I’m not a good person. Patti offered me this space weeks ago and I’m
just now sending something. That’s inexcusable. I started blogging
partly because of reading this blog, and her flash fiction challenges
tightened my writing considerably. I owe this blog and I owe Patti, and
I’m sorry for futzing around.
While my procrastination
is inexcusable, there is a reason. The original plan was to write about
the fictional town of Penns River, the setting of my police procedural
novels. I based the town on three small cities where I grew up, so I
know the area and people well. It’s a perfect setting for me.
The
problem is that Pushing Water is the fifth Penns River book and, while
I’m not anywhere close to running out of story ideas, I am running dry
on what to say about the place. There is nothing inherently interesting
about Penns River except how it shapes characters best described through
their actions. Most of them are cops.
If only there was something topical to say about cops.
I’m
not James Ellroy, writing about systemic corruption in a police force.
I’ve worked in enough hierarchical organizations to know they all have
inherent weaknesses exploitable by those with ill intent. Police
departments are special because those exploitations can blossom into
matters of life and death in a heartbeat.
I’ve planned
for a couple of years to evolve the Penns River police from a
close-knit small town department taking its cues from avuncular chief
Stan “Stush” Napierkowski into something with a harder edge as the
economy remains stagnant, crime became more entrenched, and the
department’s personnel turn over.
The degree and
intensity of crime has worn down some of the older cops who signed up to
serve a far different city. The younger men and women who will replace
them trained in 21st Century academies, or honed their craft on far
meaner streets. This creates friction with the local population, as
people they don’t know and who don’t seem to care as much about them
replace cops they’ve known for years.
Penns River cops
are the good guys. Flawed, not corrupt. That will evolve, but the core
of the department will always have a compass. I have no desire to write
them any other way. Several of my acquaintances are, or were, cops. Some
have become good friends. None of them—not one—are anything other than
fine and fair-minded people. Just as my experiences growing up in “Penns
River” precludes me from depicting it as either the South Side of
Chicago or Beverly Hills, my personal knowledge of cops prevents me from
portraying them as brutal racists. As the current meme says, I am pro
cop and against brutality and corruption. The positions are not mutually
exclusive.
Are there brutal and bent cops? Absolutely.
More than I care to think about and way more than should be wearing
badges. The time has come for Penns River to reflect this.
I’m
proud of my friendships with law enforcement, several of which came
about because they respected how well I captured the life of a cop, even
though I have never been one. My most flattering moments as a writer
have come when someone with a law enforcement background assumes I have one, as well. They run toward trouble when everyone else runs away, and my cops will always show that.
Just
because one runs toward danger doesn’t mean he’s not an asshole. Or a
racist. Or bent. Any number of unsavory things. I’d do good cops a
disservice if I ignored that. So there will be more of both sides.
The
book I really want to write is one I am both qualified and not
qualified to write: the effects of the blue wall for good and ill. I
understand why it exists, I understand its benefits, and I understand
the damage it does by protecting those who are unworthy. I can already
hear, “Who’s he to write that? He was never a cop.” Maybe it’s the kind
of thing that needs a sympathetic outsider’s perspective. It will have
to be well researched and fairly written and it’s at least two books
away.
I’m already working on it.
