This is an excerpt from my memoir, Officer Banfield — the honest story of my years as a corrections and police officer, hitting bottom in alcoholism, and the long road to recovery.
The most memorable time we had together, one night, we were driving from one mental health facility to another. I believe we were on Farrow Road in Columbia, South Carolina. We heard a very loud noise directly to the back left of the police car. He was in the driver's seat, and I was in the passenger seat. We had a marked patrol car with lights on it and it was nighttime. You probably could not very easily see which department it was.
Our police cars at DMH looked a lot like Highway Patrol, at least at night to a casual glance. Therefore, what I'm about to describe I'm not certain whether it involved any particular department or not.
We heard a very loud noise to the back left of the car. It sounded a lot like a gunshot from a decent sized gun. We had the windows up and still the noise was very loud directly behind us. Looking back, it could have been a car backfiring really loud, I don't know.
But at the time, it got both of our energy. Both of us thought it was a gunshot and it scared the hell out of the corporal. He immediately turned the lights on and floored it and got out of there because he had no idea what was going on. All of a sudden we had a random really loud noise, it sounded like a gunshot right behind the patrol car, possibly at the patrol car. He hauled ass and we got out of there.
Meanwhile, I was sitting in the passenger seat saying, "Hey, let's go back there. What was that? Someone tried to shoot at us. We need to go get them."
And he said, "No, man. I got a family."
I didn't understand that because I got back to the police station, I felt so
cold. I didn't feel anything. I wasn't scared of dying. In fact, the emotion I felt was excitement. I thought that would be great, "Let's go do some real policing and we'll get our guns out and maybe get to shoot somebody."
Now, I totally get it.
The idea of having someone shoot at you when you have a family, and say, "Let’s turn the car around and go look for him," that's insane. But at the time, when I was 24 years old, or whatever, that's how I thought.
"Let's get it. Let's get it."
I was ready to turn around, get my gun out and go right back in there. I remember reflecting back at the police station because the corporal had been so scared, understandably.
You are a father and a husband, and you hear what sounds like a gunshot right behind the patrol car at nighttime, you can't see what's going on. Understandably, you are scared.
But I remember thinking, "Is something wrong with me?"
Because I didn't recognize that I experienced any fear. All I felt was a little excitement and today I see that, "Wow, that's crazy. That's crazy!"
I'm grateful today I am in such a healthy place that I'm so happy in my life, that I'm not just looking to go running into some gunshot and try to have a gunfight today, and yet, there is a place for that.
I remember at the time thinking, "Is there something wrong with me? Do I not care about my life? Shouldn't I be scared of a situation like that? Why am I not afraid?"
With all the torturous thoughts in my head and all the thoughts I had of violence at the time, I entertained the idea of having an honorable death
where I might go into a gunfight and get shot, and people would say, "Oh, Jerry was such a great person. Jerry was amazing. We loved him. He was so nice and sweet. It's such a shame he died in that gunfight."
I actually had a lot of fantasies about having an honorable death, because I was carrying so much darkness back then.
I thought, "Wow, wouldn't it be nice to just go get shot on the job and people would remember me so fondly for the rest of their lives?"
People would say, "Oh, Jerry. It is such a shame he died. But I'm so grateful that it was such an honorable death for him."
Those were the kinds of thoughts I used to have in my head, and I thought that would be a better way to go out than the dark, self-destructive ends my mind kept drifting toward.
I thought, "Man, wouldn't it be great to legitimately just get into a gunfight and maybe save someone's life or die trying?"
Maybe that's why I wasn't scared because I actually thought that this would somehow help me get what I needed. I would get love and approval and attention that way. There was nothing to fear, essentially. If I got shot, so what?
My life already sucked on the inside lots of times. People would feel bad for me. I would get lots of attention. It would be great. These are issues that are good to deal with, let me tell you.
After I got out of field training at DMH, I was on my own. Not truly on my own because I generally had a corporal and/or a sergeant to report to on the shift. I generally had a lot of assigned things to do throughout the day,
and therefore, I was often totally accountable to what I was doing at almost all times.
I'm very grateful they kept me working on mostly the first and second shifts because I had talked to them upon arriving that I had been working third shift for months at DJJ and I didn't want to work third shift anymore, and they said, "Well, that's alright because we got some people who do like working third shift, and you can just work first and second shift."
I did a few third shifts when there weren't enough officers to cover it, but since you didn't have to transport as many people during the night, most of the officers were needed during the day anyway, which was perfect because I was tired of working from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.
The first shift started at 7 a.m., and then the second shift started sometimes at like 2 or 3 p.m., and those were the primary times I worked at DMH.
What's coming up to talk about next is my first rebound while I was at DMH because this happened pretty early on after I graduated from the police academy. While initially I kind of had a bit of a period of celibacy and feeling bad for myself after my ex-girlfriend from the police academy cheated on me and dumped me, most understandably, and now most gratefully, that she did do that.
"Thank you for doing that."
I hope she doesn't feel bad about it.
