“There’s a trail that way – I run it all the time,” I told the cop, while gesturing left.
“It goes all the way into the park.”
The cop nodded, without even glancing toward where I was pointing.
I suppose that’s just ’cause I looked like the type of person who’d stab him in the jugular the second he broke eye contact. Can’t blame the bastard. It was early afternoon on a Saturday when he approached my car on a quiet street in a nice neighborhood. For me, that means I was at a point in my day where I was taking a brief break from writing which translates to also brief break (but dramatic one) from sanity. Taking a tip from good old Einstein who’d go out for a bit of fresh air when he had an impasse in his genius, I do the same when I have an obstacle blocking my mind from squeezing out the wonders it does via its thought sphincter – one mental shart at a time. For me, that’s a jog. On a trail. Away from people. And while I can’t say what it is I look like breaking from voluntary neurosis, I imagine it’s something like Manson mixed with one’a the chicks he would’ve murdered at the height of his career. So, in fairness, Helter Skelter Barbie sat alone in an old Volvo with water bottles strewn over the seats might have looked a little suspicious.
So, I let him know what I was doing.
He assured me that simply sitting in a car wasn’t illegal.
“It’s just that usually when people are parked here – they’re doing something illegal.”
Mmhmm. Yes. And usually when a cop comes up to my car, his balls have dropped at some previous juncture.
But I’m not holding you to these preposterous standards. Where’s the justice?
I withheld the nagging, visceral desire to tell him, “We’d have been fast friends in the old days, you ‘n me!” before divulging the scope of my unsavory past to him in vivid detail. Mostly because my trunk won’t open and if my wise-assery had earned me a vehicle search, this might’ve presented me with a problem. And because I would’ve been on a roll by then and said something like, “There’s not much in there anyway. But if you do find your way in, be a lamb and retrieve my snow shovel? I’ll need it for Wednesday’s blizzard. It should be just under the expired sex worker.” The upside, I suppose, it that I’d land myself a free pass to finding out firsthand what I’ve been wondering since popping my Netflix cherry: “Just how real is Orange Is The New Black?” (You know, I’d really hoped that show would feel more like the ovarian translation of Oz. Moving on.)
The thing was, though, this dude didn’t even pull me over.
That was what crossed my mind as this child (couldn’t have been over 23) in a cop’s costume approached my already parked car and I opened my door. My immediate thought was, “Wait, that’s not what you’re meant to do in the movies when they get pulled over! They yell at you and stuff!“ And then, the follow up thought was, “But I’ve not been pulled over. I’m just sitting here listening to music, texting a friend, and mentally prepping for my run because it’s effing freezing and raining and I don’t wanna go. And he just pulled up…”
When I told him all of this, it retrospectively makes sense that he wouldn’t believe me.
Who goes running in that kinda weather?
Me, muhfuggah.
There’s no exciting peak to this story.
Except that it really bothered me after I had obliged – giving him my license to check. And it’s not just because technically I don’t have to do shit if I’m not committing a crime. I mean, that was part of it, but I let it slide. No, what bothered me more was that he assured me, “No, you’re fine if you’re not doing anything illegal” and then went back to his car…. And remained there until I physically left my own to go do my run. That made me angry. But, as I thought about all the “woulda/shoulda-saids” (ya know, those things you see people say and do on these recorded encounters when they get a bit lippy), a fact became abundantly clear to me that isn’t for the more mouthy citizens whose next destination isn’t jail – but a headline and a headstone. I’m a white female. With all my teeth, straight and bleached. Blonde hair. Clear skin and eyeballs. Nothing that looks like a junkie and everything you’d say might give me an “advantage” if you happen to belong to a minority. And I still got wrongly stopped. Detained from my daily business. I still got bullied into giving up my license. I still got stalked until I left my car from the non-crime I’d just been informed I wasn’t committing. It didn’t feel good, but I obliged. Because, as I told my buddy later, I realized that one of us had rights and the other had a glock. And only one of those things is capable of inducing death.
I get that we shouldn’t lay down and take it in the ass if cops are getting outta hand.
I’m not saying that.
I’m saying there’s a place and time.
And I’m saying is that our current equation of fire + fire = firearm isn’t working out so well.
Fight within the system, be part of a peaceful protest, hop on the revolution bandwagon – whatever. But if you’re trying to make a stance for humanity by catching an attitude with the authorities in a darkened corner of the world where you death may or may not be recorded, you’re gonna have a bad time. And you won’t come out the other side the martyr you hope to be. Firstly, it’s because the facts of your story will get misconstrued. Secondly, the media will erect you as the kinda icon they want you to be. And thirdly, people will turn it into a matter of something other than helping all of humanity’s rights when they inject their own agenda and make it into something like a racial issue. It’s not. It’s not just one race versus a supercharged police force. It’s all of us. All of us human people against injustice. Does that make you angry? Thinking of injustice? Fine. Good. Great. Then channel that anger into an intelligent means to combat it when you aren’t having a personal fuzz encounter. Be smart if you want to make change. And, like Ghandi says, be the change you want to see. That’s harder than it sounds. Because in application it means this: the change you want is more peaceful authorities who don’t use you for target practice; so you must be peaceful and approach the situation peacefully. And if all those tranquil buzzwords I just spat out don’t appeal to your inner revolutionary, then thinka this for motivation to calm the fluff down:
It’s pretty tough to carry the torch from under six feet of dirt
That said, I do wonder: If I’d just begun jogging without acknowledging Deputy pre-pube… what would’ve happened?
Trick question.
Chris Kyle couldn’t’ve even sniped this asteroid fast ass.