Will Work for Drugs (4 page)
B
lame it on Bobby Blake. I was still wearing knee socks and selling Girl Scout cookies when
Baretta
hit the air. He reminded me of my father. Or how I wanted my father to be. Only Dad and Baretta were on opposite sides of the law. Baretta went after bad guys. My dad
was
a bad guy. But Baretta didn't save me. And in an attempt to reverse the outcome, I've been looking for someone who can “protect and serve” ever since. Not to keep me safe, but to penalize for their inability to do so.
My first face-to-face with the police jump-started a decades-long obsession with testing just how far I could twist the long arm of the law to satisfy my criminal intent. I was babysitting for fifty cents an hour. Chump change needed to keep an already overheated and horny thirteen-year-old stoned on lousy Mexican weed. I had just finished blowing a skinny joint. Went outside to check on the ghetto rats I was supposed to play Mommy to. Found them rolling around on the ground, one of them screaming, “If that's all you got, keep it in your shorts, shithead,” as a dirty chartreuse Pontiac sped left around the corner. The freak behind the wheel had snaked alongside the back fence, which bordered the alley, and beckoned the girls over to ask for directions; Cindy said he had a funny look in his eye. “Maybe it was because he was squirting dick juice all over the steering wheel,” Kathy, the younger one, screeched, jerking on the handle of her dirty jump rope. I admired her potential as mouthpiece for future
S.C.U.M. Manifesto
fund-raisers; but this was serious. They were obviously too young to fully comprehend the offensive maneuvers of a drive-by jack-off artist. I had no choice. They were in my care. I called the cops.
Officer Connolly was a twenty-one-year-old rookie. Blond, blue-eyed, built. Been on the force only six months. We hit the backyard to investigate the crime scene. Tire tracks and a spent Chesterfield. He pocketed the butt. Pulled out pen and pad, chicken-scratching notes. Looking real official. Claimed he'd investigate. I plopped down on a lawn chair across from him, making sure to spread my legs just wide enough for him to notice the crotch of my tight jeans disappearing.
Investigate this Office, sir
. I can assure you, I was not suffering from arrested development.
My baby blues were glued to his equipment. Night-stick, handcuffs, revolver. Hot. I couldn't help it. Had to milk it. I confessed I was withholding evidence. I had failed to report that a similar make car had pulled the same stunt on me three weeks before. Obviously a perv was lurking. I was sure I'd recognize the creep. He suggested cruising the neighborhood to search for the perpetrator once my babysitting shift was done. Looking nervously over his shoulder, he adjusted his gun holster.
“Are you flirting with me Officer Connolly?” I demurred.
“Typical police procedure,” he assured me. HA!
I hate to play snitch, but I penned my own version of “Fuck tha Police” four hours later. The back of the squad car stunk of vomit, urine, and Old Spice. I was frisked, read my rights, interrogated, and strip-searched. But only after threatening to report the rookie to the station chief if he wouldn't play Bad Lieutenant. My career in blackmailing, public indecency, criminal misconduct, disturbing the peace, and assaulting an officer of the law just for kicks had just begun.
I've never had a beef with the police. Never been hassled, harassed, or assaulted by the cops. They, however, can't say the same thing about me. Poor saps. I was arrested only once. Helsinki, Finland, 1982. The shifty musician I was traveling with was busted for smuggling illegal substances into the country. I was innocent, but taken into custody. The twin Tom of Finland customs officers guarding my cell allowed me to keep my bag. Big mistake. I slipped into a peach satin slip, pulled out a pint of Smirnoff Red, nibbled on a piece of Godiva chocolate, and began seducing both of them by reading chapters of Jerzy Kosinski's
Cockpit.
Needless to say, the charges were dropped.
I love cops and the cops love me. Got the evidence to prove it. I've shot dozens of photographs of police officers. Just ask literary outlaw Jerry Stahl.
March 2003 we rampaged through Florida, terrorizing the locals. Hit-and-run spoken word spree. We hijacked a 747 to Orlando, made a public nuisance of ourselves, verbally battered the audience, ripped off the promoter, committed grievous bodily harm to a couple of unwitting victims, and split town before bothering to clean the blood off our hands. We knocked off a rental joint and started tooling north in an air-conditioned 2003 Neon. A perfectly anonymous getaway car.
