[Access part 2 here: http://jamesliou.com/liouwp/?p=328]
And then you become conscious of the play of people on the street. Why are these same people hanging out here, minute after minute and hour after hour… Why is this young messenger still standing in front of the auction house? Could be nothing… but go around the block once more. Hmmn, he’s still there. Why? Waiting for a friend or a fix or a … That tone cops have–that steady wariness, even if you ask them for something simple and innocent, directions or advice–is the product of their experience. There really are sinister jigsaw-puzzle patterns out there, and you may be one of the pieces. That is why cops, so to speak, examine your edges even as they answer your entreaties.
I also understand now the other great policeman trait: why cops are both mildly paranoid and desperate for donuts. Craving carbohydrates is a natural consequence of police work: It’s cold, you’re paying attention to six things at once, and there’s nothing that sounds so comforting as a shot of caffeine and a bit of pastry. The need for donuts is a product of the physical work of being outside in the cold coupled with the mental work of trying to find a pattern where there may be none, but where, if there is one, it could be sinister enough to cause a crime, get somebody hurt.
So as I made my rounds, I began to eye, wistfully, a busy Starbucks on the corner of Eighty-seventh street, full of laughing people knocking back hot drinks. The craving began to work on me so strongly that, after a solid, virtuous hour of safety patrol, I decided to stop for a quick, excusable, union-sanctioned break. (The union would have blessed it had they known about it, and had I belonged to one.) I ducked into the Starbucks–leaving my poor private school charges, I suppose, for a moment completely naked to the Hobbesian elements–and got in line. Just a quick triple-grande cappuccino and a biscotti, I swore, and I would be back outside keeping the peace.
I got in line. The guy in front of me, a white guy in a suit with a loosened tie, was ordering one of those baroque-flavored and sweetened seasonal drinks that Starbucks sells: an eggnog latte or a gingerbread latte, that kind of thing. More incidental sweetness. There was some kind of confusion on the part of the girl behind the register–was it tall or grande or caf or decaf?–and he sighed hard and said, “What is wrong with you?” He had a nasty, bad New York tone.
“Hey,” I said, about as sternly as I have ever said anything. “Let’s keep it polite here.” He swiveled and saw me standing there, an obnoxious shrimp, and was about to start letting me have it. But I held up my walkie-talkie and hit the button, surprising him with a blast of static. Then I stood there, impassive. He took me in : my orange vest and electronic communications gear, my look of official purpose. Perhaps the fuzz–obviously the fuzz, though whether bona fide Starbucks security or sinister private contractor, he was as yet uncertain.
He took one nano-step back, unsure. I scowled and hit him with another burst of static. Then I spoke into the radio. “It’s all right,” I said to no one in particular, “this situation secure.”
It sounded like just what Starbucks security might report to Seattle. Then I looked at him again, hard. The hiss and cough of the milk steamers continued in the background. He shrugged and stepped to the back counter where you pick up your drink. I hit the back of his jacket, hard, with one last long-distance burst of meaningless electric noise. I felt utterly vindicated, in love with the booming security professions, at home in the new epoch, a lover of my time: administering homeland safety, proud and paranoid among the paper cups.
When I told the family about it over dinner–how I had curbed hate crime at Starbucks and brought justice to the baristas–I thought they would be pleased: their First Line of Defense, their very own First Responder, tested and ready.
They looked at me long and pityingly. “The really sad thing, children,” said my wife, “is that he means it. If he can’t be with the fountain police, your father would like to be some kind of cappuccino commando, making sure that milk steamers don’t get used nefariously.”
“But all the kids got home safe, at least,” I said.
“They always do,” Luke pointed out.
“See?” I said, and I thought I had a point.
Through the Children’s Gate: Excerpts from Third Thanksgiving (part 3)
[Access part 2 here: http://jamesliou.com/liouwp/?p=328]
And then you become conscious of the play of people on the street. Why are these same people hanging out here, minute after minute and hour after hour… Why is this young messenger still standing in front of the auction house? Could be nothing… but go around the block once more. Hmmn, he’s still there. Why? Waiting for a friend or a fix or a … That tone cops have–that steady wariness, even if you ask them for something simple and innocent, directions or advice–is the product of their experience. There really are sinister jigsaw-puzzle patterns out there, and you may be one of the pieces. That is why cops, so to speak, examine your edges even as they answer your entreaties.
I also understand now the other great policeman trait: why cops are both mildly paranoid and desperate for donuts. Craving carbohydrates is a natural consequence of police work: It’s cold, you’re paying attention to six things at once, and there’s nothing that sounds so comforting as a shot of caffeine and a bit of pastry. The need for donuts is a product of the physical work of being outside in the cold coupled with the mental work of trying to find a pattern where there may be none, but where, if there is one, it could be sinister enough to cause a crime, get somebody hurt.
So as I made my rounds, I began to eye, wistfully, a busy Starbucks on the corner of Eighty-seventh street, full of laughing people knocking back hot drinks. The craving began to work on me so strongly that, after a solid, virtuous hour of safety patrol, I decided to stop for a quick, excusable, union-sanctioned break. (The union would have blessed it had they known about it, and had I belonged to one.) I ducked into the Starbucks–leaving my poor private school charges, I suppose, for a moment completely naked to the Hobbesian elements–and got in line. Just a quick triple-grande cappuccino and a biscotti, I swore, and I would be back outside keeping the peace.
I got in line. The guy in front of me, a white guy in a suit with a loosened tie, was ordering one of those baroque-flavored and sweetened seasonal drinks that Starbucks sells: an eggnog latte or a gingerbread latte, that kind of thing. More incidental sweetness. There was some kind of confusion on the part of the girl behind the register–was it tall or grande or caf or decaf?–and he sighed hard and said, “What is wrong with you?” He had a nasty, bad New York tone.
“Hey,” I said, about as sternly as I have ever said anything. “Let’s keep it polite here.” He swiveled and saw me standing there, an obnoxious shrimp, and was about to start letting me have it. But I held up my walkie-talkie and hit the button, surprising him with a blast of static. Then I stood there, impassive. He took me in : my orange vest and electronic communications gear, my look of official purpose. Perhaps the fuzz–obviously the fuzz, though whether bona fide Starbucks security or sinister private contractor, he was as yet uncertain.
He took one nano-step back, unsure. I scowled and hit him with another burst of static. Then I spoke into the radio. “It’s all right,” I said to no one in particular, “this situation secure.”
It sounded like just what Starbucks security might report to Seattle. Then I looked at him again, hard. The hiss and cough of the milk steamers continued in the background. He shrugged and stepped to the back counter where you pick up your drink. I hit the back of his jacket, hard, with one last long-distance burst of meaningless electric noise. I felt utterly vindicated, in love with the booming security professions, at home in the new epoch, a lover of my time: administering homeland safety, proud and paranoid among the paper cups.
When I told the family about it over dinner–how I had curbed hate crime at Starbucks and brought justice to the baristas–I thought they would be pleased: their First Line of Defense, their very own First Responder, tested and ready.
They looked at me long and pityingly. “The really sad thing, children,” said my wife, “is that he means it. If he can’t be with the fountain police, your father would like to be some kind of cappuccino commando, making sure that milk steamers don’t get used nefariously.”
“But all the kids got home safe, at least,” I said.
“They always do,” Luke pointed out.
“See?” I said, and I thought I had a point.