the possibilities of the world

The little boy on the bus said to his mother, "What if everybody's wishes came true?" He immediately amended his statement, "What if only the good wishes came true?" He then said, "What if everybody got everything they wanted"

Littlegirlcop was expecting the mother to agree with the statement, reaffirm the childhood world of wishes fulfilled: santa claus, growing up to be president. But she didn't. She said something about there being no need for sacrifice in a world where everyone got everything they wanted.

The mother's need to believe in sacrifice and the need to explain it to the young boy saddened Murphy. To Murphy, on a warm sunny day in a city that has been neither warm nor sunny for a long while, the statement felt like a light slap on the face. While he didn't believe that he could be president, or in santa, he still believed in the possibilities of the world. The innate goodness of people and the promise of science. Not to say he didn't know all wasn't always rosey. He'd seen some pretty horrible things on the job, but those things are nothing he'd want to talk about with the little boy on the bus.

her aspirations for a more glamourous life

Littlegirlcop's handheld began to buzz, "I need to take this," Murphy said getting up from the cafe table and walking across the sidewalk and standing next to the row of parked cars. Instead of brewing a pot of coffee at home Murphy decided to take advantage of the sunny morning and stopped off for cup at one of the handful of cafes in the three block long gay ghetto that was within walking distance from his apartment. He bought a paper and a large coffee and sat down. Before he made it much past Dear Abby and Miss Manners an acquaintance stopped off at his table. The man wasn't someone he knew well enough to call a friend, but it was a person he had chatted with a bit online and it was a person who's company Murphy would enjoy over coffee.

The buzz was an instant message from cuteguy25, one he thought he was sending to Angelina. Her screen name was Angelina but here real name was Elizibeth Haggerty, age seventeen. On her profile she said she was a model and nineteen. Like Murphy, Ms Haggerty had bit of an imagination and he appreciated the playful way she reinvented herself. Murphy also knew though that most people who saw the freckled face and the slightly asymmetrical nose in the photo would suspect that the young lady was not a model. They also might see an easy target in her aspirations for a more glamourous life with a movie star name.

This message was practically the same message that he sent last night to two of the other young ladies whose accounts Murphy was monitering, but unlike the messages yesterday this one contained a picture, and slightly stronger innuendo. The photo made murphy smile because it looked remarkably similar to many photos he'd seen before. Shirtless, decent body, tight white briefs showing a nice outline of the perps johnson. The Photo was cropped just below the nose and just above the knees. Not recognizable, not too explicit, but it conveyed all the relevant information. Murphy even had a similar photo on his computer for the rare occasion when he himself went online seeking a bit more than just chat. Though his photo showed his whole face and his under shorts were much less tight.

It was there that Littlegircop realized that the key to getting this guy might be something the search geeks, Eric and Brian could figure out. Could they crawl the dating and sex sites for image and then write script to look for similar photos? As it turns out it was much simpler. Brian correctly figure that Cutguy25 probably didn't rename his picture file. A quick search on Google images located the same image on an ad in the personals section of barelylegal.com and craigslist.com. Within twelve hours. the assistant manager of the sporting goods store who was neither cute nor twentyfive, the asssitant manager of the store that's around the corner from sacred Heart Academy, was sitting in a holding cell three floors below Murphy's desk.

deep into the canyon

As Littlegirlcop was pulling into a parking space, he heard the beginning of a radio segment about April being national poetry month. As he walked up the back stairs to his second floor cubicle he thought today I should write a poem. Before he could get his jacket off and sit in his chair, Heather the office assistant asked him to help her unjam the copier. This really meant, thought Murphy, could you unjam the copier for me because I'd prefer not to figure out how to do it myself. As he pulled the piece of paper out of a roller exposed by one of four plastic pull down doors, the jam was only ever in one of those four places, he wrote this poem:

Finding Your Ass With Both Hands
by Murphy

Dear Heather, Please follow
these five easy instructions.
ONE reach behind with
your hands and feel for
the center of your back, the
place where you can feel
the bumps of your spine.
TWO Slide your hands
slowly down until you
feel a small patch of
fuzz that sits above
what feels like cleavage.
THREE slide your hands
further south slipping your
fingers deep into the canyon
of flesh being careful not
to snag your beautiful long
nails, sometimes decorated
with flower decals or chips
of diamondeque, on any
stray hairs. FOUR Squeeze.
FIVE Smile. Congratulations
you have just found your ass
using both hands.

a bit of trolling

"My mom took away my webcam," typed Littlegirlcop, "and she said the laptop'll go if she catches me using one again"

"It'll be OK," IMed CuteGuy25, "I'll send you a webcam, and if you loose the laptop I'll get you a new one... promise...."

"My mom warned me about guys like you ;-)," typed Murphy, "They sent a letter home from school, and now she's all freaked LOL"

They'd gotten a call from a high school principal about inappropriate messages coming into some MySpace accounts, so Littlegirlcop was back on decoy duty. For the next few weeks he'd be monitering the accounts of a few dozen young ladies, mostly sophomores and juniors from Sacred Heart Academy. Murphy would flirt a bit, say things like "boys my age are so immature," that thought Murphy was never a lie. Sooner or later CuteGuy25 would move past innuendo and say something overtly sexual; then send a dirty picture; then push for a meeting, then they'll have'm. Until then Murphy got to chat with the pedophile playing the part of many different young ladies. To keep things realistic he has the girls photos and profiles printed out and tacked up around his cube so he could spice the conversation with some true life details. Classes, practice, teachers.

Murphy would also be free to do a bit of trolling of his own as Copguy39. There's a world of men out there with dirty cop fantasies, thought Murphy, why not have a bit of fun, and it sort of falls under the umbrella of "to protect and serve," it's closer to social work really, but it helps pass the time.

standing next to the peanut barrel

"Oh my god, I'm Gay Gayson, Mayor of Gayville," thought Murphy. That thought itself was awfully gay, but less so than the one that came a moment before. "What would Mary Richards do?" that was even gayer, but it gave Littlegirlcop the answer he needed.

Murphy reached up, for Dan McGee was quite tall and mussed his reddish blonde crewcut then gave him a peck on the lips. Because of it's shortness Dan's hair didn't move much, but it made the big man smile like a ten year old. The gesture set the tone, said what Mary might've said. I'm fond of you in a warm friendly sort of way.

Like the night before Littlegircop found himself out at the bars. He was standing next to the peanut barrel drinking a beer, absentmindedly shelling and eating nuts when Dan McGee walked up. Like most of the men in the bear bar Dan was dressed a bit rough, maybe as he thought a truck driver or a longshoreman might, but like most he was a professional, a nine to fiver. He and Murphy had dated, or done something that approximated dating. Murphy was never sure, he thought it was dating, then thought it was two nice guys getting together for dinner and a bit of sex, then maybe dating but he was always unsure. Also ultimately he was uninterested. The problem for Murphy was that when he wasn't around Dan, he didn't think of him, didn't wonder where he was or what he was doing. Out of site out of mind. While Dan McGee looked great on paper: smart, nice, single and burly, there was something missing. Like the night before he wondered what it was that he really wanted. He did know he'd rather meet a nice guy out in the world or at the station house but when he ran the number, he knew he'd have a better shot here.

"How's it going Daniel," started Murphy, "How are the kids at the office treating you?"

he walked on

Still full from a good dinner and feeling flush from the red wine, Littlgirlcop was leaving the oval of one street lamp, walking west towards the light of another. Jenny, his ex wife, had just taken him out for a steak. She talked about her boss: mostly sane when medicated; the guy she's dating: handsome, too styish, hopefully not another confused gay boy. Murphy told her about his trip home, the night with the Joey the DA, and he and Marty's new project. It would've been a perfect evening if they had both gone home together in one car and if she were a man.

