ICE ICE Baby

When I was in college, there was this guy who hung around now and then. A friend of a friend. I don’t remember his name. He’d turn up every few weeks, but you know how at that time in life, people come and go. He was a nice enough guy, but he stood out because he was always going on about how he wanted to be a cop. The first time he said that I was about to take a big bong hit and I looked up to quickly assess. In those days, I was suspicious of the police.

Not that I had ever had a run in with the law. I’d never had so much as a parking ticket. I was just generally suspicious. This was a couple of years before I had a summertime job as an assistant custodian at the local police station where I had a close-up view of real cops and a friendly relationship with one of the detectives. And decades before I had watched enough Law and Order to develop the true appreciation for policework that I have now. I used to roll my own cigarettes back then (Drum tobacco), and it was amusing when one of the cops approached me to investigate as I was rolling one in front of the station.

As if I’d be rolling a joint in front of the police station. Though I had smoked a cigarette laced with hash oil in the Amsterdam airport, so it’s not as far-fetched as it might seem.

Hanging on the basement wall of the station was one of those display cases that showcased all the different types of drugs there were at the time. Neatly pinned and labeled, it could have just as easily contained preserved butterflies and other exotic insects. The kind they’d take around to schools when they gave an anti-drug presentation to an assembly full of kids who were thrilled for any reason to be pulled out of class. I studied the contents one afternoon when I took a break from polishing the floor. I had abused almost every drug in the case.

College.

The would be cop fella certainly looked the part. Thickly set with a military style, “high and tight” haircut. Mildly aggressive demeanor. One Saturday night I took a beat from the group’s debate over whether Emerson, Lake and Palmer were better than King Crimson, to ask him why he wanted to be a cop. He didn’t hesitate.

“Because there’s a lot of bad guys out there. And I want to get them.”

OK now.

The conversation switched gears, but his comment has always stuck with me. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that sentiment on its merit. There are a lot of bad guys out there. Didn’t Karoline Leavitt just say so at a press conference? My mistake, it was your mother. But there was a tinge of malice in his tone that gave me pause. I’ve always wondered how that might be a driver of one’s law enforcement career, and to what lengths he would end up going to, to achieve that goal. I don’t know. I never saw him again.

To protect and serve. It’s noble and to those in law enforcement who live by that, it’s also admirable and respectable. Nowhere in the credo is it written, “to pound heads and punish.” These days, there sure seems to be much of that and more. And a whole lotta scowling politicians in leadership positions who are victim blaming and saying you had it coming. Seriously. Have you ever seen a picture of any member of this administration or a MAGA enthusiast in general with a smile on their face?

At Mar-a-Lago, they’ve got one hit wonder, Vanilla Ice ringing in the new year with a rendition of, “ICE, ICE, Baby,” as Kristi Noem bumps and grinds to the beat. Here is what happens when an administration thrives on a culture of mean. A scared and panicked woman in Minneapolis tries to slowly drive away from jacked up ICE agents only to be shot at point blank range through the driver’s side window of her car, and then the agent watches her bleed out. Kristi took a beat to shimmy off the pole in order to serve up an amuse bouche of cruelty, pronouncing the victim a domestic terrorist, and falsely accusing her of trying to run the ICE agents over and ram them with her vehicle.

The thing is, we’ve all seen the video.

Not that it matters a scintilla to the ghouls in our administration. They could not be more thrilled at the progress ICE is making in cleaning up the muck in our Blue States. Pounding heads is a sport they can all get behind. Don’t you wonder where all these ICE agents come from? How frustrated they must have been during the Biden years, having to keep their masks off and their guns holstered. And as they’ve expanded their ranks, seemingly thousands of blood thirsty recruits have joined the cause. Where does all this blood lust come from?

Even in an imaginary world where Trump and Co. are 100% correct, why are they so mad about everything? Seems as if our Somali and Latino and Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian friends could be rounded up and deported just as easily without all the extra kicks in the ribs and murder. What truly confounds me is the venom, and the glee that sits behind it. What befuddles me even more is, who are these ICE agents, and why are they so happy to punish? Why are they so eager to hurt, to intimidate, to beat and on occasion shoot people? And where does it end? If I don’t show my wrist band quickly enough at the gate of the next Kid Rock concert, will I be shot too?

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Don’t focus your ire on the folks who currently run our government. That’s like visiting the reptile wing at the zoo and being horrified by a venomous snake eating a rat. That’s what venomous snakes do. No, our problem is all the people who are reptile hobbyists at home. Like the super’s son at my old apartment on West 76^th St with his giant pet iguana. The reptile people are unique, and you must tread gently with them. What we can do, is use the strength of our voices and our votes to limit their access to leadership roles. We need to use soft dulcet tones and smiles to gently convince the super’s son that his pet rattler is better off in the woods than in that 20-gallon aquarium in his room. Set it free and get a tattoo to remember him by.

Our problem isn’t the snakes. It’s the people who are enamored with them. And those folks we can talk to. Talk to them we must if we want to have any hope of dislodging the Gila Monsters from the Oval and the Cabinet the Dept. of Justice. We don’t need to convert them all. Just enough to tip the scales towards normalcy.

I do believe there’s so many more in law enforcement on the side of good than we’re currently seeing on TV. They deserve our support and appreciation. And show them some respect. Don’t roll your own in front of them.

I don’t know what happened to the cop wannabe, bad guy getting friend of a friend from years ago. Maybe he became one of the good guys. There are some things you say and do in college, that are a far cry from who and what you become. Maybe he became a roofer instead, or a mechanical engineer or a model room designer on the furniture floor at Bloomingdales. I hope he didn’t live up to his implied threat of kicking ass. I hope he’s as horrified as you and me at the animalistic behavior we see on our news feeds.

Somehow, I doubt it. My spidey sense is pretty strong and I think I know exactly where this guy ended up. Now it’s up to us to break the fever and snap him out of it. Where’s Cher when we need her?