No Cop Situation | Lawrusso

No Cop Situation Chapter 4 / 11

1984

Johnny was seven years old when his mom married Sid.

He was eight years old when Sid fractured his skull.

Johnny cried in the hospital, but a man stayed with him and told him everything would be OK.

The same man held his hand the day they went in front of a judge, and Johnny had to tell them how Sid had hit him hard because he spilled a glass of soda on the rug.

The man stood in front of the judge too and told him all about how bad Sid was.

When it was over Johnny was told he'd never have to see Sid again because he was going away for a long time, and he didn't have to be scared of him anymore.

"Thank you for helping me, sir," Johnny said to the man, as he looked up at him on the court steps. "You're really nice."

"You pretty OK too," the man replied with a smile.

Johnny looked at the man's shiny badge, in the shape of a six pointed star, and said, "One day I'm going to help people like you do. I'm going to be just like you."

The man knelt on one knee in front of him, ruffled Johnny's hair affectionately, and said, "Nothing make me happier than to hear you will live a good life."

Johnny grew up with just his mom, and as he got older he came to understand why.

Sid had gone to jail, and his mom had divorced him, taking a sizeable chunk of his money with her. He hadn't contested it when she asked for half, even though they were only married for a year, in return for her not going public with the information that he was a child beater. After all, what kind of asshole would hit a kid so hard he broke his eye socket?

Johnny's mom took the money and bought them a small house in West Hills, which still left them enough so that they would want for nothing.

It would have been easy for Johnny to grow up spoilt, but he always had one eye on the prize. Johnny wanted to be a cop, just like the officer who'd rescued him from Sid, and nothing was going to stop him.

He worked hard at school, making sure his grades were top of his class. On his 13th birthday he applied to the LAPD Cadets, and was accepted straight away. He spent his evenings and weekends at the Cadets program, and joined the police activity league, where he learned Karate and played Soccer.

Johnny knew he was going to make it. One day he was going to be a cop and it was all he cared about, but only one thing stood in his way – to go to the academy you had to be 21.

"You should go to college before you join up," his mother suggested, but Johnny didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to wait another 3 years for his real life to start. He'd worked to hard for it, so at 17 he moved across the country, all the way to Rhode Island to make his dreams come true.

He worked hard. He cared about nothing else. He didn't care about going out drinking with his buddies or goofing off, like most of the other recruits did. Johnny was a perfectionist, and he wanted to get the top scores in his class.

Johnny graduated the Academy in 1984 and was quickly paired up with an older beat cop who was going to show him the ropes, but only two weeks into his first assignment, Johnny found himself being called into the Captain's office.

"Johnny, in here a moment," the Captain said, as Johnny arrived back from patrol.

"Yes, sir," Johnny replied.