They didn't; she wasn't; and he was walking between the bear bar and the leather bar late in the evening wonder what was he really looking for? Conversation? Prince charming? A trick or hug? He walked on feeling confused and sadder wishing he wouldn't always ask himself such questions, between bars, late in the evening.

garden variety geeks

The two cross country pane flights and the weekend with his folks left Littlegirlcop feeling groggy and disconnected. That and very little sleep the night before his trip. His evening with assistant DA Kowalczyk was exciting and thoroughly enjoyable but not restful. They were at the site of the murder from two to three AM. They got about as much sleep after as they did before, though after was decidedly less amorous. Still, thought Murphy, there were worse way to spend the early morning hours than lying in bed with the DA talking about a murder. It was a standard gang hit, but the John Doe didn't fit the pattern. He was early thirties, pasty, doughy, long hair, shorts, sandals, laptop in a messenger bag, a garden variety tech geek. The guy looked like the two guys Marty and Murphy just hired to work on the Fencebuster. If the cops needed database guys and sysadmins, the gangs did too. Sleep is what Murphy needed. And talking to the new guys about search parameters and methodologies wasn't helping to wake him up.

"Stay with us Murphy," said Eric, the one that talked; the other one, Brian, did not. "We can build the search, but we're not cops, you need to tell us what we're looking for."We'll need to know what we can access. Can you get us into the servers at the FBI and DOJ?

"What I want," said Brian, "is a list IP addresses and URLs with know criminal associations." This was the first thing Brian had said all day.

The statement from the usually mute man snapped Murphy awake. The geeks began to chatter and white-board furiously. Brian and Eric ran off and in an hour they'd written some sort of test script that crawled all known and associated Hells Angels web address with data from last months theft reports. As it turned out there was a watch shop in the foothills that shared a server with the Angels, for a small shop they had a surprising amount of inventory, and the prices were a steal. That collar made the boys downtown take notice. And it made Murphy, Marty and the geeks, go-to guys.

she was neither alone nor wearing flannel

It wasn't his phone that woke him, and it wasn't his bed. It was the voice of Joey Kowalczyk that started to pull things into focus for Littlegirlcop. He was Joseph around the DA's office, Joe to his friends. He didn't look like someone many people called Joey. A balding bullish head sitting on big shoulders, no neck to speak of, a barrel chest and a small belly, his mustache looked like it was out of the late 1800's. In court it gave the 37 year old the look and authority of someone's grandfather. Murphy just liked the way it felt. 

"Yeah... yup... yeah... Any idea who it was?... Anyone see it?... OK... fifteen minutes." He pushed the end-call button and put down his phone. "some geek got himself murdered near Sixth Street, you want to ride along?"

"Yeah," Murphy said, still a bit groggy, shaking off the sleep. He didn't make a habit of sleeping with married men, let alone accompanying them to crime screens, but he'd known Joey a long time, and the Kowalczyk's arrangement was know. They had three rule. Don't ask don't tell. Only when the other was out of town. Not with anyone in their social circle. Joey's wife Denise was back in New York for some business and some theater, so most likely she was neither alone nor wearing anything flannel.

The two men got up, bumped into each other around the toilet peeing, then sorted through the scattered clothes, dressing as they went, each looking for about the same thing in about the same size. They located their watches, keys and phones and headed out the door, down the stairs to Joey's green Landrover. On the drive across town, Murphy took advantage of the red light on Mission and Seventh for one last mustached kiss.

old men

It was lunchtime and Littlegirlcop had just finished his workout. He was halfway undressed for the shower when Doctor Abbott told him he was leaving him in charge.

"I'm headed out of town. Jon left this morning. Someone's got to be in charge around here. You're in charge. You're in charge of Milt."

"I'm in charge of Milt," Murphy repeated with authority and smiled, then smiled harder thinking about the time Milt teasingly called a guy old enough to be his father, young fella.

