Everything That Happened

to me and sometimes to other people

Category: NYPD

Brushes with the law

These are some police encounters/interactions that I’ve had over the years. I hope this piece doesn’t come off as anti-cop; I’ve had many positive encounters with the police along with the negative ones, which are easier to remember. Society needs cops, and I am the first to call for the water cannon during large-scale bad behavior.

I wish I could say “at least I never got arrested”, but a scam in Clarksville, Tennessee spoiled my record. The cops there were only doing what the town demanded of them:  bringing in more revenue.

Iron Claw Wrist Cuff with leather holster, courtesy liveauctioneers.com)

At about eight years old, I was in Newark Penn Station with my father, who was talking to a cop. I don’t know who initiated the conversation, but I doubt it was my father. More likely, the cop came over because his Spidey-senses spotted a drunk. I didn’t pay any attention to what they were talking about, but while they talked, I studied the cop’s holster and gun, and the other equipment attached to his belt. I asked him what the thing with the handle was for. I don’t remember if he told me, but he did show me, right there in front of my father.

The Iron Claw Wrist Cuff has a locking ratchet; when the handle is pulled up, the claw gets tighter. The only pictures I have seen of the claw in action show it as a come-along restraining device encircling the subject’s wrist. However, the demonstration I received was of an “off-label” use, as a tool of torture. In this usage, the claw is closed on the wrist like a letter C, with one arm of the claw closing down on the upper side, between the radius and ulna bones, and the other arm digging into the pressure point underneath. Try grabbing one wrist with your other hand, fingers on top, tip of the thumb digging in hard underneath. Hurts, doesn’t it? Now imagine that grip made of steel. Oh, and the claw’s  handle can be twisted sideways for increased pain. All in good fun, just showing this kid how it works. Hug your babies tonight, officer. Hope you enjoyed it.


When I was in Cub Scouts, at maybe nine or ten years old, they took our pack on a field trip to the Bloomfield Police Department; it might have been East Orange but I’m pretty sure it was Bloomfield. In particular, I remember they showed us the cells; I believe there was an implied threat there of what could happen if we were not good citizens. They also took our fingerprints, sort of an interesting process to watch back in the days before you could see it done on TV twice a week. They made and retained for themselves a set from each of us. The reason they gave was “In case you get lost”, but what they really meant was either, “In case you are ever so hideously mutilated that you are unrecognizable”, or, more likely, “In case you grow up to burglarize the house of somebody important enough to warrant a full investigation”. A few years later I mentioned the fingerprinting to someone who said, “Oooo, FBI knows who you are now, better not do anything!”, implying that I might be the type to maybe “do something” some day. The army took my fingerprints too, so I guess the FBI has a double set.


One 4th of July, my high-school buddies and I had some firecrackers, nothing big or dangerous, just those little ones about two inches long that come strung together in a pack of 50 and go “bang” loud enough to make anyone who is unprepared jump. We were setting them off on the curb in front of my house, sometimes putting one under a tin can to see how far it would fly. We only had one or two packs, so we lit them one at a time to make them last.

(When we were younger, we lit them with slow-burning “punks”, skinny foot-long sticks of compressed sawdust, but there was no need for punks this year, since at least one of us always had a cigarette going.)

Anyway, one of the neighbors, probably the constant complainers from two doors down, called the police. When they arrived, one cop explained (as if we didn’t know) that fireworks were dangerous and illegal, and that they had to confiscate ours and “destroy” them, that’s the word he used. I have to give them credit – they destroyed our firecrackers right then and there, by driving two doors down the street, lighting the whole string at once, dropping them into the gutter and driving away.


I got a speeding ticket on Park Avenue in East Orange when I was 17; I know I was 17 because one condition to resolve the ticket was that I bring a parent to court so the parent could receive a lecture also. My mother was annoyed at first, but changed her tune when  “The judge looked just like Gregory Peck!”


The Glen Ridge police once gave me a speeding ticket for doing 38 in a 35 zone on my way to work. Glen Ridge didn’t want kids driving crappy old cars through their classy town.

Traffic stop, courtesy law offices of Hart J. Levin

Other classy towns that didn’t want kids driving through were the Caldwells, several towns in North Jersey. We would cruise around the area aimlessly, then maybe stop for burgers. One night we were driving around, four kids in the car, not speeding or anything, when the cops pulled us over. They explained there had been a warehouse break-in and burglary in the next town, and the night watchman had been knocked out. They asked what we were doing in the area and made us get out of the car so they could look us over. There was no search. They were satisfied and let us drive off. Next night, different car, different guys (except for me) out cruising in the same area, stopped by the same two cops. One comes up to the window and explains about a break-in and burglary in the next town, night watchman got knocked out. I asked him if it was the same night watchman that got knocked out the day before. They took a closer look at us, then said to keep moving. No apology was offered, and we didn’t expect one.


