The Hilarious Pig

By James E. Berlin

After college and active marine corps duty, the author began his journalism career as a reporter and popular humor columnist for a Michigan newspaper. At age twenty-four, he became the youngest nationally syndicated columnist in US history. Eleven years later, he followed his heart and became a street cop in one of Americas largest cities. The stories here, true, firsthand accounts drawn from his life behind the badge, offer an uncensored glimpse into the hearts and minds of the thin blue line. If you seek the politically correct, look elsewhere. This book was written under fire, between shifts and on weekends while the author was still a working street cop. His experiences range from outrageously funny to deeply moving, but all are as they occurred. And all are wonderfully entertaining.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524691813

James E. Berlin

James E. Berlin (formerly Fiebig) retired as a lieutenant from the Phoenix Police Department. The author wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column for 14 years, co-produced a syndicated comic strip, and was chief copywriter and creative director for various advertising agencies. He and his wife, Linda, live in Arizona.

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© 2017 James E. (Fiebig) Berlin. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/15/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5246-9182-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-9180-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-9181-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017942316

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

For Linda…

the light and love of my life

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

INTRODUCTION

I was told not to write this book when I did.

Get away from it first, a friend said. Step back, view the job in perspective.

I rejected that advice. If you really want to know what it’s like to be up to your ass in alligators, ask a guy who’s up to his ass in alligators.

So with 10 years on the job I started pounding it out – between shifts and days off – highlighting a handful of moments from a truck-load of memories. I was a professional writer-turned-street cop in the toughest sections of America’s sixth-largest city, mostly working nights, mostly working alone.

I wanted people to know what I hadn’t known for 35 years: how cops think and feel and hurt, what makes them laugh and sometimes even cry. And why they keep doing this crazy job which, in the end, is one helluva interesting way to make a living.

Think what you will about us, but your opinion will not change our perception of ourselves.

We do your dirty work.

We keep the lid on chaos.

We are PIGS…the smartest damn animals in the whole stinking barnyard.

And mighty proud of it.

CHAPTER 1

"When the shit hits the fan, you’re better

off being the fan." – Sgt. Horny Muldoon.

The Phoenix police lieutenant stared thoughtfully at my application. I stared uneasily at my stomach, bulging over my belt buckle in protest against too many years of too many beers.

This was The Oral Interview, last step in the gauntlet leading from civilian to the Police Academy. Almost 3,000 cop wannabes – vying for a few precious openings – had started the process with a two-hour written test three months earlier.

There was a tough physical performance test after that, psychological screening, drug testing, doctor’s exam, a deep background investigation – all highlighted by the dreaded Sit-Down With God – the polygraph exam: Have you ever had sex with an animal? "Of course not. No…wait! That is the answer you want, right?"

The lieutenant was six-two, lean and mean, with the penetrating eyes of a schizophrenic in a moment of lucidity. I was five-seven, overweight and friendly, with the eyes of a guy who’d been meeting deadlines for newspapers, ad agencies and a nationally syndicated newspaper column for 11 years: bloodshot from last night’s bourbon, flecked with the desperation of impending middle age.

I felt the pain of the fat janitor who stumbled on stage during the finals of the Mr. America Contest. My urge was to apologize and waddle like a penguin into the wings.

Too late; skitzo-eyes was speaking: "You’re 35-years-old for godsake with a successful career in writing. Why the hell do you wanna be a cop now?"

I spooned out some marmalade about protecting the lives of widows and orphans, serving the community, making the city a safer place to raise a cockapoo. All crap.

Now I can tell him the truth. Now that my rookie days are a decade behind, now that I’ve done hard time on the street – continue to do it.

The fat janitor is dead, Lieutenant. I am like you now and you are like me. A couple of skitzo’s, a couple of cops. I’ve earned my seat at the table. I don’t have to bullshit anybody anymore.

I busted my 35-year-old butt to become a police officer because I finally realized what few journalists ever admit to themselves: They are merely spectators. Whether their assignment is the White House, a war, government, sports – even if they cover the police beat – they’re always on the outside looking in.