After a couple of months of being sober, my sex desire got real high again. After almost two years of having regular sex, I very quickly got back into online dating, which is how I had met my ex-girlfriend in college. I had actually friended her randomly on Facebook because, in theory, we were in
the same psychology class even though it turned out we weren't. We just were in the same group or the same class on Facebook for it, even though our class was at different times.
In this case, I was back to my random friending activities on Facebook. I'm not even sure what criteria I used, but I was friending hundreds of girls on Facebook, and then I would start talking to them. One girl in particular, we got to talking a good bit and agreed to go out on a date. This was right around the time I was in field training or had graduated field training, probably around November or December, it was around the holidays.
She was cute, five feet tall or so, and very skinny. Maybe only like 100 pounds or so. She was short and skinny, and my ex had gotten chunky after we had been dating for a while. So I thought this was just great, that I could finally be with a thin girl. I had forgotten that I could be with any other girls hardly throughout my life. After a period of mourning and feeling bad for myself, going out with this girl from Facebook, I got really excited again about the whole rest of my possible dating life.
We met out at a restaurant and had dinner together. Then, we went to a bar and shot some pool. I was sober at this time, not going to Alcoholics Anonymous or reading a book, or pretty much doing hardly anything different in my life.
All I was doing was going to work at DMH, calling my parents on the phone and playing "Halo" and going to occasional movie nights with my friends.
That was my whole life.
So, getting a date arranged was about the most exciting thing that could happen. I remember being really excited about going out with her and I was
kind of surprised.
I used to have this shirt that said, "I fuck on the first date," and those were the exact words on the shirt.
I bought that shirt in college along with a "Pimpin Like Clinton" shirt that had Uncle Sam on it with a finger.
The "I fuck on the first date" shirt got some big negative reactions. I was out to Walmart one day in college and I was wearing this shirt that said, "I fuck on the first date," and some mom with her kids came up and was all offended that I was wearing that.
I probably could have gotten arrested or trespassed from places for wearing a shirt with obscenities like that.
However, I believed in that shirt.
But so far, aside from the escort I had hired for my 21st birthday in college, and I guess from the girl I hooked up with at the club, and Myrtle Beach for spring break where I had sex with her within the first few hours of meeting her, and then a girl at a party in college where I met her, and then ended up having sex…
You know, come to think of it, every girl except my girlfriend that broke up with me at this time, I had had sex with almost every girl at this point in my life without hardly knowing her at all.
That's interesting, isn't it?
So, it is no surprise then that after going to the bar to shoot some pool, I asked this girl, I said, "Hey, do you want to come back to my place?"
"Sure," she answered.
She came back to my place, we started kissing, and very quickly we ended up hooking up right there.
I remember afterward she was asking me, "You didn't use a condom?"
Now, up until being with her, I had been very careful about always use a condom with a girl, and the only girl I had not used a condom with, was my ex-girlfriend.
Therefore, every girl before that I had always used a condom with and after months of using condoms with my ex-girlfriend, she went on birth control and we decided that it would be better not to use the condoms anymore.
Well, that was not in my mind to use a condom anymore, after having gotten used to no condom sex with my ex-girlfriend for a year and a half, and after wanting it really bad.
I also had an experience in college where I asked a girl, "Look, I'm going to go get a condom right now."
We were in the study room and we had been making out. We were just about to have sex. I wanted to go get the condom and I came back, but she wasn't in the mood anymore.
I guess I had made her feel like a dirty girl that I needed to have a condom with her.
There is one of those ironic things that go on. If you have got a girl or a guy sometimes that is kind of dirty, but then you say, "I need to use a condom with you."
You get the response, "Oh, am I that dirty?"
It is one of those ridiculous things like you are dirty because you don't use condoms. But then, it is one of those confirming biases like you don't want to make the other person feel dirty.
But anyway, I didn't use one, and I was really careless about it.
We then went to bed after that at around something like two in the morning, and we were both having trouble falling asleep. I asked her how she was doing.
I said, "How's it going? What's up?"
She said, "How are you?"
She added, "I'm tired and I am horny."
We hooked up again, and again the next morning, and then we went to Waffle House for breakfast. Then, she went back to her place and man, I felt good.
I said, "Thank God. There is sex after my ex. This is great."
Thanks to DMH and the police academy for restoring my confidence as a man. I felt with a job as a police officer that I was very manly, I was very worth dating. I had a big sense of self-confidence there, and I was very grateful to have that rebound after the ordeal with my ex in the police academy.
I will just tell you the whole rest of the story with this girl right now. It continued through the time at DMH.
So, while I was at DMH, that was the main girl I was having sex with. I would go over to her place. I think we went out to another date or two, but mostly we just went over to each other's places and had sex.
She would come over to my place to have sex and stay the night. I would go to her place to have sex and stay the night. I remember one night I went over to her place and we took a shower together. I don't know what we ended up doing. I remember I was really resentful because she wouldn't go down on me.
She said, "I don't do that."
I asked, "Well, how don't you do that? How don't you do that?" Jesus.
I felt like, "Shit, it's no big deal!"
I expected any girl I would be with to do that and that was something that I tried to have some patience with. But that was a real deal breaker that she wouldn't do that because I really thought that was the greatest.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.