05/15/2026
My Showbiz Mama Changes the
Police Academy
by Frank Hickey
I can't run.
The others outrun me.
I'm pushing it.
There is nothing left.
The Los Angeles Police academy class PT (Physical Training)is leaving my body behind.
At 42, I feel winded.
"C'mon, Hickey!" Officer P. shouts under mirror sunglasses. He's cooling it in a patrol unit slow-rolling just behind me. "There's someone waiting on yuh up ahead! Hurry up, boy! He's a taxpayer!"
The Department could fire me tomorrow, if they want to.
In the morning, we fall out of the locker room in the dark.
The moon still shines.
The sun sleeps.
Our sneakers bump against each other.
Feet thud on blacktop.
A mysterious song blooms.
Our trainers start off singing a running cadence.
"Up in the morning,
In the California sun,
Gonna run all day,
Til the day is done!"
This is a new solar system to me. We run more.
My wind goes.
OH, THIS IS TERRIBLE! I think.
Panic runs through me.
I'M GONNA DIE HERE!
The next morning feels the same.
We do our PFQ. That's academy jargon for "Physical Fitness Quotient."
In the class, I run dead last. 15 minutes for a mile and a half.
Some recruits run it in 8 minutes. Gazelles.
Our Hero(Myself) better do something quick.
My Mother Hickey is a dancer, a singer and a career actress who cracked Broadway at age 47. "Being inhibited wastes everybody's time," she used to say.
Somehow, I gotta showboat my way through this seven-month academy. Or else, I'll blow myself apart and be chasing little men in my sleep.
The next day, we run again.
Afterwards, I pant madly. My wind has gone.
"These running cadences mix railroad work songs with slavery songs," I mutter to a classmate. "Our trainers sing 'Po-oh lice, Po-oh-lice!' to the tune of 'A-men!' in the film "Lilies of the Field. That film still echoes, 33 years later.
"Or "The Work Song" by Nina Simone or Paul Butterfield," I say.
My classmate gives me an odd look.
That night, I rehearse my act.
On our next run, I raise my sweaty hand. The trainers notice me. They sing:
"Re-cruit Hick-ey, where are you?
Let us hear you rhythm and blue!"
I fall out, take a profound breath and belt out my new material:
"Hickey's ole Mama is 72!
She does PT like me and you!"
Surprise silences the group. Because everyone in Los Angeles is 25 forever.
But some repeat my chant. This drives me to the next one.
I sing out:
"Hickey's ole Daddy is 76!
He does his PT just for kicks!"
More recruits join in. So do the trainers.
The next day, I gain a showbiz call-back. The trainers shout for a repeat performance.
The show must go on. I sing it again.
Days later, in the locker-room, a classmate approaches me.
"Hey, Hickey," he says. "Not meaning no disrespect, but how old IS your mother?"
"Like the song says," I answer. "72."
His eyes bug in surprise.
Running, walking and straining as much as my body allows, I cut my running time. Two months pass.
"Hickey, your running has certainly improved," a trainer says. "Mile and a half, in ten minutes, ten seconds."
"Maybe the singing did it," another trainer says.
Graduation comes.
My parents Amtrak from New York to Los Angeles for the ceremony. They remember the romantic movies about riding the rails. That was back when the engineer was Alan Hale and the porter was 'Bojangles' Robinson.
At our graduation dinner, my classmates give speeches, sing the National Anthem and drop to the stage for push-ups. Four of the rascals hop on stage, face my parents at their dinner table and sing:
"Hickey's ole Mama is 72!
She does PT like me and you!"
"Oh, Larry!" my mother wails. "He told everyone that I'm 72!"
My father stays detached.
"Jean, he didn't tell everyone," he says. "He told a bunch of shave-headed kid recruits who couldn't find Broadway. That's who he told. Not 'The Hollywood Reporter.'"
"But how will I get any more stage parts?" she asks.
"You'll do it with mirrors," my father smiles. "Mirrors and make-up."
***Frank Hickey***
Frank survived the academy and became a cop. Somehow. He writes the Dancing Max Royster crime novels about the world's only ballroom dancing detective at
Throughout his early years, Frank Hickey worked the Harlem streets as a private eye. He lived for months undercover in the Cajun bayous of Louisiana, hunting a killer. His adventures have taken him...
