littlegirlcop

you paid the price

2006-11-16T17:09:00.000-08:00

Littlegirlcop was very content to be sitting in a plane, barreling down a runway, about to take off from McCarran Field. A week in Vegas is much too long, thought Murphy. On paper it all sounded great: a cop convention, a city where people come to do things they wouldn't want to talk about when they got home. "What happens in Vegas stay's in Vegas" The words held a promise, but that promise wasn't kept.

You would think that a city built on a foundation of camp, neon and vice would be more fun for a gay man. You would think there'd be atleast one fag bar on the strip. Maybe a Liberace themed club or someplace dedicated to Judy, Bet, Babs or Liza; but there wasn't. There were bars, Littlegirlcop did do a bit of research, but they weren't on the strip. Murphy found his way to an area that'd been affectionately referred to as the Fruit Loop. There wasn't a neighborhood, just a strip mall in a industrial area between the Airport and the Hard Rock Casino. Just a couple of discos, an adult bookstore, a Hamburger Mary's and a bear bar called The Buffalo. The beers were cheep, that's always a good thing, thought Murphy. But this place was obviously on the wrong side of the tracks. Once you made it through the door it was like any gay bar anywhere, but getting there didn't make you feel out and proud.

Sure there was the lights and the glitz of the strip, but again it was an unkept promise. You got the replica swiss watch, but you paid the price of the original. You got Venice with one clean canal, you got all you can eat shrimp in a dessert. The cheesecake at the Carnegie Deli at the Mirage was great, so great that Murphy stopped back for a third piece the night before his flight, but you just can't recreate a Manhattan deli in the lobby of a vegas hotel. Mouthful after delicious mouthful, Murphy thought of the man he shared a piece with the last time he was in New York and felt sad because they no longer spoke. He felt sad because Vegas wasn't New York; and he felt sad because he wasn't home.

with several of old pals

2006-10-17T16:01:00.002-07:00

Littlegirlcop started his Monday morning the way he always did. A cup of coffee and a web browser open to to the Weddings and Celebrations section of the New York Times. Other mornings the first thing he'd look at was his favorite amateur porn site, but on Mondays it started with porn of a different kind. He would scan down the list of names, the woman's name was first followed the man's. Same sex couples didn't fit that format so Murphy'd scan down the column of woman's names looking for the occasional Robert or Micheal that indicated a gay couple. After that he'd look in the column of men's name for the dyke couples. There were always more Lesbians getting hitched for some reason. Murphy always read about the gay men first though. And if it were a particularly sweet story he might bookmark it and come back to it later in the week.

His current favorite was the story of two men who met in college. The men stayed close friends throughout their twenties and both dated women. Eventually in their early thirties, one man came out to his friend by telling him that he didn't "play on his team." A few months later the other man did the same. Soon they were a couple, staying up to watch Princess Dianna's funeral and years later it was all documented in the Times. Like many of the single gay men who read that announcement, Murphy was daydreaming about living happily ever after with several of old pals.

The daydream would usually begin with the two men in tuxedos, on a dance floor set up on a terrace on a warm summer evening. At this point Murphy would feel a twinge of embarassment, what a horrible cliche. He was having the wedding fantasies of a sixteen year old girl. He could take some comfort in the fact that he hadn't decided on the bridesmaid lineup. Well some comfort but not much – the band was always playing the same song: The way you look tonight.

It was at this point Littlegirlcop made sure there was no one around who could see what he was reading. He'd definitely rather be caught checking out the amateur porn, though that too would result in lots of teasing around the station house. The other guys would at least understand the porn, thought Murphy. Everyone knows men are dogs and most suspect gay men are the worst of the pack, But the wedding page, that he'd never live down.

part of him had darker thoughts

2006-09-26T20:11:00.000-07:00

Littlegirlcop and his friend Ted sat on the porch at the party invisible to the men around them. Murphy wasn't quite sure what he was still doing at the grand house, well he was there because his pal Ted didn't want to stay alone, and he was curious about the fancy party on leather weekend, but Murphy and Ted were clearly out of place. Neither was a circuit bear. Neither was an A-lister. Neither had a shaved head or a flat top, or took special nutritional supplements to get bigger muscles, both men were ok in the muscle department but neither was trying to look like a body builder. While they recognized a few people none of the men attending were friends or even really acquaintances. Murphy recognized one man who he had briefly chatted with online. Ted recognized the same man as the guy, who a month ago, tried to lure away his date with the offer of a blowjob. The city was very small at times, thought Murphy.

"These are the Heather Bears," explained Ted, "if they were high school girls they'd all be pretty, rich, cheer leaders named Heather."

Ted didn't know why he received the invitation to the party, and while he was flattered by the evite he didn't want to go alone. This was mostly because Ted was shy, but there was a small part of him that had darker thoughts. It was an invitation from a stranger, it was a pre-party for a kick-off party for the leather street fair. And while the phrase "ass in a sling" wasn't entirely unappealing for either man, the thought of drinks full of Ruffies and a lost weekend chained up in someone's playroom did make them cautious.

