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.
There is a Tupac song called "All Out" that I used to listen to before I would go out, and it would make me feel like I could really let it out.
Let's look at some of the stories from the bars and strip clubs tonight. The one that's coming to mind is one that I think was on my last shift at USCPD.
I was out at the bar one night, somehow I wound up by myself on this particular night. This might have been the night I met the girl at the strip club, but then she wasn't doing whatever I wanted, so I left and went back downtown. It might have been the night I was drinking with my friend, I don't know.
Long story short, it was something like one in the morning. I was out at the bar by myself. I was getting a drink, a girl walked by and clumsily spilled what seemed like damn near an entire beer all over my shirt.
I looked at her and said, "Bitch, what the fuck are you doing?" or something like that right at her and she started going off naturally.
Then this dude turned and looked next to me, and started trying to stand up for her.
He said, "Hey, you better back off."
I said, "You want some of this too, motherfucker? What? Are you with her?"
He said, "No, I'm just standing up. You ain't going to talk shit to this girl right next to me."
I said, "This bitch just spilled a beer all the fuck over me. Do you see my shirt? Do you want me to put this shirt in your fucking face?" or something like that.
I don't know how I had seen it, but I had seen him whip out his wallet before and I had noticed he had a green stripe on the top of his ID card, which meant it was an ID card instead of a driver's license.
He was trying to talk some hard shit back to me and I said something like, "You punk motherfucker, you don't even have a driver's license."
This freaked him out because he wondered how I knew that. He asked,
"What are you, a Fed or something?"
He was flipped out at this point.
Most people wouldn't just notice from seeing someone's wallet really quick. I had an eye for that shit because a green stripe on the top of your ID card was a sign you probably had some criminal justice issues.
If I saw that green ID card instead of the red South Carolina driver's license, I knew you probably had some charges.
That was some of the bias in policing as the assumption was you were probably up to some shit because how did you lose your driver's license anyway?
You probably already got some criminal charges. I flipped this dude out.
He said, "What are you, a fucking Fed or something?"
I said, "You don't want to know what the fuck I am."
He talked some more shit.
I said something I deeply regret, told him to come outside, and stormed out in a blind, drunk rage.
I walked right out to my car.
My mind in that drunk, raging state was a dangerous place, especially for someone carrying a badge.
So my dumb ass sat out there in my car for a while in a rage, and thank God the guy stayed in the bar. He was probably scared shitless of how out of control I was over a spilled beer.
Thank God, the guy stayed in the bar and I did not see him. I finally felt like, "Fuck it." I just drove home and went to bed.
I woke up the next day thinking, "Oh, my God, if I see this guy at work one day, I'm fucked. I am fucked. I crossed a serious line, and if I see this dude at work, I am fired and I might be facing criminal charges."
I said, "Jesus, man. All right. Well, I just won't go out to the bar anymore.
That's it. I'll just drink at home from now on. It'll be all right."
Another night, I went to the strip club. This was the night the dispatcher and I had what you would call our only real date. I know going on an out-of-town trip is kind of more than a date. We went out to dinner and lunch on
that trip. We met out at Zaxby's for our first date. God, she was looking good too, just banging.
She actually got there before me. I remember I was talking to my friend who worked at another Police Department, we are still friends to this day. I was talking to him, I was so excited that I was about to go out with her. I was talking all kinds of shit about how happy I was.
I got there a little bit late and she was just there early looking banging.
We had a nice chicken sandwich or something at Zaxby's and I was feeling on top of the world. I remember this because I just got my contacts this day also.
I was then going out to the bar with my friends. We went out to some shitty bar in the Vista with several officers on shift. Meanwhile, someone was driving the whole time. A police officer who was working with us was drinking and driving us. I think I drove and I think at least one if not two of the other officers also drove.
Everyone had at least two, if not three drinks, before someone got the idea to go to the strip club. On this particular night it was a little cool I guess. I was just talking to the dispatcher, we had our first date and it must have been in late April.
I was wearing these like ugly ass khaki pants, just like some cheap shit you would get at Walmart, and then I was wearing some like green color shirt. Again, some total tool looking outfit and for some reason on this night, I decided it was important as a police officer to take my little 38 special gun with me and I forgot to leave it in the car.
I walked in and took my gun into the strip club, and thought, "Shit. I'm a cop. I can have my gun in the strip club. I haven't been drinking that much."
I couldn't just be satisfied sitting out there drinking and having the strippers dance on me, we had to go right in and start getting the lap dances. A stripper was dancing all over me and she danced up right on top of the gun, and I guess she had felt a gun before.
She said, "What the fuck? Is that a gun?"
I moved it and I said, "Bitch, that's my fucking wallet. Get off me."
You know, that hard defensive response, but that's what I said. Naturally, right away I said, "Shit."
So, I slipped my gun around and I put it in like the crack of my ass. I was walking into the bathroom after the lap dance, because I had to go piss.
