“I simply asked the fellows if…”
“See! You did it again!” shouted the mean and drunken Roscoe Rules as he punched on Dean to arouse him, but his partner only whimpered drunkenly “‘Fellows.’ How many cops you ever hear say ‘fellows’? Cops say ‘guys’ or ‘dudes’ or ‘studs’ or ‘cats,’ but no cop in the history of LAPD ever said ‘fellows.’ Nobody but you, Baxter Slate.”
“He didn’t say nothin faggy I heard,” Calvin Potts said, and the tall black policeman was suddenly standing behind Roscoe Rules who was thinking that the only thing worse than a fag is a nigger and how much fun it would be to kneedrop Calvin Potts and puncture his kidney and smash his spleen like a rotten peach.
“For chrissake, Baxter, tell Roscoe what you said so I can relax,” said Francis Tanaguchi who was lost in the expansive bosom of Ora Lee Tingle, trying to persuade her to pull the train for a few of the choirboys. She was now wearing only Spermwhale’s T-shirt and her own skintight black flares as she held Francis Tanaguchi in her arms saying how fucking cute Nips are.
“Roscoe,” Baxter said patiently “I only said that policemen see the worst of people and people at their worst. I was simply trying to explain to you and me and all of us our premature cynicism. That’s all I said and I wish I’d keep my big mouth shut.”
“So do I,” muttered Roscoe. “Fucking ten dollar words. A policeman only needs about a hundred words in his whole vocabulary.”
“The only big words I use were taught me in the police academy Roscoe,” said Baxter. “Words like hemorrhage and defecation.” Baxter took a drink of cold vodka and said, “You know, Roscoe, even you use euphemisms, police euphemisms, like calling your night-stick a baton because the LAPD says to call it that. I refuse to call it that. A baton is a plaything for young girls. There’s no phallic connotation whatsoever. If I’m going to carry something to beat people over the head with I insist it have Freudian implications. I learned that in graduate school. Everything must have Freudian implications.”
“You making fun a me, Slate?” Roscoe demanded, trying to stagger to his feet.
“You know, a graduate student would love to use a big faggy word like ‘emasculated’ on you, Roscoe. That’s a favorite word of all graduate students. And they would say of your baton that the true symbol of your sexual identity is the wooden appendage you store at the station. In other words, your cock’s in your locker.”
“Oh, I don’t like you, Slate, I never liked you,” said Roscoe Rules who really didn’t like Baxter Slate any less than he liked Harold Bloomguard, Francis Tanaguchi, Calvin Potts and Spermwhale Whalen, not necessarily in that order. He only just tolerated his partner, Dean Pratt, who was starting to get on his nerves, and Father Willie Wright who seemed to be afraid of him.
“Let’s talk economics instead of philosophy, Roscoe,” Baxter Slate said, deciding to test the meanest choirboy. “I think that the inflationary period follows the prediction of the deficit meanders of corollary Harry that Roscoes cannot breed in captivity and that Chandu the Magician is a cousin of the condor at Santa Barbara.”
“I don’t buy that faggy idea any more than the last one,” Roscoe Rules said, passing the test.
“Whaddaya mean, Baxter? Whaddaya mean?” asked Whaddayamean Dean who had crawled across the grass into the converstion area.
“What do I mean, Dean, my friend?” said Baxter Slate. “I mean that I was a lousy Juvenile officer, that’s what I mean. I mean that a battered child has a marvelous capacity to adjust to his torture and will ceaselessly love his battering parents. I mean that the mother of a sexually molested child will not leave nor truly protect the child from the father as long as the man has a good job or otherwise preserves that mother from an economic life which is more horrifying to her than the molestation of her child. I mean that the weakness of the human race is stupefying and that it’s not the capacity for evil which astounds young policemen like you and me, Dean. Rather it’s the mind boggling worthlessness of human beings. There’s not enough dignity in mankind for evil and that’s the most terrifying thing a policeman learns.”
“Whaddaya trying to say, Baxter? Whaddaya trying to say?” pleaded Whaddayamean Dean drunkenly.
“I mean that twelve good men and true are a gaggle of non-professional neophytes conditioned by the heroics of cinema juries which inevitably free the defendant who is inevitably innocent. I mean that they can never really believe that a natural father could do such an unnatural thing to his child.”
“I don’t get it! I don’t get it!” cried Whaddayamean Dean.
“I mean that doctors and professional men are the most arrogant and incompetent witnesses at any criminal proceedings and that they’ll screw up your case for sure.
“I mean that the weak and inept parents will always refuse to surrender their neglected children to the authorities because they want to atone for failures with older children and the cycle inevitably repeats itself.
“I mean that perhaps economics, not morality is our last consideration, and that the judge has a point when you plead with him to put a man away to save that man’s family and the judge says, ‘Swell, but who do you want me to let out?’”
“What’s he mean? What’s he mean?” yelled Whaddayamean Dean to the drunken choirboys. Dean was boozy enough for a crying jag now, the tears welling as he bobbed and weaved and almost fell over backward.
“And I mean that when policemen have to deal with small inflexible men in their own ranks, perhaps it becomes too much. And perhaps part of the reason that Roscoe Rules is small and inflexible and insensitive is because traditional police administrators-men like Captain Drobeck, and Commander Moss and Chief Lynch-are small and inflexible and insensitive and…”
“I heard that faggy remark, Slate, you scrote!” said Roscoe Rules, still unable to stand.
“I mean that cops chase society’s devils as well as their own, which becomes unbearably terrifying since the devil is at last only the mirror image of a creature utterly without worth or dignity. And that the physical dangers of police work are grossly overrated but the emotional dangers make it the most hazardous job on earth.”
“Oh, Baxter, oh, Baxter,” moaned the bewildered Whaddayamean Dean who was starting to get sick.
“I mean that I carry only two memories from my childhood in Dominican boarding schools where I was placed by my beautiful, well traveled mother: if you touch the communion wafer with your teeth it’s not so good and should be avoided. And the only unforgivable sin is to murder yourself because there is absolutely no possibility of absolution and redemption, and…”
“What the fuck’re you babblin about, Baxter?” asked Spermwhale Whalen who was suddenly behind Baxter, having slept long enough to be more or less capable of driving home before dawn.
“Spermwhale! Thought you were stacking those Z’s.” Baxter Slate offered his partner a quick wide grin and a drink of vodka.
“Baxter, you sound like a silly pseudointellectual horse’s ass. You’re gettin embarrassin. C’mon, I’ll drive you to your pad.” Spermwhale felt a stab of pain across the front of his skull when he lifted his young partner to his feet and helped steady him.
Actually, Baxter Slate was rarely such a silly pseudointellectual horse’s ass, but he had been undergoing a prolonged period of despondency brought about partly because he thought he had been such an unsuccessful Juvenile officer.
The murder of Tommy Rivers was the final blow to his career as a Juvenile officer because Baxter Slate had foreseen the imminent demise of Tommy Rivers and had been powerless, or rationalized that he was powerless, to prevent it.
It was three months to the day after Tommy Rivers’ death and almost two months before the choir practice shooting that Baxter Slate became the only one of the ten choirboys to kill a man on duty.