The potential for intrigue made the party much more interesting than it was. While the evite promised a piss tough in the alley, what they found was a new metal wash tub with a yellow bandana tied around the handle, nestled in the garden behind some rose bushes. The tub was still dry by the time they found it, with no pissers or pissees in sight. The tub was of the same variety that Murphy's father filled with beer and ice for barbecues and that his mother used for bobbing for apples on Halloween. Their expectations did not match the reality of the party. They were sitting on the poarch of a very nice house with a bunch of upper middleclass gay men. Some of the guys were in there leather gear, but they weren't dyed in the wool leathermen and wore their chaps and harnesses the same way they wore a tux to the symphony. They were eating chips out of bowls and picking at supermarket deli platters. Deli platers, thought Murphy, what kind of self-respecting fag serves a deli platter.

his eyes weren't at all unsure

2006-09-08T15:24:00.000-07:00

Well it wasn't as good as a sailor, a fireman or UPS driver, thought Murphy, but the homeland security guy at TF Green International was in a uniform. And he was definitely flirting.

"He wants to know how old I am and if I'm single," the man said half to Littlegirlcop and half to the woman he was working with. "You like Tony Bennett? I'll sing you a Tony Bennett song."

Littlegirlcop nodded, a bit baffled by the unexpected attention. "Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum, You came along and everything started to hum," sang the man as he wiped down Murphy's bag with the swab for the explosives detection machine.

"Time passes quick, working with him," said his younger pretty partner while the man continued singing. Her lack of surpise told Murphy that he might not have been the first man to be serenaded at this security check point; still, Murphy was flattered.

"It's a real good bet the best is yet to come, The best is yet to come and, babe, won't it be fine?" While the words asked a question, the man's eyes weren't at all unsure, they weren't asking.

The machine spit out the white swab, beeped an all clear and the singing security guy pointed Littlegircop towards his gate. He was still singing as an amused Murphy walked on; smiling, stepping a bit lighter.

someone that looked like his wife

2006-08-22T16:22:00.000-07:00

In his inbox that morning Littlegirlcop saw the name of his best friend from high school. It'd been a rough few weeks. Cancer took a friend. An old boyfriend was visiting. Emotions raged and conflicted, two rivers fought as they merged and settled. The thought that flashed through Murphy's head, well it was more of a wish really, was that his old pal Mikey Sullivan had turned queer, was leaving the wife, the volvo and the three lovely kids in the midwest, and was moving back to town for a new start.

"Dude, you don't need to be a shrink to figure that one out," said his cop buddy Marty, "Do you think he liked you back? Is he gay to? What'd he want?"

"He was just to catching up. We were best friends but, no. Not that I know of," said Murphy. "But if you looked up dyke in the dictionary there'd be a picture of someone that looked a lot like his wife. But I don't think she is either, she just looks the part."

"Murphy, you really need to get laid."

"Yeah, you don't need to be a shrink to figure that one out either," said Murphy. Littlegirlcop replayed the conversation in his head as he drank his beer at the bar. He replayed it as he walked from the bear bar to the leather bar. He replayed it as he drove home alone.

Gabe was a stoner, Don was a square

2006-07-05T00:09:00.000-07:00

Littlegirlcop uploaded the shirtless photo to his profile on bearmuscle.com and couldn't help but think of his friend Gabe. Gabe took the photo of Murphy shirtless, in shorts, in the club locker room a couple years ago. Murphy was a bit uncomfortable getting his photo taken anyway, this discomfort was made worse by the fact it was taken in a lockeroom, a place usually off limits to photography, and that it was taken by a guy he didn't know very well. While the resulting photo wasn't particilary flattering, the combination of the down at the heals location, the black and white film, the general unruleyness of Murphys hair made Murphy look a bit rougher, and maybe a bit more interesting than he usually felt. And with time he realized it made the perfect photo for a chat profile page and other internet dating opportunities. With the many ways you can meet men online Murphy had more need for this photo than he had ever realized.

Littlegirlcop and Gabe had a lot in common. They both loved books and movies. Both men seemed to have a knack for achieving below potential, both were willful and mischievous, and both had full beards that were often in need of a trim. These beards were similar enough that on occasion they had been asked if they were father and son. The truth was Murphy was nothing like Gabe's son and Gabe was nothing like Murphy's father. While close enough in age, Gabe Rosen was antimatter to Don Murphy's matter. Gabe was a communist, Don a Republican; Gabe was a stoner, Don was a square. Gabe played hookey, baited christians and loved labor politics. Don Murphy worked hard, went to church and didn't have much use for unions. What the men shared was an underlying sense of decency. Both had wives named Liz, and both would be highly offended if ever called liberal. Besides these three facts it'd be harder for two men to be more different.

