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51-50

Paul Marks

It was the smirk that blew me away. A half grin in the eyes and mouth, mocking, laughing. Maybe at me – maybe at the badge. They were leaning against a grimy cinder block wall under a sooty sky. Thumbs hooked into pockets of baggy lowrider pants, fingers, long and lean, twisting into coded signals. Eyes hollow. Eyes I don't even want to meet in the darkest dream. Hollow men. Hollow boys. Nothing behind those eyes. Nothing. They don't care. Don't give a damn.

It was that smirk that blew them away.

***

"You need to retire, my friend," Dr. Dave Carpentier, the Nite Owl radio shrink says to me.

"Can't."

"Why not?"

"It's my job.  The only thing I know."

"Your job is killing you."

"I see it outside my window. I see it everywhere I go. This city is dead. The land is dead. The people are dead."  

"I think you need a vacation, my friend."

"Twilight everywhere."

"You need to get out of the city, up to the country where things are green and there aren't so many people around."

"But...."

"No buts.  Just do it.  For your sake, for your wife and kids."

"But...."

***

TV news on.

"In other news, Terrell Wilson, People Magazine's Outstanding Father of the Year was shot and killed tonight during a carjacking," the newsreader says. "Terrell," –like she knows him personally– "had custody of his two year old daughter, Jade. He was going to school and working two jobs. Only eighteen, he was determined to raise his daughter and give her every opportunity. After seeing his story in People, an anonymous benefactor gave him a brand new Honda Civic. Leaving work to pick up his daughter from her grandmother's last night, Terrell was jacked for his car. He was shot in the head and killed. Over to you, Larry."

The TV drones in the background. I pull the paperwork on a case we're working. More paper than leads. Another kid shot down for no good reason, for no reason at all. Maybe he was wearing blue instead of red or vice versa. Maybe he "stepped" on the wrong person's shadow. Maybe he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. What does it matter? Just another gang killing. Just another "if it bleeds it leads" story for the talking heads.

"It's been reported that seventeen members of the San Francisco Police Department have been put on suspension," Larry-the-newsman says. "Allegedly, they made video tapes of officers in uniform ogling women and acting in skits involving street persons. One tape shows male officers applying makeup in the middle of a drug raid – I wonder if they looked good – while another shows officers shaking their hips suggestively, flicking their tongues and saying "Oh! Captain," to the sound track of the Charlie's Angels television show. Yet another video – how much time and tape do these people have for such things? – shows two officers practicing martial arts to Asian-sounding music, after which they enter a massage parlor while police radio calls go unanswered. Mayor Jerome Courtland said, 'It is offensive, it is sexist. It is homophobic, it is racist, and we're going to make sure it ends,' to which Officer Joshua Maddox responded, 'We were only blowing off steam. No one outside the department was supposed to see the tapes. It's a tough job, you know, gallows humor.' Maddox and his cohorts were suspended without pay until a hearing next month."

 "I wonder if they have a real gallows behind the police station?" says Larry-the-newsman's partner.

"For the cops."

"And they're supposed to protect and serve us?” They laugh.

Nobody disputes them. Nobody gives a damn.  

The news bobbleheads nod in agreement, sightless, then go home to their million dollar houses behind security fences and motion lights, wired with alarms, patrolled by armed guards, their own private police force. And if it gets bad enough they call us, the real cops. Most of the time they have no use for us. Most of the time I have no use for us. Or myself.

The dry wind sings outside my window, crackling the grass. Fire season in full swing. How many years till my twenty? How many years till Tim's in college, then out on his own? He tells me he wants to be a cop like his daddy. By the time he's old enough there won't be much left to defend. Fingers in a dyke about to burst. Outgunned. Outmanned. There's a hell of a lot more gang members in L.A. than cops. The thin blue line.

I don't work normal cases. I work the gang detail. Sometimes we even catch the killer, mostly not. But even when we do some slick defense lawyer pleads them out or gives the Officer Krupke defense: they're depraved on account of they're deprived. Some people buy it. Some don't. Personally I don't care. What I do care about are the innocents who are killed, their families who will never be the same.

