My Time as the Mayor of Minneapolis

Part I

I had never wanted to be the Mayor of Minneapolis. It was never a childhood dream, and I didn’t feel called to the position or anything moral like that. I think the democratic party just wanted someone with a clean driving record and evidence of having lived in one of the wards for a while, so I was selected on a Tuesday and holding a big rally on Wednesday night before the election Thursday.

“We need police reform, lower rents and to keep the goddamn Timberwolves right here downtown!” I shouted. The bipartisan crowd roared their approval. I didn’t really know anything about any of it, or care for that matter, but I really needed a weekly paycheck and health insurance.

In Minneapolis, the democratic party pretty much runs unopposed for things. I went up against some republican by the name of Brazilian Gudjohnson, a northerly Scandinavian type with a background in private security and a big dinosaur skeptic. I gathered 97% of the vote.

Some days I didn’t know for sure if I was the Mayor of Minneapolis, but I had a lot of people telling me so. At that point in my life one thing was as good as another, so I tried not to think about it too much. You see, it’s a pretty weird title to hold, being the de facto ruler of half a million people. And that’s where it’d get weird: in theory, you’re taking care of all these people, but in practice, all the work goes down to them and they take care of everything themselves. You have very little to do as the Mayor of Minneapolis.

For everything to do, there’s a Department and there’s somebody at the Head of that Department who sure knows a whole lot more than you do. Then that Department has a whole lot of people who need things to do, so the Head of the Department gives it to them. I think you see what I mean and understand how it all goes, but don’t you also see how that gives the Mayor absolutely nothing to do?

So on the Friday after the big election win we went to some park in a neighborhood I didn’t want to be in. I wanted to be home. I had downed a six-pack of cream ale the night before and felt large; my brain was bloated. But this wasn’t so bad: it promised to be a short day. I liked my days short, and so that’s how I kept them as Mayor of Minneapolis.

On this particular day we were going to the park where the city had built a new slide or something. I wasn’t in charge of the parks or the slides, but as the Mayor these sorts of things need looking after. If you open your eyes and ears to everyone and everything in Minneapolis you’ll find that the Mayor is always trying to talk to you; in the slides, the trees, the water fountains and the basketball courts. That’s the kind of Mayor I was.

This new slide was a pleasant slide, a good slide, and I told the citizenry in attendance as much. They delighted to hear me full of such praise for their park’s slide, knowing that I was the new Mayor, full of ideas and benevolence, unscathed by the arrows of a long political career and with a clean driving record.

I think some of the women there were even giving me the eye, and I, as the great unifying Mayor, returned my own smoldering looks. There’s a photo in the Pioneer Press of me that day. I look hungover as shit, tired eyed and with a sweaty forehead.

I remember that some hoodlum had already managed to graffiti the small tag of “SLOP” near the bottom of the slide. It must’ve happened night one of the slide being put in! That they’d accomplished this bit of vandalism was a testament to the industry our great city’s electorate, but I looked to my assistant (I didn’t know if this was really my assistant, but I assumed to person in nearest proximity to me to be in some form of service) and ordered the culprit to be caught.

“What’s the punishment for such a crime currently at?” I asked.

“Maybe community service? I’m not sure,” was the reply.

That seemed light to me, too light. I wanted this scoundrel apprehended for not only what they’d done to our new slide but also for the discomfort they’d caused me on my first day as Mayor.

“Get me the Chief of Police,” I said. “I want him out here now.”

One hour and 37 minutes later, the Chief of Police was at my side in the park by the new slide.

“What’s your take, Chief?” I asked.

This was my first time meeting Chief Constable Bjørnson Johnson face-to-face, although I’d seen him on the news before. He was a sincere man and a realist with a quick trigger finger. He got down hands on knees to get a closer look, letting out a little Chief of Police grunt.

“SLOP…” he pondered aloud. “I’ve seen this work before. I’d know this hand anywhere. But I thought I got the sucker who was tagging this shit across our great, tidy city.”

“Got, Chief? As in ‘got’ put behind bars?”

“No, Mr. Mayor. As in ‘got’ out my Glock 17 and buried a clip in his ass.”

“You’re an animal, Chief.”

“This city is a jungle, Mr. Mayor.”

