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Questions for Discussion

1) Why does the academy staff retell the story of Katherine and Johnny to each successive class? What lessons do the cadets learn from KatherineÕs conduct on the force? Would the cadets still aspire to her level of professionalism if they knew the reality instead of the icon? Do you think KatherineÕs gifts of St. MichaelÕs medallions are her way of honoring JohnnyÕs memory?

2) In ÒKatherineÕs Elegy,Ó seasoned officer Joe Boudreaux says, ÒDoing good and helping people is crap.Ó Why is idealism counterproductive in a police officer? As Drummond traces the career arc of an exceptional police officer, from rookie to trainer to legend, how does she reveal the process by which youthful idealism fades to jaded experience? Is this process accelerated for a police officer?

3) In ÒLemme Tell You Something,Ó George appears to be simply a garrulous and slightly comic neighbor, chatting away as he cuts back a tree. What are some of the many topics George brings up with the titular phrase? How does this litany of opinions and fact disarm the reader? Is it effective in amplifying the shock of his final revelation? What questions does this story raise about what we are capable of doing, and the unexpected things we could learn if we just listen?

4) Liz realizes that her time on the force Òhad permeated my skin, blood, cells, brain chemistry,Ó in ÒFinding A Place.Ó She wonders what to do with her bulletproof vest, equipment, guns, etc. In ÒWhere I come From,Ó Sarah eventually buries the accoutrements of her former life on the force. Why or how does police work permanently affect the women? What are some of the habits that make it difficult to re-enter civilian life? Do the gender specific aches and pains of police workÑhipbones bruised by the weight of the holstered gun, breasts sore and chafed by bulletproof vests, for exampleÑhighlight the additional difficulties faced by women officers? How do these details immerse the reader in the lives of each officer?

5) In ÒUnder ControlÓ and ÒTaste, Touch, Sight, Sound, Smell,Ó policewomen confront situations with the potential to escalate violently. How does each women attempt to diffuse each situation? What signs of impending violence do they look for? How does each scene illustrate the hair-raising difficulty of assessing a situation Òwithout understanding all the piecesÑlike entering a movie already in progressÓ? How does the title ÒUnder ControlÓ play out a family drama on two distinct yet simultaneous levels? What does Mona control? Is she effective?

6) ÒCleaning Your GunÓ is clearly MonaÕs story, yet Drummond writes in the second person, as if addressing the reader. How does this alter the impact of the story? When MonaÕs husband says to her, Òyour father was the job and nothing more,Ó why does Mona defend her father? Does the fact that her father used ÒyouÕre just like your motherÓ as the ultimate insult affect her (perhaps unconscious) choice of role model?

7) In ÒSomething About a Scar,Ó how was Marjorie further victimized after she was brutally stabbed? What does Cathy mean when she wonders what Ònew white snake was twisted into being deep inside from my inability to say, ÒYes, Marjorie, I believe you?Ó What can we infer about physical and psychic scars, and how each could be formed, from this story?

8) In ÒKeeping the Dead Alive,Ó Sarah is asked, ÒAll this with the dead bodies and guns and no-good sumabitches. How dÕyou do it?Ó What responses flicker through SarahÕs mind, and how does she eventually answer? Consider SarahÕs take on crime scene detectives: ÒI figured anyone who worked every god-awful crime scene in the cityÑand Watson was up over eight hundred murdersÑneeded to be odd simply to survive.Ó Or Liz (ÒFinding a PlaceÓ): ÒInside, another part of me withered. A boy was dying, and I didnÕt want blood on my uniform.Ó How do you think the constant exposure to human depravity affects these officers? How does each of the five women cope? What are the more benign methods and what are the most self-destructive?

9) ÒHeÕd never pull this on a male cop,Ó Sarah thinks about a male peer in ÒKeeping the Dead Alive.Ó A male detective expects Katherine to hold his coat in ÒTaste, Touch.Ó Do male officers belittle the female protagonists in some instances? How did the women react, or prove themselves, in each situation?

10) In ÒTaste, Touch, Sight, Sound, Smell,Ó Katherine reveals Òwhat they donÕt tell you, what the movies and TV never show.Ó What are other instances, in addition to parking ticket quotas, taking roll call or breaking into a house, in which Drummond corrects or corroborates TV depictions of police work? Why do you think the television views police work through a tidy, sanitized lens?

11) The women have to be tough, aggressive and macho to hold their own within the force. How do they reconcile their femininity with the job? Examine DrummondÕs description of Gwendolyn Stewart in ÒKeeping the Dead Alive?Ó Does Gwen embody both the social expectations of women and characteristics of an efficient, effective cop? Why, or why not? 12) Why does Drummond conceal the narratorÕs identity for so long in ÒWhere I Come From?Ó Are there any clues to her identity as the story unfolds? What do you think her dreams of dancing hands represent? Does she find peace among the singing trees?

