23 Pat O'Brien Movies

This one time there was no agonizing watt for patrol cars to filter through jammed midtown traffic. And no one in the crowd had cause to remark, "Just try to get a cop when you need one." In fact, there wasn't any crowd. The police got there before one had time to gather, and within seven minutes after the young man had taken his place on the sixteenth-story hotel-room ledge, a patrolman named Goldman with warm eyes and curly hair was out on the ledge with him, just four feet away.

The young man was thin and muscular and his back was curved into a question mark. He wore a flapping T-shirt with one large hole in the center. Beneath the T-shirt a square patch of bandages showed. It was a gray day in March, the first time the wind had blown seriously and it seemed to be making up for all the other windless days of the month. The patrolman slouched back casually against the building wall, took off his hat and, making a pained face, scratched his head with one finger. Then he lit a cigarette.

"All right," said the young man, "let me tell you right now, I know the whole bit. I mean the casual thing you're pulling with the head-scratching and the we're-just-two-fellows-out-here-having-a-chat routine. I've seen it in a million Pat O'Brien movies. They picked you because you're a family man and you know I have a family and that's the way to work it with me, right? First I get a cigarette to relax me, then I hear about your kids, and we go into a little life-can-be-beautiful, right? If I act real serious, then you say, 'I dare you to jump, show-off. If you really wanted to jump, you'd have done it long ago.' Right? All right, let me tell you something. I'm going. I'm not showing off, I'm not waiting for any crowds. You got an empty house or standing room only, I'm going. Twenty minutes go by on the clock, and I'm off this ledge like a shot. Give me that 'Go ahead and jump' routine and I'm not waiting the twenty."

The patrolman scratched his head again and said, "No, I'm not going to tell you to go ahead and jump because . . ."

"I'm too bright," said the young man. "Because I got too good a head on my shoulders, right? And any guy with such brains shouldn't be getting ready to take a dry dive, right? Oh you're cute, very cute. How many times have they sent you out on these? You must be the champ of the whole police department. With the kindness and the head-scratching. Give me a little life-can-be-beautiful."

"I didn't say it can be beautiful," said the patrolman, loosening his tie. "You did. Most of the time it stinks."

"Excellent con," said the young man. "Everybody takes the good with the bad, but the chickens commit suicide, right? You plunge for the concrete and all you're proving is what a coward you are, right? You really are the cutest in the business. How many Pat O'Brien movies did you sit through to pick up this jazz, twenty-three? And look how long you've kept me out here, too. Let me tell you something so you don't feel too cute. You haven't kept me out here one second more than I want to be here. I told you. Twenty minutes, and I'm flying. Twenty minutes and I go for that sweet old concrete."

A crowd began to form now, not a giant milling crowd, but a scraggly one that really didn't seem satisfied with what was going on above. Officer Goldman spun his cap on one finger and said, "You are bright. I don't care what you say, you're a bright guy. And a lot of what you say makes sense."

"Do you want to do me a favor?" said the young man, hooked over in the question mark and leaning toward the patrolman. Do you want to do one thing for me, drop the casual routine. The head-scratching, the yawning, the hat-spinning. It doesn't go. Don't you think I know it's right out of the old Pat O'Brien manual? Relax him. Yawn it up a little bit. Act like the one thing in the world you absolutely don't care about is whether he plunges or not. Try it next time, ace. You care. You got to care. What have you got, twenty-four straight? I go off this ledge, and there goes your record. Nobody, not Pee Wee Reese or Benny Kid Paret, likes to blow a contest after twenty-four straight."

"Of course I care," said the patrolman, clamping his cap hard on his head now in the wind. "But I can't help it if I'm casual. I am casual. If I acted tense and excited, then I'd be acting phony."

The police lieutenant who was conducting the operation called Officer Goldman back through the hotel window and, for three minutes, while the young man hung crooked on the ledge, they conferred and then Goldman crept back out again.

"'Do you think you can handle this one?'" said the young man. "Isn't that what they asked? 'You don't seem to be getting anywhere with him. Maybe there's a personality clash.' Isn't that it? Isn't that what they said? All right, look, after I dive, you tell them you were as good as anybody they could have sent out. And your record still stands, because this guy was different and nobody could have grabbed him. If you want I'll write out a little note saying this is not to count on Officer what?"

"Officer Goldman," said the patrolman.

"On Officer Goldman's record. Because this guy was different. Nobody could have grabbed him."

"I don't think you're so different," said the patrolman, looking up and studying the gray sky.

"Good move that sky bit," said the young man. "Instead of looking down at the crowd, look up. Get his mind on onward and upward things. Sneak in a little God when he's not looking. Twenty-four straight. You must have two hundred and twenty-four straight. I don't think I'm very different either," said the young man. "I don't say I have more troubles than your last twenty-four guys. The only thing that makes me different is that I'm stepping out into the air. You can pass me kid pictures from now till kingdom come. You can get my guard up or down and you can cigarette me until you're blind, but when that buzzer rings, I'm saying goodbye to you and hello to the pavement."

"What kind of troubles?" asked the patrolman, lighting a cigarette and not looking at the young man.

