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Excerpt from the start of Chapter 1 in The Will to Survive
The Slippery Slope: Ethics vs. Corruption
I was raised to be a man of character. My dad told me that a man’s
handshake or his word was a contract, and he taught me never to break
those contracts. In my family, right was right and wrong was wrong.
Rules were rules and not to be broken. When I took the oath to become
an officer, I vowed internally and externally to uphold the law, no
matter what. There were so many times—as there are for each of
us—when it would have been easy to break the rules and personally
benefit, but I took great pride in the fact that I was leading by a
good example. For years I resisted bribes, freebies and even stacks
of un-manned cash, all without flinching. It was easy for me to choose
to tow the line because I wanted to. Even if no one knew about
how “good” I was, I knew it. I could look into the mirror
each night and feel pride in my actions and in myself.
All of that would change in the summer of 1976, in Monroe, Louisiana, 100 miles
from my hometown of Alexandria.
I’m about to share a story with you that I’ve never told anyone
before today, not even my twin sister or my wife. Some of you will be shocked.
Many of you will think it's no big deal at all, but I'll tell you, this one
incident has haunted me for over twenty-eight years.
One night while working the night shift, my partner and I received a call to
check out a burglar alarm at a local drug store. That happens from time to
time for reasons as simple as a change in the weather or a power surge. After
securing the building, I noticed my partner standing in front of a display
of sunglasses. He picked up several, trying them on and replacing them back
on the rack.
“Hey man, you need a new a pair of sun shades?” he yelled over to
me.
I remember walking over to him thinking, Is he just looking at them or
is he going to take a pair ? I approached the rack and began trying on
the different styles with him, saying over in my mind, What am I going
to do ? My partner looked at me.
“Those look good,” he said. “How do they fit?”
“They fit great,” I answered, “These are some nice glasses.” He
took them off his face and stuck a pair in his shirt pocket.
“Those do look good,” he said. “Bobby, just put them in your
pocket. If the owners were here, they’d give them to you as a thank you
anyway.”
That was an excuse and I knew it, but it was an easy justification. If the
owners were here and saw us admiring their glasses, they probably would have
offered them to us. Everyone knows we’re underpaid for the work we do;
everyone knows we deal with death and danger and destruction every day and
could use a break. It makes sense that they’d be grateful and offer us
a token of their gratitude. But they weren’t here and they didn’t
offer. I took them off my face and put them in my shirt pocket before leaving
the store, making the choice to follow my partner’s lead. He was a veteran
cop, eight years my senior. He was my friend. We worked together and socialized
together. We lifted weights and hunted and did everything as a team. He was
a good man, an excellent cop and a very close friend. Even so, I immediately
knew I had done wrong.
This act was against everything that I was taught as a child and later as a
cop. He didn’t force me. The choice was mine and I made the wrong one.
I got in my car and we went 10-8 (back in service). For several hours, all
I could think about was what I had done. For a $10 pair of sunshades, I had
compromised my integrity and jeopardized my career. As soon as I could, I drove
by a dumpster and threw them in. Not only did I feel guilty for stealing them,
but also they had now gone to waste and the theft was for naught.
For twenty-eight years this incident has continued to haunt me. I cannot tell
you the number of times I have thought about this, questioned this, worried
about this, felt ashamed of this and regretted this selfish act. In fact, every
time I’d hear someone say the word sunglasses or even see someone wearing
sunglasses, I thought about what I had done. The guilt was always there, and
as a result, I never wore sunshades on duty again, no matter how scorching
the weather. Cops would say to me, “Bobby, it’s so bright out here,
why don’t you get a pair of sunglasses?” and my response was, “Because
they give me a headache.” I couldn’t have known for sure because
I never tried, but I was sure at the very least they’d give me an emotional
headache.
As you know from reading the introduction or the back cover of this book (or,
if you have already skipped forward to the gory details in chapter three),
I was shot in the face and blinded in both eyes by a man who ran through a
highway checkpoint. Very soon after being shot, I had no choice but to wear
shades again; large, ugly, dark ones... sun glasses to the extreme. It was
not something I wanted to do by any stretch of the imagination, but it was
less painful to me than forcing my buddies to see my wounds. But even today,
when most blind people wear totally dark glasses to cover their eyes, I don’t.
By the grace of God my scars are no longer visible, so I prefer to wear glasses
that are only lightly tinted. I don't want to appear to be hiding behind anything.
Exactly ten years after I stole a $10 pair of sunglasses, I couldn’t
go a day without them. I guess you could say that I had one year of good vision
for every dollar worth of merchandise I stole.
Isn’t it ironic that the only item I ever took as a policeman would be
the one I’d so desperately need just after being shot? How I wish they’d
stayed in the dumpster!
Isn’t it ironic that the only thing I ever took as a policeman is totally
useless to me today?
For eleven years I was a “good” cop. Does this one incident make
me a “bad” one? I’ve come to believe that it didn’t,
but my guilt and shame about that event made me think on some level that I
was. In fact, after my writing partner, Linda, coaxed this story out of me
and typed the words for all of you to read, I called my twin sister Betty to
share the facts with her. After so many years of bottling this up inside, the
one person I needed to confide in more than anyone else was my twin. The bonds
of a twin cannot be understood fully by anyone who doesn’t have one,
but suffice it to say that it’s like talking to the deepest part of yourself.
I was nervous about what she’d think, and for good reason.
I picked up the phone, dialed tentatively, and heard the familiar crackling
line as Betty said hello. I could tell she was on the handheld in the kitchen
back home in Alexandria.
I gave her the news as she listened quietly…
“Bobby!” she exclaimed, “How could you? I can’t believe
you did that!”
Drat! I was afraid this was going to happen.
“Why’d you do that, Bobby? You’ve got to be joking!” She
paused a moment, waiting for me to tell her it was all a farce, but I was silent. I
could hear the devastation in her voice and I thought my sister was going to
cry.
“I don’t know, Betty,” is all I could say. “I was stupid.”
“But what were you thinking, Bobby?”
“I wasn’t thinking, Betty,” I mumbled. It’s true. I wasn’t.
There was nothing left to say.
I hung up the phone and realized that this one defining moment in my career
colored everything else that had followed. Then I realized something else:
After twenty-eight years, it just might be time to forgive myself .
