Joseph Wambaugh: The Blue Knight

“Whadda you want me to do, bite the cap off?” I said, going along with his joke. No one on my beat had ever seen me drink on duty.

Seymour bent over, chuckling. He took the beer away and filled my glass with buttermilk.

“Where you been all week, Bumper?”

“Out there. Making the streets safe for women and babies.”

“Bumper’s here!” he shouted to Henry in the back. That meant five scrambled eggs and twice the lox the paying customers get with an order. It also meant three onion bagels, toasted and oozing with butter and heaped with cream cheese. I don’t eat breakfast at Seymour’s more than once or twice a week, although I knew he’d feed me three free meals every day.

“Young Slagel told me he saw you directing traffic on Hill Street the other day,” said Seymour.

“Yeah, the regular guy got stomach cramps just as I was driving by. I took over for him until his sergeant got somebody else.”

“Directing traffic down there is a job for the young bucks,” said Seymour, winking again at the businessman who was smiling at me and biting off large hunks of a Seymour’s Special Corned Beef on Pumpernickel Sandwich.

“Meet any nice stuff down there, Bumper? An airline hostess, maybe? Or some of those office cuties?”

“I’m too old to interest them, Seymour. But let me tell you, watching all that young poon, I had to direct traffic like this.” With that I stood up and did an imitation of waving at cars, bent forward with my legs and feet crossed.

Seymour fell backward and out came his high-pitched hoot of a laugh. This brought Ruthie over to see what happened.

“Show her, Bumper, please,” Seymour gasped, wiping the tears away.

Ruthie waited with that promising smile of hers. She’s every bit of forty-five, but firm, and golden blond, and very fair-as sexy a wench as I’ve ever seen. And the way she acted always made me know it was there for me, but I’d never taken it. She’s one of the regular people on my beat and it’s because of the way they feel about me, all of them, the people on my beat. Some of the smartest bluecoats I know have lots of broads but won’t even cop a feel on their beats. Long ago I decided to admire her big buns from afar.

“I’m waiting, Bumper,” she said, hands on those curvy hips.

“Another funny thing happened while I was directing traffic,” I said, to change the subject. “There I was, blowing my whistle and waving at cars with one hand, and I had my other hand out palm up, and some little eighty-year-old lady comes up and drops a big fat letter on my palm. ‘Could you please tell me the postage for this, Officer?’ she says. Here I am with traffic backed up clear to Olive, both arms out and this letter on my palm. So, what the hell, I just put my feet together, arms out, and rock back and forth like a scale balancing, and say, ‘That’ll be twenty-one cents, ma’am, if you want it to go airmail.’ ‘Oh thank you, Officer,’ she says.”

Seymour hooted again and Ruthie laughed, but things quieted down when my food came, and I loosened my Sam Browne for the joy of eating. It annoyed me though when my belly pressed against the edge of the yellow Formica counter.

Seymour had a flurry of orders to go which he took care of and nobody bothered me for ten minutes or so except for Ruthie who wanted to make sure I had enough to eat, and that my eggs were fluffy enough, and also to rub a hip or something up against me so that I had trouble thinking about the third bagel.

The other counter customer finished his second cup of coffee and Seymour shuffled over.

“More coffee, Mister Parker?”

“No, I’ve had plenty.”

I’d never seen this man before but I admired his clothes. He was stouter than me, soft fat, but his suit, not bought off the rack, hid most of it.

“You ever met Officer Bumper Morgan, Mister Parker?” asked Seymour.

We smiled, both too bloated and lazy to stand up and shake hands across two stools.

“I’ve heard of you, Officer,” said Parker. “I recently opened a suite in the Roxman Building. Fine watches. Stop around anytime for a special discount.” He put his card on the counter and pushed it halfway toward me. Seymour shoved it the rest of the way.

“Everyone around here’s heard of Bumper,” Seymour said proudly.

“I thought you’d be a bigger man, Officer,” said Parker. “About six foot seven and three hundred pounds, from some of the stories I’ve heard.”

“You just about got the weight right,” said Seymour.

I was used to people saying I’m not as tall as they expected, or as I first appeared to be. A beat cop has to be big or he’ll be fighting all the time. Sometimes a tough, feisty little cop resents it because he can’t walk a foot beat, but the fact is that most people don’t fear a little guy and a little guy’d just have to prove himself all the time, and sooner or later somebody’d take that nightstick off him and shove it up his ass. Of course I was in a radio car now, but as I said before, I was still a beat cop, more or less.

The problem with my size was that my frame was made for a guy six feet five or six instead of a guy barely six feet. My bones are big and heavy, especially my hands and feet. If I’d just have grown as tall as I was meant to, I wouldn’t have the goddamn weight problem. My appetite was meant for a giant, and I finally convinced those police doctors who used to send “fat man letters” to my captain ordering me to cut down to two hundred and twenty pounds.

“Bumper’s a one-man gang,” said Seymour. “I tell you he’s fought wars out there.” Seymour waved at the street to indicate the “out there.”

“Come on, Seymour,” I said, but it was no use. This kind of talk shriveled my balls, but it did please me that a newcomer like Parker had heard of me. I wondered how special the “special discount” would be. My old watch was about finished.

“How long ago did you get this beat, Bumper?” asked Seymour, but didn’t allow me to answer. “Well, it was almost twenty years. I know that, because when Bumper was a rookie, I was a young fella myself, working for my father right here. It was real bad then. We had B-girls and zoot-suiters and lots of crooks. In those days there was plenty of guys that would try the cop on the beat.”

I looked over at Ruthie, who was smiling.

“Years ago, when Ruthie worked here the first time, Bumper saved her life when some guy jumped her at the bus stop on Second Street. He saved you, didn’t he, Ruthie?”

“He sure did. He’s my hero,” she said, pouring me a cup of coffee.

“Bumpers always worked right here,” Seymour continued. “On foot beats and now in a patrol car since he can’t walk too good no more. His twenty-year anniversary is coming up, but we won’t let him retire. What would it be like around here without the champ?”

Ruthie actually looked scared for a minute when Seymour said it, and this shook me.

“When is your twentieth year up, Bumper?” she asked.

“End of this month.”

“You’re not even considering pulling the pin, are you Bumper?” asked Seymour, who knew all the police lingo from feeding the beat cops for years.

“What do you think?” I asked, and Seymour seemed satisfied and started telling Parker a few more incidents from the Bumper Morgan legend. Ruthie kept watching me. Women are like cops, they sense things. When Seymour finally ran down, I promised to come back Friday for the Deluxe Businessman’s Plate, said my good-byes, and left six bits for Ruthie which she didn’t put in her tip dish under the counter. She looked me in the eye and dropped it right down her bra.

I’d forgotten about the heat and when it hit me I decided to drive straight for Elysian Park, sit on the grass, and smoke a cigar with my radio turned up loud enough so I wouldn’t miss a call. I wanted to read about last night’s Dodger game, so before getting in the car I walked down to the smoke shop. I picked up half a dozen fifty-cent cigars, and since the store recently changed hands and I didn’t know the owner too well, I took a five out of my pocket.