Joseph Wambaugh - The Blue Knight

“How do you feel, oso? ” said Cruz, as I climbed the concrete stairs to his porch. I grinned because Socorro had first started calling me “oso” way back in those days, and even now some of the policemen call me “bear” from Socorro’s nickname.

“You hurting, Bumper?” Cruz asked. “I heard those kids gave you some trouble at the demonstration today.”

“I’m okay,” I answered. “What’d you hear?”

“Just that they pushed you around a little bit. Hijo la -. Why does a man your age get involved in that kind of stuff? Why don’t you listen to me and just handle your radio calls and let those young coppers handle the militants and do the hotdog police work?”

“I answered a radio call. That’s how it started. That’s what I get for having that goddamn radio turned on.”

“Come on in, you stubborn old bastard,” Cruz grinned, holding the wood frame screen door open for me. Where could you see a wood frame screen door these days? It was an old house, but preserved. I loved it here. Cruz and I once sanded down all the woodwork in the living room, even the hardwood floor, and refinished it just as it had been when it was new.

“What’re we having?” Cruz asked, brushing back his thick gray-black hair and nodding toward the kitchen.

“Well, let’s see,” I sniffed. I sniffed again a few times, and then took a great huge whiff. Actually I couldn’t tell, because the chile and onion made it hard to differentiate, but I took a guess and pretended I knew.

“ Chile relleno, carnitas and cilantro and onion. And… let’s see… some enchiladas, some guacamole.”

“I give up,” Cruz shook his head. “The only thing you left out was rice and beans.”

“Well hell, Cruz, arroz y frijoles , that goes without saying.”

“An animal’s nose.”

“Sukie in the kitchen?”

“Yeah, the kids’re in the backyard, some of them.”

I went through the big formal dining room to the kitchen and saw Socorro, her back to me, ladling out a huge wooden spoonful of rice into two of the bowls that sat on the drainboard. She was naturally a little the worse for wear after twenty years and nine kids, but her hair was as long and black and shiny rich as ever, and though she was twenty pounds heavier, she still was a strong, lively-looking girl with the whitest teeth I’d ever seen. I snuck up behind her and tickled her ribs.

“Ay!” she said, dropping the spoon. “Bumper!”

I gave her a hug from the back while Cruz chuckled and said, “You didn’t surprise him, he smelled from the door and knew just what you fixed for him.”

“He’s not a man, this one,” she smiled, “no man ever had a nose like that.”

“Just what I told him,” said Cruz.

“Sit down, Bumper,” said Socorro, waving to the kitchen table, which, big and old as it was, looked lost in the huge kitchen. I’d seen this kitchen when there wasn’t a pathway to walk through, the day after Christmas when all the kids were young and I’d brought them toys. Kids and toys literally covered every foot of linoleum and you couldn’t even see the floor then.

“Beer, Bumper?” asked Cruz, and opened two cold ones without me answering. We still liked drinking them out of the bottle, both of us, and I almost finished mine without taking it away from my mouth. And Cruz, knowing my M.O. so well, uncapped another one.

“Cruz told me the news, Bumper. I was thrilled to hear it,” said Socorro, slicing an onion, her eyes glistening from the fumes.

“About you retiring right away and going with Cassie when she leaves,” said Cruz.

“That’s good, Bumper,” said Socorro. “There’s no sense hanging around after Cassie leaves. I was worried about that.”

“Sukie was afraid your puta would seduce you away from Cassie if she was up in San Francisco and you were down here.”

“Puta?”

“The beat,” said Cruz taking a gulp of the beer. “Socorro always calls it Bumper’s puta. ”

“Cuidao!” said Socorro to Cruz. “The children are right outside the window.” I could hear them laughing, and Nacho yelled something then, and the girls squealed.

“Since you’re leaving, we can talk about her can’t we, Bumper?” Cruz laughed. “That beat is a puta who seduced you all these years.”

Then for the first time I noticed from his grin and his voice that Cruz had had a few before I got there. I looked at Socorro who nodded and said, “Yes, the old borracho ’s been drinking since he got home from work. Wants to celebrate Bumper’s last dinner as a bachelor, he says.”

“Don’t be too rough on him,” I grinned. “He doesn’t get drunk very often.”

“Who’s drunk?” said Cruz, indignantly.

“You’re on your way, pendejo ,” said Socorro, and Cruz mumbled in Spanish, and I laughed and finished my beer.

“If it hadn’t been for that puta , Bumper would’ve been a captain by now.”

“Oh sure,” I said, going to the refrigerator and drawing two more beers for Cruz and me. “Want one, Sukie?”

“No thanks,” said Socorro, and Cruz burped a couple times.

“Think I’ll go outside and see the kids,” I said, and then I remembered the presents in the trunk of my car that I bought Monday after Cruz invited me to dinner.

“Hey, you roughnecks,” I said when I stepped out, and Nacho yelled, “Buuuum-per,” and swung toward me from a rope looped over the limb of a big oak that covered most of the yard.

“You’re getting about big enough to eat hay and pull a wagon, Nacho,” I said. Then four of them ran toward me chattering about something, their eyes all sparkling because they knew damn well I’d never come for dinner without bringing them something.

“Where’s Dolores?” I asked. She was my favorite now, the oldest after Esteban, and was a picture of what her mother had been. She was a college junior majoring in physics and engaged to a classmate of hers.

“Dolores is out with Gordon, where else?” said Ralph, a chubby ten-year-old, the baby of the family who was a terror, always raising some kind of hell and keeping everyone in an uproar.

“Where’s Alice?”

“Over next door playing,” said Ralph again, and the four of them, Nacho, Ralph, María, and Marta were all about to bust, and I was enjoying it even though it was a shame to make them go through this.

“Nacho,” I said nonchalantly, “would you please take my car keys and get some things out of the trunk?”

“I’ll help,” shrieked Marta.

“I will,” said María, jumping up and down, a little eleven-year-old dream in a pink dress and pink socks and black patent leather shoes. She was the prettiest and would be heartbreakingly beautiful someday.

“I’ll go alone,” said Nacho. “I don’t need no help.”

“The hell you will,” said Ralph.

“You watch your language, Rafael,” said María, and I had to turn around to keep from busting up at the way Ralph stuck his chubby little fanny out at her.

“Mama,” said María. “Ralph did something dirty!”

“Snitch,” said Ralph, running to the car with Nacho.

I strolled back into the kitchen still laughing, and Cruz and Socorro both were smiling at me because they knew how much I got a bang out of their kids.

“Take Bumper in the living room, Cruz,” said Socorro. “Dinner won’t be ready for twenty minutes.”

“Come on, Bumper,” said Cruz, taking four cold ones out of the refrigerator, and a beer opener. “I don’t know why Mexican women get to be tyrants in their old age. They’re so nice and obedient when they’re young.”

“Old age. Huh! Listen to the viejo , Bumper,” she said, waving a wooden spoon in his direction, as we went in the living room and I flopped in Cruz’s favorite chair because he insisted. He pushed the ottoman over and made me put my feet up.