Tired, Hungry, and Standing in One Place for Twelve Hours: Essential Cop Essays: Essential Cop Essays

by Sarah Cortez

Overview

Over twenty years ago, Sarah Cortez left a flourishing corporate career to strap on a gun, and police the streets. Transitioning from designer heels and a high-rise office to a low-bid, agency-owned Crown Vic wasn’t easy, but it delivered exactly what she desired. In these highly-charged personal reflections, Cortez reveals the complicated machinery of a cop’s heart, mind, and soul by dissecting the differences between cops and civilians. A must-read to understand the intangibles demanded by policing—courage, determination, patience, and a belief in justice—despite the grimy backdrop where life can become death in an instant.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781680031447
Publisher:	Texas Review Press
Publication date:	02/24/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	114
File size:	513 KB

About the Author

SARAH CORTEZ, Councilor of the Texas Institute of Letters, is published in Texas Monthly, Rattle, Sun, Texas Review, Louisiana Literature, Arcadia, Midwest Quarterly, Southwestern American Literature. Her writing has received awards from PEN Texas, Writers’ League of Texas, Los Angeles Book Festival, and PEN Southwest. Her anthologies have won a Southwest Book Award and ILBAs.  Her recent anthology, Vanishing Points: Poems and Photographs of Texas Roadside Memorials, is a 2016 Southwest Book of the Year. She lives in Houston, Texas.

Table of Contents

Section 1

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 5

Chapter 2 9

Chapter 3 Academy Floors 13

Chapter 4 22

Section 2

My Work Week 29

My Gender 36

Our Stories 44

Knife-Girl 49

One Woman 53

Kitchen Hungers 60

Acquainted with Death 66

Supervisors 77

Here Are My Lists 86

After Many Years 91

Glossary and Abbreviations 97

Editorial Reviews

Cortez’ writing will resonate with law enforcement professionals—from the adrenaline-inspiring memories of the police academy to the everyday chaotic scenes of crime-fighting. The best features of her writing are her authentic voice, her passion about the ‘calling’ of police work, and the concise language she utilizes—as only a gifted writer can. This book is a good reminder to all of us of why we wanted to be police officers in the first place.”
—Lt. Betsy Randolph
Oklahoma Highway Patrol

“Cortez has caught the essence of what it means to be a police officer with its ‘endless boredoms and dirt . . . its tiny, stark terrors’ and the ‘hidden rewards of intense camaraderie, sense of mission, and the fulfillments of justice and duty.’ She has explained the unexplainable in a fascinating read without flinching and with the eye of a poet.”
—T.K. Thorne
retired police captain and award-winning author of Angels at the Gate

From the Publisher