Littlegirlcop had been thinking a lot about Gabe lately and It wasn't just because of the abundant uses Murphy had been finding for his shirtless internet photo. It was becuase Gabe had told him he had stage four lung cancer. Until then Murphy had thought cancers only came in stages one, two or three. The cancer had moved beyond the lungs and to the brain. All the chemo and radiation, Gabe told him, would buy him more time, but not remission, Murphy questioned his lack of a strong reaction to the news. He felt like he'd have been a better friend if he had teared up some, but Murphy's emotions had been quite flat, and this troubled him. Littlegirlcop knew strong feeling would come in time, when Gabe was closer to being gone, or when he passed. Murphy knew he would always think about Gabe on Bloomsday or when he walked by the Bloody Thursday memorial in front of the longshoreman's union hall or whenever he got lucky with that shirtless internet photo. Murphy would think of Gabe a lot.

you'll tell him of your interest in opera

2006-06-25T16:32:00.000-07:00

Then Old Bobby said, " So Eva Gardner said, because that little wap is one hundred and twenty five pounds of solid dick." Littlegirlcop laughed, Irish Joe laughed, John and Jon laughed too. There were more people at the table but the others were caught up in their own conversations and didn't hear Old Bobby's story.

Old Bobby wasn't as old as he looked, but two pacemakers, a blown-out shoulder and years trying to quench his strong thirst put at least ten years on his sixty-three year old body. He said all pro athletes need either a manager or a wife, and he'd prefer a manager, but truth was he had neither. There were a handful of people from the club that watched out for him, but that wasn't a good substitute. In his youth he was quite an athlete. In fact some of his records still held. And on a wall of the restaurant where they ate, with photos of regulars, local heros and a few movie stars was a black and white photo of a younger Bobby with his record time written below it. The photo was from a time when races were measured in miles not kilometers.

It was Irish Joe that got Bobby talking about Sinatra, He'd asked him which wife was the mother of Nancy, Joe said he liked her singing too. Irish Joe didn't look like a Nancy Sinatra fan, thought Murphy, but sometimes it was hard to tell. It was also Irish Joe that managed to find a place in the conversation to mention that this was Pride Weekend. To this point, Littlegirlcop would've only figured Joe was proud on March seventeenth or when the Sox beat the Yankees. Murphy checked for a wedding band and didn't see one, though that never meant too much. Littlegirlcop was reminded of a phrase, "dropping their beads" in his nineteen seventy seven, pre AIDS copy of the Joy of Gay Sex, in a section about how to spot another gay man.

"In straight business or social situations, gay people are understandably slow to come out to one another. But they will "drop their beads" (as queens used to say) one by one, until the full necklace lays on the floor. He'll mention the ballet, you'll tell him of your interest in opera. He'll name the notorious or questionable resort he visited on his last vacation. You'll admit your love of Fire Island."

Littlegirlcop might have more in common with Irish Joe than he had thought. They both enjoyed Old Bobby's stories. Maybe they needed to start talking about Fire Island.

You either were or you weren't

2006-06-13T21:28:00.000-07:00

Littlegirlcop picked up his small coffee from the counter and walked over to the table and sat down. Marty pointed with his eyes, then with a jerk of his chin and said, "See him, he get's laid like a fuckin' carpet, women, men, dogs, cats it doesn't matter; that fucker's got game." Littlegircop and his buddy Marty were getting a cup of coffee around the corner from the station. Marty gestured to Sean Landucci, one of the stationhouse lotharios as he walked past their table and out of the cafe. Murphy had heard Sean tell his stories, and he had seen him in action out at the bars, and while Murphy knew he was a skillful story teller, he also knew he didn't have any need to embelish.

Neither Murphy or Marty were getting-laid-like-a-rug type guys. Murphy was in a bit of dry spell, and Marty was the father of three. While he knew Marty's marital life was happy, he also knew two kids in diapers cut into both the time and energy for sex. As they say on the cop shows, Marty lacked motive and opportunity. Even as a single man Marty wasn't one of those guys. You either were or you weren't; Murphy and Marty both definitely weren't. On the other hand Muphy's kid brother Tommy was one of those guys. He could walk into a bar and leave with phone numbers and usually a bunch of new drinking pals too. He made out like a bandit, as they say, he was in like Flynn. While Tommy wasn't any nicer than Murphy, his warmth ran much closer to the surface: his quick smile, ease with a joke and the brightness of his eyes pulled people in and opened them up.

"So How's that brother of yours, how's Errol Flynn doing?"

Murphy knew this wasn't a general inquiry about the condition of his little brother, it was Marty looking for a good story about the young man's sexual adventures. Marty was a big fan of nicknames in general, but he was particularly fond of this nickname and rarely refered to Murphy's brother as anything else. He like saying Errol Flynn almost as much as he like saying Layed like a carpet, and Marty really enjoyed saying layed like a carpet.

