By Josh Max

I first met White Johnny in the late 90s at a seminar we were both attending in upstate New York. A warm, funny, pot-bellied short dude with a voice that sounded as though he'd gargled razor blades, broken glass and mud, he was full of raw New York stories,and frequently a room would hush when as he started telling one. After hearing him share the following account twice, I finally asked him if he'd mind sitting down and telling it to me again into a tape recorder for publication. He agreed, and we met at a midtown coffee shop.

I was a New York City transit policeman for 14 months. I've had lots of jobs. I was a bus driver, and I worked 65 hours a week for three and a half years for the MTA. Switching to the transit police was a rather simple process. I was 30 years old. I joined the police force out of boredom. I was the oldest guy in the academy. They used to call me the old man. I got shot one year to the day after I became a cop.

I was a heroin addict. That's why I was even running around Harlem in the first place, where I was shot. I used to run around Harlem like I lived there. I bought drugs in uniform. I had been doing drugs my whole life. So I learned the ins and outs of the alleyways. Just because I put a cop uniform on didn't change that.

I never got busted. I always had a job. I was never late for work. I never missed a day because I had to support my heroin habit. Everybody else I knew who was a heroin addict was a mugger or a thief. I worked 65 hours a week; 40 hours to pay the bills, 25 hours to keep my heroin habit. I drove a bus every day while I was high. Never had an accident. I would shoot dope five minutes before roll call when I was a cop. I'd shoot in the bathroom when I was in uniform. No one knew I lived this double life. Just my wife knew.

I'd been doing heroin so long it was normal to me. I was a heroin addict the whole time I was a bus driver. I had been shooting dope since I was 14. I got tracks all over my whole body—-head to toe. I've only been clean nine years.

Half my friends are dead now. Heroin was free in my neighborhood back in 1965. "Here, try this." For six months it was free to everybody. All of a sudden one day—"By the way, it's two dollars a bag." But a two-dollar bag was enough for three people. It was a guy who was one of my own classmates. I was in eighth grade. Terry. Terry is still alive and still the same old piece of shit he was back then. I saw him two years ago. Still conniving, still just got out of prison.

You don't get away with anything in this world. I'm a firm believer in that. You pay one way or the other. You screw people, you're gonna get yours. Always. You don't always get it from the same source that you're giving it to, but life has a way of waiting for you on the corner. "OK, he's here!" and the car jumps the curb and kills you.

Back in the '60s, the pushers wanted to get everyone strung out. My whole neighborhood became junkies in six months. All my friends, all at once, boom. This all happened from 1966 to 1967. Within that one neighborhood—-dozens of kids—-everyone was doing it. We went right to needles. There was no sniffing. It was so powerful and strong. It's expensive to be a heroin addict today. So this nightmare fell onto my neighborhood, 196th Street and Valentine Avenue in the Bronx. Then the stealing started. Who do you think put Alexander's out of business in the Bronx? All my friends would rob the place, walk in there and come out with racks of coats. At 15 and 16 years old, all those guys were heroin addicts. A lot of them are dead.

I had gone to Manhattan College in the Bronx for two years, studying business administration. I quit in the middle of my statistics course. I'd gotten a "B" my first semester. The second semester I had a new teacher with a terrible Indian accent, and I was totally lost within a couple of weeks. I finished out the year. Ended up with 59 credits. I went into construction. That's when I started drinking a lot. The bricklayers—they drink for breakfast. These were my kind of people! At the coffee break they'd start cracking the beers.

I went out to California and worked in the mines, for Kaiser Steel out in the Mohave Desert. Wherever I went, though, I found heroin. I always know where the criminal activity is. It's automatic. I have a magnet in my head. I worked in the mines for eight months.

The Mohave Desert's powerful, man. It's 122 degrees at 9 a.m. You gotta get used to it. People who would come in the middle of the summer and start working, they'd quit in one day. I started in March when it was only 95 degrees. So it was gradual. I was black from the sun. A desert rat. I was at that age where I wanted to travel the country. I had a '59 Chevy. I went to Hawaii for a few months. I came back and eventually got a job with the MTA.

