fighting back. I can’t teach you self-defense in thirteen weeks.
“All that Hollywood crap is just that—crap. You try throwing that haymaker at somebody’s chin and you’ll probably hit the top of his head and break your hand. Never use your fists. If someone uses his fists you use your stick and try to break a wrist or knee like we teach you. If he uses a knife you use a gun and cancel his ticket then and there. But if you find yourself without a stick and the situation doesn’t permit deadly force, well then you better be able to out-endure the son of a bitch. That’s why you see these newspaper pictures of six cops subduing one guy. Any guy or even any woman can wear out several policemen just by resisting. It’s goddamn hard to take a man who doesn’t want to be taken. But try explaining it to the jury or the neighbors who read in the papers how an arrestee was hurt by two or three cops twice his size. They’ll want to know why you resorted to beating the guy’s head in. Why didn’t you just put a fancy judo hold on him and flip him on his ass. In the movies it’s nothing.
“And while I’m on the subject, there’s something else the movies have done for us—they created a legend about winging your man, shooting from the hip and all that bullshit. Well I’m not your shooting instructor but it all ties in with self-defense. You guys have been here long enough to know how hard it is to hit a still target, let alone a moving one. Those of you who make your twenty years will miss that goddamn paper man every time you come up here for your monthly pistol qualification. And he’s only a paper man. He don’t shoot back. The light’s good and the adrenaline hasn’t turned your arm into a licorice stick like it does in combat. And yet when you blow some asshole up and were lucky to even hit him you’ll hear a member of the coroner’s jury say, ‘Why didn’t you shoot to wound him? Did you have to kill him? Why didn’t you shoot the gun out of his hand!’”
Randolph’s face was crimson and two wide sweat streams ran down either side of his neck. When he was in uniform he wore three service stripes on his sleeve indicating at least fifteen years with the Department. Yet Serge could hardly believe he was more than thirty. He hadn’t a gray hair and his physique was flawless.
“What I want you guys to take from my class is this: it’s a bitch to subdue a man with a gun or a stick or a sap, let alone with your hands. Just keep yourself in half-assed condition and you’ll out-endure him. Take the bastard any way you can. If you can use these two or three holds I teach you, then use them. If you can’t, hit him with a brick or anything else. Just subdue your man and you’ll be in one piece the day your twentieth anniversary rolls around and you sign those retirement papers. That’s why I run your asses off.”
2
STRESS
“I DON’T KNOW WHY I’m so nervous,” said Gus Plebesly. “We’ve been told about the stress interview. It’s just to shake us up.”
“Relax, Gus,” said Wilson, who leaned against the wall, smoking, careful not to drop ashes on the khaki cadet uniform.
Gus admired the luster of Wilson’s black shoes. Wilson had been a marine. He knew how to spit-shine shoes, and he could drill troops and call cadence. He was Gus’s squad leader and had many of the qualities which Gus believed men could only gain in military service. Gus wished he were a veteran and had been places, then perhaps he would have confidence. He should have. He was the number one man in his class in physical training, but at this moment he wasn’t sure he would be able to speak during the stress interview. He had waited in dread so many times in high school when he had to give an oral report. In college he had once consumed almost a half pint of gin diluted with soda pop before he could give a three-minute speech in a public speaking class. And he had gotten away with it. He wished he could do it now. But these men were police officers. Professionals. They would detect the alcohol in his eyes, speech, or