"He hasn't said much lately. He knows not to taunt a thirsty man with a big glass of water," said Murphy, "but you can be damn sure he's doing more than just talking about it in a coffee shop."

Murphy wasn't sure if the stories from his weekend were amusing or just a little sad. He decided one was a little amusing but one was just sad, but he thought he could make them funny in the telling, so he told them anyway.

"Here's a story that you'd never hear my brother tell," Murphy started, " So I went out Friday night. I wasn't feeling really social but I wanted to get out of the house, so I went down to the bear bar for a beer. I got a bud, stood around, didn't see anyone I knew. Ate some peanuts form the peanut barrel, drank my beer, left. I walked up the street to the leather bar, it was dead, walk around the corner to this skanky place on Folsom. Out front some cute guy ask me if if he could ask me a few questions. I thought he was just outside smoking, or waiting for a friend, but it turned out he work for the city heath department. So this guy pulls a palm pilot out of his pocket, and says it wont take long, but the questions would be very personal. I told'm that I figured they might be considering he was with the city health department and he was infront of one of the skankier bars in a neighborhood of skanky bars. So he said 'have you gotten drunk or high in the past year?" then 'Have you had anal sex in the past year?' then, ' Have you had oral sex while drunk or high in the past year?' I think there were more questions depending on how you answered but those were all I got, then he said 'that's it' and I said 'I figured I'd get something for taking the survey' and he said 'no' but opened his arms and he gave me a big really nice hug."

If this had been one of Tommy's stories it would've been a blowjob or sex in an restaurant bathroom, but it was Murphy not Tommy. "It was a nice sincere hug," Murphy continued, "So that hug was the highlite of the night. I did a quick lap of the skank bar, didn't stay, and went back to the bear bar, had a beer and bumped into a guy I fooled around with once and who stopped returning my calls. Then I went home. So how's that for an exciting single-guy-out-on-the-town friday night?

Marty smiled a forced sort of smile and said it wasn't anything at all like an Errol Flynn story. Then feeling a bit silly Murphy continued, "Oh I didn't tell you about the naked guy I talked to did I? On the street, on sunday afternoon, there were a bunch of naked people riding bikes in a pack and there was a naked guy on rollerblade video taping them. He rolled right up next to where I was standing, naked exept for the skates. So I asked him what they were doing riding around naked, and he said they were protesting the high oil prices.

"So you got a hug from a guy who works at the VD clinic and you talked to a naked guy on the street?" said Marty.

"yeah," said Murphy, "that's all I got."

he was glad it was on the menu

2006-06-08T14:48:00.001-07:00

The fortune from the cookie that followed Littlegirlcop's shredded pork lunch special said "Romance comes into your life in a very unusual way" That might be ok if it were very unusual in a Cary Grant screwball comedy sort of way, Murphy wasn't sure he was ready for very unusual if it were in an interspecies – I fell in love with a large cactus – sort of way or even worse an interspecies Berkeley sort of way. He didn't want a physical relationship with a differently abled house cat or an endangered marine mammal or anything other than a reasonably whole middle aged male human. What could very unusual mean in the context of his love life. In that Venn diagram where the circles for unusual and romance overlapped; what could be there? Murphy could think of lots of things that were in the very unusual circle; and he could think of a lot of things in the romance circle; but he was having a really hard time thinking of anything that was in the overlap of those two circles.

He and Marty had just been having lunch at a place they called "deep fried little bird." That wasn't the resteraunt's real name, Murphy wasn't sure what it's real name was. All he knew was that he liked the place, the food was tasty and the lunch specials were cheap and plentiful. He also enjoyed the translations on their menu which were as erratic as the service. While neither Murphy nor Marty had ever ordered the deep fried little bird, they were glad it was on the menu. While not appetizing, the string of words was poetic and the nickname livened up the lunch spot in a way that a more usual names like, china express or peking gardens couldn't. There were lots of things he could think of that would be where the tasty, cheep, and plentiful circles overlapped. The shreaded pork lunch special would definitely be there, but Murphy had his doupts about the deep fried little bird.

a license to say too much

2006-06-02T22:39:00.000-07:00

The bomb that Littlegirlcop was waiting for dropped just as dessert landed on the table. Two berry coblers, Three coffees, one banana cream pie and electroshock therapy. Murphy was at lunch with his cop partner Marty and their boss the often manic Sergeant McD. His drivers license said Michael James Mc Dermott, He was Micky McD to his mostly retired cop buddies. Marty and Murphy usually called him Crazy Micky. On the walk up to his office Marty told Murphy. " All fancy lunches come with a price, sometimes it's monetary, sometimes it's emotional, but it's a price all the same." Then with his left index finger he pulled down the the skin of his lower eyelid and doing the best imitation of his maternal grandfather, Lorrenzo Da Lucca, he said, "Guarda," then back to is own voice, "just you watch."

