by Mark Johnson
She accepted the interruptions and setbacks to her career that came with two children and with the necessary geographic dislocations of my own career path. But as she sees it, now I’m not keeping up my end of the bargain—that of being the primary breadwinner—because of a little discouragement and dissatisfaction with my career.
And the 75 percent cut in pay is the least of my betrayal. After I run the numbers and demonstrate to her that we can take the financial cut without jeopardizing our retirement, there remains the cut in status, which is irreversible. No more blue-ribbon committees, no more mingling with elected officials, captains of industry, pillars of the community. She’ll be married to a cop. Most cops are not college educated; if they are, they advance through the ranks to command staff, but I’ve told her I have no desire to supervise or manage anyone anymore, especially cops. I’ve had a belly full of management, and the politics and power games of managing a 500-man police department are no doubt even more brutal and nauseating than managing a multimillion-dollar nonprofit. This will leave me among the lower ranks, who will be half my age, with less than half my higher education and work experience.
I accuse her of snobbery, but that’s worse than a cheap shot: it’s a lie. I quickly abandon that line of defense.
I argue there are things of value, lessons and challenges and goals, that cannot be found in classrooms or boardrooms or council chambers.
“Like what? Learning to shoot a gun? Learning how to fight a thug? You’re fifty years old, and don’t take this wrong, but you’re not a natural warrior. They’ll hand your ass to you.”
I retreat to my last ditch. “I can’t expect you to get it, I guess. It’s a guy thing: facing fears, overcoming doubts, dealing with the real world, the grit, the blood and guts, there’s something to be said for that.”
“What about making a difference? The real, long-lasting, quality-of-life kind of difference in a community that you’ve been preaching for years with United Way? Was that all just part of a script, just an abstraction?”
“Cops make a difference!” I declaim. “They save lives . . . they . . . they protect and serve!” Sheesh, Mark: a tad derivative, y’think? Not to say weak? “They’re useful, necessary, in a tangible way.”
Nancy rolls her eyes. “You’re copping out,” she says, shaking her head, without even a hint of a pun. “You’re smart. You have talents. You’re artistic, and creative. You can write, and speak, and motivate and even inspire people. But you’re squandering all that, to indulge yourself in some boyhood adventure. Lots of men have tough times in their careers, and they man up, they hang in there. But you’re just taking the easy way out.”
There it is. That’s the nut of it, the kernel. What nobody else will tell me, though they may think it. Not my buddies, who say it’s cool, not my kids, who say it’s awesome. I don’t have an answer for this, though I knew it was coming. I guess that’s why I married her: she’s fearless when it comes to truth.
But her truth and my truth are not necessarily the same thing, not this time. Nor are they mutually exclusive. It certainly requires courage and smarts to “hang in there,” but in this case it seems even more courage is required of me to change. And smarts is not the same as wisdom.
I wonder what my father would think. He’d say, “Don’t be foolish. Don’t be a quitter.” In other words, don’t manifest your utter lack of both wisdom and courage. He always said I was “impetuous” and “impulsive.” And I know I always disappointed him in the Manliness Department, probably owing to my not being flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood. He once described my employment in the nonprofit field as “women’s work.”
But . . . might he just think law enforcement would be . . . ? Nah. Who’m I kidding? My dad? Stan the Man? Iron Man Stan? Approving this? Magical thinking indeed!
As if reading my mind, Nancy says, “I wonder what your father would think of this? You know it’s only because of what he left us that you even have the luxury of considering it.”
I’m surprised it took her so long to get here, but I’m ready for her. If she’s gonna pull the Stan card, so can I.
“I know one thing for sure about Stan the Man: he damn sure wouldn’t be bullied by his wife when it came to making a decision like this!” The discussion is over.
Still, I wonder—is this path the way of wisdom? Of courage? I won’t know until I take it. But I do know that the path I’ve been on for the last two decades won’t get me there.
