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OFFICER MATIAS MORALES, NYPD

Fighting Crime in the Big Apple

By Marciano GuerreroPublished about a year ago 18 min read
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My Rookie Years

After a complete shift riding that damn patrol car, I walked — to keep the circulation flowing on my numb legs — from the Precinct at 51st Street and 3rd Avenue to the Blues Bar & Grill, on Second Avenue.

As I walked, I couldn’t help thinking of the domestic disturbance my partner and I had just brokered. Below Sutton Place South, there’s a high swanky residential tower. The doorman called Central to report a domestic disturbance. And since we were just four blocks away from there; we responded.

One elderly, distinguished-looking gentleman was yelling at a younger man in his forties.

“I am sick and tired of this leech. He pays no rent, has no job, and on top of this, he threatens me with violence!”

“I never done that,” said the younger man.

My partner shushed them both and asked. ‘How long have you been together?”

“Much too long!” the irate gentleman said. “I picked him up six months ago at the Townhouse, that gay bar on 58th and Second Avenue. He seemed nice at the beginning, but now I want him out of my place. This is my condominium. I am the owner.”

Taking the younger man by the arm, I guided him to the kitchen.

“Look here,” I said, “you better be nice to the man. He’s been keeping you for half a year. Food. Roof over your head. Great apartment. Be smart and behave till you find something else, if you want to split. Got it?”

“He gets on my nerves. So picky and anal-retentive.”

“Like I said, you got a good deal here: lookie here—all the expensive antiques, and that caricature alone of Mary Tyler Moore, is by Al Hirschfeld. Must be worth millions.”

“An original; there is more in the bedroom.”

“So, be cool—okay?”

Seeing that both had calmed down and were speaking civilly to each other. My partner Dog Cassano said,

“We are not writing a ticket or anything like that—see, we are not even asking for your names. So, there’ll be no record of domestic distoibance at the precinct; we are from the fifty-foist between second and toid. If I was yous, I’d give the doorman a good tip so that he doesn’t report the incident to management. Okay, guys—shake hands and enjoy the weekend.”

By the time we got to the elevator, they were holding hands and waving us goodbye.

So, now I am ready to relax a little.

But the image of that luxurious apartment lingered on my mind, and I couldn’t help thinking why some people have so much and others so little. I’m still young, I thought. My boat will come. I have an associate degree, will get my bachelor’s soon, and less than three years on the Force. One must have ambition.

The Blues Bar & Grill was noisy as hell.

Not having much to do this joyous (temperature high in the 70s) May, Friday-afternoon, I told Saleem, the bartender, to run me a tab. I was on my third beer chaser when a huge guy — who was being loud — at the end of the bar suddenly keeled over.

Pandemonium broke.

Then Silence engulfed the joint.

The two fellows shooting pool and a waitress kneeled to assist the two-hundred-fifty pounder.

Indeed, the place got silent in a New York minute, but not for long. A shrill female voice sounded off: “COVID-19!”

“Covid-19!” the regulars echoed in unison like a church choir.

“What is that?”

“A new virus going around and killing people,” someone said.

Panic ensued.

Even the guys that were helping the poor soul ran out the door. You should have seen them running in all different directions, scurrying about like roaches when you turn on the light. What if the guy dies? Of course, this made me angry: recalling my ethics training at the Academy, the phrase ‘depraved indifference’ flashed through my mind. Could even be reckless manslaughter, I concluded.

Yo, man—not right to flee and ignore a helpless human being.

I only had a vague idea what this “COVID-19” was all about—some sort of epidemic. So, I got down and tried to revive the big guy. His pulse was strong. Heartbeat loud and booming. When I opened his shirt, I saw the medal that diabetic people wear.

Without wasting a second, I yelled to Saleem Abdel — the bartender — to pour a glass of orange juice. I pried the man’s jaws open; not a simple task because the 250-pound gorilla had his jaws locked tighter than a snapped bear trap. I stuck my cell phone between his teeth and then I poured some of that Tropicana yellow liquid down his gullet.

“Fix another glass, Saleem Abdel!” I yelled. “Load it with sugar—right quick. And call 911!”

The second glass went in easily enough, just like pouring oil into a funnel. This is one sad case when I really agree with “water boarding.” Or rather: OJ boarding — not OJ Simpson, mind me — but orange juice boarding.

Like stars twinkling in the night, the man’s eyelids twitched and fluttered, opening and closing, and as he sat up, he spat out the damn cell phone I had planted between his teeth. He looked confused. Of course, he’d left teeth marks on the metal casing of my cell phone, and I marveled he hadn’t chipped a tooth—the dummy! So strong was his bite that I could barely flip open the gadget.

By now my early guess of his weight was wrong: my man was a three-hundred-pounder, with a girth around the Equator that’d make a sitting Buddha look like Twiggy.

