Metro Police, PCU

What can I say? It was a busy morning. I had to cram three hour-longs in before eleven so I could take the conference call with the boys on the coast. There were closings to close and openings to open and letters to let. There were negotiations with recalcitrant jerks, getting to yes with a push and a shove, and shouting matches with dumb-ass fence-sitters who wouldn’t know their own best interest if it waltzed up and kicked them in the teeth. Marianne, my secretary (I mean my administrative assistant), had been in and out a dozen times with documents for me to sign. In the midst of all this a man in a uniform burst into my office forcing me to cup my hand over the phone. He was a solidly built black man with a patch over his right eye and he leaned heavily on a walking stick. Marianne poked her head out from behind the man: “I’m sorry sir. I told him he had to make an appointment but he wouldn’t listen.”

I held up my free hand to signal that it was OK. The guy on the other end of the phone wasn’t exactly pleased I was ignoring him but I had no choice and told him I’d call back in five. “Please.” I motioned to a chair but the solidly-built black man in the uniform said he preferred to stand.

There was a silence that made me feel uncomfortable. He looked me over. He leaned his walking stick against my desk. On the top of the walking stick was a crystal globe that shot points of light from every colour of the spectrum bouncing off my walls. It was like a little disco ball. Finger by finger he pulled off his gloves and draped them over his crystal disco ball, extinguishing all the coloured points of light.

“My name is Ricardo Tubs.”

I smirked. “And my name is Sonny Croquet.”

“You think you’re funny, white boy?”

I did think it was funny, but I didn’t say anything because he seemed so serious.

“I’m from the Metro Police, PCU. That’s Political Correctness Unit.”

This time I did more than smirk. I laughed out loud. Then: “And my sister works for Grammarians Without Borders.”

Ricardo Tubs looked out the window and sighed. “Let me get this out in the open. I’m a person of colour.”

“I can see that.”

“I have multiple disabilities.”

“I can see that too.”

“And I used to be Recarda Tubs.”

“I wouldn’t’ have guess.”

“Just wanted you to be aware of my sensitivities.”

“Thanks - I guess.”

“Let’s get down to it.” Ricardo/a slapped an 8 x 10 black and white onto the desk. “This was taken three weeks ago by one of our cameras at the intersection of Sheppard and Bayview.” The image was blurry but it was me - no mistake - taken high up and angled down through the window of my car so you could see half the top of my head and even some of my lap. I was holding my left hand raised and pressed to the window and was flipping somebody the bird. “Or how about this.” It was another 8 x 10 black and white, this time of me standing at the counter in a bank. “We took this maybe two weeks ago.”

“So what? I’m talking to a bank teller.”

“We have an audio clip of you calling that teller a stupid retard.”

I shrugged. (So I’m not nice. My clients don’t pay me to be nice. I make no apologies for being good at what I do.)

“For one thing, ’stupid retard’ is redundant. That alone should be reason enough to lock you up and throw away the key. For another thing, the correct phrase is: cognitively challenged person.” Ricardo/a looked down as s/he rifled through the papers in a file folder. “And for your information, that woman at the bank is a member of Mensa. She’s just temping there to make ends meet. You really hurt her feelings, you know.”
I rolled my eyes but that only made things worse.

“Listen, slimeball,” Ricardo/a shouted. “There’s a list of infractions as long as my long black arm of the law.

You used the word ‘history’ when speaking to a woman.”

“So?”

“It’s herstory. That’s feminism 101. A no-brainer. You told a homeless person to - and I quote - ‘get up of your lazy parasitic ass and get a job like any decent person’ - end quote.”

“He was pestering me.”

“He is economically marginalized. Hmm. Let’s see. Oh this is good. The complainant alleges that you told her ten-year-old son his mother had single-handedly caused a world shortage of Big Mac and fries combos.”

“She was taking up the whole sidewalk. I was late for an appointment.”

My patience was slipping. Tubs and I had been talking for more than five minutes and I was going to lose a shot at the Hoskins account if I didn’t call back soon. I could lose a lot of money because of this Tubs character and I told him so.

During our encounter, the door to my office had been open and some of my staff and colleagues had gathered in the hall outside. I was trying my best to ensure that there would be nothing further to hear or see, but Tubs wasn’t helping me. He raised his voice and shouted that there was a whole lot more than money at stake. There were issues of self-esteem, human dignity and personal identity. Had I ever given a thought to any of those concerns? he asked.

I’ve never been splayed on a desk before. I’ve never been forced to hold my hands behind my back while somebody puts them in cuffs. I’ve never been paraded in front of co-workers while I stumble with a police officer to the elevators, then down to a waiting car with flashing lights. But now that I’ve done these things - or had them done to me - I can say with authority that I know something about self-esteem, human dignity and personal identity. I squirmed and I shouted and I protested. That’s when officer Tubs said I better keep my mouth shut or he’d place a call to a friend of his from the Affirmative Action Unit.

“The what?”

“Affirmative Action Unit. It’s an elite squad. We’ve known for a long time that whites are constantly being discriminated against. They’re especially underrepresented in our prisons. The Affirmative Action Unit tries to rectify the problem. You’ll get a chance to help them.”

He pushed down my head as I climbed into the back seat of the cruiser. The media swarmed the car as he pushed the door shut. They asked for a statement, a sound byte, anything at all. So I told them they were all a bunch of blood-sucking parasites and then said a few more things that aren’t worth repeating.

Anyhow, I see our time is up. Visiting hours are over. The guards get pissed off if we talk too long.