Wiener Takes All

It used to be that having sex in a public toilet was against the law.  Apparently it isn’t anymore.  The unbridled lascivious but technically private act, practiced in the naughty cubicle of human conveyance- now converted to erotic encounter chamber, disguised as a public toilet - has evolved.  The act of lustful compulsion once reserved for dark nightclubs and dark alley’s got a little carried away in the 80’s, and so did the suspects, usually in handcuffs. But that appears to have all changed. 

Hyenas

You see a nice collection of hyenas, nicely disguised in collared shirts and politely wrapped in a suit, all graduates of the bar (who incidentally some have so much in common with the intended product of the bathroom stall) have complained on behalf of their clients and created an argument that convinced someone, probably not a mother or father of little kid, that sex in a bathroom stall should be acceptable because it’s a private place and should be protected.  I think the argument is: what happens in the bio-terror cubicle of passion, once reserved for dropping the kids off at the pool, is protected.  Fair enough, I don’t make the laws.  And to be clear, there is a special breed of hyena I am talking about.  Lots of my friends took the bar and are great people and protectors of the constitution.  But not these guys.  Sorry.  

What can I say? I don’t really care and I would bet my pals in vice squads around the planet can breath a little easier, but it seems that the same toilet my son uses privately in public should be free from a sex ed. session.  Call me crazy.  It seems that my benchmark is now what I want for my kid and your boy (or girl) to see and hear balanced out by a healthy dose of what is reasonably “safe.”  Maybe I would feel different if all of this stuff took place at an adult only place, but the same store kids shop at should be off limits.

Street Crimes

Years ago I was in the Street Crimes Unit, it was then and still is today an awesome team of officers who handle the pain in the ass of the month problem in our city.  It was a cool gig.  We worked out of a warehouse in a bad part of town.  Back then it was my good friends, Ray, Hutch and Mike.  We were designed to go after gang members and street drug dealers, but moonlighted in the world of vice and prostitution.  It rocked – with the exception of one dirty little job that had to get done. 

One day my boss Mike decided that the rookie of the team, –me - needed the unenviable experience of truly working vice.  Vice cops, you have not made your bones (no pun intended) until you pull (again, no pun intended) the filthy and naughty undercover anonymous toilet wiener introduction service.  Of course this was before the courts new ruling.  

Mike’s idea was born from a number of complaints from a local shopping mall, and one store in particular had become the local e-Toilet dating service.  They were way ahead of their time.  The dingy walls were like analog bulleting boards with dates, times and of course caveman-like caricatures, of what service or “special” of the day was right there in front of you for your entertainment.  It was kind of like a perverted “daily special” insert for your menu at the local bistro.  They were always scrawled on the wall…the same one with the hole drilled in it for the unsolicited impromptu perverted peep show.  

Welcome to Hell.

I was a pretty good soldier and never really pushed back on assignments.  So I “volunteered” (I guess) for the job. Within 48 hours I was sequestered (Or sentenced your pick) to a bathroom stall for a few days in a row.  I might have just been consigned to hell because it felt like it.  Minus the heat of course, and with snappy green-blue tile.

Le Petite Mort

I was wired up and sat on a phone book in the toilet stall of the public men’s room.  My job was to do nothing but catch these schifoso’s who would hopefully solicit me for sex in the shitter.  Call me crazy, but at least for me, the most intimate of acts- (and I am not biased or shy to what your preference is)- and the surrender of inhibition, passion and maybe the closest some would get to heaven should not necessarily be explored or invoked at the final resting place of last nights burrito.  Maybe I’m too judgmental.  I don’t know.

BrASS Band

My time in the crapper with my personal can of Lysol helped me develop a keen sense of hearing.  I mean there was nothing to look at so you couldn’t help but be an auditory voyeur.  I could hear people of various ethnic backgrounds and walks of life as they used this venue in a variety of ways.  Some used it as it was intended, some fixing their hair, others giving advice, Dads directing their kids to the soap, guys B.S-ing about their dates, all to the melody of the sigmoid-colonic brass band. 

Some would wash their hands first and some would exit the confessional and never wash their hands.  (Think of that next time you eat the pretzels at the bar.)  After my occasion in the toilet, I could actually associate shoes to those who would wad up the toilet paper, versus those who would fold the squares.  Talk about bad karma, I hate feet so-shoes, I guess, were my consolation prize for this assignment.  The folders (Loafers, monskstrap and wingtips) would create a recycled paper barrier with inches and layers of papyrus, like it was this bleached white nuclear resistant blast barrier material, designed to foil the betrayal imposed upon the user because of this obsession with fucking-recycled toilet paper.  I hate recycled toilet paper. 

Paper Mirage

The guy that developed recycled toilet paper is laughing his ass off.  He and the asshole that uses the crescent wrench of misery to tighten up the roller which prohibits the free and kinetic spin-action of the toilet paper roll, sentencing the user to thumb-sized pieces of recycled toilet paper, should be burned at the stake.  They are like the misery duo of Batman and Robin of the restroom.  You know exactly what I am talking about, but maybe you don’t think about it like I do and hopefully don’t say it out loud. 