My friends and I generally hung out on the corner by Vince’s grocery store. Vince’s  neighbors were mostly our own parents, aunts and uncles, so there were few objections to us being there. Some neighbors did object, though. One of them was Angelo, a special cop who lived on the second floor of the building  next door. He had a new baby, so he was stretched pretty thin, and wanted us to keep the noise down. I don’t think we were ever noisy; it was just conversation; the boombox hadn’t been invented yet.

One day Angelo came out on his porch and shouted down to us to be quiet, adding that he was a cop. I knew he was only a special cop, and muttered “Let’s see your badge”, more as an aside to the group than directly to him. He went back inside, and a moment later was downstairs, walking up to me with a .45 automatic. He cranked the slide and pointed it in my face from about two feet away, saying “THIS is my badge. Now get out of here!” That was a tough argument to counter, so I turned around and started walking home, followed shortly by everyone else. I still remember how big the hole in the front of that thing looked from up close. I don’t know if Angelo ever got hired as a real cop, but I hope not.


When I worked at Foodland, employees were expected to keep an eye out for shoplifters. If we saw someone leaving without paying, we were supposed to intercept them, then bring them back inside to sign a confession form in which they promised never again to enter the store. I didn’t try very hard to catch any, but one Sunday I spotted a particularly egregious case. Right in front of me, without even looking around to see if anyone was watching, a fiftyish woman picked up a chunk of expensive cheese and put it into her purse. I approached her as she was leaving the store, told her I knew what she had taken and asked her to follow me back to the office. (Looking back, I am ashamed of being involved  in this apprehension program. I wasn’t trained as a police officer. If stores have a shoplifting problem, they need a paid security guard walking the aisles to deter it, not employees stopping people outside after it happens .)

She ignored me and kept on walking. Stupidly, I grabbed a nearby clerk and told him to come with me. I didn’t have a plan – we just followed her,  with me occasionally entreating her to come back to the store. So, here’s the picture, a woman of a certain age wearing a Persian-lamb coat is being followed closely down the sidewalk by two young men wearing supermarket whites. My lack of a plan was resolved when a  police car took interest, and after hearing our stories brought all three of us to the police station. After some conflicting explanations, the woman and I were eventually given a court date, a Thursday. When I explained to my bosses where I’d be the next Thursday, they said I’d have to take Thursday as my day off; in other words, they weren’t going to pay for my court time. I said in that case I wouldn’t testify, and they said that was fine. The punchline? My shoplifter turned out to be the aunt of one of the owners.


Driving home from work one Sunday evening, I was pulled over while headed north on Route 9 in Elizabeth. I had a ’51 Lincoln at the time, which at nine years old looked more like a hoodlum car than a luxury one. I had no idea why I was stopped. The officer, an older gent, asked if I knew the speed limit there; I replied 45 and he said no, it’s 35, but you were doing 45 exactly. I think he liked that at least I was observing my own imaginary speed limit, and for extra credit was wearing a white shirt and tie. He let me go with a warning.


One Sunday morning future wife and I were headed down Park Avenue in East Orange. It was early, traffic was light, and I was speeding. From a long block away, I spotted a cop on traffic duty, standing on the corner in front of a church. I tried to slow down, but not soon enough, and he stepped into the road to flag me down. Oddly, he was wearing motorcycle boots and the whole strap-across-the-chest deal, but seemed to be on foot. He walked up to the window and I rolled it down. As soon as the window was down, future wife leaned across me and demanded, “Where’s your motorcycle?” Oh shit, I thought, this isn’t going to end well. He replied something like, “Oh, hi there!”, and went on to explain to her that he had had an accident with his motorcycle, and while he was recuperating he was on traffic duty. “Damn!” I said as we drove away. “You know everybody.”


For the sake of completeness, I’ll mention the NYPD subway cop who refused to give me directions when I asked him the same question, at the same location, two days in a row. His response, “Same as I told you yesterday”, is a perfect example of New York City attitude; it runs deep in the blood and I can’t fault him. In fact, I don’t bear a grudge against anyone mentioned here, except for that one sick bastard who used the iron claw on an 8-year-old.