If it’s up to the contract psychologist who does the testing and screening for Albuquerque Police Department and Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office recruits, however, I won’t be getting on the path. She ain’t buying my story any more than Nancy is. And she has her own set of truths. Ms. Payne, the psychologist, has always resented the annual strong-arming for United Way by her boss. And she objects to United Way’s failure to fund Planned Parenthood and to the gross disparity between United Way funding to the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts (favoring the boys by a factor of three). And Ms. Payne comes from a family riddled with chronic alcoholism and drug addiction. To her, self-help, “12-step” recovery programs appear to be little more than bogus, ineffectual autosuggestion.
Don’t get me wrong. I have the utmost respect for the psychotherapeutic arts and have benefited greatly from capable, dedicated practitioners at several critical points in my life. A patient and kind psychologist helped guide me through some turbulence during my early college years; a few visits with an insightful shrink afforded me much-needed clarity through the intense confusion produced by meeting, in my late twenties, the woman who had given me up for adoption shortly after giving birth to me; and a wise, no-nonsense marriage counselor deserves much credit for keeping Nancy and me together through our rocky times as young working parents with demanding careers.
But Ms. Payne displayed none of these characteristics in my forty-minute meeting with her. It seemed she had made up her mind about me before I walked in the door.
After passing the written basic competency exam (kid stuff), the health screen (a little more challenging for a fifty-year-old with a “frozen shoulder” from a long-neglected high school football injury and bad habits ranging from daily bacon cheeseburgers to a pack a day of unfiltered Camels), the financial and criminal background check (I’m neither broke nor in debt, but the arrest history could be a liability if they go back more than twenty-five years; they do, but I’m credited for lengthy straight time), the polygraph (hope they don’t ask about all the stuff from that prolonged, troubled adolescence; they do, but because decades have passed, and I didn’t lie about it, and the department is desperate for recruits willing to risk their lives for a little over twelve bucks an hour, all is—tentatively—forgiven), and the physical stamina test (nothing that can’t be fixed by a few months of daily agony, doing push-ups and sit-ups and running sprints and miles in the sodden Mobile summer as well as the lung-searing thin air of the New Mexico mountains), and the worst part, the insensate, inscrutable plodding of the County Personnel Board, which offers no indication, for months on end, about recruits’ scores, relative standing, prospects for hire, the department’s vacancies or needs or timetable for hire—after all this, I’m bounced by the contract psychologist, Ms. Payne.
She starts by flattering me: “You are way overqualified, both in education and especially in work experience.” We then exchange pleasant collegial banter as fellow human-service professionals about community needs, mental health care, United Way’s role in same, and the aforementioned “issues” she takes with funding to particular agencies. My account of fighting the good fight at United Way makes no apparent impact on Ms. Payne.
Instead, firmly in control of the discussion, Ms. Payne describes her task as it relates to the department and me. Her contractual and ethical obligation to the department is unique. All previous tests are statutorily administered by the County Personnel Board for all law enforcement agencies in the county: sheriff’s deputies, municipal police, village const
ables, probation officers, jail guards. There’s no redress for failure on any one of those, which are standardized, objective. Her contract, by contrast, is directly with the hiring agency, not the Personnel Board. The nature of her expertise being somewhat subjective (as I could no doubt ascertain from the battery of aptitudes and values tests she has just administered to me), her recommendations are acted on at the discretion of the hiring department’s command staff.
That being said, Ms Payne explains, the high cost of training good police officers compels her first to screen for employees who are most likely to make a long-term commitment to the department.
“We need to recoup our investment in recruits, and that takes time—almost three years, at currently budgeted training rates. Having extensive management experience as you do, I’m sure you understand cost recovery and ROI fundamentals, which is why I’m sure it will come as no great surprise to you that I cannot in good conscience recommend your placement in the next academy class. At your age, and with your background, you’ll be bored to tears and quit in months. This is a young man’s job. The typical recruit is half your age, no college, usually with military service, which I noted from your CV appears to be the one common qualification you lack. Not that it’s an insurmountable deficit, but I’m sure you’ll agree there’s a world of, shall we say, cultural difference between the military and the not-for-profit sector, Mr. Johnson. The police department is a paramilitary organization.”