Murphy doupted That Doctor George Abbott even knew his named, but welcomed the inclusion in the banter. He also like the idea of being in charge of Milt. Milt was still tall in his mid 80s, tan from swimming in the outdoor pool, a smile as powerful as his shoulders and a memory inversely proportional to both. For a long time Milt didn't acknowledge him, Then one day he did. Murphy had put in his time. From then on he always used his name. It was always, "Good afternoon Muphy." "Hello there Murphy."

It was funny how the old guys still acted like young guys. Before Doctor Abbott left him in charge, Murphy was listening to him joke with his buddy Max. "Jon's headed off to London with a fresh haircut and a bottle of vialis."

Max responded with his usual "Yeah, yeah", half laugh, half grumble, half wheeze. It was good to know that at seventy you could still have a laugh about a pal flying off on a trip with the hopes of getting laid.

Murphy had talked to Jon a few days earlier about his trip. Jon was friendly with Murphy ever since Murphy almost dated his son. Jon usually started off with something like "Have you seen my son Ted lately, you know he never calls me..." Jon seem excited about flying off to see his ladyfriend in London. He didn't joke with Murphy with the informality he might've with his buddies Max and Dr Abbott. He talked about his trip with a sweetness and formality that a teenager might with a much older person. He was a widower, and this quite possibly was the first date he's had in a very long time. He referred to the woman he was visiting as his ladyfriend and talked about driving out to the country where he grew up, and maybe taking a side trip to France. In this conversation Murphy was the old man and Jon was the young fellow headed off on a romantic adventure.

low hanging fruit

Littlegirlcop knew a lot of people in town. The gym where he worked out was one of those old time athletic clubs that's membership drew from most neighborhoods, professions and classes. Like, the bars he frequented, there was a great deal of friendliness and interaction which afforded Murphy access to more people than he might have if he stuck to close to school friends or station house pals. The shared common interest, sport in the case of the gym, and men in the case of the bars, seemed to open people up to social interaction they might not otherwise have out of those environment.

He had seen Walter Morgan's young associate out at the bars on several occasions. Murphy enjoyed watching a good mystery, and the young fellow at times presented one. Everything added up mostly, but his accent began to thicken with drink, and he liked to drink when his boss was out of town. He also liked to spend money, buying rounds of drinks, big bills usually, drawing attention to himself in a way the Brittish suits he wore did not.

It was a hunch, but when the young man's drink expenditures started rising, along with the attentions of the older party crowd, Littlegirlcop thought the connection might be worth looking into. It was an easy collar. A few posts to the right website, expressing interest in the correct combination of sex and drugs. Marty said it was low hanging fruit, but really they scooped the young fellow right up off the ground.

business with pleasure

Ltttlegirlcop and and his partner Marty were both visibly excited when they left the conference room; faces a bit flushed, walking a little taller. They had just had their second meeting with the deputy commissioner and he signed off on the development budget for their Stolen Goods Auction Engine. Marty and Murphy had been putting in a lot of extra time over the past few months specing out their plan and now with resource they could move ahead and start development. They got the idea after they busted an elusive local fence for selling little blue pills on craigslist, well it was his young handsome associate who they caught, young and dumb and full of it, as they say. Walter Morgan was the fence's name, Always tastefully dressed, always in a grey european sedan, never flashy. While not usually a dealer of drugs, or someone that mixed business with pleasure, Walter got his hands on a couple of boxes of vialis sample packs, and he moved them. His young associate took the heat. He had nice suits too.

The boys who worked grand theft were pretty sure Walter didn't all of a sudden turn clean, they knew they hadn't been able to touch'm for a while and they also knew their percentages for recovery of stolen goods was heading south. Murphy and Marty figured it was due to newer methods of merchandizing. So with a little help from friends in the private sector, the Stolen Goods Auction Engine was born, they never called it by that name. They just called it the Fencebuster.