6,350,400 cans of beer on the wall…

My mother had connections with New Jersey politicians and businessmen through her position at the Newark Athletic Club. Among them were the officers of People’s Express Trucking, and she got me a summer job with People’s the year I turned 17. Once, she had thought she might get me an appointment to West Point through the same connections, but that dream disappeared when I started screwing up in high school.

As background, problems at Schlitz’s Milwaukee brewery have impacted production, and the company is shipping, by rail, a few million empty beer cans for filling. The role of People’s Express is to get the cans off the freight cars, onto trailer trucks, and then to the local brewery. My role, and that of several other youths, is to do the actual work.

International Harvester, Cars-from-UK.com

The first day, we meet with our crew chief at the People’s Express offices on Raymond Boulevard. Three of us will drive an International Harvester pickup truck daily to the railroad yards in Williamsburg, Brooklyn; the others will drive in with the crew chief in his car. I volunteer to drive the truck,  I’ve had my license for almost three months now, I like driving and have lots of confidence. (I was unaware that by law one must be 18 to drive in New York City, the issue never came up.)

The Williamsburg rail yards are about 15 miles away: across the Jersey swamplands, through the Holland Tunnel, across lower Manhattan, over the Williamsburg Bridge, then on through Brooklyn to the yards.

Red and green together mean yellow

Traffic lights in Manhattan come in two colors , red and green. If the red comes on during a green, that’s the same as a yellow, act accordingly. The system worked fine; I don’t know why they changed it.

The Williamsburg bridge is old and narrow, it was built for horse-and-buggy traffic. It’s difficult to drive through the tighter spots without scraping a running-board; I do that about once a week.

On the return trip to Newark, the traffic is generally worse.

Canal Street across Manhattan is always stop and go;, when it’s bad we seem to tie for speed with the pedestrians. One day we are neck-and-neck with a gorgeous woman walking with a man, they get ahead, we get ahead, as we breathe teenage sighs and make comments among ourselves about her ass. Uh-oh, he’s heard us! He walks up to the passenger window. What if he has a knife?!  He speaks… “Would you boys like to fock her?” Relieved, we explain that no, we have to get back to Newark.

One day we are stuck inside the Holland tunnel for so long that we unzip and piss into the vents along the curb.

In the rail yards, freight cars are jockeyed around to align their center doors with our work platform. There are 48 empty 12-ounce Schlitz cans in each cardboard case. After we build a pallet of 35 cases (seven tiers, five cases per tier, 3 x 2 then 2 x 3, alternating), we use a pallet jack to get it into a trailer, 28 pallets per trailer; lather, rinse, repeat, it isn’t rocket science. I think we filled about three trailers a day.

Not beer, but you get the idea

We fall into a routine; on our morning break we have grape soda and pastries or pie. At lunch, we buy sandwiches and more grape soda, or beer, then sit on the end of an East River dock to look over at the Manhattan skyline or watch what floats by. A visitor from England once said about the East River, “All you Americans seem to do is defecate, fornicate, and eat oranges.” I would have said bananas.

We are sometimes drunk. The college guy has a ‘bit’ he does, I guess it’s a fraternity thing. He stands in the middle of Kent Avenue, drops his pants, and shouts “I KNOW ABOUT THAT, LADY, BUT WHAT ABOUT THIS?” Near the end of the summer he falls out of a freight car and breaks his arm.

Our truck has an on-the-floor gear shift, nothing new to me, but I’ve been using it wrong. Believing it’s a standard H pattern, I think I am shifting 1-2-3, 1-2-3 like normal people do, when actually I’ve been shifting 2-3-4, 2-3-4 for two weeks. So far, I’ve never needed reverse. One day they send me to get something at the hardware store. I park behind someone, and when I try to back up to leave, what is reverse for normal H people is actually low-low for me, and I keep creeping up on the car ahead. I finally go back inside and ask for help. The guy behind the counter comes out to show me, and I learn that I also have to push the stick down at the same time to get over and down to R. Ohh, I say, thanks! When I get back to the yards no one is the wiser.

We work six days a week and when the loadings seem to get behind, we are asked to come in on a Sunday. People’s Express manager Mr. Bruno drives up in his top-of-the-line baby-blue Cadillac to help us, parking  next to our platform. He’s wearing sandals and some sort of crotchless wrap-around terry loincloth, and that is all. Every time he bends over,  his nuts hang out. Two NYPD officers arrive, they see Mr. Bruno’s outfit and look at one another. They are here on a blue-law complaint, non-emergency labor is not allowed on Sunday. Mr. Bruno tries to talk them out of it, but oddly enough gets no respect; we pick up and go home.

