Even You Idren Naw Give You No Break
by Elizabeth Massie
Yes, I’ll admit it. I watch “Cops.” Some Friday or Saturday nights, when Cort and I have dinner (our dining room is a converted art studio so we eat in the living room), we tune in to Court TV and watch the finest from around the country chase down, drag out, wrestle with, handcuff, question, and arrest the not-so-finest of the same areas. We try guess the year the show was filmed based on the hair-dos, cars, and clothes. Cort makes a Three Stooges sound – “Whoo whoo whoo whoo!” – when a suspect suddenly high-tails it down the street on foot or across yards and fences. I shake my head in wearied amazement when perp after perp, once he or she has been caught in the act of 1) stealing a car, 2) selling drugs, 3) soliciting prostitution, or 4) beating up a spouse/neighbor/friend/cousin, gets all sweet and compliant and swears 1) “I didn’t do nothin’, sir”, 2) “It wasn’t me, sir”, 3) “This is the first time I done this, sir,” 4) “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, sir,” 5) “Those aren’t mine, sir,” 6) “This is my cousin’s car, sir,” or 7) I go home and go to sleep, Poppy…I mean Officer.”So what the heck does “Cops” have to do with writing? Why do I waste my precious time on such a goofy show? (An aside: I’ve had some writers tell me they disdain television, it’s a waste of time, it’s a mind-numbing leech, etc., etc. Well, I’m not them. So poo to you on that.)
If you are a character-driven writer, like me, you often slip your feet into the other person’s (occasionally smelly) shoes to see what his or her life might be like. You try on his/her skin, clothes, hair-do, education, family, income, prejudices, fears, hatreds, and abode. This is a good tool for creating realistic and/or sympathetic characters.
People are people wherever they are, in spite of the various differences listed above. We eat, we breathe, we pee, we sleep, we need, we want, we live, we die. And I am fascinated by how closely related we are, in both this moment and the potential next, with fragile threads that are broken or left intact depending on decisions we make, actions we take.
On “Cops” I see a young guy with a burned out tail light get pulled over by the police. The cops stop their own car and get out to talk to the dude. The dude suddenly stomps on the gas and pulls off, high-tailing it away, the demon-red glow of his taillights retreating into the night. A moment’s decision, and everything changes. If he’d just waited to get his ticket for the light, he wouldn’t have added evading, speeding, reckless driving, and running numerous stoplights/signs to his list of sins. And the cops probably wouldn’t have taken him out of the car, patted him down, and discovered the packet of meth in his jeans. A spit second decision and the dude’s life has changed irrevocably. Not that the meth wouldn’t have gotten him, but still, it’s a different pathway.
Nobody naw give you no break.
Another episode – cops are called in on a domestic violence report. A man in the yard is whacking on his wife/girlfriend/whatever. When the cops attempt to separate them, the wife/girlfriend/whatever turns on the cops and pops one in the face. Blam! She is arrested for assaulting an officer. A thin fabric of time between pre-arrest and post-arrest. She could have just let it go and let the husband/boyfriend/whatever pay his price. But no, she lashed out and so was also charged.
Police naw give you no break.
Now, I grew up in a normal-ish family. We had our troubles, but for the most part we were happy, healthy, comfortable, and safe. The only real criminal was one of my grandfathers, who molested my sisters and me when we were little. He never went to jail, we never told, and he died before I was an adult and my own kids were born. Good. Other than that, and beyond my own lone speeding ticket, I can’t think of anything any of us have done that would be “Cops” worthy. No car thefts. No drug selling. No stabbings, shootings, beatings, maulings, evadings, embezzeling. Such a lifestyle is foreign to my own personal experience. But, of course, I wonder about it. I’m a writer.
So what if I made a poor, wrong, or ill conceived split-second decision? How would my life be altered, if not for the next moment or hour, but perhaps my entire life? There is such a tenuous line between doing something and not, killing someone and not, stealing something and not. Human skin is just several millimeters thick; what a delicate barrier between life and bleeding out.
What if I slap the back of the head of the lady who is taking too long in the grocery line? What if I accidentally stick this knife in my eye, or in somebody else’s eye? What if I push the person in front of me down the escalator? What if I scream “fire” in a crowded theater? What if I take off my clothes in the middle of the mall? What if I cuss out the cop on the street corner, or make obscene gestures to the already furious man in the car next to me? What if I just grab hold of that razor wire with both hands, or sick my finger in that socket? What if I jump in front of the bus that is coming down the street? I would guess that each simple, split-second decision would veer my life in a direction I would then no longer have to imagine, and I would have to face the consequences.
So, back to writing. Imagining “what if” is an excellent tool to get things going. Letting your mind meander over the many possible what-ifs, from the benign to the terrifying, choosing a couple of those tenuous lines to cross over, and then following the results to their conclusion, can let you become your characters – to feel what they feel, to hear and smell what they smell, to taste what they taste, without having to actually cuss out the cop, slap the woman, or jump in front of the bus. And, happily, cops won’t pull you over. You won’t have to stand there as they grope you for drugs or weapons and as the cameraperson gets in your face. You won’t be harassed, tazed, or cuffed. You’ll still be safe at home, in front of your computer, shaking your head, feeling sympathy or rage or even bemusement at your character for making such a pathetic or careless split-second decision, and then getting down to work to record the results and the unfolding story.
>Bad boys, bad boys. Whatcha gonna do?
Okay. Bye.
