During my lengthy tenure as a Fort Smith drug dealer, I had to know which cops to look out for. As a young man, the two main narcs were Reither and Rivaldo. Never had a run in with either of those old boys. But believe me, they were legends in their own minds. The two narcotics agents that were constantly after me were Glen Bates and Terry Frizzell. (Names changed to protect the guilty). They were the guys 1 had to duck and dodge. They were the ones that had my number. If you sold pot, speed or cocaine in Sebastian County, they knew who you were. Of course, like all drug agents, they had help. And lots of it. They employed a small army of two-legged rats who clung to their legs like super glue telling them anything and everything they wanted to know.

Without snitches, they couldn’t have made a single bust. There was no good cop/bad cop routine with Bates and Frizzell. Both were 100% rotten all the way to the core. A blundering figure of brazen idiocy, Glen Bates was a rather large man probably well over 6 “4″ tall. With jowls like a hog, his facial features reminded me of the now deceased comedian John Candy. Frizzell, on the other hand, was shorter, more muscular but nonetheless, still a bumbling fool. He had curly black hair similar to the character of Starsky played by Paul Michael Glaser and eyes like Cheech Marin right after taking a hit off a joint. Both reminded me of warped, idiotic cartoon characters. Always stumbling over each other’s feet, half the time they didn’t know which way was up. And the other half they didn’t know the difference between their asses and a hole in the ground.

It was common knowledge amongst all the dope dealers that Bates and Frizzell didn’t come to work until noon. Therefore, I personally, made a lot of my clandestine deals early in the morning. Everyone knew what vehicles they drove. All passing on information such as, “Have you seen that new camaro Frizzell is driving? It’s fire engine red. Use to sit up at the State Police Headquarters on Kelley. Belonged to a coke dealer out of Little Rock before they seized it in a raid.” Networking among dope pushers was mandatory if everyone wanted to keep getting away. Another tell-tale giveaway was their license plates. A lot of times “public property was written below the tag number. Both on all of the Crown Vics as well as any of their undercover cars. Public property and any unusual antenna was the first sign of a cop car. One of the vehicles I remember Bates and Frizzell driving most was a 1973 Chevelle Laguna. Not one of the ones with the all popular 454. One of the shiftier models with a powerless 350. All that did was make those of us who drove GTO’s, GTX’s and Pontiac Trans Ams able to outrun them in the event of a high speed chase. Another of their more memorable narc wagons was a 1975 Ford Econoline van. It was a panel van. The only thing was, it had a huge 2-way mirrored window in the back on the driver’s side. Bates and Frizzell used it as a surveillance vehicle. Many nights I saw them sitting on the corner of Greenwood and Grand. Everyone knew not to hit a joint or turn up a beer when that van was cruising around. If you did, you were damn sure going to jail. Frizzell’s personal vehicle was a black and white pickup. Knowing where he lived, it was easy to drive by his house and see if he was at home. A couple of times I even called his number and he picked up and answered the phone. Wasn’t too hard to keep up with these old boys. I even knew what days they were off work.

For a while they worked out of a building close to the bus station near north 6th and “A”. A good friend of mine worked at Greyhound. If I needed to know where the cops were in a pinch, I could always call Steve and he’d let me know. And if you were really good, you knew what frequency they transmitted on and you could pick them up on your police scanner. Of course they never used their real names. But if you knew them as well as I did, you could easily recognize their voice. I’d sometimes pick up their conversations as soon as they started up their engines and to drive away. It wasn’t always them doing surveillance on me. It was sometimes completely the other way around. Never underestimate the craftiness or opacity of the drug dealer. The key to it all being one step ahead of the game. It helped when they came out with those new scanners that operated on 800 megahertz. For a while, the cops thought they were the only ones to transmit up that high. Thank God for technology and Radio Shack. My Bearcat portable scanner saved my ass more than once. There were so many of us the narcs sometimes had a hard time keeping up. I guarantee you one thing. I got away a lot more times than they ever caught me, the pigs in general. And these two boys, well, they thought they were the sharpest pencils in the box. The straight up cat’s meow. In reality they only got lucky with me a few times. And inevitably with the help of a rat. I watched them as much as they watched me. They had binoculars, I had them too. They used a radio, I listened in. When tinted windows first came out, I had the darkest you could get - limousine tint all around. Nitrous oxide for the extra added boost when you were on the run. A hole in the shifter boot to drop dope out of while driving down the road.

When Frizzell got a haircut? I knew it as soon as his nappy ass curls hit the floor. I knew his hair stylist. She was one of my girls. When Bates and his boyfriend drank at Arlie Mucks, I knew they were there. It was pretty hard to catch me slipping. I’d learned my lesson many years before. I’m not saying these guys were total jackasses. They’d busted me before. But like Boo Boo … you just had to be smarter than the average bear. For a while there Frizzell was back on the beat working as a patrolman. It was 1985 and they say he temporarily lost his mind. Got drunk down at Mucks’ and stumbled out on Garrison to direct traffic at three in the morn. He even came on a call where my friends and I were drunk shooting fireworks off at an apartment complex where I lived. When Frizzell came pulling in the parking lot, most everyone scattered but me. “Get down here Mansell right fucking now!” he yelled just as my brother dropped a bottle rocket down on his head. With a pocketful of ammo and a sack full of weed, at first I was reluctant to go. But knowing it was just Frizzell and not being able to resist teasing him for being demoted from narc to flatfoot, I sauntered on down. “Frizzell my man! Funny seeing you here! Shouldn’t you be out directing traffic somewhere?” “Fuck you Mansell. Now give me those rockets.” Handing him my pop bottle rockets, the bag of weed down my pants suddenly slid to the ground. Soon as it hit the pavement, with one swift motion I kicked it under a nearby car. “Nice night officer. All we were doing was having a little fun!” I know Frizzell would liked to have busted me with a pound of weed or an ounce of cocaine. My apartment was full of the stuff but with no search warrant, he couldn’t knock the door down to see. Thank God he was a simple patrolman. Police do stupid shit all the time, but this time it was me. I pushed my luck, but that night, my sack wasn’t found.

I’m sure there’s a whole new breed of narcotics cops out there now. When I got busted in 2000, I only recognized two agents that came busting in on my raid. I heard Bates had became a state parole officer. I’m sure he enjoyed torturing all the ex-cons he’d at one time or another sent to the joint. That guy truly hated me. He’d been harassing me since he was a patrolman. He once shook me down in front of Northside High where I was going to school. I never forgot his face as I’d seen him many times afterward and before. He and Frizzell were the ones that sent me to prison the first time as well as the third. Bates should be about 60 or so now, that is if his rotten ass is still alive. Frizzell may be a couple of years younger but I really don’t know. Like my own, I’m sure their careers are over. No hard feelings men. I know it was simply your job. I enjoyed our little game of cat and mouse.

Just wanted to let you know you didn’t always have the upper hand. I had my eye on you too. The time you were sitting behind that tree over at the Petroleum Club looking at me through a pair of Bussnell’s? I knew it. I was looking back at you too. And another time when you thought you had me cornered at 1100 Fayetteville Road? I saw you crouched down under that semi-trailer in the truck garage next door. You did slip up on me out on Grand that time. But at the 7-11 on Jenny Lind? I beat your ass there too! Ran to the gas station bathroom next door and hid my dope. I miss you guys! I really do. Every time I hear that Frankie Valli song where the words are, “Can’t take my eyes off of you”, I think about you two Keystone cops. Here’s to you, where ever you may be! And again, no hard feelings coppers. I am Tripper! Better Days!