Pickle Park

Picture this: There you are, finished doing what you had to do, in a place you never wanted to be in, a truck stop, or God forbid, maybe a highway rest area or as I like to refer to them as the Feculent Club Med of Depravity.  Beyond the dirty and graffitied doors of privacy, the ones that don’t lock and always seem to stick open about 4,” suitable for unwanted viewing and adorned with wet floors of an unknown provenance, you are serenaded by the steady rhythmic dripping sound of the broken faucet, trickling a drop of water every second, as you are overcome by the aromatic bouquet of the local sewage treatment plant.  It’s a sensory spectacular. 

Having completed your task, you look down to find a handful of thumb sized recycled confetti in your palm.  As you prepare to execute your final act imposed by the two Lucifer’s of terminal digestion, they team up to give you recycled fucking-single ply toilet paper and it looks like it came from the shredded paper bin.  Of course, it was proudly offered on a full roll, a two-ply oasis, but in reality it was a single-ply roll that won’t spin because it has been tightened by the fairly godfather of misery. 

Recycled Misery

How many times can you recall that moment as you snap-off the one thumb sized parcel of single ply recycled toilet paper, snap! One after another until you have scores of them in your hand.  Now the fun, right?  You summon the god of geometry as you try to cover the surface area of your hand and pray that this penance will be over soon. You sit there smoldering in anger, as the single bulb above your head is flickering threatening to enhance this experience in the dark.  Seriously this is like a bad movie.  You look ahead and can see and hear the buzz of a fly that is now making concentric circles at eye-level in front of you.  Listen close, he’s laughing.  He too is part of this plot.  Evil bastards!

But I digress.  I prayed to the saint of toilet readiness for a quick deliverance from this duty (Again, pun not intended) to the beloved arms of an armed gang member.  I was done with this before it even started.  Cazzo!

I remember singing show tunes over the wire and cursing Mike as I waited to be hit on.  It would not take long, great for my ego, but the wrong type of attention!  I will spare you the auditory hallucination from the symphony of physiological tuba players as I remember waiting for the Senator from Idaho to foot tap his way into my life.  Apparently the foot tapping, but more importantly, the freaking shadow-hand puppets cast from the light above -upon the tiled silver screen of amorous introduction was my ticket to an anonymous introduction.  Yikes! 

Sign Language

My “dates” would get my attention time and again by making an obscene sign on the floor for me to see and approve.  I guess I was supposed to send back an “OK” shadow sign on the floor.  Of course I couldn’t respond because one hand is covering my mouth so I don’t barf, and the other has my pistol attached to it.  I am not bilingual like that so I just sat there.  I remember only hearing my heart beat and my respirations.  Jesus Christ, I thought I couldn’t ever tell my mom or another soul.  I felt that I was sure to go to heaven for having to do this, or maybe this was purgatory.   Of course I did tell my mom.  At Christmas dinner.   

I did not want to entrap these schifoso’s so I did nothing.  That my friends should make you very afraid as I sat there doing nothing and then, without approval or warning some guy’s wiener appears under my stall.  I thought for a second, wow, this guy must have been a yoga instructor or something.  Then I paled as I thought, this guy had to have touched the floor with his body to pull off that stunt.  The salivary waterslide associated with barfing my brains out turned on full blast in my mouth.  For a second I thought I had rabies. 

So lets say I was a 12-year-old kid who was off-loading mom’s meatloaf minding my own business and “poof” next thing you know I am having a date.  It’s why my boy will never use the toilet alone.  Nor should yours.  But remember, now it’s a protected event because it is in private.  I hope St. Peter or whomever allows the attorney(s) that dreamed this up, into heaven so they could get an eternal ass kicking.

I was so freaked out that I remember pulling out my Beretta 92F pistol in one hand and my star in the other as this jerk tried to pull his body into my stall for a date.  As I waited frozen in place, the wiener again! Then he tried to slide out under his stall and into mine!  I remember my brain engaged my mouth into action and I shouted POLICE!  That was not the prearranged bust signal, but I was so shocked that it was the only thing that came to mind.  I admit it, I was not composed.  This guy popped his head, the one attached to his neck, under to look up at me only to receive the warm reception from the barrel of my pistol pointed at his face along with my star.  His next words were No!  No!  Mine were Fuck You!  You’re under arrest!  I felt like I had a hundred snakes crawling all over me as I exited my unsanitary death chamber and faced his.  Of course I would not have shot him…but it stopped him from an intimate invasion of my space.

My buddy Blair was my uniformed back up and he rolled through the bathroom door like a bull in a china shop.  Blair is my Luca Brasi. Blair or as I like to call him “Bull” and I tried to convince stupid it was time to come out and get arrested.   When he refused to exit, Bull used his Frankenstein sized boots attached to his battering ram legs to kick-in the stall door…wide open…so we could extract this guy and take him into custody.  Wham! (George Michael pun accidently intended) The door caved in.  It was like bad public theater.

