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By Root 690 0

when Walter and I were that age. He was six or seven years older than us. He was still living in the neighborhood and Walter told me he was seducing a new generation of kids. After I’d been working Hollywood Vice for eight or nine months, I found out that Blow Job Anderson was a big time informer to Narcotics Division. I went to the Commander of Narco and told him that Blow Job was a known pervert who had been seducing young boys since I was a kid. He told me not to worry, that he would take care of it. He didn’t do a goddamned thing. I went to the guys in Narco themselves, and told them. They didn’t care, either. They told me to cool it, that I had no proof, and that Anderson was a good snitch they couldn’t afford to lose. Finally, word came down from the commander of Hollywood Station: ‘Shut your mouth about Blow Job Anderson.’ I knew what I had to do. I got drunk one night and went looking for Anderson. I found him and broke both his legs with a lead filled baseball bat. I told him if I ever heard he was still bothering kids, I would kill him. While he was lying on the ground screaming, I poured a five pound bag of sugar into the gas tank of his Corvette. When I went to work the next day I was summoned to the Captain’s office. He handed me a resignation form. ‘I strongly suggest that you sign this,’ he said. I did. Farewell, police career.”

I had begun my story seeking absolution and had ended it on a note of intransigent pride. I wondered if Jane had noticed it. We stared at each other.

Finally, she spoke. “I don’t care. I don’t think any more or less of you for what you’ve told me. You just saw corruption that you couldn’t take. You—”

“That wasn’t it,” I interrupted. “I wasn’t an outraged moralist like most cops. I let plenty of perverts slide. I came down hard on others. It was arbitrary, dictated by mood. What I couldn’t take was that Blow Job Anderson was more valuable to the L.A.P.D. than Fritz Brown. That was what ate me up.”

“Did you abuse your power often when you were a policeman?”

“Yes, and terribly.”

“I understand. You were a Dissension Center. You were drinking, but now you’re sober. I was a Dissension Center, too. I loved power. Sexual power. I laid half the boys at St. Vibiana’s. I loved having them want me, knowing that I could say ‘no’ and castrate them. Knowing that I could get what I wanted by offering my body in barter. But that was then. Now I have my cello. There’s a good chance I’ll be accepted at Juilliard in January. Now I’m a Unity Center. You are, too. You don’t hurt people anymore, do you?”

“No,” I lied.

“And you’re not drinking. Do you have plans for the future?”

“Not really. I’m going to Europe this fall, though. A musical holiday. Germany and Austria.”

“So am I! Sol has been pushing me toward a vacation for years. I’ll probably leave in October.”

“Maybe we can travel together,” I blurted out.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Jane said, almost mockingly, “but right now what I’d like to do is listen to some good chamber music on a good stereo.”

“I know just the place. I live there. Shall we go?”

“Yes, please.”

So we went to my apartment, a few minutes’ drive away. But we didn’t listen to chamber music, we made our own. It was an urgent coupling, freighted with knowledge that tomorrow reality would come down hard. Afterward, I hooked up the bedroom speaker and put some Vivaldi on the turntable, with the volume down low. We lay in bed holding hands and not talking until I couldn’t stand it any longer and burst out laughing. “Jane, Jane, Jane,” I said. “Jane, a very traditional name. I like that.”

She laughed along. “Fritz is a good ethnic name,” she said, “I like that. You’re scowling, dear. What is it?”

“I never know how I stand in situations like this.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, will there be a next time?”

“Anytime. Including now.”

I reached across the bed and pulled her toward me. We held each other tightly for several minutes, then made love again, this time more for reassurance than passion. Then we fell asleep.

I awoke at eight o’clock. I heard water running in the bathroom,