"Draw him out," said the man. "Very sneakily, get him to talk about himself and then suggest that things are always darkest before the dawn. All right, save your breath. I'll draw myself out. I don't have time to wait for your Pat O'Brien routine. My stomach's the main thing. It's been knotted up since I was ten. Six operations, and last year I started getting tired all the time, no energy – so they took out a coil of it longer than the telephone wire from here to Philadelphia. I went for another year, I'm twenty-nine now, and now I'm tired again. The thing I do is prune trees and I had a good business going, I did giant estates, but now I'm too tired and I haven't got the strength to get up on anything. My stomach's the size of an aspirin box now and there isn't much more can come out. I've got four kids and my wife's a bum. You bring her out here to plead with me and I'm off this ledge before you can sneeze. I've always got to go out and bring her back from places. I'm too tired now to keep grabbing her by the neck. So now she can come collect me off the sidewalk with a spoon. All right now, you tell me all the beautiful things I got to look forward to."

The patrolman loosened his collar and bit speculatively on a fingernail.

"All right, quit the collar routine. That means we're settling down for a long stay. You know just how long it's going to be. We're clear on that, I hope. But let's say I were to step back through the window now and let's say with my stomach I had another seven years coming to me. I mean you just tell me some beautiful reasons to stay alive the seven. Television shows? The joy of changing a diaper? I can see my wife a few times? Suppose you just tell me."

"I don't say there are that many joys," said the patrolman, soft blue eyes directly on the young man now. "You're right, I have been out on quite a few of these cases in the past. It wasn't twenty-four, but the last guys I had out here, believe me, had as much aggravation as you do, but I was able to convince them of the one thing I believe. Whether you have six months, one year, six years, or thirty, you're better off living. Being dead is no bargain."

"Well thank you," said the young man, bowing deeper into his question mark. "At least we're not being casual. At least we're getting right down to it. Thank you for that. It doesn't make any difference though. I mean what you're saying is just words. You're helping me pass twenty minutes. You could be reciting the Declaration of Independence. You're helping me pass my last twenty minutes on earth, Officer Goldman, and that's the end of your streak."

The police officer threw his cigarette down on the ledge, ground it out deliberately with his foot and then kicked it down at the crowd which seemed now to be more respectable in size.

"Now, look, let me tell you something," he said.

"You can tell me anything, Pat, but if that buzzer rings, I'll cut you off in mid-sentence. If you're telling a joke and she sounds, I don't wait for the punch line. You tell that to the sergeant."

"Let me tell you something," said the patrolman, his face more stern than it had been. "I never got sore up here on one of these ledges, because, like you say, it pays off in casualness and I have a record to preserve. But you get me sore not because you're on any ledge but because you're so damned smug. You have all the answers. Now listen, I have to whisper some of this, because if anyone hears it I'm off the force."

"Good bit," said the young man. "You worked it right in there. Do you want us to put our heads together maybe so I can hear you whisper?"

"I'll smack you in the mouth," said the patrolman.

"You'll never get close enough," said the man. "I thought we got that straight."

"All right," said the patrolman, breathing heavily. "Let me get myself together. I'm going to talk low and you can believe this or not because I don't care very much about you any more."

"Good bit," said the man. "You better hurry, though. I'm not waiting for any punch lines."

"I have the kind of heart that if the wind changes direction too quickly, it can stop on a dime and they carry me off away in a box. I've been living with that kind of heart for nine years and nobody in the department knows it. This is just the right kind of work for me, isn't it? Climbing out on ledges to grab guys. But I have two years more to retirement, and I'm not letting it stop. You have to go out and grab your wife by the neck. I'm divorced fifteen years and I have nobody to go out and grab. Four kids? I have one son and he's with his mother. Do you know what I think of him? It's like a religion and he's the one you're supposed to worship. He stays away from me like the plague. He's supposed to visit me every six months. I haven't seen him in two years. There's just one thing. I happen to think life is worth living. You have a short time to live and a helluva long time to be dead."

The patrolman lowered his head and the young man began to rub his arms as though the cold bothered him. "So what are you going to do when you retire?" he asked.

"I have a little place paid for in (concluded on page 148) 23 Pat O'Brien Movies (continued from page 82) Florida," said the patrolman.

"And what are you going to do down there?" he asked. "Sit in a chair and hold your heart and wait for your son to come?"

"He'll come," said the patrolman.

"No he won't," said the young man.

"He will so," said the patrolman.

"The hell he will," said the young man.

The wind was chill now and had picked up in speed. The young man hugged himself and shifted from one foot to the other. The patrolman bent over, wiping his eyes, and the two were silent now, as though they were waiting for a bus. They stood that way for several minutes. Then the patrolman said, "The day stinks," not lifting his head.

"It's cloudier than hell," said the young man.

"I really picked the right kind of thing to do," said the patrolman, "pulling guys off ledges."

"Oh yes," said the young man. "You picked something very cute."

The young man looked across the street and as he studied the clock the patrolman took off his jacket and put it down on the ledge next to him.

"What's the bit now?" asked the young man.

The patrolman rolled up his sleeves very neatly, and then, with a look at the sky as though checking the weather, threw his cap off the ledge and followed it, executing, except for his legs, a perfect swan dive.

"Hey, I never saw that bit before," said the young man, coming out of his question mark to watch the patrolman as he neared the pavement and then went into it.

"What the hell do I do now?"