I remember we had to struggle with this guy who was trying to get away and we needed to get his attention.  Blair and I could not get him cuffed and he was twisting from us trying to pull from our grip.  No matter what the cost – even escape we were not going to the ground with this guy.  The kinetic velocity of grout and bathroom tile applied briskly and liberally to the body of most suspect’s works well.  Blair and I introduced him to the wall so we could get his attention and handcuff him.  It worked pretty well.  Funny, after years of working with my pal we got to this point where we didn’t need to say a word to each other.  We just knew this was the next trick up our sleeve and did it.  

Funny Ha Ha

Go ahead and laugh girls.  This guy was engaged to be married.  Ya, in my service for the city I found that many of my toilet encounters were married men or guys who needed a little extra-curricular activity.  I’ll never forget this guy as we walked him to the security office.  This guy says to us with pals and future officers Justin and Jamie in tow: “You guys understand, my girlfriend is having her period…you understand don’t you?”  I looked at Blair and at the back of this guy’s head as we quickly walked him to the office, “No, No, I don’t.”

 

Shrink Rap.

This little post is all about order, balance and navigating the John Wayne syndrome that is easy to fall into as a cop or really, any public safety professional.  I hope you like it. 

My perpetual stab and sarcastic humor always seem to permeate some of the scariest things in my life like- you know, “hi I’m Ralph wanna get married,” or “yes, I am here for my annual physical, um can you take your watch off…” Work things like walking with my squeaky boots through the home of a person I can smell, but not see are right up there.  I hate scary movies.  The wise-cracks help me get through the day. 

Wise Ass.

The sarcasm, irreverence and wise ass-ed-ness are all a balancing mechanism for me like maybe alcohol or drugs are to others.  It is part of my personal survival routine and not really born out of disrespect or insincerity to any one person or event.  Well, not usually.  Of course there is my ex-wife’s attorney.  What can I say? He deserves it

Shrinkage

A little while back, I thought I’d give a shrink a spin.  I figure it was a good match, I like to BS with strangers and I am a bachelor, so the idea of sitting on a couch is organic to me.  It was a time where things were not looking especially rosy for me as I realized I could check off every box on the cop cliché application form and was now right out of central casting for fucked up cop.  So, I thought I’d give one a test drive to see if I was as much of the lunatic as I suspected I was. 

My first clue was I was laughing and making jokes about everything.  I guess it was better than crying, but still, appropriate laughing is cool.  Inappropriate laughing is crazy.  Here’s a little gem of an example:  I think I cracked a nervous joke at my mom’s funeral placing everyone in the room in an awkward place.  

One of my most favorite former cops, Joel is a shrink, so I figured they could not all be half bad.  The idea of paying someone $180 to ask me what I think still confounds me.  I miss my free tune ups with Joel disguised as my simple “Hey what’s up?”  He should get a purple heart for the tonnage of shit I off-loaded on him just after I left the comfort of my matrimonial dungeon. 

Caca de Toro

In this case I discovered that the shrink was the only person to get me to take a better look at my bullshit, wrapped in the thin veiled tissue paper of my sense of humor.  My “ha-ha’s” apparently were my force- field designed to deflect insult and abuse – and I’m not talking just about the garden variety abusive work stuff.  That is simple.  After a few years on the job the work stuff helps you develop this armadillo-like padding, nicely sourced from beer, which after digestion, nestles around your most intimate parts…of course I am speaking of my stomach. 

The particular pedigree of abuse I am talking about were those personal game changers from those you "trust."  I don’t really blame those people, because this job is like a meat grinder.  You go in one way and come out another.  For me and many others, those rotten memories would go on to erode the lining of my stomach not to mention summon the patron saint of stress: Saint Arterial Stenosis.

Play Your Internal Twilight Zone Soundtrack

OK, here goes:  I went through this “thing”….the best metaphor for this “thing” was that I went for a quiet walk in my head to reflect on the reason why my resting heart rate was 138 and my blood pressure was in the high 200’s.  I saw my life as this dimly lit middle of the night roadway.  Let me explain this little metaphor.  As I walked down my neurological boulevard of accomplishments, I kicked a few bottles and cans to the gutter, where I found a few old friends, Mr. Daniels and that cute German guy, Adolph Coors. 

This “boulevard” was a dark place with some sporadic bright illumination of personal and professional successes along the way.  A couple of those overhead lights, in this weird twilight zone thing, flickered as they tend to do, but still they provided me with enough clarity to see the right path. 

Those brightly lit moments on that dim boulevard mean a lot for me today.   For cops, it always seems to come back to that story of survival decorated in a laugh or an inside joke.  So did the therapy work? I think so, but I’m sure some would argue that I am a lunatic.  All of it helped me develop a more appropriate time to bust up laughing and allowed me to actually feel bad from time to time.  Feeling bad appropriately is a measurement that should be respected.   

