Dragnet 1968

Dragnet 1968

We were working the Day Watch out of the Public Morals Division out of the Wilshire Division. The Captain was Lemuel Sancocho. My Partner is Bill Gannon. My name is Friday. I carry a badge. And a grudge.

Bill Gannon walked into the division and hung the shiny jacket of his Robert Hall suit on the hook on the wall at the back of the squad. We had been partners for twenty years. We agree on most things. Except barbeque sauce. And Politics.

“Morning Joe. Coffee?”

“Get it to go. We have a call.”

“So early? The perverts don’t usually come out until the sun goes down. Is the Democratic

 Convention in town?”

“Enough Bill. I don’t need to hear you John Birch bullshit this early in the morning. Get the coffee and I will bring the car around.”

We got in the car and drove to Bullocks department store. The house detective met us at the door. A balding stoop shoulder former police officer the dandruff was thick on the shoulders of his ill-fitting, stained three piece suit.

“You the dick? This is my partner Gannon. I’m Friday. What happened?”

“Yes I am Mister Whalen. We have a pervert in my office.”

“What you called us on yourself?”

“No my assistant is keeping an eye on him. It was a man in a dress who insisted on using the ladies room. He says he identifies as a woman.”

“He identifies as a woman? What does his driver’s license say?”

“He didn’t have one. Only a little yappy dog he snuck into the store. He calls it a lumber or a clumber or something. Let’s go upstairs and talk to him.”

We took the elevator up to the seventh floor. While we traveling the store dick looked at the bottom of his tie that was sticking out of the bottom of his vest. There was some food on it. He examined the discolored morsel of what looked like a hot dog and picked it off with his long dirty fingernails. He inspected it. Then ate it.

The holding cell for the department store was a small windowless room with a scarred table and two chairs. In one was a fatter younger version of the store detective. He was pink faced and porcine. He looked like nothing so much as a piglet in a suit. In the other chair there was a man in a dress.

“What’s you name son?” I asked the young puffy man in the JC Penny frock. He didn’t even wear a dress from the store. No wonder they called the police. “Why did you go in the ladies room?”

“Because I am a lady. My name is Maxine. Maxine Weiss. I don’t understand. What is the problem officer?”

“You got a dick and you went into the ladies room you pervert,” sputtered the young fat store dick. It seemed that Bullocks suffered from a plethora of dicks. “We ought to take you outside and kick the shit out of you!”

“That’s enough out of you kid” piped up Bill Gannon. “We had one of these guys in Korea Joe. Always running around in a dress and heels. He wanted to get out of the Army. They generally want something else. Attention mostly.”

“Well son you can’t go in the ladies room if you are not a lady. That is not permitted. I am afraid we are going to have to take downtown and book you for lewd and lascivious. Section 69 subparagraph D of the penis code. Err. The penal code.”

“This isn’t right. I am a woman. I have always thought I was a woman. You can’t tell me different” sniffed and simpered the butch ingénue. She might have claimed to be a woman but it had be five o’clock shadow somewhere…..and it was here with the man in a dress.

“I am only interested in facts. Just the facts. The face is you penis tells a different story. Let’s go you are under arrest.”

“This is so unfair” she sputtered as Bill and I each grabbed an arm and frog marched out of the department store. “Someday I will be recognized for what I am. I will be able to go to the ladies room!”

“Sure Maxine sure” said Bill. “Anything’s possible these days when they let the coloreds use our drinking fountains. I just hope I am dead before that happens.”

“Enough with the bullshit Bill.”

“How’s that?”

“They are no more likely to let men pee in the ladies room than they are going to elect a Negro president. Stop with the foolishness. It’s boring.”

“I hope you are right Joe. Let’s this pansy to the pokey.”