Eddie V.

I really like my partner, Eddie Vicarro. It’s like we were made for each other. I like that feeling, that two people who have found each other are people who were meant to have found one another. I’ve felt that way about Marianne, forever I think. Eddie and I see each other off the job too. Some cops say that it’s not a good idea to mix business and pleasure, but that makes no sense to me. We have a lot to talk about, we share certain interests, and we see a slices of the world in ways almost no one other than a police office sees it. So who am I going to talk to? We have crazy schedules. We have the same days off. Give me a break. The one thing that upsets me about Eddie is that he likes to smoke pot. I’m not a humongous moralist, but I don’t do illegal drugs, and I really don’t think police officers ought to break the law. I guess I’m naïve, because there is no shortage of policemen who smoke, which is so ludicrous, but it’s just the way it is. And I believe society is ambivalent about marijuana use anyhow, very different than it is about cocaine, or heroin, or driving drunk. I mean, if you’re a cop and you get busted driving drunk, you’re screwed. And if you’re as cop and you’re caught stealing it’s the same as if you’re John Q. Citizen. Well, to be completely honest, maybe that’s not always true, ‘cause obviously if a cop busts anyone he has a lot of discretion about how far he wants to take it. You know, the first call after a confrontation between an officer and a citizen – whether that citizen is another cop, a priest, or a wise assed punk – that first call belongs to the officer and he can bust the person or he can give out a warning and walk away.

Eddie is also much more of a street guy than I am. He grew up in Charlestown. But he can’t hang out with his friends from Charlestown, because he can’t be himself in front of them, he has to protect himself. And they can’t be themselves in front of him, precisely for the same reason.

Eddie and I do things with our kids together. We catch a movie together. But we never go out with our wives together, that’s a bad combination. Marianne and Angie. No way.