By the time the paramedics arrived, the big fellow was up and about, a little spaced out, white shirt stained yellow, lips and gums bruised, but okay.

The senior paramedic recognized the man right away and exclaimed,

“Oh, him! My man gets loaded allatime and denn he feggets his med-ee-kayshion.”

Though born and raised in Ne Yoik Ceet — El Barrio, to be precise — I can never get used to that Brooklyn accent.

“What’s this thing about COVID-19,” I asked the English-mangler paramedic.

“Oh, yeah, da ting it’s traveling: from Mexico to Don Diego. Couldda come to Ne Yoik, already—Queens I heah.”

“You mean San Diego?” I said to check if I had calibrated his meaning well.

Das wattaised,” the sassy man replied, giving me a sore look as if mad I was questioning his diction. “Dat damn COVID-19 has whacked over ten thousand people already—vewy konteshious. Comes from China they say.”

“I get it—an epidemic. You from Brooklyn, Canarsie?” I asked him.

“Bed Stuy,” he answered, now irritated that I had questioned his pedigree.

Some people are so touchy about their ‘hoods.’

“You a bronze medalist?” the sassy runt asked me. It took me a few seconds to decode his meaning.

“Nah, El Barrio—never even been to the Bronx to win a medal.”

“El Barrio, ah? You don’t look ‘pee are’ to me.” By that, he meant Puerto-Rican.

“My dad is pee are,” I said, trying to sound like him. “My mom is eye-talian.”

Anyway, the Bronx and Queens are foreign territories to me. Staten Island? Never even been there, either. Lived in Manhattan all my life. Crazy about my city—the Big Apple.

“Hey, Matías,” I heard Saleem Abdel calling me. “Good job, man. Next time I’ll give you two on the house. They give you good training in the force, man. Twinkle Toes wouldda been toe-tagged by now if you hadn’t been here.”

My man Saleem kills me.

Saleem, being a Moslem, must be the only bartender in New York City who doesn’t drink liquor and will give you one on the house only if your tab shows you’ve downed five drinks.

The owner of the joint — who doesn’t drink either — loves his Moslem bartender. I can never figure out how Saleem Abdel can mix drinks, since he has the faintest idea how they taste. If you ever visit this bar, make sure you call him Saleem Abdel. When I first met him, I simply called him ‘Saleem,’ and he wasted no time in correcting me.

“Saleem Abdel—too many other Saleems in town. And they all drive cabs. Das why I tend bar.”

Go figure.

I’m off duty, so I won’t collect OT pay for my good Samaritan work helping old Twinkle-Toes, but I feel good about being a cop in New York City — East of Tiffany’s, is my beat.

The Moral Dilemma of a Police Officer

So, let me go to McCann’s on 1st and 52nd, to cultivate the Irish garden, if you know what I mean.

In this joint, the owner and all the bartenders, waiters, and waitresses, and the Salvadoran busboys, dishwashers, and delivery boys—they all drink. But by the time they (the Irish, not the Salvadoran contingent) start singing “Danny Boy,” and glass on hand, they move from glen to glen—I take that as my clue to leave.

So, I go to Parnell’s on 1st Avenue, another Irish bar, a restaurant, and a piano bar. I had dinner there: Steak quesadilla.

Go figure.

An Irish old fashion joint where the best sellers in their menu are burritos, enchiladas, tacos, tamales, and quesadillas, and at the bar Corona beer, and Margaritas.

“Matías, c’mere,” I hear a raspy voice call. It was Pat Flanagan, the super of one building around the corner. “C’mere, have a few on me.”

I obliged.

So, there I sat next to the super who recalled every detail of things that went wrong in his building from Monday to Friday ten years ago, and yet nothing of the good and bad things of this year. Something wrong with his head. Since he was paying for the drinks, I listened, and got a little bored when he went over the same incidents several times as if I had never heard them. Something is wrong about guy living in memory lane.

Anyway, Derek, the piano player, was too drunk to play on key, so the owner asked him to quit the pounding, and sent the reluctant pianist to the back to have some coffee.

“Let me keep playing,” he begged. “Look at my tips. My bowl is almost empty—three bucks all night long.”

“Sober up, and I’ll call you back.”

With that, he nodded to the bartender — a beefy Irishman with two forearms like two sides of beef — signaling to escort him to the back.

By now, the super, my man Flannagan was so loaded that he started jabbering about his childhood adventures in Dublin and Limerick and spreading more sad stories than Angela’s Ashes.

Stuck in memory lane, and barely coherent, the bartender stopped serving my man. And promptly called his wife. In a few minutes, his son appeared and took him home.

