Jerry Ardolino is one wild dude, judging by his self-published memoir, Extreme Cop—about his years as a freewheeling Chicago policeman—and the stories he tells. Special-ops work, martial arts, businesses of all kinds—pretty much any sort of adventure requiring nerve and the suspension of common sense, he’s got a story about doing it.
In person, Ardolino was articulate and easygoing, occasionally intense, but he kept his inner badass firmly in control as he talked about writing, his life, his out-there personality and Extreme Cop. His new novel, The Shang Pirate Legacy (available at www.xlibris.com), is a crime thriller that ranges from Oriental antiquity to the 21st century.
I enjoy the fact of being a writer. I love being a writer. I’ve written since I was a child, actually—even had a toy printing press, you set the rubber type and all. I had my own little newspaper when I was 8 years old.
I grew up in Chicago. Very sensitive child; and yet I liked adventurous stuff, toy guns and that sort of thing. I was a very artistically inclined—I drew a perfect rendering of a three-wheeled police motorcycle and squad car at 3. My mother screamed—she got scared, which is weird—and showed it to my dad, who was a fine artist. From then on I drew, just natural ability. But I liked to write.
In those days your family would move from place to place as your family income went up. We moved from Chicago to Park Ridge. Park Ridge is a very unusual place. Many famous people have come out of there, sometimes people the general public doesn’t know about—people who go to think tanks, people who meet at Greenbriar for D.C.-type stuff. Hillary Clinton is from Park Ridge; we went to the same high school. And it was rigid, rigid, rigid. Everything had to be done and triple-checked. You’d think they had OCD, everything had to be done three times. And if you make a mistake, the instructor tears you apart in front of the class—therefore you don’t make any more mistakes. So that’s how I was trained.
I’m a quick study about people; I love watching people.
I started Extreme Cop in 1999; finished in 2001. Six hours a day. Longhand. I longhand everything; I feel more connected.
I come from a very old family. They’re an unusual family. I have a library that’s a couple hundred years old; it’s been in the family that long.
I had a rebellious nature, even though I was a peaceful kid. Something about introspective people that have a gift—I was a pretty smart kid. I remember 18 months old. I remember exactly what clothes were in my closet. That’s not bullshit; I really do. I remember the little corduroy sport coat, the little striped pants—I remember it. So I was blessed with that. But when people are blessed with that, some people think they’re milquetoast. Not so. Because you have a mind, an imagination. When I was interviewed on WGN, the book critic for the Tribune interviewed me for 15 minutes. And he said, “I don’t know if you know this, but the foremost hitman out of Chicago was an art student.” I said, “Well, as an artist, you have a strong spirit.”
[A high-school teacher] taught me the mechanics of writing. She said, don’t learn too much. Don’t let that rawness, that edge, leave you. Don’t go too formal. And I never did.
Two publishers are looking at [Extreme Cop]. Now on the other side, I’ve been turned down by six major houses; they say it’s the roughest book they’ve ever seen. And in a sense it is. Not that the violence is the roughest. Not that the sex is the roughest. But if you take it on the whole, it is. I’ve never read anything like it, and I’ve read 4,000 or 5,000 books.
The last guy [who turned down Extreme Cop] was from a magazine, I had to say, you have a f--king calendar handy, man. He said, what do you mean? It’s 2007; I thought we were past all this shit.
I’m an unusual guy. I’m a gourmet cook. I cry at movies. I like classical music. I read Bacon, Hazlitt—I still read Jules Verne. I’m an all-around guy.
I always wanted to push further. I was always the guy who had to push the envelope. What if? And of course, the ’60s generation—what if? I’m a product of that. And that’s what I did in the police department. I started working with these guys, and I’d think, Yeah, he’s wild, but maybe I could be a little more wild. So I started doing 120, 130 on a chase. ... These car chases that last an hour, two hours. Now that’s dangerous. Give me three, four minutes, tops. We’re gonna crash. I’ve been in 35 wrecks, 18 totals. I don’t give a f--k, I’ll just do it.
I touched on it in the book [Extreme Cop]. There’s an underlying violence in all Chicago police. It’s just there. With me, it’s not that far below the surface. I have to hold myself in check. But even though it’s closer to the surface than most, I can hold it in check longer than anybody.
I was in special ops for years, after the police department; the next book is about special ops, private ops, State Department, all over the world, interesting stuff.
The thing about writing, it’s a very macho thing. Hemingway. Mickey Spillane—macho, great writer. Errol Flynn. Wonderful writer, never got recognized for it. My Wicked, Wicked Ways is a masterpiece. In fact, and I don’t want to compare myself, but Extreme Cop is very much like Wicked Ways in the way I do the narrative so matter-of-fact and directly to the reader to where they can really identify. It’s that with the [graphic] language and a little more graphic sexuality. I kept it not as graphic as it could have been. I didn’t want to go too wild with that.
I know a guy who was best friends with Hunter S. Thompson, and he said, “When I come to Vegas we’re gonna party, and maybe we can equal him.” And I said, “I think I can manage.”
I’ve got at least 10 other books; I’ve got three outlines already started. All different genres.
I’m not really self-published—we’re more of an independent publisher. Because self-publishing, even though in a sense of the word it is, it’s not. Nowadays self-publishing is, you say I want to publish a book, you go to someone and they do everything for you. I do everything. I run everything. So I’m like an independent filmmaker.
I was a wild kid. Park Ridge had more bad juvenile delinquents per capita than any place in the world, probably. I mean, real bad. And I was wild, I mean real wild. You’ve seen Uncle Buck, right? The party in Uncle Buck? Those are the kinds of parties we had, and we had the choice of two or three like that, in Park Ridge, every weekend.
I wasn’t against the [Vietnam] war; I hated everyone at the time.
[Do you remember why you decided to become a cop?] I wanted to see what the other side was like. Like an investigative reporter would do it.
I’ve jumped out of planes, I’ve flown, I’ve been a martial artist for 40 years, I boxed. I’ve been hit in the face 400 times.
I got in with a lot of different people from the intelligence community, from military intelligence, from FBI, from CIA. The next book’s about that. For real. No bullshit. Again, I’ve done a lot. Well, they recognized something [in me]. I go into that in the next book in great detail.
Extreme Cop blows The Shield apart. The Shield is a joke. The volume and the wildness and the behavior is not there. And The Shield has the most unrealistic dialogue. It’s such bullshit. Cops don’t talk that way. Prime Suspect, on British TV? That’s real.
I’ve been in Vegas, I’ve been a part-time resident, so to speak, for 17 years. But mostly I partied in Vegas. I didn’t even get on the surface streets. I didn’t even know Henderson existed. I loved old Vegas; I didn’t like to see all the changes.
I think I can not only get a cult following, but I think I can get a mainstream following, too.