Spectators. It’s always someone else’s story, someone else’s adventure, someone else feeling the triumph or the pain.

Sure, journalists are allowed closer than the masses. They get to press their noses to the glass, to actually talk with the participants and call them by name. They go back to their newsrooms and TV studios with the fuzzy feeling inside that the coverage of a personality or big event somehow makes them part of it.

It does not. They are recorders, cameras, notebooks – with humans attached.

I interviewed governors and senators: They did the talking. Their words and ideas got into print.

I covered the Detroit riots: it was between the cops and the blacks, the blacks and the National Guard.

I went through the sound barrier in a jet fighter. I sat in the rear seat…another man took us through and brought us home again.

Spectators. People who affect cynicism and street jargon without really understanding either. People with their noses pressed to the glass.

I was 35 and my nose was bored. I wanted to get down, as Johnny Cash sang, in the mud, the blood and the beer. Before it was too late. Before I was too old. Before I was lying on a deathbed someday wondering where it all went – and why I didn’t get to go along.

The lieutenant let me spoon out the marmalade. Then he rose from the desk, walked to the window and looked out at the harsh desert landscape.

Did you see the terrain here at the police academy when you drove in?

Yes, sir.

All these hills and mountains?

I sure did.

He turned from the window, bore his skitzo eyes into mine. His voice went hard…

"Well, let me tell you something. If you get into this academy, we are going to run your ass up, over, through and around every goddamn hill and mountain within five miles of this building. We are going to run your ass off and work your ass off until you hate our guts.

"We operate what’s called a high-stress academy. Do you have any idea what that means?"

I think so, sir.

"I don’t think you do. It means you have to want to be a police officer more than anything in the world or you will never graduate from this place. We do not want people wearing our uniform and working our streets who are going to roll over and play dead the first time some asshole hits them in the mouth and tries to kick their ribs in when they’re down. We want people who will just not quit. We want men and women the other cops can count on when the shit hits the fan. And by God if you’re not that kind of person, we’ll find out in a hurry."

I know what stress means, Lieutenant. I was in the Marines.

He looked at my beer gut, the bloodshot eyes, the lines in my face.

The Marines was a helluva long time ago, he said.

I tried to flash my most confident smile. I could not quite bring it off.

CHAPTER 2

"There’s nothin’ wrong with quitting. Little old ladies

and losers do it all the time." – Sgt. Horny Muldoon.

The sergeant who ran the asses of Class 138 up, over, through and around every goddamn hill and mountain within five miles of the Phoenix Police Academy was a man named Jerry Oliver.

A black guy, cool and charismatic. And if he were to part the lowest branches of his family tree I think he’d discover a cheetah leering back. Maybe a tiger, too.

He herded 34 of us, all clad in gray sweat suits with last names stenciled boldly on front and back, onto the exercise field that first January morning. And it really was high-stress all the way.

Well-orchestrated and faithfully modeled on the strategy used by elite military units to winnow weakness from the ranks. A violent shaking of the tree, a physical and psychological blitzkrieg designed to quickly prune the weak and low-hanging fruit.

Strutting instructors and academy staff prowled among the panting, sweating, groaning recruits, screaming in our faces, insulting, berating – pushing us through push-ups, sit-ups, leg-lifts, squat thrusts, jumping jacks…and then starting all over again.

In just 30 minutes the class dwindled from 34 to 32. A lanky ex-state trooper from the deep South marched off the field in a huff, drawling something about, Y’all ain’t got no call to treat people like this. Another recruit, a woman, broke into hysterical sobs halfway through a push-up and collapsed like someone pulled the plug from her soul. An instructor helped her from the field. We never saw her again.

And once they had drained us of all energy and noble intentions, once they had turned what muscle we had into Silly Putty, they forced us through the obstacle course: scrambling over iron rails, crawling through concrete pipes, scaling a Cyclone fence immediately followed by a seven-foot wall. Then up a rocky hill to the monkey bars…

"Run up that hill, damn you! Don’t slow down – keep moving, keep moving…RUN. Now hit those bars, hand-over-hand, don’t stop – and don’t hang there like some goddamn side of beef in a supermarket! Reach for the next bar, reach for the next bar…DON’T STOP."