There were too many cameras around for my liking, that damn sexy reporter for the Star Tribune, Miss Measles Jorhänsen, taking notes like always. I preferred to carry on this conversation with Chief Johnson somewhere more off-the-record.

“Care for a drink, Chief?” I asked. “Anything before 12 p.m. is always on the City.”

“I could use a cheeky pint myself, Mr. Mayor,” said the Chief of Police.

We got in his cruiser, put the siren on, flashed the lights and traffic parted as we made our way to the Moose Bar & Grill. I made them turn on the karaoke machine, sang a rousing edition of Marcy Playground’s “Sexy and Candy” and then we took a booth in the corner.

I ordered a 24-ounce cream ale, sucked those suds down, ordered another and the Chief was putting back doubles. The City needed us sharp at a time like this, entirely edgeless, if we were going to solve the case of the vandal who’d clearly lost all sense of social responsibility.

“Alright, Chief, tell me everything you know about SLOP,” I said when the room had finally seemed to gain that little bit of something it was missing.

“Right, so a couple years ago SLOP first comes to our attention,” says the Chief. “He hasn’t been doing anything big up until this point, just broke boy shit: urinals, electrical boxes, park benches. Nominal property damage.

“But then, so help me God, he tags some signage near the Home Depot. There’s a couple rules we’ve got on the force, a couple unbreakable, unwritten rules. People know we protect our own. But we’d also go to war for Home Depot. For the carts of Home Depot, the mulch of Home Depot, the Garden Club of Home Depot… we’d fucking kill for it all. Gladly and without question.

“We assigned 37 people to the special unit for catching SLOP. You know the Minneapolis Police Department isn’t exactly swelling with numbers, so that represented well over five percent of our total sworn officers in the City, all going after this fucking lunatic.”

I had ordered my third cream ale at this point and was using the City of Minneapolis credit card to add 200 tokens to my TouchTunes account. I wanted to make a big ol’ queue of some absolute rippers, maybe even some B-siders that no one could possibly know but would all certainly be fuxing with shortly. I saw myself the the Purveyor Mayor, the Curator Mayor, The Selecta Mayor.

“Fascinating, Chief, truly sublime,” I said. “How do you feel about J-Kwon? I’m adding ‘Hood Hop’ to the playlist. So how’d you catch SLOP and shoot him then?”

“Well, so what we did is this: This specialized unit of 37 officers would get together, from sun up until sun down, logging thousands of hours of overtime pay and costing the City millions, and link arms and, using the Home Depot as the epicenter, fan out in a 37-person chain that oscillated like a giant walking pendulum.

“We kept our eyes open for any active tagging or any graffiti adjacent behavior: spray paint cans, beanies in hot weather, energy drinks with extremely aggressive marketing. But despite all the walking, the absolutely staggering amount of overtime hours logged and paid out, we still weren’t any closer to finding SLOP.

“But then, just as all hope was lost and the City was telling us they literally had no more money to give to the Department for overtime pay, Home Depot, the blessed, virginal Home Depot, reached out and said they’d had a video of the guy since day one on a Flock camera.

“Bing, bang, boom, we get a no-knock warrant, execute that, but SLOP escapes out the back window, chase ensues, and he ends up on foot, car disabled, on the Hennepin Avenue Bridge and I’m the responding officer who’s got my Glock 17 trained on his Home Depot-abusing ass.

“I’m itching to pull the trigger, but I know I should be asking a couple questions to provide Home Depot with some answers. ‘Why, kid, why the fuck?!‘ is what I think I managed to say. He was up on the edge, it was drizzling and the wind was howling. You could hear the river below.

“‘I was just expressing myself!’ is what he said. Can you fucking believe that? ‘Just expressing myself!’ At the place where doers get more done, that’s where you’ve got to express yourself? Chrawst. I felt fucking sick hearing him say that.

“So you know what I says to him? I says, ‘You can do it,’ and I make a little motion with my gun indicating the river, ‘and I can help.’ Then I fire off my clip sure as he’s going over the edge and down into the drink below.”

“Can you be sure you hit him before he went over?” I ask. “Did they ever find the body?”

The Chief solemnly looks at me. Throws back his latest double. Glances around to find the waitress for another.

“No and no,” he draws out from somewhere deep inside, somewhere that clearly hurts. Especially now that SLOP is back.