The Choirboys

by Joseph Wambaugh

  “Well I think he does, goddamnit,” Roscoe said but was careful to smile at Spermwhale when he said it.

  Baxter was some forty feet away in the darkness, lying on a blanket and shaking his head in wonder that even here in the idyllic tranquilized and totally artificial world of choir practice, it was not entirely possible to escape hostility and violence.

  “I think it’s faggy and uppity to talk like that,” Roscoe Rules said, while the other choirboys drank and teased Ora Lee Tingle or played mumbletypeg in the grass with confiscated and illegal ten inch stilettos or, like Spermwhale Whalen, tossed little stones on the water to watch the ripples, and to neck with Carolina Moon.

  Finally Baxter uncoiled his lean body, brushed back his heavy umber hair, longer than anyone’s but Spencer Van Moot’s, who was constantly under fire from the watch commander to get a haircut, and said, “Roscoe, I sincerely try not to use any big words.”

  “There! See, you did it again!” Roscoe pointed, banging on the arm of his partner Whaddayamean Dean Pratt who was dozing on his blanket. “See, you said ‘sincerely’ Shit. Faggy word. Faggy is what it is.”

  “I simply asked the fellows if…”

  “See! You did it again!” shouted the mean and drunken Roscoe Rules as he punched on Dean to arouse him, but his partner only whimpered drunkenly “‘Fellows.’ How many cops you ever hear say ‘fellows’? Cops say ‘guys’ or ‘dudes’ or ‘studs’ or ‘cats,’ but no cop in the history of LAPD ever said ‘fellows.’ Nobody but you, Baxter Slate.”

  “He didn’t say nothin faggy I heard,” Calvin Potts said, and the tall black policeman was suddenly standing behind Roscoe Rules who was thinking that the only thing worse than a fag is a nigger and how much fun it would be to kneedrop Calvin Potts and puncture his kidney and smash his spleen like a rotten peach.

  “For chrissake, Baxter, tell Roscoe what you said so I can relax,” said Francis Tanaguchi who was lost in the expansive bosom of Ora Lee Tingle, trying to persuade her to pull the train for a few of the choirboys. She was now wearing only Spermwhale’s T-shirt and her own skintight black flares as she held Francis Tanaguchi in her arms saying how fucking cute Nips are.

  “Roscoe,” Baxter said patiently “I only said that policemen see the worst of people and people at their worst. I was simply trying to explain to you and me and all of us our premature cynicism. That’s all I said and I wish I’d keep my big mouth shut.”

  “So do I,” muttered Roscoe. “Fucking ten dollar words. A policeman only needs about a hundred words in his whole vocabulary.”

  “The only big words I use were taught me in the police academy Roscoe,” said Baxter. “Words like hemorrhage and defecation.” Baxter took a drink of cold vodka and said, “You know, Roscoe, even you use euphemisms, police euphemisms, like calling your night-stick a baton because the LAPD says to call it that. I refuse to call it that. A baton is a plaything for young girls. There’s no phallic connotation whatsoever. If I’m going to carry something to beat people over the head with I insist it have Freudian implications. I learned that in graduate school. Everything must have Freudian implications.”

  “You making fun a me, Slate?” Roscoe demanded, trying to stagger to his feet.

  “You know, a graduate student would love to use a big faggy word like ‘emasculated’ on you, Roscoe. That’s a favorite word of all graduate students. And they would say of your baton that the true symbol of your sexual identity is the wooden appendage you store at the station. In other words, your cock’s in your locker.”

  “Oh, I don’t like you, Slate, I never liked you,” said Roscoe Rules who really didn’t like Baxter Slate any less than he liked Harold Bloomguard, Francis Tanaguchi, Calvin Potts and Spermwhale Whalen, not necessarily in that order. He only just tolerated his partner, Dean Pratt, who was starting to get on his nerves, and Father Willie Wright who seemed to be afraid of him.

  “Let’s talk economics instead of philosophy, Roscoe,” Baxter Slate said, deciding to test the meanest choirboy. “I think that the inflationary period follows the prediction of the deficit meanders of corollary Harry that Roscoes cannot breed in captivity and that Chandu the Magician is a cousin of the condor at Santa Barbara.”