The following week, Friday evening, again, I stopped there; the owner told me that the paramedics took Flannagan to the Veterans Administration Hospital on 23rd and 1st Avenue—diagnosed with acute dementia—Alzheimer’s disease.

Derek, the piano man, out of gratitude, went to see him. When Flannagan was at the bar drinking, he always put in a $5 or a $10 in Derek’s tips bowl, and since his memory was faulty, he’d repeat the tips two or three times. Derek said it was a useless visit. Flannagan drew a blank stare when he saw the piano man. He didn’t recognize him at all.

East of Tiffany’s is my beat. Never a dull moment. I love it.

***

Sunday afternoon. After spending a good hour at Barnes and Noble (46th and 5th Avenue), I went to Staples (on 43rd and 3rd Avenue) to buy a rim of paper for my printer. Since I am a cop — on and off duty — I always take a quick look at the entire scene of any place I go. By the pens and markers section, I saw a tall blond (her back to me) talking to a man who looked like Yo Yo Ma (the renowned cellist). Didn’t make much of it; the store was a little empty, unlike weekdays when customers swarm.

So I went about my business.

Before long I found myself at the computer section, just curious, testing the keyboards. So engrossed was I with the damn gadgets that — sweet and low — a female voice startled me.

“How much do they weigh?” she asked me. “Less than three pounds,” I replied.

Wowza!

The chick next to me was a six-footer, blond hair cascading on her shoulders, white jeans, oversized $300 Marc Jacobs sunglasses on top of her head. I am a cop, so I’m trained to size up a person in mini seconds. What a babe! I thought. Although she may be unschooled in sizing up people, I could tell right away that she was processing me, too. I could see her slow scan crawling from toes to fingers to my hair; and then she locked eyes with me.

People tell me I look like Mario Lopez—the guy on TV, except that Mario is short, has black hair and dimples, and I am tall with brown hair and pimples.

So, I figured she liked celebrities, or why would a good-looking woman talk to me? I usually start the chase.

After some trivial chat about the gorgeous day and some techie talk, I got a little personal and said,

“Tall and pretty as you are, you gotta be a model.”

“Not anymore.”

After an awkward moment, as we both waited for the other to lead on, I held my tongue as well as her stare.

“I freelance,” she said.

When you make detective in the Force, you get to take classes, workshops, and seminars in interrogation techniques. Since I am not a detective, I am raw and green in this facet of human relations. Yet my instinct told me that because she was picking her words with caution, she was prodding me to keep talking and to keep asking questions. Hmm, I thought, she wants me to ask her ‘freelance what’? But I won’t.

Before I became a cop, I sold mutual funds for a while. My sales manager always told me,

“Be in control; don’t let the prospect expect your answer — or they’ll have a ready answer — ‘no’ in most cases.”

Being a salesman can teach you a lot about people — lots of psychology, for sure. But there’s no substitute for an excellent college education. Thank God, come September I’ll start at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. So, instead of asking the obvious follow up question ‘what do you freelance?’ I asked her,

“You work in Wall Street—investment banking?”

That caught her off guard. “First time anybody ever said that to me.”

“Real estate, then?”

“Hardly. That field is in the dumps; can’t make money there. Besides, I hear every stay-at-home wife that gets divorced applies for a real estate license.”

I smiled and said nothing.

Digging into her big Prada bag — which go for $2,500, unless is a knock off sold by the guys from Senegal on 5th Avenue, in which case is only $25 — she pulls her iPhone, touchscreen it daintily, and looking into my eyes, she casually says:

“Oh, my! Ten-Fifty-two, at PJ Clarke’s.”

It only took a fraction of a second for her to detect that my eyes showed I had grasped what she just said. I could just see the wheels turning on her street-smart mind: Cop on the floor. Run! Right was she. Only a cop would know that 10-52 means “dispute in progress.” Nimble and wing-footed, she ambled past the cashiers’ counter, on her way out the door.

“Wait,” I wanted to yell, but no sound came out of my mouth. Baffled and disappointed, or even disheartened, I felt like a fool.

I’ve handled lots of calls for help, misdemeanors, petty crimes, street disputes, anger-management situations, traffic violations, domestic violence, shoplifting, etc. And like medical doctors, I’ve grown a thick skin of pain and virtue. I guess you can say I am a bit of a cynic. And like that French philosopher Descartes, I doubt people. But somehow, I was rooting for her, wishing and praying that she was a good decent egg.

Humbled and outfoxed, and craving for revenge, a little voice inside my skull told me,

“Don’t just stand there like a dummy with your jaw unhinged. Check her out.”

So, I walked over to the manager, who is an amiable man, and I asked him,

“Did you see the tall blond… she was here a few minutes ago?”

“Of course—I see everyone. My job.”

“Does she come here often?”

“Every day. Sometimes three or four times a day.”

“How come?”