The bangers have all become interchangeable to me. Black, white, brown. The Viets. A banger is a banger and a banger is scum.

You – I – wanna be Dirty Harry – instant justice – real justice – any damn justice – but if you are a Harry you're a dinosaur and you go down and the bangers go free. So you do it by the book and every year the book gets thicker, more rules, more guidelines. More paperwork. Maybe that's good. Maybe not. I don't know. What I do know is that it's not safe to walk the streets. That there are more and more bars on the windows in more and more neighborhoods.

The day I got my detective's shield was the second greatest day of my life, second only to my becoming a police officer and Tim's birth. Then I found out it wasn't about law and order but law and disorder. Blame the cops, not the criminals. Every bad guy has a reason. Every bad guy has a criminal defense lawyer who doesn't care if he's innocent or guilty, as long as they don't have to live in the same neighborhood with their clients. Every cop is a racist. Every cop is a criminal. Every stone-cold killer is just misunderstood.

But this case is the one that finally got to me. Jorge Molina. Twelve. Good student. No gang affiliation. Walking home from school.

The blues get there first. We're the second unit on scene. Still, quiet. A boy's body – Jorge's – lay in a pool of blood in the alley. A bizarre ink blot spreading out from under him.  And what do I see?  A bloody dragon with many tentacles, pulling at him, jerking him down, and sucking me in with him.  What would the radio shrink say about that? He already thinks I'm crazy.

The kid's guts and entrails are splattered on the pavement.

"No point in calling the paramedics," my partner says.  "I'll call the coroner."

This is what we know. This is what a wit tells us:

A car pulled to the curb. Four bangers ask Jorge: "Who you ride with?"

"Nobody."

"Got to ride with someone."

Yeah, he rides with someone. He's on the basketball team, the debate club. He's on the fast track to college and getting out of the hood.

Bam. Bam. Bam.

He's on the fast track to the emergency room.

He's on the fast track to the morgue.

He's on the fast track to an early grave.

My partner and I are on the slow boat to finding his killers.

We talk to our CIs. We talk to people who might have seen it. We comb the streets. We work extra shifts.

There are other witnesses. They know who did it. Some probably even know names. No one's willing to say it for the record. And who can blame them?

Sure, I've seen it before. You develop a tough skin. It's just another statistic. Just another DB. After all, one death is a tragedy, a million a statistic. How many gang killings are there each year, how many have there been all together? You can't let them get to you. It's just a job and you do it as best you can. But this one got to me. Jorge Molina. Why? I don't know. Maybe I just opened my eyes, maybe I just allowed myself to feel for the first time in ages.

Jorge Molina. Not just another stat. But another innocent. Another wasted life. Another mother crying. Another brother with no big brother to look up to. Now maybe he'll join a gang.

Another foot in hell, where rat's feet scurry over the broken glass.

Los Angeles. Glamour capital of the world. Gang capital of the world.

Los Angeles. Where the streets are paved with gold and run blood red.

***

Cops aren't supposed to have feelings. We do a good job of hiding them. Burying them. But we're just like everybody else. We hide them in bravado or work. We hide them in a bottle or in "inexplicable" rages. But they're there, like the molten lava in a volcano just waiting to burst through to the surface. 

TV on.

"Eddie Beltran, Gunnery Sergeant, United States Marine Corps, dodged bombs and bullets during two tours in Iraq. But he couldn't dodge the spray of fire from a gang-related drive by outside a 7-11 on San Fernando Road in the Valley. Sergeant Beltran was in the wrong place at the wrong time as it appears the drive-by was meant for others in the parking lot of the convenience store," the newsreader says with only a hint of a smile.

No escape.

***

Cold steel. Blue steel. Stainless. It all tastes the same in the end. But I wasn't going to become the ultimate cop-cliché and eat my gun or drink myself to death. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

Trying to do a job. Taking pride. Wanting to make a difference. Protecting and Serving.