the foundation of her habit

It was a kiss on the forehead by an older woman that really made Littlegirlcop feel special on Easter. It wasn't from Lorenza O'Brian, the queen of all lasagna and the mother of his cop pal Marty. She did give him a kiss on the cheek like she always did, and it made him feel warm and welcome, a very nice kiss but not the kiss. "The kiss" came from a stranger and strange-stranger at that. It came from one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. This Sister unlike most seemed to be a woman by birth, but really one never knows. She was passing the donation bucket at the Annual Easter Bonnet/Hunky Jesus contest and was touched by a question about the construction of her habit. Before she explained that the foundation that gave her habit it's height and it's unique double domed shape was in fact a brazier, she took his face in her two hands and gave him a kiss on the forehead. She did the same to his friends Patty and Katheryn too, It couldn't have been more loving if it were done by sister sanctioned by the church in Rome. It made him feel very happy. As did the admiring glances of the sweet faced young man seated in front and to the right of him. And the site of the two thirty year old dads with there twin sons each baby in a matching backpack. There was a time when Littlegirlcop would have found the Hunky Jesus contest and the men in nun drag a tiny bit grotesque, and very sacrilegious but really at the heart of all the camp was warm holiday feelings. Like the kiss on the head by Sister Mysteria, that was her nun name, Sister Mysteria of the Broken Hymen.

in that lowercase "g" sort of way

Easter snuck up on Littlegirlcop this year. It didn't really register until Thursday night. Holy Thursday night. He was on the phone with his mother and his father was at church, that wasn't especially odd because he usually helped out with bingo on Thursdays, but that wasn't what he was doing. There were earlier hints of Easter. Starting with His ex wife's Mardi Gras party, the ashes on foreheads the next day, the eerie beauty of those marks were almost a compelling reason to go to church. There was also the devout heavy set woman in the office talking with a few ash marked others about giving up chocolate for lent. But in forty days those details fade. He learned about school vacations in the same way. Teachers he knew turning up at the gym mid day or disappearing all together. Open parking spots near the high school. For Murphy neither had direct relevance.

Well there would be a nice dinner with Marty's family later. Deviled eggs, kids and chocolate. Before dinner an outing in the park with his pals Patty and Katherine honoring the day in a different way. Celebrating spring, friends, freedom and lost religion with a picnic, a bonnet contest, and Patty's favorite, the Hunky Jesus contest, all courtesy of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. While Littlegirlcop could never imagine himself in the nun-clown drag of the Sisters or the hierarchies of their church, he did thank god for them. Well he thanked him or her in that atheist, lowercase "g" sort of way. He also thought to himself, didn't Jesus seem like he might be a little queer.

he wore them all well

The roofer with the abs, had abs, Murphy and Denny O'Malley did not. While Murphy enjoyed these diversion, he wasn't the kind of guy to go find someone to drag back to gawk. O'Malley's ab-emergencies averaged one every two weeks. Last time it was the manager at the coffeshop and his tight flat front chinos. " Franks and beans" he kept saying. Littlegirlcop enjoyed O'Malley's company at work, but the time or two he tried to go out with O'Malley it just wasn't quite fun. O'Malley walks into a bar and makes friends easily and was instantly at home, he knew the gay uniforms and wore them all well. From a bit of leather on Folsom weekend to the perfect jeans for dancing. While on paper this all sounds good, These outings just made Murphy feel like a square peg, not hairy enough for the bears, not skinny enough for the twinks, and he found the fake cop uniforms and chaps a bit silly. On the way back at his desk Marty gave him a questioning look.

"A roofer," Murphy said.

Marty smiled, nodded. "Lynette wanted me to remind you about easter dinner, 4:30, OK?"

"Is she making her mom's cabbage?"

"Oh yeah. wouldn't be a holiday without it"

You could count on two things when it came to Marty and Lynette's holday dinners. His mom's Lasagna and her mom's cabbage. That and three kids climbing all over you. They were good kids.

hands like that

The guy at the nail salon had strong dinner plate sized hands and scuffed scabbed knuckles. The kind of hands you got hitting the heavy bag or doing work not involving a phone and a mouse. He was running counterfeit bags out of the backroom of his shop and he was keeping an updated online inventory lists for his customers convenience. As they say around the station house, "Crime doesn't pay if you're stupid." Littlegirlcop was just finishing up the paperwork thinking about those hand. He Wouldn't pass the test anyway. It's surprising how many guy you could weed out with three questions. Out? Available? Sane? Well smart and no record were both necesary too. If he made hands like that a requirement it might be many more dry months.

