The Choirboys by Joseph Wambaugh Read Free Book Online

drooping Zapata moustache, lowered his eyes and turned his scarred back to the two policemen.
    The black hod carrier’s wife spoke first. “The problem is, Officer, that this broad and her daughter always has to hang clothes on the same day that I’m hangin mine. And that ain’t no big thang, cept they got no respect and just throws other folks’ clothes on the ground like pigs. And I has to put another quarter in the machine and wash my clothes all over agin.”
    “That’s a lie,” said the husky Mexican woman, throwingher long sweaty brown hair back over her shoulder. “Her and her daughter are the ones that don’t have no respect. Animals, that’s what they are.”
    “Go back to Mexico, bitch,” the black woman said.
    “I was born here, nigger. Go back to Africa,” the Mexican woman said, and Whaddayamean Dean stepped between them as the black woman lunged forward, bumping Whaddayamean Dean into Roscoe, who fell against the black man, who accidentally stepped on Roscoe’s plain toed, ripple soled police shoes, which he had spit shined every day for the eight months he owned them.
    “Goddamn it!” Roscoe yelled, holding his arms out between the two women, eyeballs white with disgust. “I heard enough!” he thundered, arms still extended, knees slightly bent, face twisted in agony like Samson straining at the pillars.
    Then Roscoe dropped his hands to his hips and walked in slow circles. Finally he paused, looked at the people like a sad but patient uncle, nodded and said, “I heard enough!”
    “Looky here, Officer,” said the black man, “I don’t mean no disrespect but I heard enough a you sayin you heard enough. You’re makin me nervous.”
    Roscoe walked over to Whaddayamean Dean, pulled him aside and whispered, “This spade’s the troublemaker far as I can see. I think he’s got a leaky seabag. Dingaling. Psycho. You can’t even talk to him. Look what the motherfucker did to my shoe!”
    “I think we can quiet them down,” Whaddayamean Dean said as Roscoe stood on one foot like a blue flamingo, rubbing his toe hopelessly on the calf of his left leg.
    “Can I talk to you?” Whaddayamean Dean asked the Mexican, walking him to the other end of the hall while Roscoe Rules hustled the silent black thirty feet down the stairway.
    “I don’t want no more trouble, outta you,” Roscoe whispered when he got the hod carrier to a private place.
    “I ain’t gonna give you no trouble, Officer,” the black man said, looking up at the mirthless blue eyes of Roscoe Rules which were difficult to see because like most hotdogs he wore his cap tipped forward until the brim almost touched his nose.
    “Don’t argue with me, man!” Roscoe said. His nostrils splayed as he sensed the fear on the man who stood hangdog before him.
    “What’s your name?” Roscoe then demanded.
    “Charles ar-uh Henderson,” the hod carrier answered, and then added impatiently, “Look, I wanna go back inside with my family I’m tired a all this and I just wanna go to bed. I worked hard…”
    But Roscoe became enraged at the latent impudence and snarled, “Look here, Charles ar-uh Henderson, don’t you be telling me what you’re gonna do. I’ll tell you when you can go back inside and maybe you won’t be going back inside at all. Maybe you’re gonna be going to the slam tonight!”
    “What for? I ain’t done nothin. What right you got…”
    “Right? Right?” Roscoe snarled, spraying the hod carrier with saliva. “Man, one more word and I’m gonna book your ass! I’ll personally lock you in the slammer! I’ll set your hair on fire!”
    Whaddayamean Dean called down to Roscoe and suggested that they switch hod carriers. As soon as they had, he tried in vain to calm the outraged black man.
    A few minutes later he heard Roscoe offer some advice to the Mexican hod carrier: “If that loudmouth bitch was my old lady I’d kick her in the cunt.”
    Twenty years ago the Mexican had broken a full bottle of beer