No one gives a damn.

Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.

Scared of drowning. Scared of dying. Scared of not leaving a mark, turning to dust and vanishing into the dustbin of the world. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, bullet to bone. Who would even know I was here? Who would care?

Who am I?

Shape without form.

What am I?

Paralyzed force, gesture without motion.

Quiet and meaningless. An empty vessel in an empty room. On the other hand, the empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

***

"Hey, batter.  Batter-batter-batter."

"Hit that ball, Tim."

My boy loves Tee ball. I wanted to coach his team, but with all the overtime I work it's not possible.

I wanted to take him to Disneyland, but too many unsolveds piling up. It's not possible.

Dry Santa Ana winds blow the parched grass. Sterile thunder pines in the distance, no rain.

Burning winds blister my face. Icy steel from my backup gun pinches my ankle. I never go anywhere without some kind of weapon. Hey, man, this is L.A. and it ain't the L.A. I grew up in. You never know when someone'll pull on you. You never know when you'll have to draw down on someone. But if you do, you're fucked. Because in this AliceInWonderlandWorld up is down, right is wrong. And the badguys win. Still, it's better to be judged by twelve than carried by six, my training officer told me all those years ago.

Crack! Tim's bat connects with the ball and off he goes to first base. T-ball, what the hell kind of game is that anyway? We didn't have that when I was a kid. We didn't bundle ourselves in Michelin Man outfits to protect us when we rode our bikes – helmets, knee pads, bulletproof vests – just to go for a damn bike ride. Tim won't know what it's like to ride his bike and feel the wind in his hair, feel free, even if he does fall and scrape his knee. He'll never know that freedom, growing up in the Plastic Bubble Society he was born into.

"Hello, Jack," she says with just a hint of leftover affection.

"Hi, Melinda."

"Tim will be glad you came."

Tim might be. I'm sure my ex-wife isn't. The smile on her mouth says she's glad to see me, the detachment in her eyes says otherwise. Our marriage lasted longer than a lot of cop marriages. Then I got promoted to detective and was served divorce papers on the same day. Yin-yang.

"Maybe I can take him for pizza after the game?"

She doesn't have to answer. My cell rings. A callout. I wave goodbye to my boy as he stands on first base.

***

"Who killed Jorge Molina?" my partner says. "Henry, we might be able to get the D.A. to cut you a deal."  

"My name's not Henry."

"Oh, what is it?"

"Hombre."

"Well, I doubt that's what it says on your driver's license."

"Driver's license is bullshit."

We know he's scared. Posing. Some of it's real. You wouldn't want to run up against him in a dark alley. Maybe we can turn him? Better chance with him than with a civilian witness to Jorge Molina's murder.

"You're up for life."

"It's better than being dead."   

***

I sip my drink. And in the swirl of amber liquid I see Jorge Molina's face. Chewed up by a 7.62 round from an AK-47.

The Café Noir sits on the cheap end of the Strip on my way home. The Noir is a trip to the past. Maybe a past that never existed. But a past I want to live in nonetheless. It's not exactly a dive bar, but it's been around forever. Not the hippest place. But a place to go and drink alone or find someone to drink with if you hit it at the right time.

I want to drink alone.

"Hey," the bartender says as he brings me another drink.

He doesn't ask about the wife and kids. He doesn't ask about the job. He doesn't ask if I've seen the latest movie or episode of some TV series. He just nods, sets the drink on the table and goes back to his business, disappearing into the blanketing darkness of the bar. And that's why I come here again and again.

The brightest light in the place comes from the hot pink neon flamingo behind the burnished counter. I sit in the darkest corner.

I take another swig, then swallow the whole damn glass. After two more doubles, I don't need to see Jorge Molina in the glass. I see him in my mind, like a continuous movie loop that I can't turn off. I think more booze will help me turn it off, but it has the opposite effect. It intensifies the image.

Every face I see in the Noir is Jorge's.

Every face on the street on the walk back to my car is Jorge's.

Every face in the cars next to me on the road is Jorge's.