"McCafferty needs that file in an hour," Marty said.

"And he'll have it," said Murphy.

Then, with the plea of something very important, Denny O'Malley dragged him off to a third floor window to show him the abs on the guy fixing the roof of the annex.

fair maiden, fair maiden

So what fuck am I doing? Is this a notebook, a blog, a joke or a story. A blogvella or blogman-a- clef? Or maybe a treatment for buddy/cop dramadey for HBO. I donno. Just a word to Proctor and Gamble here: the sight of a guy that looks like Randy Quad kissing a guy that looks like Tom Sellick on the back patio of a bear bar would sell a heck of a lot of facial tissue, It'd drive demand for a couple reasons I can think of anyway. Maybe hand cream too. And where am I going here? Is this a who-done-it or is this a PG-13 Harlequin Romance for the mature queer. Donno, donno. Is it more about the man, his work or his worlds. Again donno.

~ - ~ - ~

At lunch Marty told Littlegirlcop a joke. " A knight's riding across the countryside and he spies a castle. He looks up in the tower and he sees a beautiful maiden. He stops his horse and shouts up to the woman, 'fair maiden, fair maiden, will you marry me?' She shouts down to him 'No.' And they live happily ever after" Murphy chuckled and thought, that's a married man's joke. And Marty was, three kids too, all young. They ate lunch together most work days.

While the tittle Special Agent, Cyber Crimes Task Force, sounded glamourous, it was a pretty nuts and bolts type detective job. The bigger cases usually crossed state or national lines, so those got handed off to the Feds pretty quickly. That left him and Marty and a few of other young officers to the smaller local stuff. Marty's specialty was digging through server logs and other heaps of data. He was the needle in the haystack guy. Murphy had a flair for the dramatic so when there was online decoy work it went to him. He like to joke about telling the old pervs his parents didn't understand him and how a new coach bag or Jimmy Choos or Gucci sunglasses would really cheer him up. It also made smile thinking about the unlikelyhood of his own smelly tripple-e's in a pair of strappy sandles. Then usually he thought of the offensive tackle size dude that sometimes wore the pumps two-stepping at the gay western bar. Doesn't matter what you look like, he thought to himself. everyone likes to feel pretty. Even cowboys.

some company

It had been a long day for Littlegirlcop. Up at five thirty for a work out. The gym he went to wasn't fancy, more clubby really, The kind of place where the same old men have been lifting weights, playing handball and sweating for twenty years, and their fathers for twenty years before them. Littlegirlcop enjoyed the camaraderie and the stories of the old men. Jimmy Nekovar's were his favorite.Tales of pimp bartenders, married women's blowjobs, and VD that turned out to be poison oak. Well he was in the woods and the former was more likely than the later. Two mornings ago it was a lecture in the shower on the screwball comedies of Preston Sturges. This morning he found "the Lady Eve" in the form of a DVD, tucked up in his locker next to his dirty gym shorts. A little homework for later. The Lecturer, another favorite old guy, equal parts stoner, narcoleptic, bureaucrat and media junky had left it there. Until Murphy gave him his locker combination, the Lecturer would take the time to crack the combination and say he found the locker open. His locker left open was unlikely and the time spent working through the four ten digit wheels not a good use of the retired man's time.