But I got sick of the bus driving—I couldn't make one more stop. I was doing 65 hours a week. That was my minimum. I would do doubles, overtime, just to get the hours. I needed at least 70 dollars a week for heroin. That's when I decided to become a police officer.

I knew I shouldn't become a cop. A voice said, "Why are you becoming a cop—you're a heroin addict!" But I'd answer, "Yeah—and what's your point?" I'll go to work, I'll never be late, I'll do my job well.

Which I did—I was a good cop. I was an excellent cop. I did my job. I didn't write tickets on people, I didn't fuck with people. But nobody fucked with me. This was 1982, 1983—"a cop on every train." They created this unit called Tactical Patrol. I was a motherfucker as a cop. I grew up in the street. I been down every dirty alleyway there is, and I know all the street people, and I know what they're like. So on the train I wasn't gonna take shit from nobody.

Everyone wanted to fight with you. I was amazed. You step into another dimension when you become a cop, which no one knows about. Me, I'm a street-tough kid, not afraid of anyone, never was. All of a sudden you get in this uniform, you walk through the train, people want to start fights with you. It baffled me. I'll give you an idea.

People eating chicken bones. Throwing garbage on the floor right in front of you. They wait until you come in the car! They gotta throw it on the floor as I approach. Personal challenge. So—me, psycho from hell, high on heroin, I tell 'em, "Pick up those fuckin' chicken bones before I shove 'em down your throat." I was crazy, I got so nuts.

You're always scared when you stop guys who you know are gonna fuck with you a little bit. So I would come off the walls. They expected me to pull out my book and go, "Can I see some identification, please?" I worked eight at night until four in the morning.

They used to have to make me write tickets. I hated writing tickets. My job was to protect the public, not extort money from them. Fuck the brass and their tickets. My job was to make sure everybody's safe. So once a month, they'd drag me and make me hide near the turnstile and grab guys jumping over. That's the only way they could get me to write tickets.

One night after my shift, out of uniform, I meet a guy. A perfect stranger. You know, you hook up with people in the street. We go to the gallery, we shoot dope, we're walking along the street, the next day is my day off. He runs into a couple of guys he knows. This is 145th Street and 7th Avenue. They're talking to him on the stoop. I'm standing slightly away, leaning on a van at the corner. I'm not going over there. It's 5:30 in the morning, I'm a cop, I got a gun on me, I'm shooting dope, I knew to stay away. They motion to me, C'mere, c'mere, c'mere. I walk over, bingo, out comes a gun to my fuckin' head. They were stickup boys. I'm in a panic, what am I gonna do? They got a gun on me, oh my god.

They drag me into the building, into the hallway, they start patting me down. I've got my gun in the small of my back, and I'm leaning against the wall so they can't get it. I don't care—take my shit! The guy I was with knew them, but he was not part of it. They start patting me and I thought, Let them take what they want as long as I get outta here. I forgot I had my badge in my front pocket. The guy pulls the badge out and the color just drains from his face.

They showed us a lot of films at the academy. Never let them take your gun. They'll kill you with it. This guy was a scary, ugly-looking motherfucker, too. He was about 25. James P—was his name, I found out later. It took me about a year to remember what exactly happened. All your training goes out the window when you see that gun in your face. The barrel grows to about ten-feet wide. The whole thing was like in slow motion; like a dream. He knew now that I was a cop and that I had a gun. So I yank out my gun, point it at him—and stop.

I could not shoot him. I don't know why. Your brain is going so fast. I'm thinking he's got no bullets. A few years prior, I used to stick up drug dealers with no bullets. Me and my cousin. When I would rob them, I wouldn't even take the money. I just wanted the drugs. I stuck them all up with a sawed-off shotgun with no shells. I was afraid I'd shoot someone by accident. I was a salesman—if I can't convince you I'm gonna kill you with an empty gun, there's something wrong. But I'm not going to shoot someone for drugs or money.

I'm sure that this guy has no bullets. My first thought is, He doesn't want to kill me, he just wants my money. When I pulled my gun out, I could have shot him to death right there. Legally. But I couldn't. He wasn't even dangerous to me. I wished I didn't have a gun on me so I could let him rob me and go. So here we are, the two of us, arms extended, about three feet from each other with guns. Point-blank range. He's fuckin' shocked. I'm shocked. We don't know what to do next.