I try to object, but she waves me off. “I’ve been in clinical and private practice for over two decades, Mr. Johnson,” she continues. “You’re an educated man. You’ve no doubt heard of the male midlife crisis. This looks to me like a classic example, except maybe your little red sports car is a blue uniform.” She leans forward, her hands open, her head tilted, a wistful, indulgent smile crossing her lips, her fixed gaze that of a principal trying to get little Johnny to admit he was the one who wrote naughty things on the boys’ room wall.
Naughty thoughts flash: she’s not actually too bad looking . . . she’s one of those women of a certain age, intellect, and pear shape who eschew cosmetics, cut their hair short and sort of spikey, drape themselves in shapeless earth-tone sacks and unflattering but pricey Eileen Fisher ponchos, and wear thick socks or leggings with their Birkenstocks . . . poor woman probably hasn’t been laid in months.
I take a breath, smile slightly back at her in the same way she smiles at me, and arch an eyebrow, gazing vaguely past and above her, as if giving serious consideration to her theory of my motivations. After an appropriately respectful pause, I make my opening argument: This is no impulsive, pathetic attempt to regain lost youth. I have concluded my former career, one that I was quite successful in for, like you, more than two decades. I won’t be going back. I am committed to doing this, to being a cop, what I have wanted to do since I was a boy, before it’s too late. This is no passing whim. And there will be no “culture shock.” I am motivated by service. By helping people in need. That’s what kept me going in United Way for so long. Law enforcement is just another way to serve, to help people. A more hands-on way. Instead of raising money for the Women’s Shelter, I will lock up the wifebeaters who force them to seek the shelter. (I figure this angle, in particular, will appeal to Ms. Payne, no doubt an ardent feminist.)
She’s unmoved. “All of that is very noble, Mr. Johnson, but dangerously naïve. Police work is not social work. I’ve seen numerous studies showing that the cops who view their work as primarily service are three times more likely to be injured or killed on the job than those who see their duty as primarily enforcement. Let me just give you a hypothetical. Say you’re in a hostage situation. Bad guy’s got a gun to the head of a pretty young female, says to you, ‘Give me your gun or the dame gets it!’ She poses like the bad guy, one arm around the girl’s throat, the pointing finger and upright thumb of the other hand a gun to the head of the hostage. “Quick! What do you do, Officer Johnson?”
“Heck, that’s a no-brainer,” I say. “I just keep him talking till backup arrives.”
“No, you’re changing the scenario,” she says. “No backup’s coming, your radio broke, no snipers on the roof who can pick him off. He’s serious, you can’t stall him, he wants your gun or the girl is toast, what do you do? Quick!”
Never really thought about something like this. How do they do it in the movies? The hero always bravely puts down his weapon and talks his way close enough to the bad guy to get the jump on him, disarm him, save the girl. I tell Ms. Payne I’d start moving slowly toward him, talking all the time to develop trust, and when I get close enough, I’d put down my gun and—
“Bang. You’re dead,” says Ms. Payne, pointing her finger gun at me. She blows the smoke from her finger and points it sideways. “Bang. The bitch dies, too. Cop 101: Never surrender your weapon. Case closed. You don’t have the instincts.”
“Wait a minute! I, I’ve got a backup piece, strapped to my ankle! I pull it out and—”
“You’re already dead,” she says, shaking her head at me. “He’s blown your head off while you’re bending over, pulling up your pants leg.” She’s laughing now. “You can’t quick-draw a backup pistol.”
The laughing stops abruptly. She points her finger gun threateningly at me. “Actually, he doesn’t shoot the girl after killing you. He brutally rapes, tortures, and sodomizes her first. Or, just as likely, he doesn’t kill you. He makes you handcuff yourself to a pipe and watch, helpless, as he assaults her sexually to death. Six weeks later you blow your own brains out.”
