Seeing property trashed the way the migrant's had done Duda's wasn't anything new. When attending polygraph school in NYC, a Lt showed me some of my tax dollars at work. It was a multi-story apartment building that had been renovated under HUD for low cost housing.
When we went inside the stench was unbearable. He showed me why. There was an air shaft in the center of the building that each apartment on that floor had windows on. The garbage was stacked up over the third floor windows, where tenants had just thrown it out into the air shaft.
As for the apartments themselves, anything that could be removed had been. Copper plumbing, dry wall, appliances, sinks, toilets, even the tiles on the floor and carpet had been stolen. When the tenants took everything out they could sell, they moved.
This project was paid for with tax dollars. Most of the tenants had been illegal aliens. The renovation had happened less than six-months before.
Sandy told me that most of the workers at Duds's had to be illegal aliens since they all had phony Social Security numbers. I used to tease Lamar about this, and he would deny it--with a wink. I told him, as a joke, that he'd better quit lying to me or I'd get revenge.
One day I had one of those The Devil Made Me Do It moments. I was on the East Trail and Duda's was coming up. Sandy and I were having trouble making ends meet. With four kids and several doctor's bills a cop's and her salary didn't go far. And what hurt was that we were also paying the doctor bills for these illegal aliens.
So I flipped on the blue lights, turned on the screaming siren and raced into Duda's parking lot, skidding to a stop. In the fields I could see migrants running in panic in every direction. It looked like when you pick up a board and the ants have built a nest under it. Or, maybe like a soccer game. Anyway, I guess they figured it was an Immigration raid to sack them up.
Probably was a silly thing to do. But it sure felt good.
Lamar told me it took a week to gather 'em all up from the woods and get 'em back to work. But they did come back. And we're still paying for them.
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