Whatcha Gonna Do When They Come for You

On TV, sure, you've seen it a million times—the police walk up and ask someone if he or she wouldn't mind coming down to the station to answer a few questions. But I think this was my first time in real life that I'd seen it happen. I'd dragged myself along the steamy summer sidewalks and staggered weakly through the door of a local bar, crawled up onto a stool, and gasped out a request for a lifesaving beer. Thus refreshed, I was hanging out chatting when two cops walk in, a beefy patrolwoman bristling with weapons and an equally beefy detective in the requisite cheap jacket. They ask for the owner, and in a few minutes a waitress appears—young, attractive, just starting out in life. And they request that she come down to the station and answer a few questions. "Sure!" she chirped, but looking a little blank around the eyes, and off they went.

I looked at the bartender, who leaned in to explain. Evidently—I'll add allegedly—bills were coming in with alterations to the tip amount, and someone had noticed. The bartender's face was troubled. "She's a nice girl in a really tough situation," she said. I sympathized, but added the people really shouldn't steal, you know, and the bartender agreed.

Another sweltering day, another dose of beer therapy. Same bartender. I raise my eyebrows inquisitively, and the bartender breaks into a little victory dance. "She was arrested!" she said. This jubilation struck me as odd, after the concern before, but only for a moment. The bartender is a great kid, super efficient and responsible, and she's been made a manager and only tends bar occasionally now. Bright, pleasant, hard-working. And when someone who's allegedly stealing is caught, it's one for our side, right? The people who don't take other people's stuff because it's wrong? Who wouldn't steal even if they could get away with it? Of course. But it's sad and tawdry, too. Years ago I had time to kill at a court, so I sat in the audience seats while they did arraignments. One kid after another, each one dumb and bewildered, standing there with their public-defender lawyers, people who'd been screwing up and now were paying the price. You had to wonder if any of them would go on from this point to have anything like a good, pleasant, constructive life.

People who do wrong things need to be stopped, and I guess most need to be punished in some way, but it's hard to feel honestly jubilant about it for long, and the bartender didn't. That same look of concern crossed her face again. Crime and punishment, cops and robbers, cat and mouse. It's entertaining on the teevee, but in real life, it's not much fun at all, really.

But it's fun on the teevee! Here's a great interrogation scene from the best TV show maybe ever—Homicide: Life on the Street. And two of the best characters, the smart, hip cop Meldrick Lewis and the wily, feline, and unctuous drug dealer Luther Mahoney. Enjoy: