By:

William Kinard

It should be noted that I’ve published this essay many other times, on several other blogs. It is a favorite essay of mine, and I always want to include it on any blog I do.

The office was something plain; a desk that was centered in the room, with Dell desktop on it, a small two-drawer filing cabinet beneath it at an angle, a police officer’s dress coat hung from the hook on the back of the door. The office was too pragmatic to be called bureaucratic, but also too depressing. Such was the office of Sargent “W,” a well built black man with a lite mustache shaded in just over his upper lip.

He was a recruiter for the Montgomery Police Department, and I was not sure why I was there. At one point, a few weeks prior I thought about being a cop, and had applied. Filling out the online form made it too easy, and I started having regrets once I clicked “submit.” But I let the application process play out. Why not, I would muse in my room — the same room in my parents’ house I had slept in for almost 12 years while growing up, and at twenty-five it was the same room I would take shit for sleeping in from Sargent W. (I mean, I can back out any time before I say “yes.”) So I let the application process work. And after the physical exam, and filling out papers about my history — which included drug use, organizations I belonged to, education, and so on — I was asked to attend this one-on-one interview with Sargent W.

Am I that desperate, I mused the night before the interview. I mean, I was pretty desperate, since I was unemployed, living with my parents, broke, bored, lonely, and depressed. So I thought I would go to see what it would be like. During the physical exam — a week or so earlier — I had met some nice people at the training academy. None of them were cops. I hit it off with one guy, a well built black man about my age wearing a black T-shift with the Thunder Cats emblem on it, when I complimented him on said T-Shift.

“Do you like Thunder Cats,” I asked, more to break the ice.

“Yes. They don’t make shows like that anymore,”he responded.

“No they don’t. Did you see the remake Cartoon Network made?”

“They made a remake? When was this?”

About two years ago. It only had one season, but it was pretty good.”

“I’ll have to check that out online.”

For some reason I thought this made him and myself the outliers in the group of about fifty people who had come to do push-ups, sit-ups, and run a mile for what gradually seemed more like the entertainment of the Training and Recruiting Division of the Montgomery Police Department than for a job, but I guess every fraternity has its hazing period. I wondered if I could talk to any of the other applicants about Thunder Cats, but it did not appear likely as so many of them looked very serious. Most of the men had defined biceps, with either really shot hair or shaved heads; my own hair was uncut, and my arms were slightly wider than sticks.

My new acquaintance told me started taking about wanting to be a cop. He said he had taken courses in criminal justice, and really like shows like Criminal Minds. He looked hurt when I told him that I had not seen that show. Behavioral science was what interested him the most. But we continued talking when we could during our time at the physical evaluation application.

Once the physical part was done the recruiters sent us on our way. “Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” they might have said. So I waited; it had been an interesting experience. And when Sargent W called asking for a one-on-one interview I was like “sure.” I did not get too many requests for interviews, so it was exciting to have one for a change, and a few days later I made my way back down the Selma Highway with the paper work he asked for — SSN, list of any felonies/misdemeanors committed, detailed list of parking tickets from when I was a student in college, and my framed college diploma.

Once back in his office everything went to shit fast. When he asked to see my college diploma I had to hand it to him in its large frame; my cruel parents had it framed so that it could not be removed without breaking the glass. At seeing this he let out sigh of irritation. It was obvious Sargent W did not like me, and I started to dislike him. Maybe it was a conflict of personalities; his dry type-A personality did not really compliment my introverted type-B. It didn’t help that I didn’t put in the effort to make him like me. I had started to see him as an example of what it was to be a cop — that is, tight assed and too easily irritated. But he probably saw me as too effeminate and sheltered to be a cop. (He was right too.)

From there he asked me why I wanted to be a police officer; because popular culture conditions us to think highly of police officers with shows like Law and Order: SVU, Criminal Minds, Castle, Chicago P.D., Blue Bloods, CSI: Las Vegas, and CSI: Miami portraying cops as moral compasses, I hummed to myself.

“I’m not sure,” I said.

‘What do you mean, ‘you aren’t sure,’” he asked.

“I’m not sure.” It was weak, but I was not going to tell him my initial thoughts. “I guess I’m a bit wishy-washy as to the ‘why.’” I should not have said that; it is damaging in any interview, but in this one it opened a whole lecture that I did not want.

“Wait here please,” said Sargent W, leaving me alone in his office. While he was gone, I decided I need to end this interview quickly and leave. I should have just left without a word; that would have been best. But I thought I should at least end the interview gracefully.

When Sargent W returned he had another sergeant, Sergeant Y, with him; she was slightly shorter than I was, carrying a water bottle, and sat in the chair on next to the wall to my right. The conversation repeated itself, and Sargent Y told me that I should be sure I wanted to join. I was sure I did not.

“This isn’t a job so much as it is a lifestyle choice,” she said.

(I know. I want to leave.) I nod to indicate I understand.

“Let me ask,” said Sargent W, “you had a sheltered upbringing didn’t you?” (Is he trying to use reverse psychology to convince me to not pursue this?) I told them about my family, and let it slip that I lived with my parents

“You’re twenty-five, and still live with you parents,” he asked, his shaded in mustache arching in a slight smirk.

“Yes.” He looked down at some papers on his desk, and Sargent Y stepped in to try and save the atmosphere.

“You have a college degree don’t you.”

“Yes.” (Best keep responses monosyllabic for the moment.)

“I think you could do more good outside of being a cop.” I nod. “What’s your degree in.”

“English,” I reply.

“You could be a teacher, and change someone’s life.” (Why does everyone think that English majors want to be teachers?) I nod again.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Sargent W, “I’ll put your application on hold for a year, and if in a year you come back and still want to do this we’ll give you a crack at it.”

“I think I should step back from this,” I replied, taking advantage of the opening they gave me.

“I think that is for the best.”

The three of us shook hands, with everyone knowing that I would never be back. It was a relief to finally be out of that building, and away from them. I thought about my day-friend with his Thunder Cats T-shirt; did he fair better with the recruiters? Would he even want to? I shrugged them off thinking that it was his life, and my life was mine.