Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do (31 page)

Remember when you were a kid and the policeman took you across the street? What is he doing in essence? He’s walking you through danger, is he not? Okay, I do the same thing. If I take you by the hand and walk you through Lincoln Park, nobody’s gonna mess with you. But if I don’t take you and walk you through the park, somebody’s gonna mug you. I protect you from the dangerous elements. All these do-gooders that say, “Oh yeah, we respect you”—you have the feeling that they’re saying yes with their mouth, but they’re laughing at you. They don’t respect me.

I’d love to go out on the college campus and grab some of these radicals. It’s more or less a minority. When you apply logic and truth and philosophy, they cannot come back at you. You cannot fight truth. Who’s being brutal? Before I make an arrest, I’ll tell the guy, “You have a choice. You could be nice and we’ll walk. If you become combative, I’m going to use physical force against you to compensate. In fact, I’m gonna have to break some bones. You forced the issue.”

Oh yeah, the Democratic Convention. (A show of hurt appears, in the manner of a small boy’s pout.) There was this radical garbage piece of thing, dirty, long-haired, not a human being in my book, standing by the paddy wagon. Not a mark on him. He spotted the camera and disappeared. In thirty seconds he came back. He was covered with all kinds of blood. He’s screaming into the camera, “Look what they did to me!”

Lincoln Park. This group was comin’ down on me. I’m by myself. They’re comin’ down the hill, “Kill the pig! Off the pig!” Well, I’m not a pig. There’s only one of me and a whole mess of them. Well,
c’est le guerre
, sweetheart. I folded my arms, put my hand on my .38. I looked at them and said, “What’s happening?” They stopped. They thought I was gonna pull out my weapon and start blowin’ brains out. I didn’t lose my cool. I’m a policeman, I don’t scare. I’m dumb that way. (Laughs.) These kids were incited by someone to do something. They said, “Those guys up there with the cameras.” I blame the media.

There’s a picture in the Loop—
Sweet Sweetback’s Badassss Song—it
is strictly hate-white. Nobody pickets that. You can imagine an anti-Negro flick? These people can get away with anything they want. But if you try it, zero, you’ll get nailed. The radicals and the black militants, they’re the dangers. They could be standing here on the street corner selling this Black Panther thing. (Imitates black accent), “This magazine is fo’ de black man.” He wants to off the pig. And I’m standing there. How do you think I feel? You know what off the pig means? Kill the pig. I look at them and I laugh. I’d like to break his neck. But I’m a policeman, a professional. I know the element they are. They’re like the Nazi was with the Germans. The SS. No good.

To me, when I was a kid, the policeman was the epitome—not of perfection—was a good and evil in combination, but in
control.
He came from an element in the neighborhood and he knew what was going on. To me, a policeman is your community officer. He is your Officer Friendly, he is your clergyman, he is your counselor. He is a doctor to some: “Mr. Policeman, my son just fell and bumped his head.” Now all we are is a guy that sits in a squad car and waits for a call to come over the radio. We have lost complete contact with the people. They get the assumption that we’re gonna be called to the scene for one purpose—to become violent to make an arrest. No way I can see that. I am the community officer. They have taken me away from the people I’m dedicated to serving—and I don’t like it.

The cop on the corner took you across the street, right? Now, ten o‘clock at night, he’s still there on the corner, and he tells you to get your fanny home. He’s not being nice. The next time he tells you, he’s gonna whack you with the stick. In the old days, if you went home and told your dad the cop on the corner whacked you with a stick, you know what your father did? He whacked you twice as hard. He said, “You shouldn’t’ve been there. The policeman told you to go home, go home.” Today these kids defy you.

I handed one parent a stick. I said, “Lady, when I leave this room and you don’t apply that stick to this young lady’s mouth, I will. I’ll also sign charges against you for contributing to the delinquency of this child. You don’t know how to be a parent.” If I was sitting at a table with my father and threw a temper tantrum, I got knocked on my rear end. When I was picked up I was told, “You eat it, ’cause it’s there.” The law is there. If you don’t want the law and you don’t like my country, get out.

Take an old Western town. I just saw a thing with Richard Widmark on TV, which I thought was great. A town was being ramrodded by baddies. So they got ahold of this gunfighter and made him their sheriff, and he cleaned up the town. A little hard, but he was a nice guy. He got rid of the element and they told him he could have the job for as long as he wanted it. Then the people that put him in got power and they became dirty. They wanted things done and he said no. He wound up getting killed. This is what I feel about me and these do-gooders. They get power, I’m in their way.

