I THINK IT'S KINDA FUNNY, I THINK IT'S KINDA SAD. THE DREAMS I DREAM OF DYING ARE THE BEST I

Blog number sixty-three                                    21 Nov 2006

First off, I'm reading a good book -- an autobiography about a New York cop whose beat was the projects.  I'm going to tell you a few things from there, do a little quoting.  OK?

He's telling about the sass the cops get from the tenants. 

"I did take some pleasure on one downward trip, with a DOA.  The gurney was too long for the elevator, and it was stood up: the bagged body was on its feet, just out of sight of the doors.  When we stopped on a floor, midway, a man stepped toward us and I said, "Sorry, you'll have to get the next one."  He made the spit-face and the spit-sound,--ptuh!-- because nobody was going to tell him what to do, and he strode inside.  He met the corpse, face to face, and fell silent.  His deliberately reversed footsteps had the quality of mime: Here I am, leaving.  "Thanks for your cooperation and have a nice day."

A complainant called because her cat had turned vicious.   "...it's a mystical cat you know, a Jewish cat. I tried everything, petting it, feeding it, throwing boiling water at it -- nothing works, nothing."

And my favorite so far, a lady called because "Three white men in white suits locked me in the bathroom and stole my cigarettes."  Not wanting to put out an APB for the Bee Gees, he began asking her questions.  "Want an ambulance?"

"No."

"Sometimes you don't know you're hurt right away, the shock and all.  Are you under treatment, take any medicines?

She nodded, "Yes.  For the voices."

I once read in the Elk Grove Citizen, the local paper, the full blurb, that Mrs. so and so was recovering nicely after the Post Office door fell on her. 

And this next one is kinda eerie.  Might not let the kids see it.

I was talking to one of my sergeants one day, just shooting the bull, and he told me about being on C. Q.  (Charge of Quarters) one night and he was to wake this one guy and when he did, the guy slugged him and went kind of crazy.  After the guy calmed down he explained that he was once stationed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and he woke one morning to find that the man on either side of him had his throat cut during the night, along with every other sleeping man in the barracks.  One alive, one dead, one alive, one dead -- all through the barracks.

I worked with this one Staff Sergeant at Mather A.F.B.  Good worker, good Sergeant.  One night he and some other guys went to Reno, gambling. He won big on Keno - I think ten thousand or so of 1956 money.  One day I'm working on an aircraft and he came out asking if I could loan him some money -- that he was asking everybody, and those that lent first would be the first paid back.  He had written some bad checks up in Reno and was being pressured big time.  I turned him down.  He seemed to expect it because he just said "OK," turned around and left.

One night I'm watching TV and there's a breaking story about an Air force Sergeant wanted for robbery that had dived into the Sacramento River and was swimming across at that very moment, trying to escape from the police.

It was him.

Gambling is a drug to some.   Best thing when you gamble is to loose big time the first time out.  If you win big, seems like you might get the idea that you can do it again.

And you can't.