I’m proud to say that despite all of this, I am more alive today than I have ever been thanks to the shrink, a little ass kicking from some pals, oh and most importantly a cute little boy. 

Act 3, Take 1

Those calls for service and my failures have been a good dress rehearsal for me.  I’m still a wise ass but now I do so with a little more respect for those who might not be so hip to my act.

Public Safety professionals, all of us, clerks, dispatchers, cops and firefighters are not great long-term investments in personal sobriety, sanity or mental health.  The novelty of all of this rubs off quickly, revealing the worn out public servant who lately seems to be consigned to play an eternal game of public pension dodge ball against what seems like the entire population.

What’s the moral to this story?  It’s what you want it to be.  Much like those choices we make to do the right or wrong thing.  No matter what, we have to take care of ourselves so we can best serve our communities.  Not being in the game is not an option when you are carrying a .45 and when others you don’t know will do anything to make you go away.  The stigma of getting a tune up is finally passing us by as we educate the new kids.  Of course they might be smarter, but my generation made the most attractive public servants.  ;-)

What a Quack Up.

Now, if I can stop quacking every time I hear a car horn sound I’d be OK.  Funny, that started right after a little hypnosis…hmmm

In The Neck of Time

I have to thank you as I snooped the stats and found that this blog is read in 128 cities in 17+ countries.  Pretty cool for a rookie at this stuff. 

Not all of police work is cops and robbers...and while most of what we do is mundane, occasionally we get the testicular or ovarian squeeze of trouble that finds us when we least expect it.  Read on, you'll get the picture. 

Wake up

This little event below touched me in a way that I can’t shake.  It has been 24 years and it still hides in my temporal lobe just behind my ear so I can’t see it, but it stays with me as like my personal docent.  Maybe it is that devil and angel thing that pops up from ethical time to time like the scene from the movie “Animal House.” Remember the kid and the girl on the 50 yard line?  Calls like the one below are the real components of police work even if it seems a little clinical.  It is not always cops and robbers.  Police work is a never-ending game of adrenal and endorphin beer pong. 

Lost and Found

Longer than I care to recall I remember that I was sent to a call of a guy who was not feeling so well according to his soon to be ex-wife.  God bless her for calling.  I was working in one of the beats in the north part of our city and feeling frisky, like perhaps this was another stupid call that did not require a cop.  I look back now as a member of this man’s fraternity and can appreciate his feeling of loss.  For me it was the loss of my boy’s kiss goodnight each night.  Oh, and the loss of half of my pay for a couple of years, not to mention my freaking wine collection and tools.  I can understand the wine…but my tools!  Managia!

I was going through my precocious new cop thing and was kind of arrogant.  If it was not a shooting at the local dump motel or some cool felony, well, then it was stupid.  Remember, I was a fool of a cop with about 4 years on the job and had not become a cliché yet.  That– along with a healthy dose of red ass, some emergency room visits and a few tetanus shots would come.

Nighty Night

My private intracranial ass-kicking usually happened in quiet moments in the middle of the night.  They caused me to get up and to look out the window into that pre-sunlight darkness…like I was looking for someone or something.  I can still see the leaves on the backyard trees illuminated that rusty brown color from the street lights.  The dawn would snap me out of it.  Huh, just hit me, maybe I was looking for something.  

Pandora's Box

Those moments I now recognize as gifts.  Those times of reflection contributed to some awareness of profound stupidity on my part that evolved to embarrassment and eventually respect that I developed for my job and others.  I am (was) one of those guys that said yes to every bad thing and no to those life-fulfilling invigorating people and experiences.  (Except for bungee jumping.)  I suspect that success and happiness kind of scare (d) me.  Confession over. 

I remember that I arrived at this nice home in a very nice neighborhood and knocked on the door for my “stupid call.”  It was only a “welfare check” one of those silly calls where someone calls in because they are nervous that they left the front door unlocked, or the oven on.  Cops know these types of calls and poke a hat pin in the voodoo doll of the caller.  Most of the time these calls are space holders in between cold reports of burglaries and drunks. 

No Cover Charge

I didn’t need a back-up officer because this was just one of those calls that required a quick knock on the door and anyways it was daytime.  (I was so stupid.)  There was nothing specific about this, other than to just check on a guy who was going through some hard knocks with his wife.  No biggie.  We do this often.  It is one of our many roles, you know, preacher, teacher, counselor and junior philosopher and lets not forget, wise ass. 

My 24 years of life experience could solve virtually any problem, or so I believed.  Christ, I was such a jerk-off as a new cop filled with this reckless sense of ego.

When I knocked on the door, this cheerful guy answered the door.  He was smiling, yucked with me over a few jokes and seemed like he was squared away.  I had no real life experience yet and had nothing to offer this guy or anything to use as a benchmark to peel back the layers of misery that lurked beneath his cheerful veneer.  I tried to make some small talk with him using every second of the 4 hours of mental health evaluation class from the academy to measure his feelings and see if he was on the edge.  Not that I knew what the hell that looked like.