13) What draws each woman depicted in Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You to the police force? Do they have personality traits or characteristics in common? What does Sarah mean, in ÒKeeping the Dead Alive,Ó when she says, ÒItÕs what most cops live for, whether we like to admit it or not, that feeling of something gone wrong?Ó

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An Interview with Laurie Lynn Drummond

Q) There seems to be a rather striking spiritual/mystical element in some of the stories, when the officers feel the presence of a victim. Katherine wonders Òhow dead we ever really are.Ó How should a reader understand these encounters in the larger context of the collection? Does constant exposure to death tend to make believers of those in such fields, or does it depend on the individual?

I know from speaking with police officers around the country that my experience of death is not unique, that the essence of a person lingers after death. Certainly there are some officers who will ÒpshawÓ this idea or canÕt bring themselves to even contemplate it; that is partly their personality and mostly their defense mechanisms. However, no matter your personality or disposition, seeing a body brutalized is deeply unsettlingÑwhether from a traffic accident, homicide, suicide, or accidental death.

I can only speak for myself, although other officers have echoed my experience: you enter a scene with a job to do and a large part of you does that jobÑsecure the scene first and foremost then deal with the victim, friends and family, the perpetrator, the evidence, call for support (detectives, ambulance, crime scene, coroner, district attorney, child services, etc). You work efficiently and professionally, because that is the job.

But another part of youÑfor some this may be a very small part, for others like me, itÕs largerÑis registering the emotional impact, is seeing the person who is dying or dead as a human being. And if you are paying attention, if you are really seeing, opening your heart for even a few seconds, you connect with that person, you feel them, you see them alive; their life force touches you. It is a precious moment, this honoring, and the longer I worked the job, the more I sought out that moment where I stood over them, or if they were in the process of dying, touched them. It was necessary for me to do this in order to psychologically and emotionally survive the constant exposure to death.

I deeply believe that if we take someone elseÕs life, whether justified or not, or if we are in the presence of someone who is dying or has died, a part of that person lives on in us.

In ÒFinding a Place,Ó Liz says, ÒI remember every call I workedÑevery fatality, every homicide, every suicide, and it colors everything I do.Ó In other words, those people and their deaths have become a part of her, just as Jeffery Lewis Moore has become a part of Katherine and Jeannette has become a part of Sarah.

Q) In your years in the police force, were you similar to any one of the characters profiled in the book? Is there a character that you are particularly fond of, or liked writing about?

Certainly I mined my own experience as a police officer in writing these stories, particularly with the details, like the gun rubbing a permanent bruise on the hipbone, the weight of the gun belt (and the challenge of using the bathroom), the difficulty with bullet-resistant vests fitting a womanÕs physique.

But in terms of actual events, there are only two stories that closely mirror my own life: ÒFinding a PlaceÓ and ÒTaste, Touch, Sight, Sound, Smell.Ó The young man on the interstate whose head Liz holds together is pretty much word-for-word a fatality wreck I worked from beginning to end. The young man who died, his name was Carlos, was from Mexico. His sisters came to the hospital and couldnÕt speak or understand English. Trying to convey to them what had happened to their brother was quite difficult emotionally. IÕve never forgotten him or that night. After that accident, I started thinking about leaving police work. I couldnÕt hold, or lock away, what I was experiencing and seeing and dealing with day after day anymore. It took another two years before I left, though, and, like Liz, I also left the police department after I was involved in a bad wreck, although my accident didnÕt involve someone dying, fortunately; but I was in rehab for about 15 months afterward.

ÒTaste, Touch, Sight, Sound, SmellÓ is also fairly autobiographical, although I was never married. Those are my childhood memories, the calls I worked, the way I was trained and trained rookies.

The other stories are fiction pulled from my own experiences. For instance, JeannetteÕs death in ÒKeeping the Dead AliveÓ comes from a crime scene photograph I saw when I was in the police academy; it haunted me from the day I saw it.

ÒUnder ControlÓ is based on a shooting I workedÑalthough in real life there was no mother, my father has never been a cop, I donÕt come from an abusive family, and I had control of the gun within seconds of entering the room. But again, the vision of one brother shooting another in front of their paralyzed father stayed with me.

ÒSomething About a ScarÓ is based on an actual event that happened to a friend of mine in Texas, but there was no Cathy in real life.

All my characters are close to my heart, and I have great compassion for them; I admire their strength and understand their flaws. But if you pushed me into a corner and made me pick one, IÕd select two: Katherine and Sarah. Both could easily have become novels; I inhabited them completely while I was writing their stories.

Q) A constant irritant for the women officers in Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against Youis that nothing seems to fit. From the bulletproof vest to the shoes, all police clothing and equipment appears to be meant for men. Is there a reason for why the force does not accommodate women on such small yet practical matters?

Women are still a very small minority on any police department. Most of us had to have our pants altered, and from what I understand that is still often the case. From a business standpoint, manufacturers of police equipment and clothing see little to no return on their investment in designing clothing and equipment for women; there are too few of us. So often it has less to do with the department than it does with manufacturers, that famous Òbottom line.Ó

There is also the very real issue of women officers not complaining about these things, except among ourselves. Women in police work are relatively new; the first female officers were commissioned in 1973 after a group of women sued the Seattle police department for the right to serve as police officers (not meter maids or doing paperwork).