I think, jeez, what a sicko! Talk about your morbid ideation! But I’m beat. No comeback. No shots left. I opt for whining.
“But I have always wanted to be a policeman,” I complain. “Your scenario—they teach you what to do! In the academy! That’s just tactics, not instincts! I’ve always wanted to be a cop, Ms. Payne! I don’t think you get that. And I know I’d be a good one! I’d be thrilled to do nothing else for the next ten to fifteen years. I won’t get bored and quit!”
She shakes her head. “If you’ve always wanted to be a cop, you’d have been one long before now.”
“But I couldn’t afford to be a cop! Not with a family, kids to raise and educate. But now they’re grown and gone, working, married; the house is paid for. I can finally take the cut.”
Her lips tighten, impassive. I switch to charm.
“Besides, I had to wait for some distance from my misspent youth.” A winsome, mischievous grin: little Johnny admitting to the principal that he had, indeed, once been the naughty boy.
“I’m glad you acknowledge that,” she says, not charmed. “That’s my second concern, and actually the one I can’t overlook: your alcoholism and ‘recovery.’” She uses the au-(so)-courant-two-fingered-double-handed-quotation-marks gesture as she refers to my two decades of “recovery.” Citing her extensive clinical work with alcoholics, she then confides her family’s personal struggles with addiction, which has afflicted them for at least three generations, including the youngest, the generation that includes her own offspring. There is no cure, she declares. Periods of remission, yes, but nobody ever recovers. And certainly you can understand the risks and the liabilities for the department—nay, for law-abiding citizens—of one so afflicted, in a position of armed, uniformed authority!
I nod but point out that I’ve already passed the polygraph, which had included numerous questions regarding my drinking and drugging history and how long it had been since either had passed my lips, or nose.
She smiles disdainfully, in a way that says, “Silly you!” and informs me that the polygraph is so unreliable as to be inadmissible in court and that denial and deception are key hallmarks of addiction. “Remember that old Seinfeld episode where George says, ‘It’s not really a lie if you actually believe it’? That bit holds a lot of insight when it comes to addicts. They seem especially gifted at deception. It’s my theory that they’re so good at deceiving others—and perhaps even polygraphs—because they’v
e been lying to themselves for years.”
I slump back in my chair, cup my chin in one hand, and battle the urge to lunge across the desk at her throat. She drones on about the misery of her mother at the hands of her alcoholic father, her brother’s three unsuccessful attempts at rehab, her divorce from an alcoholic husband, and the heartbreak of a teenaged son with two DUIs, numerous wrecks, and minor-in-possession citations already. Slowly the heat rises, my throat constricts; a finger at my temple confirms the acceleration of my pulse. I struggle for composure, my eyes roaming her office, her bookshelf, her desktop, her window overlooking a strip mall parking lot, focusing on anything but the source of this pathetic, vindictive tale of woe and doom.
“We pause when agitated, and ask for direction,” I think, from my daily recovery meditation book. “When we are disturbed, the problem is within us.” Then a tiny, wheedling voice from deep within me: a slash of Beam would sure go good about now.
I absently activate the little swinging-ball desk toy in front of me. The one where four or five chrome balls are suspended by strings in a line, you pull back one at the end, release it, it slaps the others, and sends the one at the other end flying, click, click, click.
I’m pissed. I could sue: age discrimination! Or violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act! (Alcoholism is surely a certified disability.) Nah. I’m not really one for litigation. More recovery lessons come to me: “Accept the things you cannot change, have courage to change the things you can, and pray for the wisdom to know the difference.” Sure can’t change Ms. Psychic Payne here. Her mind’s made up. But I’ll be goddamned if I just roll over. I’m not gonna let this bitch, or Smug Doug, or the conflict-averse cronies on my old board of trustees pull my string and send my balls flying.