So...how about them Giants?

After a couple of uncomfortable moments at the front door, dancing around the question of if this guy was ok he sincerely assured me that he was fine and that his problem with his wife was a long time coming.  I felt pretty good talking to this guy because he was a regular guy and squared away.  I liked him and in those few moments had that feeling like I could have a beer with him.  He seemed to have some good perspective and told me all the right things.  Cool.  Time to go back to driving in circles.  I turned my back to leave as he started to shut the door when I turned back around quickly and said, “hey look I have to take a peek in case my boss asks…can I come in?” 

Like I said earlier, I was an idiot.  I had not yet known the danger that comes with officers that had been killed on the job, but I would in a few short years.  My “Mr. Rogers” behavior from my limited small town perspective would betray me.  My stupid mindset was that of a guy who was a little bummed, not a guy that would hurt me, so why not step in, pull up a stool and have a little chat.  Right?  It is amazing I survived my 20’s.

When I walked in the bright smile on this guy’s face left, as did the color in his face.  It was instant and yet I did not make the correlation.   Suddenly, things did not seem so happy.  I apologized and told him that I would feel terrible if my boss asked and I would not have an answer for him about looking around to make sure things were cool. 

My host opened his door wide and stepped back allowing me to enter.  I sit here at Peet’s can’t recall seeing his face after I walked into his home.  I remember seeing a regular suburban house, nicely decorated. 

My pedestrian world quavered when I opened what I thought was a bathroom door, only to find myself looking into the garage.

The second I opened the door, I noticed the brightly illuminated garage.  I can freaking tell you today that I “see” the garage in my mind’s eye.  It had those florescent shop lights; the upgrade to the standard one-bulb package offered when you buy a house. 

The walls where sheet-rocked but unfinished.  The joints were covered with tape and mud but were not painted. 

End of the line

I could see the walls and sheet rock joints just beyond the bright yellow nylon rope fashioned into a hangman’s noose.  It was tied to the support joist above and a kitchen chair and was solemnly waiting for an occupant to suspend underneath. 

It did not hit me for the first couple of seconds what I was looking at and what was about to take place.  My casual observation zoomed in on the noose as I took my last breath and felt my body turn cold.

Sacred Feces! (Sounds better than Holy Shit)  I can recall taking a very deep breath, but not exhaling.  In fact, I don’t remember ever exhaling.  I was sucked in and believed this guy.  This was probably my first lesson in trust-but verify.  (Of course I would fail at this again a couple of times later…but for very different reasons.  And trust me…I am still paying for it.  Literally!)

When I turned around, I saw the face of a defeated man, a man who moments earlier had summed up every ounce of bravado to convince me at the door that he was fine.  All of it was now gone.

His pallor face, and the elasticity of happiness previously scraped from what was left in his soul had been washed from his face to the floor.  This surely was not the same man who disarmed me and made me feel like an old friend moments earlier at the front door. 

I called for back up and tried to console this ruined man.  I was not afraid of this guy.  He was now a shell of that man at the door.  He had surrendered his life already and did not have the energy to take his life any further.  He could barely stand.

I couldn’t talk.  I was floored.  I still am.  I felt like a huge asshole for handcuffing him once my partner arrived. It is our policy to do this, not because he was a bad person, but one who had nothing to loose.  I remember looking in his eyes and he looked into mine for a moment then broke his gaze to the floor without saying a word.  I saw profound shame. 

Pissed Off

My emotions careened from the perception of the depth of his despondency to “what kind of an asshole would leave the horror of a memory, delivered via swinging corpse, for their wife or kids to find?”  After the bullshit of 28 years of this and the graveyard of living victims with the ticking time bomb of guilt emblazoned in their biological hard drive, I’d like to kick his ass.

I remember his eyes seemed empty.  I have seen those eyes since that first moment and now a time and again.  I saw them, as I stood with people in the final moments of their life as a cop by the side of the road in the hospital and as an ambulance driver.  

I don’t think there is a word profound enough for the impression and emotion of that look.  T.V. cop shows can’t get you there but ask any cop and they will acknowledge that void and might drift off to that place with no real words.

I left pissed off and scared that I was so easily suckered into this because I was so freaking smart at 24.  Today, I feel blessed that there was something in my head that actually worked, and allowed me to ask the question to check the house.  It would go on to serve me well in the following years.  Except for those pesky matrimonial moments…of course.   ;) 

Cheer up.  If you’re reading this, you’re alive.  And I hope your well.  Love ya, Ralphy

1-800-273-TALK

The Red Ass.

