The Voice in the Vase

I'm the funny cop that hit the headlines all over the country a couple weeks back. I been laughed at by more people than ever heard of the Keystone cops and lectured to right out in court on the birds and the bees by a wise-cracking, publicity-loving municipal judge. I been suspended and personally reprimanded by every superior officer on the Force including the Chief of Police himself, and I been the subject of hundreds of letters crisscrossing back and forth between the Police Commissioners, the City Attorney, The Mayor and all but one of the City Council because he had the flu. I been twitted by editors, radio commentators and TV comics for having a "dangerously clean mind," and some citizens' committee even started a crusade to get brighter recruits on the Force. My whole career's shot and it's all because of a pair of lousy perverts. What they did to me was worse than unnatural: it was supernatural and nobody believes me. But nobody! And all I can say over and over is it's true, so help me! Every bit of it's true and there's no way in the world tc prove it! That's why I'm writing this. Maybe someday in the years to come somebody will believe what I'm getting down on paper here. The way I feel I don't much care what happens to me after I've finished.

It happened like this. I was just in the middle of taking a special course for vice squadders, when I saw these two for the first time. It was on a crowded bus and there they were smack in the middle of the aisle with two bags of groceries each. There was plenty of room further back but they wouldn't budge.

How was I 'to know they were getting off in a block? Well, it so happened in the training. I was taking, the instructors said over and over to act just like anybody and be easygoing and friendly: none of the hard stuff people usually think of in connection with a flattie for some reason. The instructors said a hundred times, "If anybody spots you, you're a failure." So that's why I said to these two characters on the bus real friendly, "Get a move on to the rear of the bus, you two. Don't jam up the aisle."

They looked at me up and down and the little one said, "You're not at an intersection, friend." That set me back on my heels especially since one of my instructors had got on with me. He looked at me then up at the ads with a little private smile on his face. Sure, I got mad. I turned back to these two guys and said hard, "Snap into it or I'll run you off the bus." Then I noticed several people around smiling and whispering, and way back somebody guffawed. guffawed. And the little one said to the other one, "Didn't I tell you? The minute I laid eyes on him." All I could do was stand and stare at them and boil. But all the same I memorized their faces for future reference. Anybody can commit a crime and they usually do. Like the instructor said, "Everybody's a criminal waiting to be brought out. This includes you guys." Everybody in the class laughed but they knew how deep that remark was. So I studied these two and made a mental note of where they got off. Later I was glad I did because the instructor beside me gave me so bad a grade I was rejected.

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