As we whisked him off to jail,
I looked through the rear view mirror,
while my partner told him he was evil.
“It’s liquor!
That turns you into a devil!”
She teased him,… and gave me a smile.
But, I told her,
“Your just going to get him riled.”
Then he shouted and ranted with rage,
while his eyes bulged with a glaze.
“You think you’re gods,
“But, without bullets you’re duds.”
He would talk, then he would babble,
but all the while he cursed and spit
at the back of my partners seat.
Happy tourists in the Grant Hotel
unaware of the commotion in our car
looked over their finger bowls
and through the windows at our moving blur.
On Broadway’s wet dark streets
the steam shot through each manhole cover
with a hiss then hung in pockets.
Again, the drunk began to rant and rave,
“You think you are gods,” he exclaimed,
“But, where are your followers?
….. Where are your disciples?
Without guns and bullets you are worthless.
Your disciples sleep in your revolver chamber.
They worship you in closed eyed prayer.”
The old drunk’s words were full of crazy logic
but they were also idiotic –
In his babble they just popped out
like a sudden picture out of TV static.
He continued on the same theme.
“A circumstance inside your mortal eye,
will select their beginning and their end,
Let them out to crash fast upon life’s rode
and die, never to know who or what they are.”
The old drunk was on his way to jail.
His voice was full of alcohol and ale.
So when he talked about god and bullets
I didn’t give a piss.
As we splashed through the ghost clouds on patrol,
I chewed the old drunk’s words inside my soul.
Sometimes, I thought,
my job was like driving heaven’s bullet
through the lowest clouds on earth.
Perhaps the words were an omen in the night
of unthinkable things to come about.
But the thought was forgotten.
There were arrest reports to be written.
The drunk was booked and jail door slammed shut.
Once again, our patrol car had an empty stomach.
We drove to “Johnny’s” Restaurant”.
I began to write the old man’s arrest report.
Our ears were tuned to Station “A”
while we sipped our coffee and wrote our 153.
When the dead air broke alive
we listened to its cracks and sighs.
Then my partner and I raised our eyes
when our squad car was assigned,
“…. a man under a house with
a Bible and a gun!”
At the destination we arrived and found a prowler
who’d climbed beneath a woman’s floor.
She heard noises in the night.
She drew her skirt about her waist so tight.
Her teary face was quite distraught.
She claimed there is a prowler beneath her
wooden floor– She could hear him making prayer.
He was seen by a neighbor,
with a Bible, and a gun!
Should we try to coax him out,
or just leave him alone?
Upon our stomachs we begin to crawl
through a hole in the cellar wall.
We break cobwebs,
….. chase spiders
through the underbelly of the house
and make our way to where,…
A face looks back with beads of sweat
that sparkle in the dark and dust;
in a dim glow of flash light
he clutches his Bible and trigger tight
to ask,
“From where have you come?”
“From above the wooden ceiling.”
We reply.
He whispers to us,
“God does not hear my prayers.
I pray soft to the god above.
I hear steps of thunder
above my head and shoulder.
My prayers do not go through the wooden floor.
I think I should pray louder!
I should shoot my gun through the wooden
ceiling to get god’s attention.
But, I just mostly listen”
We whisper back at him,
“We have come from above the wooden ceiling
The god that lives up there
doesn’t want you under her floor.”
He gives us a strange look and whispers back,
“God doesn’t want my prayer.
Doesn’t want me here anymore.
Doesn’t want my prayers beneath this floor.”
We tell him,
“Your praying makes god nervous,”
His head shakes.
He looks at his gun and then back at us.
“God doesn’t want you to fire your gun
into the wooden sky.
You have gotten god’s attention.
God wants you to go away–
or you could die!”
Suddenly above the floor
foot steps came near.
They gave the man a start
and he dropped his gun in the dirt.
Then grabbed,… at his gun in the dim light
while the shadows went breaking and jumping in the dark
as if to point the gun at us–
or just to pick the gun up from the dust!
In a fraction of an instant
Six hard faced sailors were let loose.
Lightening struck beneath the house.
Gone, all gone their lives spent
so quick and fast.
Only for a moment their lives last.
Beneath the house a man lay dead.
From beneath the wooden floor we retired.
Shaking we walked up to the lady’s door
and simply said,
“He will not bother you anymore.”
Now I sit silent and await the Coroner.
My partner empties shells from our guns
and replaces each spent cartridge
with a fresh unspent bullet that
…. sits ready to explode!
Empty cartridges are tossed into a poke.
There is an emptiness in and out.
We need to be told we were right.
Yet, we wait, listen to dead air static and think.
Could we be the ammunition in a target practice
for the gods in preparation for some cataclysmic fracas?
Or, perhaps something less.
Helpless bullets in the rifle of a drunk and reckless god
who, swaggers in his backyard
and shoots at the stars and moon
…. beyond his comprehension!
Listen to Station “A”
slowly winding out her song
She is picking and choosing partners in the sky
and winding hearts and muscle into destiny.
She deals a hand of cards to each,
a game of poker in the night;
where the ante is a patrolman’s fate
and winning hand a life.
Station “A” draw tight
your strings about my partners in the night.
I await your next call to be directed where to go.
I travel where I am told!
Yet, while toward the mark I travel, I wonder
about being bold,….
and how much influence I have over
when and how I shall explode!
The end
Copyright © 2009, by Charles N. Guthrie
This was written in 1969. I was 26 years old. Written during the period I worked on a special police unit called “21-X” which only responded to domestic, and neighborhood disputes. My partners in the Southern California police department I worked for were Lee Curtis, and Randy Swanson. We handled 21 years of domestic disputes in about two years. Good guys, both of them. This poem is 40 years old, has ridden around in the back of cars, stored in lockers, under beds, in closets, and computers; has survived marriages and girl friends, even a car wreck and it’s a good feeling to let it loose. It’s not a real story, but we did have to talk a man with a bible out from under his house.
When I wrote the poem my thoughts were about police enforcing a divine morality on earth, angels with guns. At some point on earth morality is enforced by someone with deadly force. Like the bullet shot at the target, once assigned a radio call we had little choice but to arrive and handle the situation. The idea that there is something watching over all of us, aiming us towards a divine ending and we’re all part of the divine scheme is contrasted with the idea that a drunk god could be shooting us like bullets at the moon for no apparent reason. A bullet hurtling toward a target trying to make sense out of its life, trying to have some control over its direction and understanding of its purpose before it explodes seemed analogous to what we were doing for a living. In the real sense, not just police but everyone is that bullet.
