The police scanner is awesome. I have always loved watching live music concerts on TV, because you get to see the epic-ness of the whole thing, without hanging out with the unwashed masses. You see the guitar hero, fingering your favorite riff without the smell of puke and stale alcohol, or the 50 year old teenager in front of you who won't sit down, and definitely won't stop screaming "WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" You can pause the show, grab a snack that doesn't cost a mint and not wait in an interminably long line just to not be able to pee in a trough because you easily get stage fright.
Maybe that last part is an over share.
So it is with the police scanner. I can sit and listen to the seamy underbelly of my city, without actually being there. I can be on scene without being on site. It is the best of both worlds - satisfying my morbid curiosity for the daily suffering that comes with the human condition, and siting placidly at my desk, working.
At various times in my life, I have been a devotee of certain daytime teleplays, but none are as intriguing as reality. Even in my little mid-western city, there is reliably a fire, traffic accident, theft, domestic dispute, hit-and-run, or someone just actin' the fool each and every day. And I'm not even talking about listening after the sun goes down! This is at 2:00 in the afternoon! The men and women who work as first responders truly have my respect. The ones that do it at night, have my cautious sidelong glance, for they must be crazy.
My imagination makes the voices I hear look like dashing Hollywood types straight out of central casting, with improbably arranged soot on their face and impossibly gleaming teeth as they walk triumphantly in a slow-motion stride, from the burnt out remains of a warehouse. The look on their faces a studied and practiced mixture of exhaustion and elation that only adrenaline can provide. You just know they will go home to their also incredibly blemish-free wives who will greet them with a single-lipped kiss that lingers just long enough for 2.5 perfect children to come happily around the corner shouting "daddy, daddy!".
Over the radio, or at least the iPhone app that stands in for the radio, I tend to see a romanticized view of the drama unfolding. All the bad guys are really, really bad and the good guys are Dudley Doright. The good guys win, the bad guys get what they deserve and old ladies sleep well at night with their biggest worry being finding enough time to tend to their prize-winning begonias.
But it isn't that way, is it? As I listen, there is a man who hit another car and ran who is now out on the streets calculating his next move. Did he run because he is a coward? Does he have insurance? Is he wanted? Is rushing to the hospital to say goodbye to a loved one for the last time?
And what about the man in his early twenties who just stole something from a store? Is he being initiated in a gang? Is he a misanthrope who is just acting out? Did he lose his job and is desperate for money to eat, or a place to stay?
In life, it is never so cut and dry. The good guys get hurt or killed putting out the fire at the meth lab and the bad guys get away. Good people make bad mistakes. The least among us pay inordinately high prices for merely being indigent and desperate.
And this is why I choose to think of every cop being Erik Estrada and every fireman John Wayne. Each EMT is a young, good looking idealist, working and scrapping their way through the big bad world, but making it just the same. The old lady that just had a medical episode and crashed on the highway is going to fine. In fact, she will be able to see her grand child in the school musical tonight.
And people call me a cynic. Really, I'm just a frustrated romantic.
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