by the arm to the steel door as he shuffled along trying to hold on to whatever dignity he had left. It wasn’t easy because he was struggling to hold up his beltless pants, and trying not to kick off his laceless shoes. But he would soon have company, because the bullpen crowd of lost souls and evil motherfuckers (sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart just by looking at them) were all having the same problem.
I grabbed a pair of handcuffs from the central booking sergeant and switched cuffs so I could get mine back. As I was unlocking and locking the steel bracelets my prisoner asked what I thought was going to happen to him. Actually he knew what was going to happen, he had been locked up numerous times before, and even in New York City, eventually some judge will give you some serious time inside. But I gave him my regular feel-good speech I gave to all my perps—a happy prisoner is a cooperative prisoner—and I didn’t want him trying anything stupid before I left, like hanging himself.
I told him to relax, what I had him on was no big deal, that he would see the judge in the morning and probably be out in a day or two, but he knew better. He knew the criminal justice system as well as I did, and with twenty-eight vials of crack it would be difficult for his lawyer to argue that it was for personal use. He knew he was going for sale this time.
He nodded politely as he listened to my feel-good bullshit, and that’s when he said something I didn’t see coming. I was completely surprised when he blurted out, “Thanks for the dogs, man.”
I was kind of taken aback by his gratitude. Prisoners rarely thank you for anything, they all have that entitled, “you have to take care of me” attitude. I told him don’t worry about it, that it was no big deal, but he got real sincere on me and said, “I know you didn’t have to do it—but you did it anyway. Thanks.”
That’s when I warned him, “You better not go sick on me.” Who knows what those dirty-water dogs would do to an empty stomach, and I didn’t want to get stuck sitting in Bellevue emergency room for a couple of hours because he had a tummy ache. We both laughed, he thought it was funny too.
And as we were talking, and I was switching handcuffs, it suddenly dawned on me that we were both talking really low, like we were whispering, and I knew why. He was whispering because he didn’t want the other prisoners in the bullpen to think that he was being chummy with the cops, and I was whispering because I didn’t want the other cops to think I was a liberal.
I put him in the cell and watched as he shuffled and melted into the crowd. In seconds he seemed to disappear, swallowed up by the sea of beltless, laceless lost souls and evil motherfuckers. Inside the bullpen, instead of thirty individual sad and sometimes heinous stories, there seemed to be a collective misery that hung in the air like the body odor that never seemed to go away.
I slammed the door shut with a booming thud that shook the floor and walls, and that was that. He was now incarcerated, and on his way to becoming an inmate of the New York City Corrections Department.
In reality we were two ships that pass in the night, never to meet again. When you lock somebody up, most of them take a plea. Ninety-nine cases out of a hundred never go to trial and you rarely ever see them again unless you arrest them on something else, or bump into them out in the street. The last thing I told him was have a nice life and good luck with the case. I figured, like most of my collars, he would go his way and I would go mine, never to meet again unless it was in the courtroom.
—
And now here we are, a few years later on a sunny afternoon in Washington Square Park, and not only does this guy remember me, but he picked me out of a crowd of about a few thousand people. I didn’t recognize him at first because he put on a few pounds, plus he was cleaned up and healthy looking. He didn’t look anything like the shell of a man I tackled to the ground and choked a few years ago.
As he and I talked, the girl just stared at me and smiled like we were old friends. Apparently this guy must have told her the hot-dog story about twenty times, and she must have felt like she knew me. And because he and the girl were both smiling so much, and seemed genuinely happy to see me, I eased up a little and forgot about the steel bulge hanging under my jacket. He obviously wasn’t pissed off about being arrested and didn’t want to put a bullet in me, so in return I lightened up a bit and said, “How you doing? I haven’t seen you around in a while. You staying out of trouble?”
That’s when the girl jumped into the conversation. Up until this point she just stood there, smiling and letting him do all the talking, but when I asked if he was staying out of trouble, she leaped in and said, “Yes sir, Officer! I’m making sure of that!”
She was a petite girl with kind of a high-pitched voice, but I could tell by the way she said it, she could be as tough as a cranky old desk lieutenant when she had to be. He finally introduced her: this was his girlfriend and soon-to-be wife.
He went on to tell me that he took a plea on my case and did a few months on Rikers Island and had a difficult time dealing with it. That may not sound like a long time, but it is. Even hard-core bad guys have a difficult time dealing with Rikers for more than five minutes, and this guy wasn’t hard-core. He was just a guy with a problem who did stupid things in life and got caught. He was one of the many people in this world who teased that big dog named Crack and got bit in the ass.
He told me about how he met his girlfriend when he got out of jail and with her help he straightened himself out. Jail was no fun and he was determined never to go back.
It was amazing. The next thing I knew we were laughing and talking like we were old pals. She asked me if I was married or had kids. I said no, but that I had a new girlfriend and things were getting serious. I had to tell them that she was from Spain, so they both oohed and aahed. It sounded very exotic to them also. I was kind of surprised how open I was about my personal life with someone I arrested, but the moment was pleasant and seemed to sweep the three of us away. Cops and robbers time was behind us and now we were just three human beings having a nice moment.
When they turned to leave, my new buddy stopped for a second, then he pointed to a hot-dog wagon and asked, “Can I get you one?” We both laughed while I politely declined. I didn’t want to mix some dirty-water dogs with whatever my girlfriend had on the menu for tonight, the mix might be more then a human stomach could handle. And off they went, just a nice couple holding hands, enjoying a sunny afternoon in the park. And I would never see them again.
I sat back down on the bench, taking in the sun-filled scenery, and that’s when I spotted the three dealers from earlier standing about fifty feet away. They had been watching us the whole time. Out of habit I pressed my arm against my side, checking to make sure my other friend, the steel bulge, was where it was supposed to be. It’s nice to have friends. I glanced at my watch and realized time had flown by and it was time to go meet my girl. That’s when I stood up, and real slow and deliberately walked past the three shitheads and gave them my final “go fuck yourself” look. Then I sauntered out of the park. Now I was good and ready to leave.
When I picked my girlfriend up she asked me how the park was. I couldn’t tell her about the three drug dealers I had the staring match with. She knew that I was a cop and thought it was really cool, but she didn’t really understand what a cop’s life is all about just yet. It can get edgy even when you’re off duty, and I didn’t want to scare her off. Good thing, because in a few years she would become my wife. I thought about telling the story about my new friend and the hot dogs, but stopped. I didn’t know how to explain to her that my job is this: I chase a guy down out in the street. I choke the living shit out of him. I shine a flashlight up his ass. Then I buy him dinner. So I just told her, “I met an old friend in the park.”
The Job: True Tales from the Life of a New York City Cop Page 11