All the contrived chaos and manic mind games didn’t bother me. Anyone who has survived hardcore military hazing knows there’s nothing personal in the business of pushing humans beyond their imagined endurance.

What bothered me was… my body. For the first time in years I was totally, absolutely, inescapably exhausted. I had nothing left to give.

They wanted more. After the obstacle course we were quickly aligned into two columns and, with the cheetah merrily out front, we began to run and run and run. And the class sergeant ran backwards, hands on his hips, just like the Marine DI’s used to do on Parris Island when they wanted to demonstrate what sissies we were for being tired after double-timing forever in full packs and rifles.

Backwards for godsake, gliding up and down the ranks of the 32 remaining recruits, grinning and bouncing like we were on our way to a wonderful picnic.

I made a conscious, tactical decision sometime during that ordeal to hate him. I stared into his smiling face and detested him with every little molecule in my being.

It got me through the run. It got me through the day.

When it ended I collapsed on my back on the men’s locker room floor, arms straight out to either side, looking every bit like Christ on the cross.

The other recruits slumped on the wooden benches, stunned, no one moving or speaking. Kevin, who would prove to be the class clown, finally broke the silence:

If you don’t mind me asking, he said, looking down at the crucifixion scene, "just how old are you anyway?"

I am…I am 35 years old, I managed.

It was as if I’d said a hundred and thirty-five.

Kevin was clearly astonished. Thirty-five fucking years old? He slapped his forehead. "Holy shit, pops. What the hell are you doing here?"

I wanted… I started laughing, …I wanted some fun in my life.

*     *     *

My Moment of Truth came 13 days later. During that first two weeks they hadn’t let up for a minute. It was run everywhere, keep our mouths shut, don’t speak to the upper classmen, call every sworn officer Sir – and especially – DRESS OUT!

That was the order to race to our lockers, throw on our sweat suits, lace up our sneakers and fall out for physical training (PT).

Every time I heard those dreaded words Dress out I became instantly sick to my stomach. They were going to push us again, make us hurt all over and deep inside, make us prove we wanted to be police officers more than anything in the world.

It was Sunday evening, the night before beginning our third week of the 20-week academy. My uniform was washed and pressed, leather gleaming, brass polished, homework assignments completed.

And I said…fuck it. I went to the corner store and bought cigarettes and a six-pack of good beer, both of which I’d sworn off. Then I sat in the back yard and threw down three of those beers and twice as many smokes and came to the conclusion the police academy could stick it.

I was too damn old for this harassment. After all, it wasn’t Marine boot camp where you either hacked it or went to the Motivation Platoon or got thrown in the brig. This was a free country, by God. I didn’t have to take their crap for one more day. Fuck the police department.

It was quittin’ time. I would call the sergeant in the morning and tell him adios amigos.

I drank more beer, smoked more cigarettes, luxuriating once again in the wonderful world of self-indulgence. Freedom from pain, freedom from having to prove something.

I drained the last swallow from the last beer. And my peace went with it…

Suddenly I was back there again, Parris Island, lost in an oversized poncho, hood up, trudging across the parade deck during a vicious rainstorm blowing in from the Atlantic.

I was alone for the first time in five weeks. The drill instructor had given me a magical slip of paper with orders to report to the medical building and have a tooth pulled.

Get your ass straight there and get your ass straight back.

Sir, yes sir.

Alone on Parris Island – it was unheard of. I stopped in the center of the parade deck, pulled back the hood of the poncho and aimed my face squarely into the wind and rain. It’s corny now, but it was glorious then. I started to sing:

When you walk through a storm

Hold your head up high

And don’t be afraid of the dark.

At the end of the storm is a golden sky

And the sweet silver song of a lark.

Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart

And you’ll never walk alone…

I choked up then, awash with all the desperation of being a prisoner on The Island. I cried. Hell…I wept – knowing if I were discovered no one could tell the tears from the rain.