Murphy was well aware of his boss's struggle with mental illness. Sergeant Micky was always a bit too forthcoming with information about his talking-shrink and his prescribing-shrink and his crush on the short one with the big feet and sausage fingers, Murphy wasn't sure which shrink that was. While Marty also got his fare share of Crazy Mickey's too-much-information, Murphy got more. He and Crazy Mickey were both gay, and because of that fact they shared a bond, Crazy Mickey saw the bond as a license to say too much.

Both men left the lunch table surprised and drained, this was rare because little that Crazy Mickey said surprised them anymore. But when he told them He'd OD twice in the past six months, they realized his condition was far worse than either of them had thought. Crazy Mickey said he wasn't trying to kill himself really, he was just trying to get some sleep. The big sleep, or just eight hours, Murphy wondered, Jesus Christ, just trying to get some sleep.

The most surprising detail of his story wasn't how he tried to put a softer spin on his suicide attempts, though that was interesting. Or the descriptions of the charcoal they filled him with at the hospital to clear the toxins out for his system, which was more sickening really. What was surprising was why his boyfriend only called 911 the first time he ODed. The first time he collapsed into a heap on their shiny hardwood floor. The second time he dragged Micky to the bed and let him ride it out at home. The unknown facts that led to that second decision, the decision not to call 911, fascinated them both. Under what circumstances do you not call for help when your boyfriend collapses on the floor of your well maintained suburban home. That question made the story far stranger.

thoughts of black lab puppies

2006-05-31T11:52:00.000-07:00

It was springtime and Littlegircop had boys on the brain. He had a hard time focusing on much else the past few days. Maybe that was because of the general deficit of other important things for him to think about; or the way the warmth of a spring days worked on his primordial self. More likely, it was the lonely feeling Murphy got first thing in the morning when he realized he was waking up alone again. It's the time of year, thought Murphy, to fall in love a dozen times on the walk between the corner coffee place and the office. And while these crushes weren't always happening by the dozen, some blocks they washed over him like ocean waves.

At times these momentary crushes lingered. Yesterday night on his drive home from the Athletic Club Littlegirlcop was picturing his wedding, puppy rearing and retirement years with the clean cut fellow he saw that evening in the sauna. This man was someone murphy had only seen a few times before and he didn't know his name. He really only knew two things about him. He knew he had a good report with Dan and Andy, two of the old-guy regulars. And he knew he had one of those perfectly proportioned bodies that when photographed out of context would seem to belong to a man of slightly above average height who wore a slightly above average size forty four suite.

In the case of this fellow, he was smaller, looking like he might have been caught in a copy machine set on eighty five percent. The image of this man that lodged in Murphy's head, the image that fueled the thoughts of black lab puppies, and fall walks on New England beaches was the image of the man in profile sitting on the bench next to the sauna's window. The profile of the man and the way the evening light diffused through the thick matt of hair of the mans chest spurred images of both passion and domestic bliss.

He must have his faults, thought Murphy, like the guy at work who leaves his empty sugar packets next to the coffee pot in the station house kitchen. The sloppiness was turned into a cowardly act, he thought, by the smallness of the mess and that he only left it when he was alone.

beautiful in her day

2006-05-25T16:35:00.000-07:00

Littlegirlcop sat on the deck, late on a mid-week afternoon, enjoying fifteen minutes of sun between work and the start of his workout. Murphy had changed into his shorts and a t-shirt that wasn't quite fresh but didn't smell too bad. His sneaker sat beside his chair with a pair of white sox sticking out of one of them, his toes moving free in the breeze. The deck was almost empty, just one other person, a sunday painter, and a painting of Shavone in her usual spot on the deck.

If it was a sunny afternoon you could pretty much bet you'd find Shavone sitting on the sun deck of the Athletic Club eating her bag lunch. There she sat, her sun glasses on, her shorts rolled up a bit to expose more leg to the sun, her feet up on a chair. A gaggle of old guys around her. Shavone didn't exercise, it's not clear if she ever did really, but she'd been a club member for a long time, as long as the club has admitted women. Before that she was a frequent guest of several of the male members. She was beautiful in her day and surely she had many admirerers.

The painter recounted how earlier that day the old men teased the model. Teasing her that she should pose nude then that she definitely shouldn't. Later one of the old guys listed off the names of Shavone's boyfriends to the younger painter. Murphy simultaneously did and didn't want to know the names of the old woman's lovers. He really didn't want to picture Shavone having sex. It wasn't quite as bad as thinking of your mother having sex, thought Murphy, but it was at least as bad as picturing an old aunt in flagrante delicto. But after a few minutes curiosity got the best of him and he asked.

