July 2nd, 2008. Truth be told, I’ve never been much good at remembering what the date is. Of course this affliction is exacerbated in L.A., where the seasons are vague at best, and I’m hard pressed to know what month it is let alone one of its numbers. In fact, at 78 degrees and holding, I’ve often considered my time spent in Los Angeles as one long day with naps in between.
I do recall however, that the day before, July 1st, was the day when legislation had gone in to effect prohibiting California drivers from using a cell phone while driving, unless they used a hands-free device. Digital messages had loomed over the freeway I drive daily, forecasting the coming of this date for many weeks. Though the cynic in me considered it quite likely that the suits at a Bluetooth manufacturer lobbied hard for this law, I found it to be, regardless of motive, all together reasonable. Who hasn’t cursed the driver of the SUV in front of us: phone pressed to ear, latte to lips, moving at half the speed limit, exploring every part of the space that the lane provides and some it does not?
Of course none of this was on my mind on the afternoon of July 2nd. I had just finished playing basketball at Venice Beach, something I’ve done with regularity since I moved to L.A. fourteen years ago. Basketball has always been my therapy, and Venice Beach is the leather couch on which I lie. It offers me freedom of body and spirit, where I sweat out my accumulating anxieties so that my vat can be filled anew without fear of overflowing.
Walking to my car after two hours of playing under the reliably cloudless sky and 78 degree temperature, I had worked up quite a lather as I slipped shirtless and dripping in to my car. My shorts caught the beads of sweat that ambled down my stomach as I turned the key and headed north on Main Street towards Santa Monica. My anxiety vat was comfortably low, and I was feeling light and at ease.
Turning right off Main to avoid the traffic, I picked up my cell phone and called my friend Kip, with whom I have wonderful, playful conversations. We exchanged cheerful greetings as I drove with one hand on the wheel and the other holding the phone to my ear while my body cooled and my sweating diminished. As I drove half the speed limit down the side street, exploring every part of the space provided, and some it did not, a police car drove by me in the opposite direction. With the paranoia that insidiously invades even the most law abiding among us (of which I can not be counted), I glanced in my rearview mirror as he passed by me and, simultaneously, did something quite unlike me – remembered the date.
Kip’s voice was reduced to sonic incoherence in my ear when my evil mirror revealed the black and white car slowing down and maneuvering to turn around. Kip was in mid-sentence when I snapped my flip-phone shut. The police car had completed its reversal of direction and any ideas my body had of discontinuing the perspiration process were immediately thwarted.
Though I was almost certain of my fate, I instinctively went in to some bizarre escape route mode, while, at the same time, adhering to every rule of the road like a student driver. I began to make several turns at slow speeds, though they were taking me away from my intended destination. I stopped at every stop sign and signaled, looking both ways before turning,. I leaned my head forward while glaring intently at each house I passed, as if I was trying to find the home in which I was expected to attend a meeting of great importance.
Coincidentally, the cops seemed to be expected at the very same meeting I was, as they stayed behind me no matter how many turns I made. Finally, they had enough of what to them must be an all too familiar dance, and flipped on the flashing lights.
I dutifully pulled over to the side of the street, taking care to turn my right blinker on before doing so. Two policemen got out of the cruiser and slowly and carefully walked towards my car, one on either side. Still shirtless and sweating again, I rolled down the window and made an instantaneous decision to confess fully, in hopes that it would flatten the “good guy” “bad guy” hierarchy between us and lighten my impending punishment. As the cop on the driver’s side of my car approached my window, I drew first word.
“This is about the cell phone, isn’t it?” I blurted out, as if my admission of guilt would grant me inclusion in to some law-abiding fraternity. He nodded and asked for my license, registration and proof of insurance. Skillfully, I had anticipated his request and was retrieving the goods from my glove compartment before he finished asking for them, thus, in my mind anyway, appearing like someone who believed in the system and gave generous annual donations to the police fund.
As I handed the paperwork to the officer, I told him of my moral approval of the cell phone law, just to add a bit of polish to the image I was trying desperately to manufacture. The officer accepted the paperwork, if not the construct, and got back in to his car as his partner maintained his position by my passenger side door. What seemed like a good deal of time passed as I waited for the punisher to return with my ticket, and feeling like my tactics had left a positive impression, I felt relatively calm, my re-sweat abated. Convinced that this would be a brief and small-priced distraction from the rest of my day, I even allowed my mind to shift to the things I needed to get done after I was given permission to leave.
Finally, I watched the officer get out of his car and walk back towards my open window from my equally evil side mirror. As the mirror had warned me, when he got there he was indeed larger than he had appeared.