We have to work much harder than a man to prove ourselves worthy of the job out in the field; we pick our battles, and for so long complaining about clothing and equipment didnÕt rank as high as worth and respect and the right to patrol alongside men. I canÕt help but wonder if our female soldiers in Iraq and Afganistan arenÕt dealing with the same practical issues, both big and small.

Change comes slowly, and generally itÕs one woman at a time choosing to take a stand. I nearly was fired for refusing a new service weapon. When our department switched from .38s to .357s, the grip on the 4 inch revolvers were too big for my hand (and a number of other officersÕ hands, female AND male). Three-inch .357s were available for detectives, and those did fit my hand.

My riding partner at the time, Marian McLin, and I had agreed that whichever one of us was called down to Supply first for the new gun would refuse it and request the three-inch model. I got the call first, and when I refused, all my supervisors were called down to Supply. Each of them ordered me to take the four-inch .357, and each time I refused.

Finally, the commander of uniform patrol was called in, an imposing man who was not fond of women on the department. He gave me a direct order: ÒOfficer Drummond, you are to accept your new service weapon.Ó

I replied, ÒSir, I respectfully decline because doing so would put my life and lives of others in danger, and I would be unable to perform my job.Ó (My knee was trembling; IÕd like to think my voice wasnÕt.)

He made me hold the four-inch model in my hand and accused me of not trying hard enough to reach the trigger. My sergeant pointed out that the tip of my index finger barely curled around the trigger and the strain was evident in my hand.

There was a long silence, and I thought, ÒOkay, this is it. HeÕs going to fire you.Ó Refusing a direct order is a fireable offense.

The commander turned to the Supply officer and said, ÒGive her a three-inch,Ó and walked out of the room.

From that time forward, officersÑfemale and male--could choose the model that best fit their hand.

IÕd like to believe that the issues with clothing and equipment, as well as the larger issues women police officers have to deal with, will begin to disappear as we see more female supervisors and police chiefs like in San Francisco and Boston. But it is a hard culture to change and deeply male entrenched. A friend, Valerie Arnold, who just retired from the Baton Rouge police department as a lieutenant, told me, ÒI have a love/hate relationship with the police department. I loved the job, but I hated the "good-old boy" system that still exists today.Ó

Q) Which authors have been most influential to your own writing, and which authors do you like reading simply for pleasure?

Tim OÕBrien has had a great impact on my work. I read The Things They Carried while I was in grad school, starting to work on this collection. His book about soldiers in Vietnam opened up a whole new world to me, a way I could approach writing about police work in a literary and lyrical way and yet still integrate the details and dailyness of life that I wanted to convey to readers. IÕve lost count as to how many times IÕve reread that book.

When I was a police officer, I read all the Joseph Wambaugh books; that certainly influenced my own work in terms of pacing and scene. IÕm not nearly as funny as he is though.

Annie DillardÕs work taught me so much about the importance of detail and choosing the right word. Setting is an integral part of my fiction, and I learned how to do that precisely and economically from her.

Andre Dubus (senior), Alice Munro, and Chekhov taught me everything I've needed to know about constructing short stories and the importance of writing about the human heart, always. I still read and reread their work.

IÕm currently rereading Richard BauschÕs work; heÕs another master of the short story. I read widely, mostly literature, narrative nonfiction, literary mysteries. I find even books that IÕm reading for pleasure can teach me something; I truly believe that a writer is in apprenticeship to her craft always. IÕve read Kent HarufÕs Plainsong at least five times. Recent favorites include Tim GautreauxÕs The Gathering, Edward JonesÕ The Known World, and Edwidge DanticatÕs The Dewbreaker. Liam CallahanÕs The Cloud Atlas is a marvelous book, as is Sarah StoneÕs The True Source of the Nile.

Other authors whose work IÕll buy as soon as it comes out include Richard Russo, Ann Patchett, Margot Livesey, Barbara Kingsolver, Pete Dexter, Ursula Hegi, Jeffery Lent, Russell Banks, Brady Udall, Michael Ondatje.

I could go on and on, but I better stop.

 

Q) Would you consider writing a memoir? What is your next project?

Actually I have a memoir in progress, Losing My Gun. IÕve been publishing chapters as essays in literary magazines over the past two years.

But that project has been temporarily shelved while I work on my first novel, currently untitled. Like Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You, the setting is Baton Rouge, and the main character, Anna, is also a police officer. She has returned home to solve the mystery of her motherÕs murder. Her mother burned to death when Anna was four; a black man was arrested and incarcerated, but Anna has come to believe her father was responsible for her motherÕs death. IÕm interested in exploring the impact of generational secrets as well as racism in south Louisiana.

And thatÕs all IÕm telling you for now!

 

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December 2004
laurie@lauriedrummond.com