It's official.  Dayshift is kicking my behind.  The upside is that I have been loving all the dad stuff.  Homework sucked as a kid...but rocks as a dad.  I struggle to find a little balance for writing, posting, working and being a dad...but I have to tell you I am loving all of it.  I have to thank my pals from PEET'S for not kicking me out and for the traditional cappuccino.  Even the decaf is better than nothing.    This little post is really about sarcastic irreverent restraint...well, kind of.  Enjoy it with a cappuccino or maybe an espresso...Ralphy

I have had a few interesting court floor experiences.  If you’re a cop you know them.  The hard look by the defendant…oooops sorry, the alleged perpetrator…(due process being what it is, I am ashamed that I jumped to the title “defendant.”  -Yes sarcasm.)  The nice collection of men in skirts, not kilts…skirts, my favorite old guy who had his name changed to “God” with the phony leg who used to take it off and throw it at people…ya, how can you beat that?  The designer of the Marin Civic Center, Frank Lloyd Wright must be beaming down with pride at this masterpiece occupied by legions of the misunderstood and largely not guilty populous.  Members of the misunderstood hall of fame – or is it shame?   

I think the one of the lowest moments of my Hall of Justice experiences was the run in with the hyena of a cute little angel in pig tails who was maybe 4 years old and was playing hide and seek with me, while her mother – wrongfully accused of course, (yup sarcasm) was nowhere to be seen.  

The Greek Goddess of Trouble

This went on for a while.  It kept me awake and the little girl was cute.   Suddenly her Sainted Mother (Mistress Nyx) exited the courtroom and walked up to this beautiful little girl, yanked her by the arm and shouted, “I told you NEVER to talk to the police!”  I was shocked as much as her daughter was at the anger, volume and the finesse of her delivery with all the charm of a pincher bug in your sleeping bag.  Nice. 

As her apologist would suggest, she just had a bad day.  I noticed that she had the tell-tale “I just plead guilty” forms folded in half gripped in the menacing ham sandwiches she called fists.  It was an indicator that perhaps she had to plead guilty for something I am certain she did not do.  I’m guessing she was not on the court floor to receive her mother of the year award.

Ralphy Warming

When my shock subsided I realized I was pissed off.  I had a case of the red ass.  It was because no-one, cops, teachers, probation officers would ever get the chance to- give this little angel, a chance in life…not with this type of programming.  This zoccola (Mommy dearest) was the most important thing in this little girl’s life and she had set the course for her daughter’s future.  I am still angry and it has been at least four years since this happened.  Maybe it’s fatherhood or this weird transformation from selfish teenaged-minded cop to the warmth of being a dad.  I think my boy and the experience of being a dad has been the catalyst for the warming of the Arctic Circle surrounding my heart.  Don’t get me wrong there is a time and place for teenaged silliness and I do (and) have the exclusive rights to exercise the option of introducing a whoopee cushion from time to time.  It’s in my daddy contract.  I have it highlighted.

While hurricane “mom” swept through the court floor with her daughter -don’t laugh moms and dads…I have a diluted version of the same intestinal disturbance I felt for the court floor mother of the year for parents who threaten their kids using the cops as a mechanism for behavior modification. You know “if your not good the police person will take you away…” a seemingly harmless cutesy phrase, but one that instills fear in the kids.  Ya, it’s a pet peeve right up there with the tag in my shirt that likes to nag my neck all day long. 

Hydrochlorothiazide

The court floor kindness-interruptus by this “mom” is part of a phenomenon, I call “Fecal parent syndrome” is the contributing cause (in my humbled opinion) on why we see generations of troubled families. It is a part of the hard-fought medicated war-games my doctor wages on the fluid hydraulic challenge measured by millimeters of mercury found in virtually every sphygmomanometer that snitch’s off the elevated pressure of the crimson contents for my 98.6 degree pipeline to the command and control center of my body. 

The Almighty Vocation Serving Kids

My good friends and I at the local PD and those across the planet do their best to take the edge off these kids and try to bring back some sense of reason.  My pal Rebecca and her interns serve, in what can only be called a vocation, for what I like to call the blessed youth support network.  They work for us for virtually nothing- to bring back these preteen soldiers from the street to let them be kids again. And then there is the police employee union that dumps several thousands of dollars a year into making an offering, a gesture to those who need some special attention, camp or even a gift at Christmas during the holidays. 

No one pays these folks to do the right thing.  This isn’t an assignment.  It is a little bit of a faith offering that one day we might get the benefit of doubt or maybe someone will jump in if one of us are getting our asses kicked in a parking lot, or maybe – just maybe -a nice smile or simple game of hide and seek on the court floor.

Of course you won’t see that on the six O’clock news.  Well, time to ingest a pill or three to bring back that balance.  Squeeze your kid. 

Stay safe.  Love ya.  Ralphy  

H&S Holding Company

Thanks for your patience and threatening letters.  I was reassigned to dayshift three weeks ago...and, well, I have not worked days in at least 4 years.  Amazing how that little chronological shift has impaired me.  Also, I switched to a 5 day work week, so I can spend more time with my cute little boy.  Working a 5 day week is a bitch.  I especially like the 45 minute commute. 

I salute those of you who do.  I have not done that little task in about 20 years!

So - now that I have groveled I hope you like this little post.  It's worth the price of admission.  Ya, free.