I’m the element that stands between the legitimate person and the criminal. Years ago, he wore a .45 and he was a gunfighter and he wasted people. Okay, I don’t believe in killing everybody. But I do believe we’ve gone overboard. They can shoot a guy like crazy but we cannot retaliate. I’m a target for these people. Go ahead, vent yourself. That’s what I’m here for, a whipping boy. I’m not saying life in itself is violent, but I deal in the violent part of life.

There
is
a double standard, let’s face it. You can stop John Doe’s average son for smoking pot and he’ll go to jail. But if I stop Johnny Q on the street and his daddy happens to be the president of a bank or he’s very heavy in politics or knows someone, you look like a jerk. Why did you arrest
him?
Do you know who he is? I could care less who he is. If he breaks the law, go.

I made a raid up at the beach. The hippies were congregating, creating sex orgies and pot and everything. The word went out, especially about hitchhiking. Okay, we used to raid the beach and lock everybody up, didn’t care who they were. One fella told me, “I’m gonna have your job. My father is out on the lake with the mayor.” I said, “Fine, when you go to court bring your father
and
the mayor. But as far as I’m concerned, mister, you’re doing a no-no, and you’re going to jail.”

We knew pot was involved. They were creating a disturbance. It was after eleven o’clock at night. You got rules and regulations for one reason —discipline. I consider the law as rules and regulations—in the military, on my job, or as citizens. They were puncturing tires, breaking antennas off cars, throwing bottles, fornicating on the beach—everything! Hitchhiking was impeding traffic. So I started locking them up for hitchhiking. All of a sudden, lay off! The citizens made a peace treaty with them. I’m the one who gets chastised! I did the job the citizens wanted me to do, right? All of a sudden, “Hey dummy, lay off!”

Jealous? Never. No way. I’m not prudish in any way, shape, or form. I’m far from being a virgin. (Laughs.) You’re not a marine to be a virgin, no way in the world. But I don’t believe in garbage. Sex is a beautiful thing. I dig it. But to exploit it in such a fashion to make it garbage, that to me is offensive. Jealousy, no way. I look at those people out there as I would be going to the zoo and watching the monkeys play games. That doesn’t turn me on. They’re all perverted people. I don’t believe in perversion. They’re making it strictly animal. Monkeys in the cage, boom, boom, boom, from one to the other, that’s it. I believe in one man and one woman.

 

 

I don’t want my sons to have it. Now, the sideburns I wear because I do TV commercials and stuff. I’m in the modeling field.

 

He moonlights on occasion
—
modeling, appearing in industrial films, selling insurance, and driving semi-trucks. “I’m not necessarily ambitious. I do it Because I like it. I jump in a truck and I’m gone to Iowa, Ohio, Kentucky. It’s a great kick for me.”

 

But I don’t like long hair. If it’s your bag, do it, but don’t try to force it on me. A long-hair person doesn’t bother me, but when you see that radical with the mop and that shanky garbage and you can smell ’em a block away, that bothers me.

A few years ago there was this hippie, long-haired, slovenly. He confronted me. Don’t ever confront me when I tell you to move. That’s a no-no. To make a long story short, I—uh—(laughs) I cut a piece of his long hair off and I handed it back to him. With a knife. It was just a spontaneous reaction. He was screaming “brutality.” Anyway, a couple of weeks later I was confronted by this nice-looking fellow in a suit, haircut, everything. He said, “Officer, do you recognize me?” He pulled out this cellophane packet and handed it to me, and there was his hair in it. (Laughs.) I said, “That’s you?” And he said, “Yeah. You showed me one thing. You really care about people. I just had to go out and get a job and prove something to you.” That kid joined the Marine Corps.

Sometimes I feel like a father out there. You don’t really want to paddle your kid’s rear end. It hurts you ten times more than it does him. But you have to put the point across, and if it becomes necessary to use a little constructive criticism . . . I will think of my father a lot of times. No way did he spare the rod on my rump. And I never hated him for it, no way. I loved him for it.