Giddy as a pair of short-shift grifters on the run from L.A., cranking tunes and laughing like lunatics, the first heist went off without a hitch. We owned the fucking road, man. Until the short stabs of a police siren sounded, we got blasted in the back of the head with red lights, and were instructed to pull over just outside of St. Pete. The bull sauntered over to the driver's seat, smiling. “Is there a problem, officer?” quipped Stahl, deadpan. Deputy Sheriff R. Sammons assured us we weren't speeding and that he was just checking us out because we “looked too cool for Alligator Alley.” I invited him to the show later that night. Told him we played tag team to the themes of power and submission, crime and punishment, retribution and restitution. Publicly confessed our own crimes and punished the audience by making them pay to hear the grisly details. He chuckled but politely declined. Duty called.
Jerry knew what was coming next. I'd be forced to shoot. I'd already been showing off a stash of photos from our last tour. Cops on bikes, cops drinking coffee at a pastry stand, geriatric cops, and Jerry's favorite, a
Baywatch
-blond law-enforcement agent in tight blue spandex shorts bending over the front seat of her squad car to retrieve her business card so I could send her duplicate prints.
I waited until Sammons was behind the wheel. I jumped out of the Neon. Flagged him over. Used my trademark, “Excuse me, sir, I'm doing a series entitled
People Who Help People
. Would you mind if I take a shot or two?” Faking an innocent smile, I'd point to my camera, stare them straight in the eye, and hypnotize them with a sociopathic ability to divorce the guilty party from the crimes committed. Not a single cop has ever refused me.
I've got mug shots, telephone numbers, job offers, and propositions for dates, drinks, and drive-alongs. I've had police escorts through long lines at the airport. I once bribed a Russian cop with a French kiss to steal another officer's cap, convincing him I'd only impersonate a cop in the privacy of my own home. In public I'm usually found screaming bloody murder and implicating myself in crimes too numerous to mention to ever cast doubt upon this career criminal's twisted convictions.
The benchmark of a good crime is to avoid getting caught. Keep it under the radar. I've successfully avoided detection, prosecution, and imprisonment while continuing to perpetrate my felonious behavior. So I couldn't help but question whether or not the e-mail that arrives in June of 2003 is a set-up, a fraud, or an invitation to commit the ultimate con. I roll the dice and decide to up the ante. Two high-stakes gamblers sporting backgrounds in art crimes sucker me into their latest scam. Play infiltrator and interrogator for
Where Are They When We Don't Need Them?
a documentary they're filming on the tenth World Police and Fire Games. A biannual sports event held that year in Barcelona, Spain, which like the rest of Europe is suffering under the worst heat wave in 200 years.
Over the course of two weeks, 10,000 law-enforcement agents and firefighters compete for gold, silver, and bronze medals in sixty different sporting events. Wrestling, weight lifting, soccer, archery, darts, tug-of-war, pistol combat, bowling. Think Olympics. Only with crime stoppers and firefighters.
The World Police and Fire Games originated in Los Angeles in 1985, in part to boost flagging police morale, encourage camaraderie among cops and firefighters, and to improve public relations between the police and civilians. I can't imagine a more intoxicating way to spend my summer vacation.
I arrive at LAX at 2:40 p.m., what I believe to be a safe two hours in advance of British Airways flight 422. So sick of traveling I'm nearly comatose with boredom. The traffic en route to the airport. The failure of electronic check-in. The gaudy spectacle of out-of-shape American families dressed in matching pastel tracksuits. And now the latest insult. British Airways has instituted a new and highly invasive procedure. Passengers form a long line before reaching the check-in desk. Bags are screened first, then an overage bag boy personally escorts you to the next long line. Usually I wouldn't have a problem with this. But how to explain the small red bag inside the larger black bag, which contains fifty feet of black quarter-inch rope, pliers, nipple, clamps, two wigs, and six corsets? Don't ask. Fortunately, sex toys have not yet been ruled a terrorist threat and I slide by without being strip-searched.
I land a mind-numbing fifteen hours later. Exhausted, sleep deprived, hot, and starving. But duty calls. My partner in crime meets me at the airport, offers me a Coke, sticks a pill in my mouth, and instructs me to swallow. Time to face the firing squad. Or at least pick up my press pass. Arriving just in time for the last few events means we'll have to work fast.