Work was work; lunch with Marty then more work. A beer around the corner with the guys, then dinner with his Ex. Every couple of weeks she took him someplace nice, someplace upscale but comfortable she still took good care of him. They were closer since they started talking about the men they were dating, the word dating was more applicable to her relationships though than to his. They both had steaks. He loved to watch here eat, she had a big appetite, he like that in people, she ate like a man, lots of meat, and always ready for dessert. Heading home he missed her. He knew a stop off at the bars wasn't really going to change much. Some more beer and some flirting, what would it get him. Nothing but a few laughs, a few hugs and sometimes a bit of company.

too short and too gray

On some monday mornings Littlegirlcop asks himself why he left his wife. Why did he tell her? It's not that he didn't love her, she was a gay man's fantasy wife. Boyish enough to run around, play hard and get dirty; she cleaned up nicely, liked to go out. And when she dressed up she erred on the side of glam. And it wasn't really the sex. He was pretty close to dead center on the Kinsey scale. He just liked the men a little better. It was the irish flooring contractor, irish from Belfast, intact, not irish american. Just a little more than a trick really. But enough more. The pattern was there. Wednesdays and every other weekend, when that guy's daughter was with his ex. What was his name? That didn't end well, it did set things in motion. Jenny handled it all pretty well.

Marty stuck his head in his cube, "Chinese?"

"Yeah. 12:30?"

"Great."

It was a bad date that triggered the thought. Not so much bad as boring. An internet blind date. A page of relevant facts, a few photos tell you less than nothing. Less than the choice of a hat and how it's worn. Or the choice to shave or not, going with scruff that was too short and too gray to look anything other than sloppy. Things you can see and understand in an instant. Marty was his partner. Marty and Murphy. More Woodward and Berstein than one adam twelve. He just needed to find someone like Marty. Better looking and not straight he thought to himself.

down another one hundred feet

I'm having trouble bringing Littlegirlcop to life. I know what he looks like. I know I want him to be flawed enough to be interesting, nice enough to me likable, heavier on the Id than the superego, a man of action, a bit vain, a tiny bit fabulous, a seeker of forgiveness, not permission. I want for him what I want for me, the kind of life where even the bad stories are great stories.

What fills his days? Work, workout, more internet, books. Where does he drink? Cop bar, leather bar. What does he drink? Beer, bouron. Who does he pal around with? His partner, exwife, men he's dated. What's his damage? My damage. What conflicts can be resolved? donno. How long before the sketching turns into writing? Donno. Dry well. Dig deeper.

he could, I couldn't

Well he most probably wouldn't, neither would I; Littlegirlcop's too nice a guy really. But if push came to shove, the right situation, a few beer, a few beers would be crucial for both of them I think, littlegirlcop, even though he's too nice a guy, could make it happen. There's this married guy that flirts with me, this is fact. I was telling my boss about it and his response was, "there's no such thing as a homerwrecker," so we know which side of the fence he's on. I wasn't sure this guy was flirting until a friend witnessed it and said to me, "Strait men don't say things like that to each other" She aught to know, she married one, bore one, raised him to grown, "he was flirting with you" she said. I thought it was just my wishful thinking. You see the flirt is question is mid-thirties, married with young sons, a big irish lug, over six feet, about one hundred and ninety pounds of crew cut, smile, pecs, sweater vest, and a Celtics tattoo on the hip which doesn't weigh a lot but has it's own visual gravity. He's by all accounts a stand-up guy, not a player. Replay the bosses 'no such thing as a homewrecker' spiel, and again. Nice to think about but it ads up to all bark and no bite.

So he could, but he wouldn't. But since he could, how would he? And I've got to be honest here I'm pretty sure I can't write this scene, even though as the author, I'm the one who puts Littlegirlcop into action. After all I couldn't, wouldn't know how. I'm sure I could muster a bad porno scenario, something starting with a camping trip, some beers, some arm punching, some horseplay, as my father called it, grab-ass was the term a friends dad used; but everyone's already seen Brokeback Mountain. I hold higher hopes for Littlegirlcop. While I don't think he'll be anywhere close to a rocket scientist, I do believe he'll have a keen eye for what motivates, the herding dogs instinct to move his mark. There's a sign I remember seeing in a down market gift shop. It read, "nice to look at, pretty to hold, if you break it, consider it sold" How does the bull write his way out of a china shop?