Around the club, on the photo covered walls, are several copies of the same photo of Shavone. It's a picture of her looking sporty sitting on the hood of a car, her hair then stylish, coal black and teased high, the same color and shape it is today. Murphy had often thought one of those photos would look great in his apartment.

the woman was a spy

2006-05-24T10:04:00.000-07:00

Littlegirlcop had a large slice of chocolate cake for breakfast and he washed it down with a cold glass of milk. Few things could be better before work on a sunny summer morning: Sitting in the kitchen next to an open window eating cake in your pajamas. The frosting was thick and the cold milk cut it's sweetness. For a moment all was right with the world. The breeze from the window made him think of a poem that a coworker taught him a dozen years ago. It was a french poem which makes perfect sense because the woman who taught him the poem was french too.

Murphy used to like to pretend the woman was a spy because she was very smart, fun, beautiful and open to life's adventures, at the same time she seemed a bit cold and closed off. He used to like to think about her going from the bed of her lover to a quick political assassination (usually the scenario was some sort of poisoning) to a microfilm hand off on a crowded chinatown street, all in the course of a morning. On second thought it wasn't as much a poem as a bit of an Edith Piaf song, a song about the kiss of a nameless sailor from a ship that would be lost at sea.

Le ciel est bleu, la mer est verte, Laisse un peu, la f'nêtre ouverte.

The sky is blue, the sea is green, Leave a little, the window open.

out on the streets

2006-05-22T14:37:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, from a Peckinpah movie, Littlegirlcop learned that no price can be placed on the bounty of the lord but the devil's bounty, on the other hand, is never free and rarely inexpensive. Murphy fantasized about delivering "the bounty of the lord" speech to some john or junkie he'd arrested right after reading them their Miranda rights. Sadly, these days, he never got to arrest anyone. Sometime they'd invite him to ride along on a bust but that too a was a rare occurance. That was the biggest problem with working in the online crimes devision. He and Marty and the other geek cops did have their share of fun and excitement, but all there stake-outs happened on their monitors, and there investigations involved sifting, crunching and surfing their way thought piles of data. If they chased a perp down an alley, it was virtually.

If he had to, Littlegirlcop could beat most of his colleagues on a chase down an alley, and he was a pretty good shot too, better than most, even though his gun was almost always at home in the gun safe, save for a twice monthly trip to the shooting range and some regular cleanings. While Murphy knew his work was appreciated by the boys downtown, he couldn't help be jealous of his coworker out on the streets, because when Murphy decided to be a cop, when he was a kid, that was what he saw himself doing.

That weekend Murphy also learned that asymtotics was the study of mathematical functions when the input values approach infinity. Not in a million years would that young cop wanna-be think he'd be reading math books for fun. Or kissing boys for that matter.

in the style section

2006-05-18T21:18:00.000-07:00

Hobo, tramp, or bum, he thought? Littlegirlcop stood reading at a gift book display at a big chain bookstore killing time after lunch. Up until then he had used the words interchangeably. Here he learned hobos traveled and worked and were the noblest of the three. Tramps traveled but avoided work and bums just tried to do as little of both as possible. While Murphy by nature was a hard worker he might tell you he'd rather be a tramp than a hobo. And while he never had hopped a freight, the romantic notion of riding the rails did appeal to him. What also appealed to him was the idea of buying those one hundred and sixty dollar french swim trunks he saw in the style section of the Times that morning.

Maybe it was these conflicting notions that kept Murphy in check, that and the fact that he didn't like breaking rules and he really enjoyed a hot shower. Littlegirlcop walked back to the station house thinking about the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup ads of his youth. The ads where two guys bump into each other saying, "you got chocolate in my peanut butter." "Hey you got peanut butter on my chocolate." Was the world ready for tramps in french swimwear? Maybe it was just Murphy.

an odd dream

2006-05-17T15:27:00.000-07:00

Then on a sudden the music changed,
    so soft that you scarce could hear;
But you felt that your life had been looted clean
    of all that it once held dear;
That someone had stolen the woman you loved;
    that her love was a devil's lie;
That your guts were gone, and the best for you
    was to crawl away and die.
'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair,
    and it thrilled you through and through --
"I guess I'll make it a spread misere,"
    said Dangerous Dan McGrew.

--Robert Service
(from The Shooting of Dan McGrew )

Littlegirlcop woke up at 4:28. It was dark as he shuffled to the bathroom for a pee and a drink of water. His alarm wouldn't go off for another hour and two minutes and it was rare for him to wake before it. What an odd dream thought Murphy, Joey Kowalczyk was reading me a Service poem. The combination of the DA's soothing baritone, his thick mustache, the Service poem and the fact that it'd been three weeks since he spent the night at the DA's house explained the snugness in Murphy's pajama bottoms. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, thought Murphy, I'll have to give Joey a call later. Maybe he'd be up for hike on Sunday.

in that forum

2006-05-16T16:56:00.000-07:00

Littlegirlcop didn't usually blush but he knew when Denny O'Malley had a circle around him in the lockeroom all bets were off. Almost with the same breath that Denny apologized for speculating about the family background of the new office manager (apparently for Denny money and class were still taboo) he explained in great detail how he fulfilled a lifelong fantasy for a terminally ill man he met in a gay bar in Santa Fe. Denny never wasted an opportunity to tell a filthy personal anecdote. Murphy would have apologized about telling the gathering of people that he tied a man up then urinated on him but Murphy and Denny rarely saw things exactly the same way.