  “I don’t buy that faggy idea any more than the last one,” Roscoe Rules said, passing the test.

  “Whaddaya mean, Baxter? Whaddaya mean?” asked Whaddayamean Dean who had crawled across the grass into the converstion area.

  “What do I mean, Dean, my friend?” said Baxter Slate. “I mean that I was a lousy Juvenile officer, that’s what I mean. I mean that a battered child has a marvelous capacity to adjust to his torture and will ceaselessly love his battering parents. I mean that the mother of a sexually molested child will not leave nor truly protect the child from the father as long as the man has a good job or otherwise preserves that mother from an economic life which is more horrifying to her than the molestation of her child. I mean that the weakness of the human race is stupefying and that it’s not the capacity for evil which astounds young policemen like you and me, Dean. Rather it’s the mind boggling worthlessness of human beings. There’s not enough dignity in mankind for evil and that’s the most terrifying thing a policeman learns.”

  “Whaddaya trying to say, Baxter? Whaddaya trying to say?” pleaded Whaddayamean Dean drunkenly.

  “I mean that twelve good men and true are a gaggle of non-professional neophytes conditioned by the heroics of cinema juries which inevitably free the defendant who is inevitably innocent. I mean that they can never really believe that a natural father could do such an unnatural thing to his child.”

  “I don’t get it! I don’t get it!” cried Whaddayamean Dean.

  “I mean that doctors and professional men are the most arrogant and incompetent witnesses at any criminal proceedings and that they’ll screw up your case for sure.

  “I mean that the weak and inept parents will always refuse to surrender their neglected children to the authorities because they want to atone for failures with older children and the cycle inevitably repeats itself.

  “I mean that perhaps economics, not morality is our last consideration, and that the judge has a point when you plead with him to put a man away to save that man’s family and the judge says, ‘Swell, but who do you want me to let out?’”

  “What’s he mean? What’s he mean?” yelled Whaddayamean Dean to the drunken choirboys. Dean was boozy enough for a crying jag now, the tears welling as he bobbed and weaved and almost fell over backward.

  “And I mean that when policemen have to deal with small inflexible men in their own ranks, perhaps it becomes too much. And perhaps part of the reason that Roscoe Rules is small and inflexible and insensitive is because traditional police administrators-men like Captain Drobeck, and Commander Moss and Chief Lynch-are small and inflexible and insensitive and…”

  “I heard that faggy remark, Slate, you scrote!” said Roscoe Rules, still unable to stand.

  “I mean that cops chase society’s devils as well as their own, which becomes unbearably terrifying since the devil is at last only the mirror image of a creature utterly without worth or dignity. And that the physical dangers of police work are grossly overrated but the emotional dangers make it the most hazardous job on earth.”

  “Oh, Baxter, oh, Baxter,” moaned the bewildered Whaddayamean Dean who was starting to get sick.

  “I mean that I carry only two memories from my childhood in Dominican boarding schools where I was placed by my beautiful, well traveled mother: if you touch the communion wafer with your teeth it’s not so good and should be avoided. And the only unforgivable sin is to murder yourself because there is absolutely no possibility of absolution and redemption, and…”

  “What the fuck’re you babblin about, Baxter?” asked Spermwhale Whalen who was suddenly behind Baxter, having slept long enough to be more or less capable of driving home before dawn.

  “Spermwhale! Thought you were stacking those Z’s.” Baxter Slate offered his
partner a quick wide grin and a drink of vodka.

  “Baxter, you sound like a silly pseudointellectual horse’s ass. You’re gettin embarrassin. C’mon, I’ll drive you to your pad.” Spermwhale felt a stab of pain across the front of his skull when he lifted his young partner to his feet and helped steady him.

  Actually, Baxter Slate was rarely such a silly pseudointellectual horse’s ass, but he had been undergoing a prolonged period of despondency brought about partly because he thought he had been such an unsuccessful Juvenile officer.

  The murder of Tommy Rivers was the final blow to his career as a Juvenile officer because Baxter Slate had foreseen the imminent demise of Tommy Rivers and had been powerless, or rationalized that he was powerless, to prevent it.

  It was three months to the day after Tommy Rivers’ death and almost two months before the choir practice shooting that Baxter Slate became the only one of the ten choirboys to kill a man on duty.