We finally run out of empty cans, but there is still some summer left. People’s is nice enough to transfer the crew to the Continental Can Company, which I guess is some sort of sister company that shares directors with People’s. Continental Can, whose logo of three nested C’s can be found everywhere, is located in Paterson, New Jersey. Here, we are introduced to the Steam Jenny.


Part 2: My summer of Jenny

Modern pressure cleaner, used. Courtesy Auctions International

 

A 1950s-era steam jenny burns kerosene to boil water to make steam to clean dirty trucks and whatever else. It’s dangerous, and if you don’t get burned by steam, or knocked off your ladder by the nozzle kickback, it might blow up because you neglected some element of its care and feeding. Attention, attention must be paid to such a machine; this is drummed into our heads over and over by a wizened yard worker who seems genuinely afraid of the thing. Jeez, we get it, enough! Maybe he’s seen some steam-jenny carnage in his day.

We train by using the jenny to blast steam up and down the sides of a particularly dirty trailer; we use a housepainter’s ladder to get on top and clean there too. The company finds enough jenny work for us to last out the summer; we are careful, and somehow we survive.


From Google, top answer to steam jenny safety tips

People also ask

Can a pressure washer cut your finger off?

Because he received near immediate treatment at the emergency room he was able to keep his index finger, although some of its function was lost. It doesn’t matter if the fluid is water, grease or paint – all can cause permanent damage and even amputation when injected at high pressure.


Through the summer, we have been paid as grown men; we even get  time-and-a-half for overtime. Those paychecks spoil me for going back to school: why return to pointless boredom when I can be earning money instead? I don’t attend school very much during my senior year, and I drop out towards the end. I do stop in to pick up my yearbook, though, and years later I have an observant visitor who wonders why no one ever signed it. That’s a long story, I say.

The One Where I Get a Job in the City

I still have my night job at the A&P warehouse so there’s no rush. My resume is pretty good for someone who hasn’t actually worked in computing yet – the 725-hour programming course at Automation Institute gets respect, but it’s not enough to hire me on. Everyone wants experience. I don’t have much luck getting interviews in New Jersey, so I decide to bite the bullet and look for a job in New York City. After a few interviews in run-down offices with computer illiterates who act like they’d be doing me a favor to send me to a potential employer, I strike pay dirt.

It’s April Fool’s Day, 1968 and I am at the classy Robert Half employment agency in midtown Manhattan. In honor of the day, WQXR plays Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks in the background. I have a good interview, and next day get a call that Condé Nast Publishers would like to interview me next week. They, too, are a classy outfit, so classy (I later learn) that they have a special print chain on their printer just to produce that fancy é with an accent in their name.

Graybar Building, 420 Lexington Avenue

My interview with HR (“Personnel” then) goes well; I am all tweeded up in my good suit and overcoat, looking British and carrying a rolled black brolly. Optics out of the way, I next interview with Mr. Harrison, the manager of “the IBM Department”. He sees that I have mad 1401 computer skills, and we hit it off otherwise. He introduces me to Ben, the other programmer, and we three go to lunch.

I am hired. Condé Nast publishes Vogue and Glamour magazines, so there are models and other alluring creatures running loose through the building, but our floor, the 4th, is 100% business. The fashion magic all happens upstairs.

Going home from my first day at work, after I get off the crosstown  shuttle I am confused, and I get directions to the 7th Avenue line from an NYPD police officer. The next day, at the same spot, I am confused again and ask an officer for directions. He answers “Same way I told you yesterday”, and walks away annoyed.

Similar Maruse Padfolio, $135 at Amazon

After a week riding the subway, I retire my bulky attaché case, which tends to get tangled up in other people’s legs, in favor of a $4 generic zippered black leather portfolio I see in a drugstore window. I normally carry it at my side,  but in a really tight subway car I clutch it against my chest like a frightened girl.

If I get close enough to my office window to get the right angle, I can see the the Chrysler Building, with its crowd of Vietnam War protesters.

I design and write programs in Autocoder assembler language, lots of them. I must be good at it, because I get a raise. I am particularly proud of this latest one because it works almost immediately, and the output is perfect. It’s an analysis of reader responses to a survey in one of the magazines. I bring the printout to Mr. Harrison, who studies it and says something like “Hey, that’s really good”. Then he adds “Uh, you spelled questionnaire wrong” and chuckles. I laugh too, but it stings a little.