“Could you step out of the car please?” I had heard those eight words before more than once in my life, but it was many years ago when I was a different person. Sure I had an extended adolescence, but I had changed. I was now a father of two. A homeowner. A tax paying, fully insured, triple A member. I had dry cleaning in the back seat for God sake. I asked him why, but he only repeated the command, this time with a bit less courtesy as I felt the sweat drip back down my stomach. As soon as I got out of the car, he told me to turn around and put my hands behind my back. The squeeze of the metal against my wrists was surprisingly familiar considering I hadn’t felt it in so long. Like a smell that transports you to your youth. I was eighteen years old again, and in trouble.
As the officer led me to the sidewalk where his partner stood, he told me that there seemed to be a warrant out for my arrest, but despite my indignation, refused to tell me what it was for. The good guy façade that I had so carefully built lay like rubble in the front seat of my car. The last twenty years had been a sham. An aberration. This was the real me, handcuffed, shirtless and sweating like some guy in an episode of “Cops”.
The officer who had handcuffed me returned to his car to make contact with the executioner, and I stood with his partner who slid effortlessly in to the “good cop” role. Making casual conversation with me, he asked where I played basketball. He inquired about the quality of the game down in Venice and wondered if I was a Lakers fan. As I confessed that I grew up in Boston despising the Lakers, my eyes never left the windshield of the police car as I watched the “bad cop” holding his two-way radio and fiddling with his onboard computer.
I searched my mind frantically for the source of the warrant, and the well of my guilt seemed bottomless. Was there a ticket I forgot to pay? Had I committed murder or some other atrocity and psychopathically erased it from my memory? What the fuck did I do last night anyway? I couldn’t remember.
Modern technology makes it possible to talk privately on a cell phone, hands free or otherwise, but has paradoxically rendered secrets obsolete. His computer was revealing every lie I ever told, every porn site I ever visited, every impurity of thought I’d ever had. There were a million warrants to be issued for me; he needed only to pick one.
Bad Cop got out of the car and yanked me back in to the present. He approached me from behind with a small device and pressed it against the tip of my fingers, eliciting a small beep. I realized that this was fingerprinting in the 21st century, and while the entrepreneurial side of me was decidedly impressed by the invention, I soon recognized it for what it was. I would go to L.A. County Jail ink free, spotless, virginal and ripe for the taking. Bad Cop returned to his car, and, having been brought back to an external consciousness, I felt for the first time, embarrassed. What if someone I know sees me? I have a professional reputation in this town; my kids go to school here.
I slinked a step backwards in hopes that I could use Good Cop to partly obscure myself from passing cars. It was the least he could do. Besides, Good Cop and I were pretty good friends by this point and I felt an affinity for him. Its not like I knew if he was breast fed or not, but he did confide in me about his Louisiana upbringing where outdoor basketball courts were scarce.
Evaluating our relationship, and the bond we shared through basketball with its vat emptying attributes, I looked him in the eye and asked if he could please tell me what the warrant was for. He hesitated for a moment, and then looked away from me and said inconspicuously, “methamphetamines.”
It was as if the plug had been pulled from the bottom of my vat. Never before would I have thought I could be so happy to hear that there was a warrant out for my arrest for being a hardcore drug dealer. “Methamphetamines?” I repeated with a lilt to my voice. “You’ve got the wrong guy.” For of all of the uncertainty of past behaviors that crept in to my mind, I was positive that I had never collaborated with such a drug. Marijuana? Yes. Hallucinogens? Many years ago. But meth just wasn’t me. Though I certainly looked the part, sweating and shirtless, it was simply a role I had never played. I was sure of it.
Moments later, Bad Cop didn’t seem so bad after all as he came out of his car with keys jangling. “It seems as if the warrant was for someone else”, he said with what I sensed to be a tinge of disappointment. He freed me from my bondage and proceeded to begin writing me a ticket for my cell phone infraction. He glanced at his watch to get the date. “July 2nd”, I offered.
It was then that Good Cop spoke up in a voice far less than authoritative. “I was thinking that maybe we shouldn’t give him a ticket. You know, no harm no foul.” The metaphor was not lost on me as Not So Bad cop considered his partners recommendation and agreed. “Get yourself a headset,” he said tersely, salvaging some alpha status.
I had hoped to meet eyes with Good Cop one more time, to convey with a glance the acknowledgment of our brief affair, but he had turned his head and walked back to the car with his partner in a show of monogamy. I got in to my car, put on my seatbelt and drove away, taking care to stop completely at the stop sign, signal, look both ways, and proceed with caution. I then instinctively picked up my cell phone to call my wife and tell her what had happened only to throw it down on the floor of the passenger seat a moment later. As it was, there was no time to talk on the phone. I had responsibilities to keep, bills to pay, children to parent.
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About the author
Casey is a working composer of music for film, television and theater and comes back to school to explore the subtly related field of psychology. With an admiration for all art that provokes thought, regardless of genre, he is grateful for the opportunity to contribute to THQ.