He opens up first. Bang—bang—bang—bang. Four times. He misses me twice. He hits me twice. I have no vest on because it's after work. He hits me right in my sternum, above my belly, dead center. Felt like somebody fuckin' hit me with a bat. The second shot fractures my hip. That one hurt. I thought he shot me in my handcuffs and that the bullet bounced off the handcuffs and hit my side. Felt like someone took a club and slammed me in the side.

I didn't even budge. I'm just watching this guy shoot me, boom, boom, boom, boom. I'm still holding my gun, arm extended. All I could think was, You fuckin' bastard, you just shot me! Now it's your turn.

I fire, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. I'm really pissed. The second shot I hit him, and he goes flying. You know why? He's got a bulletproof vest. When you get shot with a vest, you fly. From the pressure. Me, I had no vest, so the bullets went right into me, I didn't move. He shoots me with .22 longs, the kind of bullets that ricochet, bounce around inside of you. So it ripped me up, man. Doctor told me I should have been dead in ten minutes, should've bled to death.

I'm stunned. The kid is gone. I don't know what to do. Everybody runs. I'm standing in the hallway with my gun. Uhhhh. I look on the floor, I see my badge. He must've dropped it. I picked up the badge and put it in my pocket.

I start roaming 7th Avenue. With my gun out. I don't know what I should do. I can't think. Just strolling up 7th Avenue. People are getting out of my way, "He's got a gun!" The guy who I'd been with, the guy I met my assailants with, he keeps coming up to me. I was called "White Johnny," that was my street name in Harlem. That's another story. The guy is saying, "Johnny, gimme the gun, gimme the gun! You gotta go to the hospital." I'm saying "Get away from me, just get away from me." He doesn't know I'm a cop.

I walk two blocks. I get to 147th and 7th Avenue. I knock on the window of a bar, saying, "Call me an ambulance." They ignore me. People don't want to look at me. My shirt is completely red, I'm drenched with blood. I'm making tracks of blood up the sidewalk.

I see a patrol car a couple of blocks ahead. What you're supposed to do is to shoot a shot in the air and get some attention. I can't think. I put the gun away. I see them coming. I pull out my handcuffs and start waving them.

I'm standing there with bullet holes in me, blood dripping and they go, "What's wrong?" I say, "I've been shot." They have two guys in the back seat under arrest, handcuffed. What do they do? They squeeze me into the back. I forgot to tell them I'm a cop. They stick me in the car and start driving leisurely along. I thought they would have known. After about two blocks, I said, "I'm a police officer." They both turn around, eyes bulging. "You're a cop?" They threw the alarm on and off we go, screaming through all the red lights.

They whisk me over to Harlem hospital. That's where you go for gunshots and stab wounds. Because in Harlem they stab and shoot on a regular basis! They had this deal with the hospital that only the head surgeon can operate on cops. Where's the head surgeon? Seventy-five miles away, at home, on Long Island. Sleeping. They called him. I just laid there, five hours in the emergency room. They cut my clothes off me.

They found a set of works in my sock. They knew I was a cop, so they knew something funny was up. They pulled the bullet out of me. I still have one in me. It's in my back. All I wanted to do was get out of the hospital and go shoot some heroin. I was withdrawing like crazy. I left in a week.

Two weeks later, I got fired. It pisses me off. I was a police officer. I was a cop with a heroin problem. If you're, say, a cop who's a drunk—they put you in detox. But a heroin addict, you're a piece of shit. So they fire you. The guy who shot me—they caught him, he went to trial and they plea-bargained. They gave him one and a half to three years. For attempted murder on a cop.

I was now a junkie with no job. My wife and I went on welfare, food stamps, the whole nine yards. I became the kind of guy I hated. But eventually I got on a methadone program. I spent five years on methadone. I went to detox. I didn't sleep for 40 days. Went back and forth, back on heroin, off, on, off. In the next two years I went to the hospital 12 times. In and out of detoxes.

And my last detox was ten years ago tomorrow.