Ben and I and our boss generally stick together. We seldom leave the 4th floor except to get lunch downstairs in the Back Bay restaurant, which is cheaper than it sounds. Every other Friday is payday, when we go up to the 11th floor to pick up our checks.

One payday we start for the 11th floor, just us three in the elevator, when it stops at the 6th. In steps one of the models, not at all self-conscious despite wearing the latest in fashion, a see-through blouse, no bra. The fabric is sheer and her breasts are lovely. Following some instinctive sense of decency, the three of us avert our eyes, and now with heads tilted back we stare at the ceiling in silence until she reaches her destination. She exits and the doors close. As the car begins to move again, we gleefully exclaim in unison “DID YOU SEE THAT?”

Sometimes at lunchtime we walk around midtown, trying not to look like tourists. It’s best not to look up, or stare at anyone. There’s a blind guy who usually stands near our building selling pencils; people drop money into his cup but  don’t take a pencil.

One day Mr. Harrison, Ben and I have lunch with Diane, our IBM Sales Engineer, who is dressed for the times in short skirt and white over-the-knee  boots. The subject turns to commuting and I say I’d love to live in the city, but there’s no way all my family’s stuff would fit in an apartment. Diane says I’d be surprised how much stuff can fit in an apartment, and would I like to see hers? I say something like “Thanks, but I don’t think so” in the politest possible business-neutral way. After lunch, Ben turns to me and says “You’re crazy, man!” Yes, I probably am.

Even the company’s benefits are classy. For the one-year anniversary of their start date, women receive flowers, men receive a boutonniere. These are delivered by flower-shop courier. Each December, everyone gets a half-day off to go Christmas shopping.

“Like walking into an old western saloon”

This December brings a disappointment: the company Christmas party is cancelled due to the Hong Kong flu. Mr. Harrison still wants to have a department Christmas party, and one day around noon we head for the Cattleman steakhouse. We are Mr. Harrison, Ben and I, computer operators Ginny and George, six or eight keypunch girls (‘operators’, sorry) and their leader Marie. We fill a long table in a private room. We will pay for our own drinks and split the rest of the bill. Most of us opt for the prime rib, which is excellent.

The keypunch girls are delightful – we don’t usually see them because they work in their own, noisy room. I know two of them, Susan the long-haired girl from across the river who seems to have a thing going on with the IBM repairman who refuses to wear a white shirt; and Marika, fresh off the boat from Poland, not much English yet, but not much is required to punch names and addresses into cards.

On the way back to the office we break into loose groups and I get separated. I’m a little drunk. The city is beautiful at Christmastime. As I walk by the Pan Am building, I hear music and enter the lobby. A choir is singing Christmas  carols.

Everybody at Condé is nice, the work is rewarding and I love my job, but the commute is getting me down.

Would rather be somewhere else

From my house to work it’s only eight miles as the crow flies, but it’s a 4-seat commute with a lot of walking; even on a good day it takes 50 minutes. Coming in, I take the Newark subway to Newark Penn Station, then the PRR train under the river to New York Penn Station, then the 7th Avenue subway to 42nd Street, then the shuttle over to Grand Central. I get tired  again just typing that in. At each connection there’s a significant walk and sometimes a bit of jostling to get from one conveyance to the next. I start thinking about another hot summer underground.

Beyond the commute, two events help me make up my mind.

      • As I stop-start walk up the crowded stairs from one subway level to another, an aggressive old lady behind me keeps stepping on the back of my shoe; she seems to be trying to actually stand in my footprint. I am carrying a rolled umbrella with a metal tip, and I let it hang down far enough at my side that she runs her instep up under it and backs off.
      • [spacer height=”14px”]A newsstand vendor trying to sell out an earlier edition of the Post puts the late edition with closing stock prices underneath the earlier one. When I ask for a copy of the edition underneath, a reasonable request, he refuses. Not in anger but in a matter-of-fact way, I say “Well, fuck you then.” He replies in the same unemotional tone, “Fuck you too.”

So, I have soft-stabbed an old lady and said “fuck you” to a total stranger. It’s time to get myself out of New York, and also an opportune time to get my family out of Newark. I call an employment agency and ask them to find me a job as far south in Jersey as they can.

About four years later, I am in the city and stop by for a visit. By chance, the operators are running one of my programs. Whenever I see a night view of Manhattan with its million lights and offices, I absurdly tell myself “I made a difference.”

Midtown Manhattan

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