Nearly every cop I've ever talked to, when asked why he opted to go into law enforcement, responds, “To help people.” Can you imagine actually calling the cops if you ever really needed help in Los Angeles? What if Officer Jeremy Morse, Mark Fuhrman, or Rafael “Rampart Scandal” Pérez answered the call?
Were these testosterone-fueled Dirty Harrys just freaks with short fuses or indicative of the corruption and abuse of power within law-enforcement agencies the world over? Was a competitive sporting event really a good idea for macho men whose motto was supposed to be
To Protect and Serve
? Whose presence more often than not inspires fear and dread?
According to the officers I spoke with in Barcelona, an event like WPFG has a positive effect on the individual, who through the discipline of their chosen sport is able to return to the field with more stamina and patience because they have found a place to focus their aggressions.
Cops and firefighters from Siberia, Korea, Thailand, Denmark, Poland, China, South Africa, North America, Canada, and just about every other country on the map, had paid their own way to honor the homeland. Hunky, hard-working men as far as the eye can see, sweating, grunting, fighting, shooting, all pumped up to just be there, participating in these events like thousands of well-lubed gladiators. Win or lose, they'd already proven they were tough enough to make the grade. They were there to throw down, have a good time, hang out with the brotherhood, and represent. I couldn't think of a more deliciously perverse event to have been in the thick of.
The video crew and I hit the billiards competition, tae kwon do, tug-of-war, pistol shooting, and weight lifting events all in one day. What bliss! Surrounded by modern-day warriors, slapping each other on the ass, kissing and hugging, cracking jokes, and more than happy to submit to my fanatical grilling concerning marijuana reform laws in Canada, mandatory minimum sentencing, the stress of being underpaid, overworked, and feared, the negative image of the Los Angeles Police Department, and, of course, how they were planning to celebrate at the closing ceremony. The Australian Beer Blast being the unanimous response.
Being jacked-up after witnessing so many high-impact sports, and wilting in the 102-degree swelter, although not high on my list of priorities, we head over to investigate the bowling alley. Expecting a gang of retired gentlemen quietly polishing their balls, I stumble in to a lager-andâRed Bull bash where howling madmen are congratulating each other by tossing back pints of the evil brew, insisting I join them in making merry.
“Pinkie,” a pit bull of a man, at six-foot-two and a solid 270 pounds, is not to be denied. Sporting a
Simpson's
Springfield Police shirt whose insignia bears a patch of Chief Wiggum, he has just won a silver medal. Squashing me with a bone-crushing bear hug, he waltzes me around the bar introducing me to the British Metropolitan Police Service as the “next Ruby Wax.”
His drunken glee is contagious. He throws me into the arms of gold medal winner in singles bowling, Officer John Greengrass. Who has a fetching scar running halfway from elbow to wrist. I ask if it's a bowling injury. He chuckles, winks, and struts, “In a manner of speaking, yes.” Greengrass and a fellow officer were returning to London after the last WPFG held in Indianapolis. Heading home from Heathrow, a car chase breaks out. They get stuck between a stolen car and a speeding paddy wagon. Unable to just sit idly by, Greengrass instructs his pal, the driver, to “do something ⦠we're police officers!” They pull over. The carjacker is careening toward them. Greengrass, fueled on by the smell of burning rubber and adrenaline, jumps from the car, grabbing his bowling bag which is loaded with two deadly eighteen-pounders. Raising the bag high overhead, he aims for the windshield, smashing it to slivers. The surprise attack stops the vehicle, but not before chewing a chunk out of his right forearm. They arrest the thief. I ask if he showed him “the what for.” “Of course not,” he smirked. “The kid was only thirteen.” I volunteered that I would have spanked him myself given half a chance. “Best leave the punishment to the professionals,” he chuckled, then winked and fingered his gold medal. I couldn't agree more.
Update: In March 2007 I received an e-mail from Officer John Greengrass, politely inquiring whether I remembered our meeting. HA! I never forget a cop I might have future use for. He requested
a favor. Would I be so kind as to record a short video hello for the London Metropolitan Police, who were about to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of their bowling league? I couldn't resist. I ended my message with a wink, a slick grin, and a joke about bowlers and the size of their balls. Big'uns. Gotta love 'em.
