On the Street Doing Life

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"The West Si-I-I-I-de." There is a rhythm to the way you say it, letting the last word slide. There is a rhythm to the way life ebbs and flows here, different from the rest of the city, as if life here was determined by the spell of a separate moon, with its own tides. If the West Side could be embodied in the soul of a man, he'd gamble and take his losses without crying; he'd smoke a good cigar on his last three bucks and he'd give you a wink when he passed you on the street. The West Side - one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the world. A young policeman named Mike Cronin, who'd lost his foot in Vietnam, came to work on the West Side more than three decades ago, getting to know the broken curbs of every drug corner and which buildings had back steps that creaked, getting people to tell him things they never thought they'd tell a cop, where the guns, the drugs and the shooters were hidden. He'd learn the fine line one must walk to be a street cop, the balancing act between toughness and fairness and the ability to enforce the law without being brutal, to not take things personally and to play by the rules when the criminals don't have to, or don't want to. He'd seen men grow rich off drugs and bodies found crumpled cold from overdoses. Over time, Cronin would see change; he'd see names change and faces change, and ages, they'd get younger but, like the turn of seasons that come back upon themselves, he'd see that little had changed at all. This is a story of the West Side through his eyes ... through the eyes of a cop called Cronie.