The Police Band

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    It was kind of the Department to think up the Police Band. The inal impulse, I believe, was creative and humanitarian. A better way of doing things. Unpleasant, bloody things required by the line of duty. Even if it didnt work out.

    The issiohe old issioner, not the ohey have now) brought us up the river from Detroit. Where our members had been, typi?cally, w the Sho Bar two nights a week. Sometimes the Glass Crutch. Friday and Saturday. And the rest of the time wandering the streets dis?guised as postal employees. Bitten by dogs and burdened with third-class mail.

    What are our duties? we asked at the interview. Your duties are to wail, the issioner said. That only. We admired our new dark-blue uni?forms as we came up the river in oes like In?dians. We plan to use you iain situations, certain teuations, to alleviate tensions, the issioner said. I  visualize great success with this new method. And would you play "En?tropy." He ale, with a bad liver.

    We are subtle, the issioner said, never fet that. Subtlety is what has previously been lag in our line. Some of the old ohe is?sioner said, all they know is the club. He took a little pill from a little box ></a>and swallowed it with his Scotch.

    Whe to town we looked at those Steve yon recruiting posters and wondered if we re?sembled them. Henry Wang, the bass man, looks like a ese Steve yht? The other cops were friendly in a suspicious way. They liked to hear us wail, however.

    The Police Band is a very sensitive highly trained and ruggedly anti-unist unit whose efficacy will be demonstrated iime, the is?sioner said to the Mayor (the old Mayor). The Mayor took a little pill from a little box and said, Well see. He could tell we were musis because we were holding our instruments, right? Emptying spit valves, giving the horn that little shake. Or ing in at letter E with some sly emotion stolen from another life.

    The old issioners idea was essentially that if there was a disturban the citys streets -- some ethnic group cutting up some other ethnic group on a warm August evening -- the Police Band would be sent in. The handsome dark-green band bus arriving with sirens singing, red lights whirling. Hard-pressed men on the beat in their white hats raising a grateful cheer. We stream out of the ve?hicle holding our instruments at high port. A skir?mish line fronting the angry crolay &quot;Perdido.&quot; The crowd washed with new and true emotion. Startled, they listen. Our emotion stroh<cite>?</cite>an their emotion. A triumph of art ood sense.

    That was the idea. The old issioners mu?sical ideas were not very iing, because after all he , right? But his police ideas were iing.

    We had drills. Poured out of that mother-loving bus onto vat lots holding our instruments at high port like John Wayne. Felt we were heroes already. Playing &quot;Perdido,&quot; &quot;Stumblin,&quot; &quot;Gin Song,&quot; &quot;Peebles.&quot; Laving the terrain with emotion stolen from old busted-up loves, broken marriages, the needle, eic deprivation. A few old ladies leaning out of high windows. Our emotion washing rusty Rheingold s and parts of old doors.

    This city is too much! Wed be walking dowreet talking about our teiques and wed see out of our eyes a woman standing iter screa<bdo></bdo>ming to herself about what we could not imagine. A drunk trying tle a dog somebodyd left leashed to a parkier. The drunk and the dog screaming at each other. This city is too much!

    We had drills and drills. It is true that the best musis e from Detroit but..here is some?thihat you have to get in your playing and that is simply the scream. We got that. The issioner, a sixty-three-year-old hippie with no doubt many graft qualities and unpleasant qual?ities, heless uood that. When wed play &quot;ugly,&quot; he uood that. He uood the ris?ing expectations of the worlds peoples also. That our black members didnt feel like toting junk mail arouroit forever until the ends of their lives. For some strange reason.

    He said one of our funs would be to be sent out to play in places where people were trembling with fear iheir houses, right? To inspirit them in difficult times. This was the pla up ireet. Henry Wang grabs hold of his instrument. He has a four-bar lead-in all by him?self. Then the whole group. The iron shutters raised a few inches. Shorty Alanio holding his horn at his characteristigle (sideways). The reeds dropping lacy little fill-ins behind him. Were cook?ing. The crowd roars.

    The Police Band was an idea of a very romantid. The Police Band was ahat didnt work. When they retired the old issioner (our issioner), who it turned out had a little drug problem of his own, they did us even drill anymore. We have never been used. His idea was <var>..</var>a romantic idea, they said (right?), which was not adequate to the rage currently around in the world. Rage must be met with rage, they said. (Not in so many words.) We sit around the pre?ct houses, uhe filthy lights, talking about our teiques. But I thought it might be good if you khat the Department still has us. We have a good group. We still have emotion to be used. Were still here.

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