the right
person, which coincidentally they just discovered to be Detective Jesus Ortega,
Jesse to his friends. Friends seemed to be in short supply at the
station.
All he had to do was keep
clean and do his time.
Ortega scrunched his
shoulders up into his raincoat to keep the drizzle from the back of his neck.
Tall and dark with thick black hair combed back on each side of his face he had
the best of his Mexican father and black Irish mother. Trudging down the
sidewalk he thought that if it had been the other way around he’d have an Irish
name and none of this would have happened. If his name was O’Rourke or
any other mick name instead of Ortega, the Seattle Police Department officers
would have accepted him; even if he looked like a wetback taco beaner, it would
have been alright if he had the right name.
A product of Southside Catholic,
the oldest all-boy high school in Seattle, he’d grown up white. He’d
never really felt different until he’d joined SPD, where the old line culture
judged on race. No matter what he said or did, he was a Mexican to the
Department, helping them meet quotas a poster boy for integration.
In the station he was spic, wetback or beaner, depending on the
situation. He’d given up trying to explain as the old timers would never
change and the young guys easily adopted casual racism to justify cowboy
justice required for acceptance.
It had all worked out until he had
broken Keenan’s nose with a hard right hand over a remark about his sister, which
led to the hearing where he’d said yes sir, there are some racist elements in
the station, which led to an internal investigation where he had eaten his
words on the advice of a soon to retire sergeant who told him, “If you
want to make a career at SPD, you tell them you misspoke and that you’ve never
been mistreated at SPD, which is a goddamn lie and we know it’s a goddamn lie
and they know it’s a goddamn lie, and then they will punish you, not for lying,
but for making the department look bad. They’ll assign you to some crap dead
end job, which you will happily do for as long as it takes, maybe years, to
prove they can trust you to keep your mouth shut; then they’ll move you
back. Or, you quit now, right now, today, and find a job somewhere
else, some other state, there’s a whole bunch of them out there, they’re all
over the place. That’s the SPD way.”
Which was why Jesse Ortega was
walking down skid row at night in the rain looking for indicia of suspicious
Asian drug gang activity, whatever the hell that was, but at least he was still
a detective. The real pisser in all this was he didn’t even have a
sister; he’d just had enough. The only bright spot was that it was worth
it to spread Keenan’s alcoholic Irish nose across his pasty white face. He
could tell the brass admired the damage when the bastard got up to testify at
the hearing. That’s one thing you could count on with SPD, if you’re gonna get
physical, do it for real.
The neon sign outside Blue Anchor
Bar and Grill blinked blue and red in the grimy drizzle promising a drink and,
hopefully, suspicious Asians. A mainstay of the downtown drinking
landscape, it had been rebuilt after the Great Seattle Fire, serving men come
to rebuild the city, dreamers and schemers going to Alaska, longshoremen and
stevedores and, today, a mixed bag of hard and serious drinkers. It was a
boilermaker place where a workingman could get an honest ounce of whiskey with
a beer for a decent price. They didn’t serve mixed drinks. Any woman
ducking in alone was presumed to be working, which was alright so long as she
ordered something from the bar, even if it was coffee.
Inside, an old Jew worked the bar
wearing a tweedy looking suit with a paisley necktie knotted in a clumsy double
Windsor at his stringy neck. A white apron optimistically protected the
suit with long ties wrapped around his skinny waist and looped in the
person, which coincidentally they just discovered to be Detective Jesus Ortega,
Jesse to his friends. Friends seemed to be in short supply at the
station.
All he had to do was keep
clean and do his time.
Ortega scrunched his
shoulders up into his raincoat to keep the drizzle from the back of his neck.
Tall and dark with thick black hair combed back on each side of his face he had
the best of his Mexican father and black Irish mother. Trudging down the
sidewalk he thought that if it had been the other way around he’d have an Irish
name and none of this would have happened. If his name was O’Rourke or
any other mick name instead of Ortega, the Seattle Police Department officers
would have accepted him; even if he looked like a wetback taco beaner, it would
have been alright if he had the right name.
A product of Southside Catholic,
the oldest all-boy high school in Seattle, he’d grown up white. He’d
never really felt different until he’d joined SPD, where the old line culture
judged on race. No matter what he said or did, he was a Mexican to the
Department, helping them meet quotas a poster boy for integration.
In the station he was spic, wetback or beaner, depending on the
situation. He’d given up trying to explain as the old timers would never
change and the young guys easily adopted casual racism to justify cowboy
justice required for acceptance.
It had all worked out until he had
broken Keenan’s nose with a hard right hand over a remark about his sister, which
led to the hearing where he’d said yes sir, there are some racist elements in
the station, which led to an internal investigation where he had eaten his
words on the advice of a soon to retire sergeant who told him, “If you
want to make a career at SPD, you tell them you misspoke and that you’ve never
been mistreated at SPD, which is a goddamn lie and we know it’s a goddamn lie
and they know it’s a goddamn lie, and then they will punish you, not for lying,
but for making the department look bad. They’ll assign you to some crap dead
end job, which you will happily do for as long as it takes, maybe years, to
prove they can trust you to keep your mouth shut; then they’ll move you
back. Or, you quit now, right now, today, and find a job somewhere
else, some other state, there’s a whole bunch of them out there, they’re all
over the place. That’s the SPD way.”
Which was why Jesse Ortega was
walking down skid row at night in the rain looking for indicia of suspicious
Asian drug gang activity, whatever the hell that was, but at least he was still
a detective. The real pisser in all this was he didn’t even have a
sister; he’d just had enough. The only bright spot was that it was worth
it to spread Keenan’s alcoholic Irish nose across his pasty white face. He
could tell the brass admired the damage when the bastard got up to testify at
the hearing. That’s one thing you could count on with SPD, if you’re gonna get
physical, do it for real.
The neon sign outside Blue Anchor
Bar and Grill blinked blue and red in the grimy drizzle promising a drink and,
hopefully, suspicious Asians. A mainstay of the downtown drinking
landscape, it had been rebuilt after the Great Seattle Fire, serving men come
to rebuild the city, dreamers and schemers going to Alaska, longshoremen and
stevedores and, today, a mixed bag of hard and serious drinkers. It was a
boilermaker place where a workingman could get an honest ounce of whiskey with
a beer for a decent price. They didn’t serve mixed drinks. Any woman
ducking in alone was presumed to be working, which was alright so long as she
ordered something from the bar, even if it was coffee.
Inside, an old Jew worked the bar
wearing a tweedy looking suit with a paisley necktie knotted in a clumsy double
Windsor at his stringy neck. A white apron optimistically protected the
suit with long ties wrapped around his skinny waist and looped in the
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