1947Chicago, Ray quits the Force

Before this, there's plenty of mention of corruption in the ranks. The story is set in about 1942, he's telling the story in 1947-48.

The deferment he mentions is deferment from military service.

That was the year everything fell apart. The winter of my discontent. We were so short of men, we borrowed from the other departments whenever something big hit, so when someone in Vice decided it was time to raid the fag bar again, I was there.

I was there in the sleet as we moved in, surrounded the place, just like closing in on a speakeasy during Prohibition. I hadn't been on the Force then, but enough old timers were around so I heard all about it. Except I remember thinking that the speakeasies had had better protection.

It was a lousy day to be a cop. Sure, back then I lived for rousting bad guys, for a good fight for a good cause. For the chance to knock some heads together and blow off steam. But all that happened that day was the head-bashing, and a gut feeling that this wasn't a good cause. It wasn't even a decent fight 'cause these guys might be illegal perverts sapping the moral strength of our nation, or whatever the party line was, but they didn't stand a chance. They could run like rabbits, but we'd catch them. They could fight, but they couldn't win, not with the numbers and the guns we brought with us. And whether they fought or not, they'd still end up holding cracked heads, sitting cuffed in the bullpen.

All in a days work, right? We bust in the doors, we caught the runners, fought the fighters, hauled out the hiders, loaded the bunch of them into paddy wagons. I did my share of swinging my stick that day. But I couldn't help seeing the faces of those faggots. They were just guys, just guys in the wrong kind of bar, just people being beaten and terrorized by the cops who'd sworn to serve and protect.

Then I sat at my desk, processing this Irish guy, and he tells me about his wife. Ya can tell he loved her, and she'd leave him when she heard about this. He says, "I got $100 in my pocket right now. How much to let me walk?"

And that's it. That was my breaking point. I'd done my damnedest to be a good cop, a straight cop, but here I was, being given a choice between ruining this jerk's life or taking a bribe ta do what I wanted to do in the first place. That was the way the system worked, and that was what was going on all around me, and I couldn't change it.

I swore at him for a while, and he shut up and took it. I put the booking form into a file, and slipped the picture of Stella that I keep in my desk drawer into the same file. Then I ignored him while I wrote my letter of resignation and dropped it in Welsh's in basket. The Irish guy wasn't going anywhere, not cuffed to the chair like he was.

I got the file and my coat from my desk, and started to walk away. But I came back and got Patrick. Of all the things I did that day, that's the only one that doesn't make me wince. Walked him down to the front of the Precinct, uncuffing him on the way. Walked out with him and told him to avoid the 27th from now on. He took off, I never saw him again.

I tossed the guy's booking form in a fire barrel on the way home. Told Stella I'd quit and we had another one of those fights -- the knock-down fights that end up in hot sex on the floor. Used to be, I'd pick a fight with her, let her rip into me, tell me what a dumb Polack I was, just for the good part at the end. Only this fight, and the ones after it, were long on the yelling and short on the loving.

She left me before spring came.

Stel wants to change the world, and she just might do it. She wants to be State's Attorney, and she needs a man who'll be right beside her, fighting for justice and upholding the law. She had plans for me -- I'd made detective and she wanted me to go higher, right up the ladder and into City Hall. My quitting the Force was the start of the finish of us.

I'd gotten a deferment, 'cause Welsh wanted to hang on to me, probably because Stella's talked to somebody who'd talked to somebody. Since I was out of the Force, and with Stella gone, I joined up. I wanted to fight, I wanted to kill someone and not feel bad about it. I wanted to get away from the bribes and the dirty business and just. . . just be a hero for once, the way I'd always thought being a cop would make me feel. And maybe I'd get killed in the line of duty, and maybe Stel would cry when Mom told her, and that'd be okay, if she cried at my memorial service, that'd be a good enough life for Ray Kowalski.

I was one messed up kid.

Maintain the Writer! Send Feedback to

or head back to the index