  Contrary to film and fiction, policemen rarely fire their guns in combat, and even Spermwhale Whalen with nineteen and a half years service and Spencer Van Moot with sixteen years had never killed a man on duty. The flesh wound to the Regretful Rapist was the only time Spermwhale had ever fired his revolver outside of monthly qualification shooting, even including the Watts Riot. So it naturally became a topic of conversation during choir practice when Baxter Slate killed a man.

  The night Baxter Slate killed a man started out a busy one. Ten minutes after they hit the bricks and cleared at 3:45 in the afternoon, Roscoe Rules and Dean Pratt put out an “officers need assistance” call on Chesapeake Avenue in the vicinity of Dorsey High School.

  A call for either help or assistance demands all-out coverage, and every car on the nightwatch made a squealing turn and headed south through the heavy afternoon traffic, figuring that Roscoe Rules had probably caused a riot at the school.

  As it turned out the call was indeed put out by Roscoe Rules. He and Dean had been driving by the campus so Roscoe could show off by parading his tailored blue body and gleaming badge in front of the high school girls, when they spotted a young black car stripper struggling with the bucket seats of a Porsche which was parked in the faculty parking lot.

  Whaddayamean Dean had dropped his baton getting out of the radio car and the clatter of wood on asphalt caused the sweating car stripper to look back and see the “Mickey Mouse ears” on the roof of the police car, which is what students call the siren lights. The car stripper was off in a 9.5 hundred yard dash which left Dean far behind and Roscoe radioing for assistance.

  During the chase, the car stripper ran right into the arms of a pretty twenty-five year old, white history teacher named Pamela Brockington who saw the exhausted policeman hotfooting after the boy. She pushed the boy into the gymnasium and was standing in front of the door when the lanky redhead came panting up to her.

  “That boy go in there?” Dean gasped.

  “I know that boy, Officer,” Pamela Brockington said. “Whatever happened we can settle it without your running through the school grounds and starting a problem.”

  “Out… out of the way, lady” Dean puffed.

  “Listen, you’re on Board of Education property,” the teacher said, planting her feet and spreading her legs, which wasn’t easy, her blue jersey skirt being so tightly fitted.

  “You know him, okay it’s no problem,” Dean said, catching his breath. “Just give us his name and we’ll pick him up at home.”

  “Well, what did he do?” For the first time the teacher looked unsure of herself.

  “Tried to rip off the bucket seats from a white Porsche in the parking lot. What’s the kid’s name?”

  “Oh,” the teacher said in a small voice.

  “Your car?”

  “No, Mr. Krump’s car. Oh.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Well, I don’t actually know his name but he’s always around.” Pamela Brockington moved aside to let Dean into the gym. But it was far too late and the car stripper had gone out the other door.

  “He goes to school here, doesn’t he? You can pick his picture out of your school mug shots,” Dean said, removing his hat and wiping the sweat from his freckled brow.

  “Well, I don’t think he actually goes to school here, but…” and the young woman started to wither under the outraged scowl Dean was working up to. “He’s… he’s always hanging around the streets after school and I’m sure you could find him again tomorrow or the next day.”

  When Dean returned to the radio car without the car stripper and with the tale of Pamela Brockington, Roscoe Rules smiled ironically and in a very soft voice said, “Now ain’t that typical, partner? I mean that’s just so typical of some bleeding heart, left wing social science teacher, now ain’t it?”

  “I don’t know if she teaches social science,” Dean offered as Roscoe’s voice rose an octave.

  “Yes, well it certainly is typical and now our little mother-fucking car stripper is halfway to Watts or wherever the hell.”

  “You broadcast a description?” Dean asked as he saw the familiar mad glint working its way into Roscoe’s blue eyes as his hairless brows knitted and unknitted, making Dean terribly nervous because he didn’t know if Roscoe would suddenly turn on him. Which he did.

  “And you… partner,” Roscoe said, his voice getting louder still as he revved the black and white, ready to leave half a tire on the pavement. “You, partner, let this little pinko, scum eating, shit sucking cunt keep you from hot pursuit? It’s hard to believe!”

  “Well… partner,” Dean gulped. “We’ll get him some other time. Maybe.”