Thank God, it was while I was walking into the bathroom, the gun fell down my pants and came banging out onto the tile floor of the strip club's bathroom in full view. It was a silver 38 special right on the fucking floor in the strip club.
I said, "Jesus Christ. If I can scoop my gun up, throw it back in the pocket of my pants…"
I think I took it out to my car or some shit at that point.
I said, "Oh, my God. This is stupid. How do I get myself in these situations?"
This reminds me of another night. I almost forgot. All right.
It was the same strip club, but a different night. I went out with other police officers again that night and there was a whole bunch of us at the
strip club.
There was this stripper who was really hot and she started sweet talking to me. At this point I had been in the champagne room, I think I had already had sex with another stripper, but I'm not sure, I lose track of these things.
I asked this stripper if she would have sex with me. She agreed and she said that she would meet up with me after she got off work. She said she just needed me to give her something like $500 or maybe a little less than that, maybe it was $300, and she wanted like half beforehand.
So, my stupid ass, I went to the ATM and I pulled $150 out of the ATM
machine. I gave it to her and she said, "All right. Good."
She gave me some apartment in the ghetto to go to, some cheap hotel or place you would stay weekly at, and I made very careful note of that, and I was trying to watch for her coming out of the strip club.
I walked around for a while, then I got my friend who was going home from the strip club. He gave me a ride and I asked him, "Look, I need to go over and see one of my friends."
I made up a total fucking lie. I told him that there was some girl I saw from high school at the strip club.
"Bullshit."
He said, "Okay."
I said, "She's over here staying in one of these weekly apartment little studio kind of things."
He said, "Okay."
He probably thought I was buying drugs or some shit, which I wasn't. I
was trying to go have sex with this stripper.
I went over to the exact address she gave me. I was drunk and I might not have heard her correctly, but I'm imagining she just bullshitted me an address, and when I knocked on the door I saw someone pull up the blinds a little bit.
Now my first thought was, "This isn’t fucking right. I gave this stripper $150, and this is clearly not where she lives."
I had the intuition that this was not anywhere she stayed, that she had given me a bullshit address and I was in the wrong spot, and I had better get the fuck out of there while I still had a ride home.
I did not have any cash or anything left on me because I had bullshitted her too. I didn't have any more money myself. We had both been bullshitting and she came out of it with 150 bucks and I came out of it looking stupid.
I hauled ass out of there and said, "Fuck that bitch. This fucking bitch took my money and led me to the wrong place?"
Oh man, I was hot. I was really hot, but thank God, my friend was still waiting there for me. He was a fellow USCPD officer who drank a whole lot that night himself, but not as much as me.
He must have thought I was buying drugs or some shit. I came right back to the car. I was not gone for more than like a minute or two. I came right back there and I said, "Shit, she's not there. I think she gave me the wrong address or something."
He took me right back home and he didn't ask any questions about it either. I'm imagining he figured the less he knew the better, and he was probably right about that.
Another night I'm remembering, I was out of the bar in Five Points. There was a girl shooting pool. It turned out she was a mom who was about 15 years older than me.
She was shooting pool and we started talking and bullshitting. I ended up making out with her at the bar that night, then I got her phone number. A few nights later, she called me up and asked to meet her downtown somewhere at Five Points.
I went to meet her, but she was not there. Then, she gave me this shit while we went to the strip club. The same strip club where damn near everything I've talked about went down.
So we went to the strip club and I met her there. She was with a bunch of other girls and some guys, and there was a big party of people. She was so distracted and I was all pissed off.
I said, "Fuck this dumb bitch. You don't even have time for me? This is bullshit."
I just got up without saying shit and left.
She might have sent me a text like, "Where did you go?" or some shit and I didn't respond.
Then like a year later, she sent a mass text. She started a business, I guess. This was after I had been a police officer and moved home with my parents.
I was on a road trip. I was up visiting my family. I was staying with my
aunts and uncles and cousins in their huge house in Michigan, and she was still living in Columbia, South Carolina.
She sent this mass text to everyone in her phone that said, "Hey, I'm offering haircuts now."
I think it just said something like, "Hey, do you want a haircut?"
She had started a business cutting people's hair. She would come to your house and cut your hair. She started a business cutting hair and she just mass texted everyone in her phone.
"Hey, do you want a haircut?"
I thought, of course, that it was just a message for me at first trying to like hook back up.
I said, "A haircut? Why? What are you doing with a haircut?"
She said, "I'm cutting hair now."
I said, "Okay. So, what about when we tried to hook up before?"
I don't know how we got into this, but we ended up sexting each other. I even showed the messages to my friends, which I'm not proud of, but we will get to that in a minute.
Who knows what I was thinking. I was acting completely on impulse and addiction.
So I drove 700 miles to go to hook up with this girl. Even though I was having a great time with my family in Michigan and I love staying with them,
I drove 700 miles back to Columbia.
Now, the best part of this shit is that I was sexting her while I was driving back all day, warming it up. I was driving back on a Thursday, and I was planning to see her the next day.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.