So my pal Frank and I had this lazy day scam that seemed work well.  Too well, actually.  Frankie and I were Task Force agents along with some other serious police investigators in our county. 

The Task Force

My time in the TF was a gift.  I met and still maintain relationships with my former partners- brilliant minds loaded with sneaky and at times ingenious trade-craft that made us successful and working there a kick in the pants.  Legions of criminals during those years went to the “joint” because their greed got in the way of their brains, and my pals and I were more than happy to take advantage of that and escort them to the secured bed and breakfast that was the Marin County Jail.  It was a little respite, a way-station if you will…to their more comfortable uniformed fraternity house hosted by the governor of the state and for some lucky contestants- federal prison. 

What I Remember

All but two of us have moved on to retirement, some of us became paying members of the cursed association of amalgamated alimony alumni (more than a couple – no pun intended but freaking funny…get it “couple!”) and others have become department managers and leaders.  All of them are part of some of the best memories I have ever had of my police career.  

Meow

I have scribbled about my time in the TF but no words can really bring you close the perpetual game of “cat and mouse” that we played with a variety of serious criminals, to include subculture icons, famous artists, a fringe group of people associated people you know from a variety of entertainment industry folks and some Colombian connected jerk-offs with connections to the “Cali Cartel.”  My pal Doug and I worked a case where one guy had a phone-scrambler to talk to his off-shore handler.  It was pretty cool James Bond stuff actually.   There was also the one guy or gal (sorry I don’t kiss and tell) who ended up as a blue burrito in (appropriately) a debris box in a little town for playing around with the wrong drug dealers.  Yes, just like the movies, that happened, but only once. 

Father Forgive Them...

No one seemed to be immune from the lure of cocaine in the late 80’s. In Marin it became part of the community norm.  I seriously think the TV show Miami Vice made all of this part of our cultural awareness -if not glorifying the stupid side of drugs and yes, bad suits with no socks while fully dressed.  (Excuse me while I make a sign of the cross for Mr. Mann’s soul and ask Gianni Versace for forgiveness.  May he rest in peace.)

Northern California and specifically some of those over privileged spoiled trust-fund brats from our county had a pretty serious cocaine problem.  It was part of our job to find housing for these schifoso’s but my unit was not limited to just those investigations.  My boss Walt, put us in a few serious games of murder surveillance, the arrest of a suspected organized mob figure and some organized prostitution enterprises.  I’m not talking about the girl on the street…I mean full-on brothels whose admission was only guaranteed by the secret handshake or naked (so to speak) referral from a known customer. 

Hair-raising Experience

There was a reason we needed to be anonymous.  Dealers were very jittery about their customer base.  It’s why we moved out of our various police departments and took up residency in an industrial park.  It’s why we switched out cars, drove the yuppie ride of the day and grew our hair down to our asses.  We needed to disappear quickly in a small county.

Crooks are suspicious, but greedy.  At the end of the day it was about money or sex to catch dope dealers.  I remember once guy was convinced I was a cop.  I told him I thought he was a cop.  We went back and forth and I ended it with “F*ck you, if you don’t want my money someone else will….” I turned around and took one step when I heard the greedy bastard say “Wait! Wait! Ok…”  Stupid prick.  Should have stuck with his first instinct.

We would not have been able to be a successful biker, yuppie, businessperson whatever, in the town or city we worked in.  Remember that a few short months earlier, my partner’s and I were in crisp LAPD blue uniforms and drove black and white patrol cars.  Let’s face it we became government paid actors.  Not even the cops figured us out and we worked next to half of them for years.  Take for example Ray...

Ray-mo!

I will never forget my pal Ray or as I like to affectionately call him – Ray-mo’s.  He is a great guy who totally looked sinister when he grew out the hair and beard.  So much so that Ray I think was pulled over 3 times on the way to work in one morning! He was in his government undercover Mercedes SEL.  Ray looked like a Colombian and back then every cop was looking for a load-car and Pablo Escobar. 

Ray was our Pablo.  Stout, funny, muscular guy who most people avoided eye contact with while he was undercover because he just looked mean.  Truth is he was the biggest sweetheart you could ever meet. 

P'ed Off

Say what you want about the “P” word…profiling…Ray was criminally profiled and for the right reasons.  You see the car he drove used to belong to a sneaky dirty dope dealer who used it as his load car to deliver up to a kilo of blow (Uh cocaine powerder) on just about any weekend...until we caught him.  I know, because I took him off with a key in the car and then took his car.  Buh-Bye beautiful black Mercedes.  So the cops that pulled Ray over were not wrong and were on the right track - close to discovering the drug dealer d’jour.  I just happen to catch him first. 

As long as we are on the subject, My big brother Nick and I were at the Miami Airport right around the same time and, rightfully so, I was profiled by the DEA. (See pic below)  "Excuse me sir...can we talk to you?"  They were on the right track or as I like to say, Right Church, Wrong Pew.  I was in the business, just on their side!