gloves thrown down

After the first post, at the time the only post, I was challenged to continue. "I challenge you to write your blog for thirty days" she wrote in an email. I said I would if she didn't look right away, or at least pretend not to look for a while. On a dock, a few years ago, a stranger told me something. This stranger was one of those women that looked gay but probably wasn't, your classic high school field hockey jock grown up to a fifty five year old triathlete. She told me that anything you do for a month straight becomes habit. She was talking about exercise, training more specifically. So I know I'm being baited. Baited by a woman who knows how to sling about the chum. A thirty day challenge is really a much bigger thing. But I'm game to see where writing takes me. I'm a creative person, a visual person. I painted in college, I take pictures, the difference here is that writing is concrete and very personal. It's taking a stand, it's words with you behind them. No hiding behind the shield of abstraction.

But I have a character called littlegirlcop. Can I hide behind him? Can I have him do things that I wouldn't, or is having him act as I wouldn't or couldn't just as much me. Can you take shelter in fiction you write? In building my character I'll have to know what he looks like. Physically he'll look like the only cop I know. A guy that swims at lunch the same time I swim. A guy I talk to often but isn't really a friend. He's tall, big, not ripped but not fat, huscular. He looks like he can handle himself, but wouldn't just for sport. Character actor not leading man. He has a mustache, and on his locker he has the sticker for a surf shop and for a gun manufacturer. He got into police work because it was a good job that paid better than life guarding at the city pool. He said that dealing with kids there, some of them in gangs, was good training. He told me this one day in the sauna. He will be the shell of littlegirlcop. If I get past all this meta blogging about blogging crap, and if littlegirlcop starts to walk in fiction in my world, it will be on that frame he hangs.

ninety nine and forty four one hundredths what?

This blog started as a joke. Well a joke about a joke about another joke on a small mailing list of five. The list started as a joke in the boom days, the mailing list of a fake consulting firm, a firm with no clients. The blog/joke started with the Homeland security guy who got busted for dirty talking the teen. I joked: what are the first things you talk about with a teen girl online? Ask her what kind of milage she gets, ask her if you should get the Hemi? Bring up sweet sixteen and make a joke about George Mason. This joke is based on sexual stereotypes some even less valid than others. The George Mason joke is funnier if you know me because I don't follow sports, here I could say made funnier by the fact that I'm a middle aged gay man, but there's about as many guys that applies to as not, and the only person who I know who has a Hemi is a very sweet and petite young lady. I joked that I don't want to chat with cops posing as girls, I'd rather chat with girls posing as cops. On second thought that sounds horrible, the end result would be well into the realm of drag. A bitchy teen girl personality in the body of a 70s TV cop might not be too far from some guy in a leather CHP uniform after midnight at the Eagle. Snap snap snap.

This blog started as a joke but over my burrito I thought a lot about what I would write if I posted again, what I would feel comfortable screaming to the world, what I would feel less comfortable saying knowing a few friends were reading. How do I present myself to good friends, acquaintances. strangers. An intimate stranger is with who I think I'd be most frank. How would what I say change to a close gay friend, how would it spin differently with a straight woman friend, a good man friend. I thought about my identity and the character I whipped up, not as simple as a subset, the circles in the Venn diagram overlap. How much of littlegirlcop will be me? What role does fiction play here, what part is your everyday run of the mill spin. Am I not saying enough if the thought of someone reading this doesn't sting a little or is that just after school special writing seminar crap. Should I have just told you I really enjoy the new Belle & Sebastian CD.

still waters

Secrets. Everyone has secrets. Secret lives. Secret identities. Secret jokes. Secret jobs. Some guy got busted the other day for chatting dirty to someone who he thought was a teenage girl. But who was he chatting with? A big burly middleage man who pretends to be a girl from nine to five. A man like you or me? Half of me wants to pretend to be that man, the other half wants to date him. Be him or date? Hell I might even do that job for free. You talk dirty online; the thrill of that on the surface, or running deep deep bellow; you feel rightious, you're the littlegirlcop, you can wear your secrets outside from nine to five.