TRUE BLUE: BUBBLE GUM MACHINE DOME LIGHT

I conducted an hour long interview with my father about his time on the NYPD in East New York from 1968 - 1989. I'll be posting chunks of the interview as I continue to transcribe it.

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Me: Tell me about your first week on the job. What was that like?

Dad: Oh, it was horrible. Coming from Long Island, my first week they stuck me in the 8-0 precinct, my very first precinct, in Bedford Stuyvesant. I worked with a guy on a night shift, which was midnight until eight in the morning, and his name was Freddie Holmes. Really nice guy. Black cop, well seasoned, and he had about 5 years on the job. We had all dark blue uniforms then. I remember him stopping for some ribs on Pacific Street and Nordstrom Avenue at about 3 o’clock in the morning on Saturday evening. Bedford Stuyvesant on a Saturday night at three in the morning is jumpin’. Everyone is out partying. So he left me in the police car...the old green white and black ones with the bubble gum machine dome light… and he went in to get some ribs. And an elderly drunken women, it was in the middle of the summer, come up to the car, my window was down, leaned in the car, grabbed me by my police shirt, and planted a kiss on my lips (loud kiss sound) and she says, “Honey, you’re new here… and their gonna kick your ass!” And I was ready to quit, I was ready to quit. I says, “If she knows I’m a rookie cop, the guys on Nordstrom Avenue are really going to kill me…” So, that was my first week on the job. And Freddie came out of the rib place, kicked her in the ass, and told her to get on her way. And I was ready to turn in my shield and gun. I said, “I ain’t gonna make this. I am not gonna live in Bed Stuy."