The telling of the story would've seemed completely appropriate, thought Murphy, if it were just a few gay guy. But he felt a mixed crowd wasn't the best place to start discussing one's kinks. Though he was sure some of the straight guys had kinks, he was sure they wouldn't discuss them in that forum. His partner Marty, the father of three, joked that he had much experience getting pee'd on but saw none of the erotic appeal. In his house it wasn't called water sports it was called a diper change.

good men never hunt trouble

2006-05-11T16:20:00.000-07:00

Littlegirlcop would be moderately embarrassed to read in a blog that he loved old Louis L'Amour paperbacks. He'd be more embarrassed if it said he read Harlequin romance books: which he doesn't. And he'd be much less embarrassed if it said he read old crime paperbacks: which he has but only rarely. What Murphy loved about these books was what he loved about police work: in the end, good triumphed over bad. He also liked the orderliness of their universe where the world functioned in structured and explainable ways. Littlegircop loved that the good guy got the girl. He loved that these women were both beautiful and strong. He liked that they were described as someone you'd ride the river with. He liked the men too. The bad ones were tough but the good guys were tougher. The good men never hunted trouble, but they never shyed away from it when confronted. Murphy thought these good guys were the kind of men any guy would want to be and any gay man would want to be with. They had names like Sandy Bob, Buster Jig and William Tell Sackett. If Murphy ever had a son (or a black labrador retriever) he'd want to give him a name like that. While he knew that the cowboys of the nineteen sixties books and country songs were much more fiction than fact, when he heard Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings sing about them, he felt in a small way they'd seen inside him.

On his drive to the station house that morning he sang along to the tape of "Mamma's don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys" and he felt a cut above the countless thousands trapped with him in the morning commuter traffic. If you cut Murphy at that moment, he'd have bleed cowboy blood. For that moment he was someone to ride the river with, well that's at least what he hoped.

a banquet of sage

2006-05-08T18:32:00.000-07:00

The ice cream started going soft, but that wasn't so bad, thought Murphy. He didn't mind soft ice cream. The warming of the freezer did become intolerable when the ice cream turned to soup. Well the first morning after he discovered the soupy ice cream his coffee never tasted so rich and creamy, but the joy of that was short lived.

Littlegirlcop called the landlord, the landlord called the repair guy, the repair guy said it was hopeless and the landlord bought a new refrigerator. That all was simple enough.

What wasn't simple was removing hundreds or maybe even thousands of little magnetic words off his refrigerator. Over the years Murphy had bought multiple set of refrigerator poetry magnets. He had food words, and words of local interest, he had a set of big unpronounceable sixty four dollar words, he had some dirty words, some Italian words, and he also had cowboy words. The cowboy words were his favorite, and he was proud of the resulting cowboy poems.

All the unused words went into a big plastic bag and then Murphy carefully removed the finished poems from the refrigerator. He wrote out the poems on envelopes and placed the magnetic words inside, saving them for what he was never sure.

~-~-~

fear my ornery hitch
you rodeo cheatin' varmint
desert bones cry
raw critters bleed
can't saddle a scream

~-~-~

above a dream motel
sky manipulates range
the old cowpoke lights out
hankering a banquet of sage
brave woman beauty
and rumorous red treacle

~-~-~

that mad pickle dash
howling down a slick bridge
man did we tour heaven

~-~-~

feel'em buck
thunder round & bite
eat trail pardner

~-~-~

in rough weather &
hard mountains
our sourdough glow
ropes late summer romance
& prairie land sanctity

more relevance than they merited

2006-05-07T22:38:00.000-07:00

Murphy didn't usually go to the Sunday beer busts at the bars. He said it was mostly because it was too damn crowded, but the fact was anything that felt like a frat party made Littlegirlcop feel like a square peg. He went out that night because he met a nice guy online and he knew if he went to the Sunday evening event he might meet this fellow in person. He also went because he needed to put himself out there more, that's what people always told Murphy, you need to put yourself out there more. As far as a Sunday night at the bars go it was a pretty good night for Murphy. He had a nice conversation with a big strong guy with a wrestling fetish who was visiting from Florida. The wrestler was trying to pick up Murphy and while Murphy told him he wasn't going to leave with him he was flattered by the offer and he enjoyed talking with the man about an article they had both read in the Thursday Style section of the Times.