  “And now you’re sounding just like what this nigger loving split tail must’ve sounded like, partner. If I’d been there I’d a grabbed that come licking, do-gooder little cunt and CHOKED HER OUT AND MADE HER DO THE FUCKING CHICKEN! YOU HEAR ME?”

  It was quite an ordinary Roscoe Rules incident, interesting later to Baxter because the car stripper ran across Exposition Boulevard and up Palmgrove Avenue where he made the almost fatal error of crossing through the fenced yard of Yolanda Gutierrez, aged sixty-two, and her niece, Rosario Apodaca, aged fifty-one, who, unlike Pamela Brockington, spoke no English but understood immediately what it meant when this young boy leaped their fence and crouched behind a hibiscus as a black and white cruised by with the officers craning their necks.

  Yolanda Gutierrez calmly opened a trunk belonging to her son who had been killed in Korea twenty-three years earlier, removed his Colt.45 automatic and drew down on the boy.

  The young car stripper laughed like hell at the old woman holding the heavy gun until Yolanda Gutierrez fired one for effect and blew out the window of the car parked in front of the house. The car stripper fell shrieking to the ground, not knowing the old lady had lost the bucking gun and her glasses and was crawling around the porch trying to find both when two black and whites attracted by the explosion came roaring down the street and arrested the car stripper.

  “Something to be learned here,” Baxter Slate remarked later to Spermwhale. “How two social classes perceive reality. The educated schoolteacher and the simple old woman.”

  “Who gives a fuck about reality anyway?” Spermwhale mumbled.

  “Not me,” Baxter grinned cheerfully. “I prefer choir practice to reality any old day.”

  Then Baxter’s wide grin vanished as he watched a yellow gangrenous dog being dragged down the street by a larger bitch who had him locked inside her, his passion having turned to agony and howling terror. A gang of black kindergarteners, as guileless as a bunch of plums, laughed and pelted both muddy animals with rocks and tin cans.

  “Maybe I’ll fly another raid with some a the guys my next day off,” Spermwhale suddenly said. “Need some excitement around here.”

  “Don’t start that nonsense again,” Baxter said, putting on his sunglasses and driving back toward their beat.

  Spermwhale began to think about the mission he had flown three weeks earlier. It had started
innocently enough with some alcoholic conversation at choir practice about how the white men of Palm Springs had cheated the Indians out of their birthright by stealing the desert spa from the Indians. Roscoe Rules had corrected them by pointing out that Jews and not white men had done it and that he wished the tribe would rise up and massacre every one of those kike bastards and cut off their scalps and kneedrop them.

  Then, at precisely fifteen minutes before dawn, Francis Tanaguchi slapped Spermwhale Whalen awake where he slept entwined in the chubby arms of Carolina Moon.

  “I’d love to see those two in a lewd movie,” Francis Tanaguchi remarked as they threw dirty pond water in Spermwhale’s face until he gagged and choked for air.

  “Why bother?” Calvin said. “You can see them in real life anytime you want just by sneakin behind the bushes where they usually mate.”

  “Yeah, but it’d be different in a movie,” Francis answered. “You know, a red sexy room with a red silky bedspread and Carolina and Spermwhale all fat and white and oiled and sliding around!”

  “You’d need a cinemascope lens,” Baxter Slate offered. “A wide wide angle to take all that flesh.”

  “Wall to Wall Meat! What a title! Outta sight!” cried Francis Tanaguchi.

  An hour later, Francis, Calvin, Dean and Spermwhale, who were all off duty the next night, were in Spermwhale’s rented orange and white Cessna 172 at Burbank Airport where Spermwhale often flew if he could get someone to pay for the rental and gasoline. Spermwhale had taken off without a flight plan, but with three hungover choirboys, two fifths of Scotch and one of gin, on a mission to recapture Palm Springs by way of Ontario Airport where Spermwhale reluctantly agreed to land because whaddayamean Dean wanted some potato chips. They were reprimanded at Ontario by a man in the tower for landing without using the radio, but Spermwhale told him to fuck off and decided to hire a taxi to the Ontario Motor Speedway to watch some motorcycles qualifying for a race.

  It was a long hot day at the racetrack spent sleeping shirtless in the bleachers, drinking the two fifths of Scotch and a case of beer and eating all the potato chips Whaddayamean Dean could hold.