Joseph Wambaugh - The Blue Knight

“You and your sister’re gonna have to come in Tuesday morning and talk to an investigator.”

“What for?”

“So he can decide if he ought to C-and-R you, or send you to court.”

“What’s C and R? Crush and rupture?”

“Hey, that’s pretty good,” I chuckled. He was a spunky little bastard. I was starting to feel kind of proud of him. “C and R means counsel and release. They almost always counsel and release a kid the first time he’s busted instead of sending him to juvenile court.”

“I told you I been busted twice for running away. This ain’t my first fall.”

“Don’t worry about it. They’re not gonna send you to court.”

“How do you know?”

“They’ll do what I ask.”

“Those juvies said you was really some kind of cop. No wonder I got nailed so fast.”

“You were no challenge,” I said, putting the bennies in an evidence envelope and sealing it.

“I guess not. Don’t forget to lemme give you the old guy’s name and phone number for the yard work. Who you live with? Wife and kids?”

“I live alone.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I might be able to give you a special price on the yard-work. You know, you being a cop and all.”

“Thanks, but you should charge your full price, son.”

“You said baseball was your game, Bumper?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” I stopped writing for a minute because the boy seemed excited and was talking so much.

“You like the Dodgers?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I always wanted to learn about baseball. Maury Wills is a Dodger, ain’t he?”

“Yeah.”

“I’d like to go to a Dodger game sometime and see Maury Wills.”

“You never been to a big league game?”

“Never been. Know what? There’s this guy down the street. Old fat fart, maybe even older than you, and fatter even. He takes his kid to the school yard across the street all day Saturday and Sunday and hits fly balls to him. They go to a game practically every week during baseball season.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, and know what the best part of it is?”

“What?”

“All that exercise is really good for the old man. That kid’s doing him a favor by playing ball with him.”

“I better call your sister,” I said, suddenly getting a gas bubble and a burning pain at the same time. I was also getting a little light-headed from the heat and because there were ideas trying to break through the front of my skull, but I thought it was better to leave them lay right now. The boy gave me the number and I dialed it.

“No answer, kid,” I said, hanging up the phone.

“Christ, you gotta put me in Juvenile Hall if you don’t find her?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“You can’t just drop me at the pad?”

“I can’t.”

“Damn. Call Ruby’s Playhouse on Normandie. That joint opens early and Slim likes to hang out there sometimes. Damn, not the Hall!”

I got Ruby’s Playhouse on the phone and asked for Sarah Tilden, which he said was her name.

“Big Blue,” said the boy. “Ask for Big Blue.”

“I wanna talk to Big Blue,” I said, and then the bartender knew who I was talking about.

A slurred young voice said, “Yeah, who’s this?”

“This is Officer Morgan, Los Angeles Police, Miss Tilden. I’ve arrested your brother downtown for possession of dangerous drugs. He had some pills on him. I’d like you to drive down to thirteen-thirty Georgia Street and pick him up. That’s just south of Pico Boulevard and west of Figueroa.” After I finished there was a silence on the line for a minute and then she said, “Well, that does it. Tell the little son of a bitch to get himself a lawyer. I’m through.”

I let her go on with the griping a little longer and then I said, “Look, Miss Tilden, you’ll have to come pick him up and then you’ll have to come back here Tuesday morning and talk to an investigator. Maybe they can give you some advice.”

“What happens if I don’t come pick him up?” she said.

“I’d have to put him in Juvenile Hall and I don’t think you’d want that. I don’t think it would be good for him.”

“Look, Officer,” she said. “I wanna do what’s right. But maybe you people could help me somehow. I’m a young woman, too goddamn young to be saddled with a kid his age. I can’t raise a kid. It’s too hard for me. I got a lousy job. Nobody should expect me to raise a kid brother. I been turned down for welfare even, how do you like that? If I was some nigger they’d gimme all the goddamn welfare I wanted. Look, maybe it would be best if you did put him in Juvenile Hall. Maybe it would be best for him. It’s him I’m thinking of, you see. Or maybe you could put him in one of those foster homes. Not like a criminal, but someplace where somebody with lots of time can watch over him and see that he goes to school.”

“Lady, I’m just the arresting officer and my job is to get him home right now. You can talk about all this crap to the juvenile investigator Tuesday morning, but I want you down here in fifteen minutes to take him home. You understand me?”

“Okay, okay, I understand you,” she said. “Is it all right if I send a family friend?”

“Who is it?”

“It’s Tommy’s uncle. His name’s Jake Pauley. He’ll bring Tommy home.”

“I guess it’ll be okay.”

After I hung up, the kid was looking at me with a lopsided smile. “How’d you like Big Blue?”

“Fine,” I said, filling in the boxes on the arrest report. I was sorry I had called her in front of the kid, but I wasn’t expecting all that bitching about coming to get him.

“She don’t want me, does she?”

“She’s sending your uncle to pick you up.”

“I ain’t got no uncle.”

“Somebody named Jake Pauley.”

“Hah! Old Jake baby? Hah! He’s some uncle.”

“Who’s he? One of her friends?”

“They’re friendly all right. She was shacked up with him before we moved in with Slim. I guess she’s going back to Jake. Jesus, Slim’ll cut Jake wide, deep, and often.”

“You move around a lot, do you?”

“ Do we? I been in seven different schools. Seven! But, I guess it’s the same old story. You probably hear it all the time.”

“Yeah, I hear it all the time.”

I tried to get going on the report again and he let me write for a while but before I could finish he said, “Yeah, I been meaning to go to a Dodger game. I’d be willing to pay the way if I could get somebody with a little baseball savvy to go with me.”

Now in addition to the gas and the indigestion, I had a headache, and I sat back with the booking slip finished and looked at him and let the thoughts come to the front of my skull, and of course it was clear as water that the gods conspire against me, because here was this boy. On my last day. Two days after Cassie first brought up the thing that’s caused me a dozen indigestion attacks. And for a minute I was excited as hell and had to stand up and pace across the room and look out the window.

Here it is, I thought. Here’s the thing that puts it all away for good. I fought an impulse to call Cassie and tell her about him, and another impulse to call his sister back and tell her not to bother sending Jake baby, and then I felt dizzy on top of the headache. I looked down at my shield and without willing it I reached down and touched it and my sweaty finger left a mark on the brass part which this morning had been polished to the luster of gold. The finger mark turned a tarnished orange before my eyes, and I thought about trading my gold and silver shield for a little tinny retirement badge that you can show to old men in bars to prove what you used to be, and which could never be polished to a luster that would reflect sunlight like a mirror.