Murphy also met the nice guy he ventured out that evening hoping to meet. This surprised Littlegirlcop because the bar was very crowded making the meeting less likely, but also because even if they did meet each other; one or the other of them might not seem as interesting in person as they did online. Happily this was not the case, thought Murphy. The bearded man with the sweet smile and sleepy eyes seemed very nice. While his soft kisses were unexpected, they weren't unwanted, and they infused the rest of Murphy's evening with a lightness and optimism he hadn't felt for some time.

That night Murphy had the good sense not to bring the sweet faced man home; later in the week, on the back patio of the same bar, after more conversation and more soft kisses his judgment wavered. Littlegirlcop awoke the next morning wonder if the the nice man he said goodbye to in the middle of the night was just a nice man or was he "the" nice man. Murphy really wanted him to be "the" nice man. When Murphy's messages went unanswered. He was disappointed for the expected reason and disappointed in himself for giving the warmth and softness of the kisses more relevance than they merited.

The following Sunday, almost a week later to the hour Littlegirlcop saw two men walking down the street with a stroller, The effect on him was always the same, Murphy felt both hopeful and very alone. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, thought Murphy, and the back patio of a gay bar on a warm spring evening is about as close to Vegas as you can get in this part of California.

meet the death angel

2006-05-04T16:51:00.000-07:00

OK Fourth wall be gone!.. I'm feeling a bit constrained writing about the imagined life ofLlittlegirlcop. I'm feeling blocked. I need to get some real details out of my head before I can write pretend – vicarious living is the only way to go – details for my man Murphy.

Fact one. I had a crappy job interview. I walked into a start-up yesterday, it was a south of market loft, an open office with the expensive version of the old school late nineties door-desks, ethernet cable webbing the exposed concrete ceiling. From the guy I met with I got the feeling that he had no Idea what he needed to do to launch the commercial website he was in charge of launching and he didn't have people in place that did: Strike one. He kept me waiting for almost a half hour, he was kind of rude and he kept trying to negotiate down my price and convince me their stock had value: Strike two. The room was full of old white men and their product was targeted at a young market: Strike three. I was trying to make a sentence about what I was feeling that fit into the world of Littlegirlcop but I couldn't figure out how to shoehorn it into Murphy's story. I like the sentence but kept hanging up on who it was describing:

If he tried hard enough Littlegirlcop could almost smell flesh rotting. He wasn't walking into the morgue or the forensics lab. He was walking into the office of <-- insert character here --> The offices seemed modern enough with up-to-date furniture; it was clean with lots of light. The place looked modern. It wasn't the musty smell of an old building, it was the stagnation of ideas he was smelling.

Fact two. My boss it nuts and it seems like he's constantly having his meds adjusted. Just today he talked about having a computer virus cause his computer to say "meet the death angel" over and over slowly fading out. He told me about an art school friend who was a chronic masturbator, her record was six times in twenty minute. She might have documented this as a conceptual art piece or not; it wasn't clear why he was telling me. It was almost like his brain full of creepy stories sprung a leak. He had another art school friend who's father set his own chest hair on fire after asking his children if they wanted french toast. Again the point was unclear, But it didn't make me feel comfortable, warm or fuzzy. He went on to talk about his alter ego Eric, the name he uses at starbucks when he orders coffee, this didn't seem so weird until he started describing Eric's extremely potmarked face (but he and Eric share the same face and his skin is clear) He also talked about Eric's stable of lover's: three men and three woman. These descriptions seemed to be crossing from fantasy and pretend into the land of multiple personality. He had a doctors appointment this afternoon, thank christ. I didn't want to dump this all on Littlegirlcop but it needed to get out. Now it's out. Devil be gone.

the open spreadsheet

2006-05-01T15:15:00.000-07:00

Littlegirlcop was having a very difficult time doing much of anything. The combination of the warm spring day and the lack of anything pressing made the afternoon a labor, but it was a labor of nothingness, a battle to fight off sleep, a struggle to look productive. Was the open spreadsheet on his screen convincing when Murphy's slouch told a different story.

This inactivity was punctuated by thoughts of endings and beginnings. His supervisor's father's recent hospitalization; the passing of a friends mother after a long fight with cancer; Murphy's mother's Alzheimer's. The lengthening and warming of the days; his niece's prom; the sweet bearded man that kissed him last night at the bar. Do the next months hold promise when the last few did not?

the possibilities of the world

2006-04-30T17:06:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-29T16:29:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-28T21:34:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-27T11:08:00.000-07:00

"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

2006-04-26T14:05:00.000-07:00

"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

2006-04-25T12:38:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-24T14:33:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-20T19:12:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-20T09:32:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-19T12:08:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-18T11:59:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-17T11:08:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-16T11:34:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-15T11:41:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-14T10:22:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-13T09:13:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-12T09:32:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-11T10:04:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-10T19:17:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-09T10:03:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-08T10:34:00.000-07:00

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?

2006-04-07T09:06:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-06T11:43:00.000-07:00

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.