The thunder had come and gone, a light drizzle misting the ground briefly. The clouds stayed—no sun on this summer day. I was waiting outside for The Operator, weeding some vines out of box elders and that other bush I cannot spell. The black, 1996 Crown Victoria rolled up with the shotgun window down and I heard, “There’s a good guy—Mister James, how are you, Brother?”
I gimped down to the car with suit case and pack, “See if it will fit brother—I live out of this thing, it’s the office.”
The gear fit behind my seat. As I entered he was hyper, revved up, ready to go, “Training wouldn’t work—was supposed to get together with some gun guys. But I need a focus session—and you’re it! I can’t talk to anyone else about this shit. You are in demand, as you should be. I’m seeing you off right.”
As we pull off he says, “Now, this stays here,” and the next ten minutes of the focus session may not be reproduced here.
In the restaurant he spies a new girl, the hostess, young and pretty, an elegant octoroon with curly red hair. Our regular waitress is now behind the bar and The Operator is looking for a new one. He pays extra for the prettiest waitress and then tests her to see if he wants her again. If he does, if she can answer questions about movies and music, he takes her number, and calls ahead. If she is not working, he eats elsewhere. If she is working, she basically gets a tip that amounts to 100% of the bill. He will also order carryout for his lady, for me, for my roommates, all to compensate the owner for us taking up a table for five hours for discussions of violence…
He has a binocular mind, not a peripheral mind like mine. Our four decades spent dealing with criminals saw him as the hunter and me as the hunted—why I am his side kick and backup weapon trainer. He recalls the leopard or panther and uses his steel gray eyes to communicate a lot. Rudeness awakens a dark ire in him, as the fat woman waiting for her dinner party hangs around talking on speaker, drowning out our low conversation. He looks at her and she keeps it up. He looks again, and she pauses, still broadcasting her conversation across the eatery. He looks at her again and opens his hands and she turns the speaker off and he hisses, “Fail; that’s the kind of idiot that gets her old man beaten up at a traffic stop.”
We spend time examining his psychology. He has conversations in front of me and then has me access his inner mind. We do the same thing stabbing each other with blunt knives or doing jam versus draw drills. The waitress has a great name and fine personality. He likes to test their knowledge and mental alacrity. He is still a cop, drawing people into conversation so that he can determine their inner purpose. This woman agrees to be his waitress at this place. They exchange numbers. He coaches her on dealing with “the Ball & Chain” his wife. He then gives her a movie to view and four songs to listen to. He is interested what runs through the minds of those divided from us by some 50 years.
He recalls all their names, even the bus boys. He does not like the tall sissy. He looks at the hostess who was offended by his suggestion that she could get promoted to waitress to work this table. After some time he nods at her, “Look at the way she walks. She’s a nibbler [lesbian/dyke]. What do you think?”
“If she is, it is only provisional. She is afraid of the older larger women who wait tables. I can see that. Lots of seniors here who don’t tip. A man that tips, well, she is avoiding you.”
“Okay, we’ll see.”
He quizzes his new waitress on the young “nibbler,” and she says, “Oh, she’s dating [the sissy bus boy.]”
To this I said, “See, you were right!”
They laugh and he says, “That is why this man is in demand—he’s got the escape chute compass to work your way out of an over commitment.”
He has me order a feast: clams casino, oysters, prime rib, crown royal, coffee, just for me. He does not drink.
“What do you think?” as he spreads his hands, “was describing the chunky girl manager as corn-fed over the top? I know I’m an asshole—but is it too much? I can see the Irish in you too. You have a temper. You just have it on safety—which we will get back to.”
To him I observe, “You are like a leopard, you are binocular in your mindset—goes with your occupation and being a shooter. These people are all potential prey, for you or someone else. You scatter words out like puzzles and then observe how the prey pick up the pieces. You use conversation like a military guy uses alcohol, to draw out the true person and see what is behind their mask.”
“Mister James, that is why we are here. You provide balance. You are passive liberty and I’m aggressive focus. Now, I will assess you. I know you don’t shoot and your hands are shaky unless you have a fucking blade in it. You piss me off—never got a clean kill on you once in ten years. So, I showed you the revolver and asked you what you’d do and you said club with it. Well, that is how the old school guys did it before I got on the force. Those guys, those guys would go upside your head out of the gate. Times were different. So, outside your wheel house, let me explain the two options for the automatic hand gun. [He then explains how a revolver and automatic handguns differ.] An automatic, in my old trade, either came as a crisp or an LEM. A crisp, in regards the deployment, has a short pull—which is good and bad. We’re cops, not gun fighters. If you really know you are going to have an issue you might want that crisp. I’m on patrol in the post car, out of the post—a young dude in the toughest post of the toughest precinct in the jurisdiction, and the guys above me, they are some tough sons of bitches. The firearm is not the first thing, its last, really; but when you need it you need it.
“So, a crisp, I’m going to cock the hammer and put it on safety, because it is smoother to draw and shoot in a pinch by sliding the safety rather than cocking the hammer. That’s great if I’m in a car and getting ambushed, which is something we always worried about. Get to that later if you pass this test. The LEM, is Law Enforcement Modified. It’s a long trigger pull for liability, so you can draw down, take aim, issue commands to desist, to show me a hand, to stop advancing. The door behind you, let’s say some guy with a machete comes through that door. He’s halfway here by the time I draw. With a long trigger pull it is smoother and more accurate for a shot that is still 30 feet out—which is as far as you ever want to shoot. Once you fire, it will rock and roll at the same rate as the standard crisp. So its about that first shot. What are your thoughts on that?”
“The crisp sounds like a knife used for a snap cut. The LEM, that sounds like a drop stick counter to me, accessing the moving target slowly to reduced variables. Also, a long pull, as you demonstrate it, sounds like it would be handy for not shooting me since you are aiming over my shoulder with your finger gun.”
He leans back in his inimical style, spreads hands, points trigger finger from above his shoulder like a laughing woodpecker beak, smiles wide and says, “Excellent. I might take you to the range yet to see how a knife brain works in that setting.”
He then leaned forward and smiles, “So, as you are the writer, thinks like a fighter, what I’m about to say over steak—you talk this stuff over steak—does not have to stay here.”
To be continued in ‘The Lamp.’
Finally, after 10 years training together, this man is treating me to actual head splitting cop takes.