And every innocent Jorge I'd had to help bury over the years.

Goddamn it, why can't I get them out of my head?

***

"It's midnight and time for our first call on the Dr. Dave Carpentier show. And my first caller tonight is someone who's getting to be regular on the Dr. Dave show. Welcome caller. What can I do for you tonight?"

"The thin blue line. That's all that's left between us and chaos."  

"Listen to yourself. You're hardly talking in full sentences."

"Hardly thinking in them."

"You need to see someone, get some help."

"The department frowns on that."

"Go outside the department. I can have my screener give you a referral."

"Can't afford to."

"Can't afford not to."

"But...."

***

Off goes the shrink. Off goes the radio. Three a.m., too late to call Tim. Tell him how proud I am of him. Too late to tell him I love him. Too late to warn him to stay a kid as long as possible, don't grow up too fast. But even if it was earlier and I could tell him, he wouldn't listen. We all want to grow up fast. Shave. Get a car. Get a girl. He'll have to learn for himself. Seek his own way. I have nothing to offer him. I haven't done so well myself.

Six a.m. morning news on. Though I have to wonder why.

Car chase. Helicopter shots. Hope they don't get in the way of the police choppers.

Red Toyota Camry, screaming down Beverly Boulevard.

"He's dodging in and out of traffic," the newsreader bobs in a small corner window on the screen. Big smile on her face. It's all entertainment, after all. Infotainment. "Look, he just missed that pedestrian at the bus bench!" Breathless.

"He must be doing at least sixty in a thirty-five zone," her partner pronounces in his deepest tones.

"I hope he's wearing his seatbelt."

Nobody disputes her.

Something's out of focus here. Them? Me? I can't tell anymore.

***

Try to sleep. No damn good.

Catch a few winks in death's dream kingdom.

Cactus everywhere. Stone images.

A dead man's hand raised in supplication under the twinkle of a fading star.

Wake up.

Alone.

All alone in this empty world. With what to look forward to?

The warmth of a woman who isn't there. The laughter of a boy who lives across the city. The tear-filled smiles on visiting days. 

A day streaming sun. But none gets into my apartment.

The shadow falls.

***

"I'm gonna do somethin', I know it."

"I can't help you in just the few moments we have on the air."

"Something's gotta give."

"That's why you need help, my friend."

"I can't go 51-50."

"What's that?"

"Department lingo for crazy person."

"You'll definitely go 51-50 if you don't get help."

"You keep saying that."

"It's true."

"But...."

***

"It's a fucking jungle out there," Shana, my new partner of about two weeks says. Sam, the old partner, retired. Off to Idaho where all the L.A. cops go on retirement.

"Can't you be more original?"

"I'm not a writer, an ar-tiste. I'm a cop," she sighs. Like most of us, she joined the department with a head full of steam, ready to do good deeds, wear the white hat and save the world. Like most of us, now she was ready to take down the bad guys by any means necessary.

"Any leads on the Molina shooting?" I ask, as we've been pursuing different leads.

"Nothing. No one's talking." She puts pedal to the metal. "Headin' for Indian country."

Shadows fall on the city. Chase us as we make our way through the dark landscape.

***

"Daddy, I didn't mean to hit him.  The bat flew out of my hands."

"It was an accident.  He'll be all right."

***

"Are you going to listen to me, friend, and get some help?"

"I'd like to, Dr. Dave, but...."

***

Darkness at noon. The twilight kingdom.

"Fucking scum," my partner says.  That's all they are.  They deserve what they get."

"Do we deserve what we get?"

"Society or us?"

"Both."

"We deserve what we let happen."

***

"You're cruising for a bruising, my friend.  Get yourself some help or get out of the city."

"B...."

"Before it's too late."

"But...."  

***

We get a line on the bad guys. The shooter: Little Loco-Motion.

He's known to us.

One bad dude.

Doesn't matter. We go after him. Gotta take him down. Get him off the streets.

***

"Daddy, watch me hit the ball."

