The Choirboys
THE CHOIRBOYS
by Joseph Wambaugh
The Choirboys is a very raunchy, tell-it-like-it-is book concerning ten fellow officers who belong to the Wilshire Police Station and have after-hour rendezvous in MacArthur Park. These sessions were called choir practices. It was merely an off-duty meeting, usually in a secluded hideaway, for policemen who, have just finished their tour of duty, were too tense or stimulated to go to a silent sleeping house and lie down like ordinary people while nerve ends sparked. Each of the ten officers had different reasons for being at the choir practice, such as, not having enough money to go to the policeman?s bar, needing to uncoil and have a drink with others who had been on the streets that night, and also to reassure one?s self. These choir practices were by invitation only and were only open to a certain caliber of police officers in this particular police station. The choir practices consisted of drunkenness, illicit sex, illicit drug use and fighting among themselves. These choirboys, as they were known by their fellow officers and to each other, carried this tradition on for many years until one fateful night, after one of
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