My sons adore me. My wife can’t understand this. If they do something wrong in my presence—(mumbles) even though I don’t live in that house —they get punished. My wife said, “You’re so hard with them at times, yet they worship the ground you walk on.” When I used the belt on them I’d always tell them why. They understand and they accept it. My oldest boy is now on the honor rolls at Notre Dame High School.

He gets a little stubborn. He’d confront me with things: “I want to wear my hair long.” “You want to wear your hair long, get out of my house. You know what it represents to me. Till the day you are twenty-one and you will leave my jurisdiction, you will do as I tell you. You understand?” “Okay Dad, you’re the boss.” That’s all there is to it. There’s no resentment, no animosity. It’s just an understanding that I lay the law down. There are rules and regulations.

But I’m not a robot, I think for myself. One thing bugs me. Burglary is a felony. If a burglar is trapped and becomes physical and is shot to death, that’s justifiable homicide. Mayor Daley made an utterance—shoot to kill—and they—click—blew it up. I don’t think he meant it literally.

I can’t shoot an unarmed person. No way. Anyway, knowing people, they’ll say, “Forget it, we’re insured.” So why should I get involved over an insurance matter? I would love to go after people who perpetrate robberies or hurt other people. A theft, granted it’s a crime, but most of the people it hurts is the insurance company. Robbery is hurting a person.

I prefer going after robbery more than homicide. When a guy commits murder, he’s usually done. He’s caught and goes to the penitentiary or the chair. But a guy that commits robbery doesn’t usually get caught the first time, second, third time. He’s out there over and over again. I want to grab the guy that’s hitting all the time, instead of the guy that’s doing the one shot. I love risk and challenge. Driving a semi down the road is challenging. You never know what’s going to happen. (Laughs.) Some guy passes you, cuts you off, you’re jack-knifed. You blow a tire, you’re gone. I don’t like a boring life.

When I worked as a bartender, I felt like a non-person. I was actually nothing. I was a nobody going nowhere. I was in a state of limbo. I had no hopes, no dreams, no ups, no downs, nothing. Being a policeman gives me the challenge in life that I want. Some day I’ll be promoted. Somebody’s gonna say, “Maher has had it for a long time. Let’s give him something.” Some sort of recognition. I’ve proven myself. I don’t think it’s necessary for a man to prove himself over and over and over again. I’m a policeman, win, lose, or draw.

I’m in this Loop traffic. I don’t even consider this a job. It’s like R&R, rest and recreation. My day today is like—(whistles) it’s a no-no. It’s nothing. I get up, I eat, and I blow the whistle. It’s not very exciting. I’m looking at it now as a fellow who goes to the office and he’s not very enthused. Because I wear a uniform people that are garbage will say I’m a pig. They don’t look at me and say, “This is a human being.” They look at my dress. I’m a representative of the law, of you, the citizen. You created my job, you created me. To you, I am a robot in uniform. You press a button and when you call me to the scene you expect results. But I’m also a man. I even have a heart. (Laughs.)

 

I became a police officer because of the opportunity it afforded a young black who didn’t have a college education. I started out working in vice and gambling, a special unit in a black area. I worked in plain clothes, in undercover assignments—trying to stake out dice games, bookies, policy wheel operations, narcotics, prostitutes. I would write the report and another team would make the arrests. It was very easy for me to find these things in the community, because any black can find ’em. I really worked as a spy. At the time—I was twenty-one—I thought it was great to be a young police detective, being able to lock people up. A lot of young blacks are misdirected when they first join the force. I soon became disenchanted.

I watched the double standard at work, blacks being treated one way and whites the other. I learned one thing: whites control the vice and gambling in this city. They make most of the money out of it and very few are arrested. The people being arrested are blacks.

My supervisor would say, “We need two policy arrests, so we can be equal with the other areas.” So we go out and hunt for a policy operator. If our narcotics enforcement was down, we’d find an addict and we’d pressure him to show us where his supplier was. We’d bust him. We’d pay him some money so he could buy from another supplier and we’d bust him too. Usually the addict had one guy he didn’t like. He was willing to trade the guy off for fresh cash. The police department has a contingency fund for these purposes. We’d pay the guy fifty or one hundred dollars depending . . . We’d get a warrant, or if we didn’t have time we’d lock him up anyway. It would be impossible to work without informers. How’d you know there’s a house of prostitution across the street? A policeman grabs a guy off the street: “I’m gonna pay you X amount for information.” These types come up to you sometimes. They make a good living informing.