***

The blues get there first, as usual. They have a bunch of bangers lined up. Little Loco's one of them, leaning against the wall. I walk over to the cold, colorless cinder block.  One of the officers from the first car on scene holds the perps, the suspects – or should I call them persons of interest? – against the wall, faces away from the street, away from me. Her partner keeps an eye out for suspicious looking passersby. My partner backs me up.

The perp on the right flank hears my footfalls, turns his head in my direction. Little Loco-Motion. He smiles at me. A thin wisp of a smile.

No remorse in his eyes. No pain, no fear. No nothing.

I pull him off the wall. He spits. I backhand him across the mouth.

"Chinga tu...." he says.

"Chinga tu."  I shove him into the wall.

"Lie down," the first officer says to the two suspects still leaning against the wall. They do as they're told. "Spread." 

The officer cuffs them behind their backs.

Little Loco grins at me again.  He tosses his hair back, a movie star move.

"Listen, Hollywood, you killed someone."

"So. I'll add another tear to my eye." He's talking about the single tear tattoo under his eye – a tat symbolizing that he's already murdered. How many? Hard to say. Probably hard for him to keep track, unless he notches his gun like in the old cowboy movies. He probably changes guns often. Don't want to be caught with a smoking barrel, so to speak. Some defense lawyer probably told him not to hang onto a weapon for any length of time.

The grin stays on his face.

I see Jorge Molina behind my eyes.

My arm shoots straight out, ramrodding him in the face.  I feel a tooth pop out.  He stands there, looking at me, daring me to hit him again. I do.

I grab a baton from one of the uniforms. Whack Loco in the gut. He crumples to his knees. I don't care. It feels good, the best I've felt in ages. Adrenaline screams through my veins, out my pores. Into my arms. I nail him again. And it feels better.

My partner can stop me.

The other cops on scene can stop me.

Nobody does.

"Cleaver, stop. Stop!" she finally yells.

I hear her voice in a distant plane. She isn't here. I am. One of the other officers approaches as if in a dream or a movie. I wave him off with the baton and jolt the motherfucker again. He falls to the asphalt, looks up, still with that smirk. That goddamn smirk.

"This'll take the smirk off your face," I say, pulling my service pistol. My partner rushes me.  Too late.  I blow the fuck's face off. 

Release.

***

"Little Loco-Motion, a gang member from the San Fernando Gardens projects, was shot and killed early last night by the Los Angeles Police Department," the newsreader says. "Residents of the projects dispute the LAPD version of the story."

"And now to reporter Sariah Simpson on scene at San Fernando Gardens in Pacoima."

"I'm standing in front of the San Fernando Gardens housing project with Angel Alarcon, a resident.  Mr. Alarcon, you say you saw the shooting go down."

"He wasn't carrying a gun an' the police shot him. In cold blood."

"The police claim that he was armed."

"He never carry a gun."

"Isn't it true that he was a gang member?"

"I don't think so."

"Then why the name Little Loco-Motion?"

"Just a nickname, man.  You trying to pin it on him too?"

"The police have produced a weapon with Loco's fingerprints on it."

"It's a set up, man."

Nobody disputes him.

Not even me.

***

"I hit a home run in the game yesterday, daddy."

"Good for you, Tim.  Sorry I can't be there anymore to see your games."

"But...."

***

"The police claim that gang member Little Loco-Motion was carrying a gun when he was shot by Officer James Cleaver. However, video taken at the scene by a passing motorist appears to show otherwise. We now go to–"

Did I care that Loco was unarmed? I wasn't thinking about him. I was thinking about another unarmed kid, who never carried – Jorge Molina. And justice. Street justice. Sometimes that's all there is.

***

The shouts from the press and interest groups: off with his head.

And so this is the way my world ends, with a bang, not a whimper. Who knows? Maybe I'll find a good defense lawyer to claim I'm 51-50. Then maybe some day I'll find myself in Idaho, fishing. Watching the sun set. Remembering the good old days.

***

It was the smirk that blew me away.

Copyright(c) 2006 by Paul Marks

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