Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Why I Became a Cop

I remember when I decided I wanted to be a cop.

It was after my mom left; it was just me and my dad. I was about 10, and it seemed like my world had come crashing down. But if my reaction was bad, my father's was worse.

He started drinking- a lot. Before he would have a beer while watching the game, and, him and mom always had wine with dinner, but it was nothing compared to this.

He would go out late to the bar and leave me home, all alone. I watched T.V. until I fell asleep, and then usually woke up when he stumbled through the doorway at 3 in the morning and slipped off to bed. I would wake myself up for school, and creep out to eat breakfast, watching my dad sleep off his hangover on the couch where he had collapsed the night before.

At 10 years old I would go out to the station and wait for the bus myself, the city bus, flash my student card and sit down. When I came home he would still be on the couch, awake but not responsive, watching some trashy T.V. show. Unless he was working.

If he was working, when I got up in the morning I would nudge him into the shower, and then go to school. Usually when I got home I would be alone for hours on end, because after work he wouldn't come home; he would just go out with his buddies to the bars and the whole thing would start over again. I literally lived on Mr. Noodles and canned soup, because it was the only thing I knew how to cook. When dad had remembered to get groceries, we would sometimes have bread, but not much.

Somehow he managed to pay all of the bills, so no one really knew what was wrong except me, and the guys who would drop dad off after their drinking binges.

And then one night, the whole cycle stopped. It was about 1 in the morning when I woke to the sound of a knock on the door, and slowly, pulled myself off the couch and shook myself awake. I got the stool by the door (I was short at 11) and looked through the peep hole, surprised to see some cops outside.

When I opened the door I recognized my dad's friends, Officer Graham and Officer Randall. "Is your mom up?" O. Graham asked me.

I shook my head. "No."

"Could you go get her?" He asked me, just as friendly, but for some reason he looked sad.

"No." I told him. "She's not here."

He looked confused. "You're home alone?"

"Yeah."

"Where is she?" O. Randall asked. I remember thinking that they were really nosy, and also pretty stupid, if they didn't know that she left.

"How should I know? She doesn't live here anymore." I rolled my eyes as if it was old news, and realized that I had forgotten to change into my pjs.

The cops seemed even dumber to me now. "Oh. How long ago did she...leave?" They asked me, and I explained to them how she had disappeared one day about a year ago, never left a note, and that we hadn't heard from her since.

They listened sympathetically, and then reacted with surprise. "I think you'd better come with us, sweetie." They had said, and took me, crumpled, slept-in clothes and all, to the hospital, where my dad was in surgery after a car accident.

Apparently he and his buddies were driving drunk, and they had crashed while trying to race. One guy had died; the other 2, including my dad, had severe injuries. It didn't surprise me, really, and after my mom had left I had trained myself not to cry. I think that maybe the officers were surprised at how unfeeling I was, especially for an 11-year-old, but I guess I figured that whatever god existed wouldn't take two parents away from me in one year.

When he came out of surgery and they took me into see him, he was woozy, from the drugs they gave him and all the booze still in his system. He called me my mother's name, like he had forgotten that she had left, and asked what was for dinner. At that moment I hated my father. I already hated my mother and her stupid abandonment issues, and now I hated my dad and his drinking problems. I hated him for lying to his co-workers and not telling them the truth that his wife had left. I hated the whole world.

We went home when he got better, and things changed, a bit. He stopped drinking on duty, and bought a bus pass so that he couldn't accidently spend bus money on drinks. He still came home late and piss drunk, but he didn't drive anymore and always came home safely.

I, on the other hand, went through a dark period. I began stop speaking, just to my dad at first, and then to everything. I stayed up late watching shows like 'C.S.I.' and 'Criminal Minds', and even though I knew they were fake, it helped me feel better, fed the sadistic hunger inside of me, and reminded me the whole world sucked.

It wasn't until I got older that I realized that I didn't like the fact that the whole world sucked, and that there was nothing I could do about it. I didn't like the fact that I couldn't stop my father from losing his job because he had started drinking heavily again, or that we barely got by on my minimum wage job at Micky D's. And I hated absolutely hated the fact that there was nothing I could do about it.

It came the time for me to start thinking about what I wanted to do, once I had graduated. I didn't know what I wanted for a job, but I knew that I wanted a job that could change thing, and do something about the crappy state of the world. I wanted to stop people's mothers from leaving, and stop people's fathers from drinking. I wanted to save the poor people on 'C.S.I.' from being murdered, or raped, or whatever it was that happened on that episode.

My guidance councilor told me that I wanted to be a cop.

At first I hated the idea. My father was a cop; I had seen what it had been like for him. I guess I had some twisted idea that all cops were closet drunks who put their kids through hell every day. Slowly, though, I remembered all of the good cops I'd met. Officer Graham, and Officer Randall, who had taken me to see my father the night of the accident. Officer Best, who had always had a candy in his pocket for me, even when I had grown to be as tall as he was.

I understood that if I wanted to make a difference in the world that I either had to become president, or pull of that blue uniform and pull double shifts with extra paperwork, no matter how many bad memories it brought up.

So I did.

Posted by A. McNally at 4:59pm