“Meets people here. During the week she goes for the executive types, them with the expensive suits, dress-shoes, silk ties—you know, well-heeled dudes. The older set.”

“Why would she approach me?”

“I asked myself the same question. I figgered she liked you.”

I’m gaining a lot of respect for this guy. So, I’m brazen and asked a blunt question:

“Is she a hooker?”

“I have her card behind the register. Dudes many times aren’t interested in her services, so they throw them out in the trash can.”

The card read:

Wendy Foxx

Physical Trainer

That evening I searched Twitter, Facebook, and Fiverr. Yes, she came up. Nice face shot. Nice body shot. On Twitter, she has almost two thousand dudes following her. So, just to be thorough, I also ran a search in Craigslist—lo-and-behold. It also listed her there: masseuse.

Now I am torn.

I am tough and ambitious, ‘don’t get on my way,’ ‘in-your-face,’ type of man. I am still in “bags”, but I can’t wait to make detective. And then sergeant—moving all the way up to commissioner.

A man must have goals.

Better pay.

But now I have a moral dilemma: should I give Vice a tip?

I really gotta think hard about his.

My old accounting teacher at LaGuardia Community College — of which I am a graduate, Paralegal Studies — once said that he lived by this saying: “Love God and do whatever you want.” It’s only now that I’m grasping what he meant.

Yo, man, just because my name is Morales doesn’t mean I have to be moral—does it? If I put the lip on her, does that mean that I love God less?

The Big Collar

It was a chaotic scene as two armed criminals fled after robbing at gunpoint a fruit vendor outside Trader Joe’s market on 59th Street and 1st Avenue. The two men ran desperately for their lives. Patrolmen Doug Cassano and Matías Morales were in hot pursuit. But the bandits weren’t going down without a fight and emptied their revolvers. None of the bullets hit the patrolmen. Just on the north side of the bridge, the heavy-set criminal, out of breath, fell to his knees and Doug Cassano jumped on him, cuffs in hand.

A moment of terror seemed to stretch on forever at the plaza on the East River between 60th and 61st streets, as the tall criminal grabbed the young girl who, with her mother, had been walking their dog, a German shepherd. Cornered, the perpetrator held a knife to the girl’s neck. He shouted to patrolman Morales to put his weapon down. Morales did not want the girl hurt, so he threw his gun down on the concrete floor.

But just then, the German Shepherd cut himself loose from the mother’s leash and, leaping onto the perpetrator, he sank his teeth deep into the man’s biceps. Officer Morales saw his chance and hit the criminal with his baton, subduing him and quickly cuffing him.

The innocent girl and her mother were unharmed thanks to the brave actions of Patrolmen Dog Cassano and Matias Morales, and the brave canine who acted without fear in the face of danger.

I Get my Gold Shield

This is an excerpt from the New York Times:

On a crisp and breezy day of late April, at One Police Plaza in New York City, Mayor De Blasio and Police Commissioner Bratton honored the brave men and women of the NYPD. They recognized sixteen patrolmen for their exemplary conduct, while six commanders received medals for their outstanding performance.

In the grand finale of the ceremony, two heroes from the 19th Precinct - Patrolmen Douglas Cassano and Matías Morales – received the highest honor from Mayor De Blasio - The Medal of Honor.

Anna Cassano, Detective Cassano’s wife, slipped the pendant medal over the detective’s head. Janet Zevallos, Detective Morales’s girlfriend, placed the medal over Morales’s head and, with a wide smile, she smoothed it over his chest.

The mayor read to the crowd:

I award The Medal of Honor to Detectives Douglas Cassano and Matias Morales for acts of extraordinary bravery intelligently performed in the line of duty at imminent and personal danger to their lives.

The heroes we look up to have an unwavering commitment to do the right thing and selflessly serve others in times of danger. Such was the case with these two brave individuals, who showed immense courage by risking their lives to save a child hostage and further investigate potential terrorist activity. Their efforts paid off, as they successfully located and dismantled a group seeking to create weapons of mass destruction. Let’s show our admiration to these two remarkable detectives with this unique Medal of Honor that celebrates their extraordinary heroism.

It also gives me pleasure to announce that both detectives have earned their gold shields, despite the requirement of length of service of three years of service in the force. In view of their gallantry and heroism, I waive such a requirement.

Find three of my books below:

<a href="https://www.etsy.com/shop/Digitaltopos"></a>

My articles are first written by Writesonic (AI) and then I edit them. Of all the AI software out there, Writesonic is the best and most economic.

https://writesonic.com?via=marciano89

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About the Creator

Marciano Guerrero

Marciano Guerrero is a Columbia University graduate, retired business executive, retired college professor, and a disabled Vietnam Veteran. I enjoy writing fiction, and essays of human interest. I also have a keen interest in AI.

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