Author: Moskos

I went through my field notes. My first dream in which I was in uniform happened about four months into the police academy. But it wasn’t a bad dream.

But then about a year after that, after about 10 months on the streets of the Eastern, I wrote this:

Had another bad cop dream. Somebody told me that this guy was wanted. I thought he was the [***] guy that Balto County is looking for. But this guy was a real junkie, oozing pus, guaranteed HIV +. This time I asked a guy to hand over the drugs he had and he placed vials into my hand. Except the vials had little needles on them, and one of them managed to somehow slide itself right through my skin, like a little finger piercing. I just knew I got AIDS from it.

I was a little a bit of a mess in my dream. In the dream, the guy didn’t mean anything bad. I thought it was strange that the needle could have ended up like that. I was riding with [***] and was on the top of the cop car banging on the car how I didn’t want to get AIDS.

This goes along with a dream a few nights ago about shooting someone. Don’t remember too much about that, other than it was justified. I shot the guy 5 times.

Top o’ the morning to you, too! Try waking up to that and then look forward to going to work.

One thing I hated about being a cop was having work dreams. I mean, I still have them. Don’t we all? But now my dreams are occasionally about being late for class, or unable to get my things together and leave home (the latter happens quite often in real life as well). Whatever, dude. So I’m late. Teaching dreams aren’t the end of world.

But when I worked in the Eastern District, I had dreams about the Eastern District. And the Eastern District isn’t good. It’s one thing to work there and spend most of your waking hours in the Eastern (and a few asleep ones, too). But when I left the Eastern, I wanted to leave work. And for work and the Eastern to enter my dreams, myfree time, that’s just not right.

This came to mind because last night I was talking to two John Jay College student, one a ranking police officer and the other an immigrant cab driver (I love John Jay College). The guy who drives the cab wants to be a New York police officer (and I think would make a very good one). He said he was thinking of getting a job as a correctional officer (jail guard at Rikers) until the NYPD starts hiring again. I advised against it.

Being a C.O. is not just a tough job but also a bad job. To spend most of your waking hours in jail? I don’t care if you get paid for it. You’re in jail. And then there are the dreams….

Out of the blue I asked the police officer what kind of work dreams he had. He didn’t even hesitate: dreams of being in fights and not being able to defend himself and needing to defend himself and having his gun not work. That didn’t surprise me. I actually don’t remember the details of my cop dreams. But they were something like that. They weren’t friendly. Correctional-officer dreams must be terrible.

The student who drives taxis, not surprisingly, says he dreams of being in a car accident. He rents his cab each shift. And if he’s in a accident that is his fault, he’s got to pay for the repairs.

Work dreams. Hmmmm…. It’s a good reason to be a teacher. Worst comes to worst, you’re just naked in front of your class.