Joseph Wambaugh - The Blue Knight

“Nothin to it, Nate,” I grinned. “Hi, Odell.”

“Aw right, Bumper,” said Odell, and smiled big. He was a round-faced fat man. “I’m aw right. Where you been? Ain’t seen you lately.”

“Slowing down,” I said. “Don’t get around much these days.”

“That’ll be the day,” Nate laughed. “When ol’ Bumper can’t git it on, it ain’t worth gittin.”

“Some gumbo today, Bumper?” asked Odell.

“No, think I’ll have me some ribs,” I said, thinking the gumbo did sound good, but the generous way these guys made it, stuffed full of chicken and crab, it might spoil me for the bar-b-que and my system was braced for the tangy down-home sauce that was their specialty, the like of which I’d never had anywhere else.

“Guess who I saw yestiday, Bumper?” said Odell, as he boxed up some chicken and a hot plate of beef, french fries, and okra for a takeout customer.

“Who’s that?”

“That ponk you tossed in jail that time, ’member? That guy that went upside ol’ Nate’s head over a argument about paying his bill, and you was just comin’ through the door and you rattled his bones but good. ’Member?”

“Oh yeah, I remember. Sneed was his name. Smelled like dogshit.”

“That’s the one,” Nate nodded. “Didn’t want him as a customer no how. Dirty clothes, dirty body, dirty mouf.”

“Lucky you didn’t get gangrene when that prick hit you, Nate,” I said.

“Ponk-ass bastard,” said Nate, remembering the punch that put him out for almost five minutes. “He come in the other day. I recognized him right off, and I tol’ him to git his ass out or I’d call Bumper. He musta ’membered the name, ’cause he got his ass out wif oney a few cuss words.”

“He remembered me, huh?” I grinned as Odell set down a cold glass of water, and poured me a cup of coffee without asking. They knew of course that I didn’t work Newton Street Station and they only bounced for the Newton Street patrol car in the area, but after that Sneed fight, they always fed me free too, and in fact, always tried to get me to come more often. But I didn’t like to take advantage. Before that, I used to come and pay half price like any uniformed cop could do.

“Here come the noonday rush,” said Nate, and I heard car doors slam and a dozen black people talking and laughing came in and took the large booths in the front. I figured them for teachers. There was a high school and two grade schools close by and the place was pretty full by the time Nate put my plate in front of me. Only it wasn’t a plate, it was a platter. It was always the same. I’d ask for ribs, and I’d get ribs, a double portion, and a heap of beef, oozing with bar-b-que sauce, and some delicious fresh bread that was made next door, and an ice-cream scoop of whipped butter. I’d sop the bread in the bar-b-que and either Nate or Odell would ladle fresh hot bar-b-que on the platter all during the meal. With it I had a huge cold mound of delicious slaw, and only a few fries because there wasn’t much room for anything else. There just was no fat on Odell’s beef. He was too proud to permit it, because he was almost sixty years old and hadn’t learned the new ways of cutting corners and chiseling.

After I got over the first joy of remembering exactly how delicious the beef was, one of the waitresses started helping at the counter because Odell and Nate were swamped. She was a buxom girl, maybe thirty-five, a little bronzer than Nate, with a modest natural hairdo, which I like, not a way-out phony Afro. Her waist was very small for her size and the boobs soared out over a flat stomach. She knew I was admiring her and didn’t seem to mind, and as always, a good-looking woman close by made the meal perfect.

“Her name’s Trudy,” said Odell, winking at me, when the waitress went to the far end of the counter. His wink and grin meant she was fair game and not married or anything. I used to date another of his waitresses once in a while, a plump, dusky girl named Wilma who was a thirty-two year old grandmother. She finally left Odell’s and got married for the fourth time. I really enjoyed being with her. I taught her the swim and the jerk and the boogaloo when they first came out. I learned them from my Madeleine Carroll girlfriend.

“Thanks, Odell,” I said. “Maybe next time I come in I’ll take a table in her section.”

“Anythin’ funny happen lately, Bumper?” asked Nate after he passed some orders through to the kitchen.

“Not lately… Let’s see, did I ever tell you about the big dude I stopped for busting a stop sign out front of your place?”

“Naw, tell us,” said Odell, stopping with a plate in his hand.

“Well, like I say, this guy blew the stop sign and I chased him and brought him down at Forty-first. He’s a giant, six-feet-seven maybe, heavier than me. All muscle. I ran a make on him over the radio while I’m writing a ticket. Turns out there’s a traffic warrant for his arrest.”

“Damn,” said Nate, all ears now. “You had to fight him?”

“When I tell him there’s this warrant he says, ‘Too bad, man, I just ain’t going to jail.’ Just that cool he said it. Then he steps back like he’s ready.”

“Guddamn,” said Odell.

“So then it just comes to me, this idea. I walk over to the police car and pick up the radio and say in a loud voice, ‘One-X-L-Forty-five requesting an ambulance at Forty-first and Avalon.’ The big dude, he looks around and says, ‘What’s the ambulance for?’ I say, ‘That’s for you, asshole, if you don’t get in that car.’

“So he gets in the car and halfway to jail he starts chuckling, then pretty soon he really busts up. ‘Man,’ he says, ‘You really flimflammed my ass. This is the first time I ever laughed my way to jail.’”

“Gud-damn, Bumper,” said Odell. “You’re somethin’ else. Guddamn.” Then they both went off laughing to wait on customers.

I finished the rest of the meat, picked the bones, and sopped up the last of the bread, but I wasn’t happy now. In fact, it was depressing there with a crowd of people and the waitresses rushing around and dishes clattering, so I said good-bye to Nate and Odell. Naturally, I couldn’t tip them even though they personally served me, so I gave two bucks to Nate and said, “Give it to Trudy. Tell her it’s an advance tip for the good service she’s gonna give me next time when I take a table in her section.”

“I’ll tell her, Bumper,” Nate grinned as I waved and burped and walked out the door.

As I was trying to read the temperature again over a savings and loan office, the time flashed on the marquee. It was one-thirty, which is the time afternoon court always convenes. It dawned on me that I’d forgotten I had to be at a preliminary hearing this afternoon!

I cursed and stomped on it, heading for the new municipal court annex on Sunset, near the Old Mission Plaza, and then I slowed down and thought, what the hell, this is the last time I’ll ever go to court on duty. I may get called back to testify after I’m retired, but this’ll be the last time on duty as a working cop, and I’d never been late to court in twenty years. So what the hell, I slowed down and cruised leisurely to the court building.

I passed one of the Indian bars on Main Street, and saw two drunken braves about to duke it out as they headed for the alley in back, pushing and yelling at each other. I knew lots of Payutes and Apaches and others from a dozen Southwest tribes, because so many of them ended up downtown here on my beat. But it was depressing being with them. They were so defeated, those that ended up on Main Street, and I was glad to see them in a fistfight once in a while. At least that proved they could strike back a little bit, at something, even if it was at another drunken tribal brother. Once they hit my beat they were usually finished, or maybe long before they arrived here. They’d become winos, and many of the women, fat five-dollar whores. You wanted to pick them up, shake them out, send them somewhere, in some direction, but there didn’t seem to be anywhere an Indian wanted to go. They were hopeless, forlorn people. One old beat cop told me they could break your heart if you let them.