Big Marty Milano

Big Marty Milano Blue-veined sausage nose slightly off center toward the right side of a florid cop face white-gloved hands directing traffic to the piercing rhythm of staccato blasts from the black wooden whistle clenched between his teeth everyone called him Big Marty Milano and he conducted a busy three street confluence of automobiles pedestrians and kids going to and from school like it was his personal symphony orchestra he was a beat cop walking the streets a kind word for every old person living on his turf a stern look for teens with mischief on their minds and an aura of invincibility as he twirled his nightstick on a black leather thong woven between meaty fingers Big Marty Milano died one Friday night in late March 1950 bleeding out beneath The lamppost on the corner in front of Doc Felcher’s drug store after taking two bullets in his neck trying to stop a robbery in progress the shots woke me up and I watched from my fourth-floor bedroom window sobbing into my pillow as the ambulance and patrol cars flooded the streets with sirens and flashing lights they covered his body with a raincoat but his huge crepe soled cop shoes stuck out of one end the next Monday morning when I left for school there was a new officer directing traffic he wore a strip of sticky black electricians tape across his silver NYPD badge but I just couldn’t look at his face…