I was okay then. I had belted out a Rodgers and Hammerstein song and blubbered like a baby in Marine Corps boot camp…and the bastards never found out. There was no way in hell they could have beaten me after that.

And by God, there was no way they were going to beat me now. The next morning, with a hangover, I went back to the police academy. The beginning of the third week and, it turned out, the beginning of being treated like human beings.

Sergeant Oliver gave a speech that Monday morning. A nice kindly speech with warm smiles for the 25 of us still left.

"We’ve put you through a lot these first two weeks and we’ll be putting you through a lot more. But those who are still here have shown you really want to be here, that you really want to be police officers. I respect that. I’ll do whatever I can to help you make it."

I’ll do whatever I can…

I discovered how much he meant those words on a Friday 18 weeks later. It was the morning of our Final Physical Readiness Test, the last major challenge of the police academy.

You either passed the test and earned the badge – or you were gone. Fired. Nice knowing you…hit the road.

We’d already been scored on sit-ups, push-ups, the obstacle course and a 20-foot rope climb, and I figured I was doing okay on points. I’d been so nervous about the test that Kevin, the class clown, found me in the bathroom hugging a commode just before it began.

You okay, Pops?

Yeah. I’m just making myself lighter so I can run faster.

Smart, Pops, really smart. Come on…we gotta go.

Now it was the last event, the 1.5 mile run – and I was approached by a class counselor.

I’ve totaled up your score so far, he said.

And?

No problem. To pass, you only have to do the run in 11:05.

I was floored. "Eleven minutes and five seconds? Are you shitting me?"

No. You can do that, right?

I could not. I knew I could not.

My best time ever in the run had been 12:30, and that was a day with no other events beforehand. A day when everything felt absolutely right.

Today, everything felt absolutely wrong.

Our class sergeant stood off to the side, stopwatch held straight up. And he had a final word of advice for the 17 survivors of class 138. Seventeen still standing out of 34…and one more about to fall.

"Set your pace immediately and keep that pace all the way, he shouted. All the way.

On your marks, get set…GO!

The class rabbits, those 20-somethings with lungs of iron and great rations of youth surged to the front, leaving the rest of us to set our plodding pace, the pace we must keep all the way.

I was in trouble instantly. The anxiety of the test, the importance to my future, my self-esteem, turned legs to rubber before I’d covered 50 yards – and the first half of the run was uphill. I flashed on going home early today – fired – telling my wife it had all been for nothing. Her man couldn’t hack it. Five months…for nothing.

SET YOUR PACE, DAMNIT, SET YOUR PACE!

Where in hell did he come from? It’s Jerry, our class sergeant, running on my left, brushing his elbow against mine.

Set your pace! Set it and keep it, Jim.

He had never spoken my first name before, and now he’s yelling in my ear like it was the first day – piercing all my panting and wheezing, harassing me again.

I want him to leave me alone, to go away, get out of my life. I want to stumble off the road and collapse in the ditch and just lie there and say to hell with it.

But Sgt. Oliver will not leave me alone. He stays tight on my side, matching me stride-for-stride, never shutting up about the goddamn pace. Faster, Jim, faster!…and finally…That’s it! That’s the pace! Now keep the pace…Keep the pace…KEEP THE PACE!

I love him and hate him at the same time. Please, give me the freedom to fail. I can’t keep running this fast, damnit…I’m 35 fucking years old and barely back in shape.

But I do keep running this fast and we’re in the homestretch, the last fifth of a mile. My legs are no longer part of me…I simply lift and move them like a robot, trying not to shame myself…trying to keep the goddamn pace.

It’s the last hundred yards now and Sgt. Oliver, frowning, looks hard at his stopwatch. He drops back half a step, touches me lightly on the shoulder…

SPRINT! he commands. You have to finish in a sprint!

It comes from somewhere, God knows where. I begin to run full-out, finding a gear I never had before, streaking like the 20-something rabbits. And up ahead, standing shoulder-shoulder across the finish line, are