PopSyndicate.com

Book tour: Daniel P. Smith In His Own Words

Some of my first memories revolve around crime.

*****

I’m three-years-old and sitting in the backseat of my mother’s green Chevy—my sister in the front seat and my brother at my side. As my mom returned to the car from her trip into McDonald’s, a teen flashes in front of her, grabs her purse, and battles for what little she had in there—a few bucks and credit cards with $200 limits. Only because the strap broke was he able to turn and run, my mother giving chase—and almost catching him—in a pair of heels.

*****
Again, I’m three-years-old and I walk into our South Side Chicago home to find the television gone, clothes tossed about, and a white handkerchief on the living room floor. My brother looks at me. My mother cries. The basketball trophy I held in my hand, my first trophy, falls to the ground and breaks from its base. My father robbed his own house. Three kids and ex-wife be damned.

*****

In February 2008, my first book arrived, On the Job: Behind the Stars of the Chicago Police Department, a non-fiction account of the lives and culture within one of the world’s most legendary law enforcement units. Surprising to some, this book is not about crime. It’s far more heart and soul than blood and guts. I didn’t need to revisit crime; my early years provided enough and that end of police work is well documented.

I suppose readers enjoy crime, there’s certainly an abundance of literature out there on the topic—both real and imagined. Truthfully though, I think there’s something else readers—even devout crime readers—enjoy even more. Call it sincerity or humanity or reflection, but it’s not the story of the crime that captivates us (though such descriptions can surely compel or intrigue us), but it’s the story behind the crime. The personalities, the motivations, the aftermath that truly take hold of our consciousness. I set about writing On the Job for the same reason so many of you pick up a book, open the cover, and share your time with the voice arriving from those pages—curiosity.

The Chicago Police Department is a world I knew well. Four of my six uncles were cops, my estranged father was, and my brother is. In our Irish-Catholic Chicago world, the Chicago Police Department remains the family business. Despite that inherent knowledge, however, I accepted the challenge of interpreting the stories and adding something to the rich dialogue that already exists about one of the world’s most famous, most infamous cities. Above all else, however, I set out to share human stories, hopefully allowing readers to understand people, emotions, realities, and the soul—ideally, leading readers to a better understanding of themselves and their fellow travelers on this human train. The Chicago Police Department serves a backdrop to this discussion, not the primary focus.

I suppose I could’ve written solely about crime: Jim’s shooting of the armed robber; Brian’s rookie year shootout with gang bangers in West Humboldt Park; or John’s discovery of murdered young girl named Miracle Moon. I suppose those tales alone might have been compelling enough and worth the $17.95 cover price. But for me, those tales alone failed. I wanted to know how the subsequent decades treated Jim; how—and why—Brian returned to work the next day; how John changed as a father. I was—what’s the right word here—curious. That’s it—curious. And I thought readers might be as well.

I’ve long envisioned my task as a writer and journalist (I don’t dabble in fictional waters) to ask the questions you, the readers, want answered and to then craft an engaging, sincere, and honest story that could captivate an audience. I’m sure other writers see their work differently, but I want to be familiar and personal and crime alone is anything but.

*****

In the years since that 1984 robbery, I tried to understand my father. I wanted to love. I wanted to forgive. I invited him to Little League games and basketball games and sent him my report card in the mail. He’d pat me on the back and tell me he was proud. Still, I haven’t spoken with him in a dozen years. It’s complicated—like so many father-son relationships can be—but a piece of the silence rests in that night I returned home as a three-year-old to the scene of the crime. But if I just told you about that night, would it be enough? Wouldn’t you want to know what happened to him? What happened to me, the boy, and how that event would forever define the father-son relationship?

The crime alone just doesn’t let us in far enough. The human experience is deeper than any event. I live each day with that recognition. I live each day knowing that the crime stands but a sliver of a greater story and I hope readers of On the Job enjoy, relish, and appreciate my attempt to go beyond the crime and into the soul, where darkness and light simultaneously exist.