The best part of my time in the unit was really the freedom to explore my skills and talents with a very cool collection of bosses who did not micro manage us.  Scott, Walt, Jack – all my pals and all of them very cool “cats” to work for.  I’m sure between Kenny, Steve, John, Frank, Ray, Doug, others and I, we single handedly were responsible for a few pharmaceutical companies turning a profit because of the meds our bosses had to take. 

The pay-back, of course was that my team and in particular for this story, Frankie and I produced.  We had this weird inane ability to take a marijuana joint and “roll it” to a stash house.  It was in part a narc’s survival, the blind or natural ability to “flip” crooks and get them to do the right thing.  Good old-fashioned police work, friends. 

One day Frank and I had the idea to cultivate an employee – any employee -at a local international shipping company.  We dropped in one day and simply asked for a call if anything looked suspicious.  That was the beginning of a long and busy relationship.

Within 24 hours Frank and I were chasing down bullshit names on a shipping labels so we came up with an idea.  Let’s open up our own shipping company clearing house to return items that can’t be shipped.  You know, drugs. 

The game worked like this: We knew who was supposed to pick up the package, but “Barney” the dinosaur the “name of the shipper,” (Wise ass) was not easily found in the phone book.  The address of 123 “F” Street apartment “U” (get it?) was also hard to find – but well understood.  (Dope dealers are so funny.  Especially as the good Lord grants drug agents access to them and the hand of God assists us in the escorting their greedy bodies to the floor, upon lawful execution of a search warrant.) 

The H&S Holding Company

Frank and I asked our boss to get a hold of the building owner where our Task Force was housed and asked for a vacant office.  Frank and I made up a bogus business sign on the copy machine and called ourselves the “H&S Holding Company.”  H&S is the cop code for drug crimes.  H&S stands for Health and Safety Code.  I figure if the shipper can tell me to “Fuck off “in his shipping address I can have a little fun too.

Here is how it worked.  Frank or I would recover a small package of whatever the drug of the day was.  Most of the time it was weed, but some times it was meth or cocaine.  One of us would call or send a note to the person slated to receive the package.  We would apologize up and down about the shipping label getting ripped up and would return it to the dick-head who sent it -and of course, refund the sender but we needed ID and proof that they were the shipper.  You know, the original receipt.  These greedy bastards insured their illegal drugs for thousands of dollars, so they almost all kept their receipts. (Good for us.  Bad for them.  Dumb bastards.) 

Bullshit By Any Other Name

“Sir, my name is Ralph and I’m so sorry that your package has been delayed.  The shipping receipt was damaged and we cannot ship this without a new label.”  (Total bullshit.)  Christ, I could barely keep from laughing my ass off. 

“Can you call whoever was supposed to ship this to you and have them call us?”  Frank and I set up a phony number and would answer the phone “H&S Holding Company.”  We could barely contain ourselves.  (A note to parents:  Crank calling by your kids has some value.) 

Frank and I especially liked getting berated by greedy scum-bag drug dealers.  It made the impending arrest so much better.  We had it down.  “Sir can you call us when you are on the way so we can be sure to be there, we are usually out re-delivering packages.” (Or getting heavily armed awaiting your blessed delivery to our humbled hands.)

Frank and I would get the call that the suspect was on the way and we would put up the phony sign and sit in a chair in a vacant office and look out the window.  It was cool seeing the stronzo doing a “heat run” driving around looking for the cops. Waiting for him to show up was fun and it was done in the comfort of our own office. 

We never really had to go far.  And time and again these bastards showed.  It was beautiful.  The rush of seeing a new car pull into our lot and the knock on the door was great and our operation turned into a fire-drill as we all ran around getting into place. 

Hook, Line and Stinker

Frank or I would answer the door and would have the package in our hand, with our police star under the package.  “Sir is this the package you shipped?  Can we see your receipt?  How did you pay for it?”  All of it, to reel these guppies in.  It was beautiful.  Like street theater.   (Theatre for my pals in the UK)

Once we had all we needed, we would invite them to step in and take the package from us.  That was the Oscar moment, when they would pick up the package of drugs and see the beautiful shining gold detective’s star in one of our palms facing them.  Talk about a “shit your pants moment.” 

Kenny and John, the Defensive Line

Of course all of this was done on a wire and Kenny, a linebacker sized agent with meat hooks the size of footballs, and his partner John were on the other side of the door ready to come in and blitz the crook if needed.  Most of the time these scifoso’s would just give up and often they would flip seconds after the handcuffs were put on.

We did tons of these operations and no one got hurt.   Sure, we rolled up some petty drug dealers, but that was not really the object.  This was our rainy day project.  The object was to instill fear that shipping drugs was not so smart and that we got to know the little fish who almost always would turn us on to the bigger guy.  You know, you have to crawl before you can walk.

Attention drug dealers:  Everyone has a price.  People will flip on you all day long.  Ask Gotti.  ;)

Love ya.  Stay safe. Ralphy.

Haired Core.