Proverbs 28, Verse 1
"The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are as bold as a lion."
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CHIPPED WISDOM:
Lots of kids want to be cops when they grow up. This is one way in which you know for sure that kids are stupid. Who wants to get paid dirt, put on a badge and a uniform that makes you a hated member of the establishment, a symbol of oppression and despised by many both young and old, and be expected to shovel the shit of the nation at 4am while normal people are sleeping safely in bed cuddling whomever and, oh, yeah, if you're really unlucky, you'll get shot or stabbed or run over or crashed into doing it? Who in the fucking hell would want to do that?
RIGHT! A FIVE YEAR OLD!
Now, obviously, we need police officers, so it's a good thing that approximately 700,000 American kids never grow out of that particular phase. I grew out of it, but it took me till I was twenty-nine. And I wasn't particularly keen on growing out of it. I fought it tooth and nail.
I sublimated in several ways. I wrote a book about cops, and, to promote it, I rubbed elbows with cops, and their wives, and their widows. I spoke at gatherings of cops, some active, some retired. At a book signing where my life was threatened, cops put their lives on the line when they showed up in uniform and in plainclothes to protect me. I wrote articles and commentaries and personal essays about cops, cops who were felled, and cops who felled suspects, whom I thought were being vilified by the press and by popular opinion. In 1999, legendary musician Curtis Mayfield wrote me an angry email in response to a piece I'd written in the Philadelphia Inquirer about cops and about a particularly famous cop-killer. Then an impulsive and hotheaded 19-year-old, I tossed a furious email back at him and suggested that, "the next time you feel compelled to spout off your ignorant views to me on a subject you know nothing about, why don't you try jerking off into a hand-towel and save everybody the effort of reading your filth?" The next day, I saw MSN.com that Curtis Mayfield was dead.
That's right. I gave him "Something He Can Feel".
I suppose I sublimated by becoming an EMT in 2005. Badge. Dark blue uniform. Lights and a siren that went woo woo woo. Even though I was just a transport EMT, schlepping bodies from MRI appointment to rehab to nursing home to psych hospital to home, I did my fair share of "emergency" runs. But you'd think that a cop wannabee would have been an action junkie, that whenever we were told to run lights-and-sirens it would have been a real "Dukes of Hazzard" moment for me, but my stomach always turned as I switched on the red lights. I hated it. It terrified me. There was nothing exciting about barreling down I-95 in a decrepit, poorly maintained ambulance with bald tires and a suspension held together by rubber bands with some dying asshole in the back being worked on by another asshole who was allegedly your "partner". I guess I should have known that the emergency life was not for me. The pit of your stomach never lies, you know.
I've always struggled with meaning in my life. What's the point if there isn't a point? And I wonder if that isn't why I've been drawn heavily to artistic pursuits-- the life of a writer or of a performer, someone to be read and talked about (Wilde said, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about", and he was right, goddamn him) or the life of a police officer, someone to be respected and remembered. Maybe I thought that a higher profile existence would give my life meaning, purpose, or direction. It's the kind of conclusion a five-year-old would draw. Oh, you're scared of death? Well, do something important so you'll be remembered.
As usual, I went to the extreme. Because that's kind of what I do.
As part of my EMT training back in 2005, I had to do a twelve hour shift at Jefferson Hospital's E.R. I took vital signs, asked dumbfuck questions, stared at pony-tailed nurses whose asses looked impossibly delicious even in dumpy pastel colored scrubs, and I generally got in the way, like a student is supposed to do. Well, at some point in the night, some homeless tranny barricaded him/herself in the E.R. bathroom and was apparently smoking crack. She refused the nurse's commands to come out, and one of them said to me, "Get the security guard at the front desk." I went out there, and there was the front desk, but there was no security guard. I walked back into the E.R. and as I walked back in, the bathroom door flung open and the He/She flew out and took off through the E.R. doors.
"STOP!" I screamed as I maniacally took off. It was maybe eleven o'clock at night, and my breath was hard and cold in the night as my boots thumped against the pavement. In pursuit. Suspect fleeing. Southbound on 11th.
STOP! STOP! STOP!
Oh, I realized. They're yelling at me.
I turned to see a breathless, overweight security guard and E.R. tech were panting behind me as I finally put the brakes on.
"What are you, fucking outta your goddamned mind?! We don't chase! When they're off our campus, it's the cops' problem. We ain't the fucking cops!" The guard yelled at me between gasps for air.
No. We ain't.
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