Cruising

I rode a hero of mankind. I was like a lion soaring across the Serengeti upon the two twirling wheels of my Huffy. I was king of the mountain (and the jungle while we're at it). I was invincible and insurmountable, but like in fiction, it was somewhere between the fueling station and the destination that I realized I was incapable of being capable.

I knew I was in a difficult situation, I surmised a path of danger. There was a mile of highway or two miles of confusing cul-de-sac, either way I sailed my bicycle into a stash of open boxes next to a dumpster. Since I had no lock, I hid it. God help it through these bleak hours I thought. I rather liked the two-wheeler, but perpetuated freedom was at stake.

Still, of all the times to amble and stumble-aimed home, 3 am was dire. It was dark and cold, November is a frosty month, and not the enjoyable kind either.

But me, I was more concerned with the blue and red of the law, the kind that mulls over the streets looking for something I just never understood. See, I took the highway home since the lineless roads were confusing and a moreover convoluted path. Navigation was not a skill I possessed at this precise moment, but neither was wit for that matter.

While I walked over the brush of the sidewalk-less route, I realized that there was something unstable about the empty highway in the dead of morning. No motion resounded save for the careening beams from the frozen moon and the thawing street lamps. I thought that there was something ominous about the grey asphalt under a black sky, like a photograph without the contrast.

Freedom was not yet free at these volatile hours and it was like walking through a snow globe without any snow, a pointless nothing. I had no idea why I walked the stupid tundra of regardlessness besides the fact that I shouldn’t go to sleep in the cold. Life was a token of whatever.

As if the bleakness wasn’t encompassing enough, something stirred over the horizon. Suddenly engines were thundering, and no matter how common my common sense, my feet kept moving along the open sidewalk.

Duck, slow, compose myself! I needed to be tamed, I needed to regale myself in the 'what ifs.' My feet had a rhythm, I'm sure, but rhythm was a word I couldn’t understand at the moment. I knew my slovenly disregard for straight walking was a sure-fire ‘kick me’ sign taped on the back of my head.

In sightless moments, blazing speed flew by my dazed and filmy eyes. And, as such is the facet of momentum, it became the police vehicle that was perceived in a hopefully not so mutual realization.

He answered with a u-turn executed with the admirable finesse of a driver who could do such a thing next to the sign that forbid it. He revved. And then, to the horror of all the hope and light-heartedness in the world, he hit another u-turn, completing the full circle of absurdity that had become my night.

It was like a bad dream you never expect. Something out of a story; something out of a 'who-dun-it,' or a 'why-me.'

Like a snail perched next to a platter of es-car-go he slowed slowly to my left. I pretended not to notice his hot glare, the one that every copper has behind his badge.

"Hey there!" he gloated! He might of hit me with his vehicle but there really was no point. I wasn't a deer trapped in his headlights, no, I was already under his wheels now.

So I went for broke: "Yeah, hey! --How's it go'in?" and who would have thought I had it in me.

"Highways are a dangerous place to walk, son, how'd you like a ride to your destination?"

It was deceitful, I was sure. You could tell it in the eyes you refused to look into. Power pulsed down these black roads and he owned it all, now in the dark more than ever.

"Hop in. Don't be a fool either boy, this is a gesture!"

I had proved I was not a foolish man many times before, but there was no depth in that, and I was certainly not a quick thinker. I flopped into the cruiser like a bad apple, it was welcoming, and it was damned cold outside.

"You can call me Chuck, and well, I can't stand to see ya have to walk through this bitterness, not on a slow night like this anyhow. Now where do you need to go?"

"Just off of Cliff, Franklin Street, officer Chuck." it was all the natural I could muster as things got out of hand.

"You know, these are some real comfy seats," I exuded in honesty; they were thick with spongy comfort, a treat and respite. There was nothing stopping me from taking it all in now. If I were truly in the barrel, I would swim while I could. Mercy was the son of empathy I rationed, and even Chuck here knew what empathy was as he had just rescued me from the cold.

"Yeah, the cars are the best part of the job," he exchanged the pleasantry as he pulled into a speed. I couldn't think of anything to say though, and I think it was my silence that put me off guard. I was resigned.

More time passed, him in his navigating, and me in my brain. Finally and suddenly he had something for me. "I’ve got something to show you," he winked slyly, like a haughty thief. He knew something I didn't, something hidden and treacherous, and he loved that I had no idea what was coming next.

He reached underneath the hulking radio. I can't imagine knowing much about car radios, but it doesn't take a fool to recognize that this radio was well equipped. Something about its dials made me question everything about myself, something about its buttons made me consider just what my reality had become. But he didn't reach for the radio at all, it was the panel under the radio he had long considered.

"Have you ever been in a police car son?"

"Once before," I lied unwittingly forgetting the fifth, "but not like that! I was a free man and I rode in a way that is, sort of, but not exactly, like tonight."

"Well, I, didn't mean it like that, I mean, let me share a thrill with you, a thrill that only those who have been in a police car in the early morning hours know. Something really fierce--do I take this road here?"

I nodded and looked down at my cellular phone, it glowed an eerie green haze. There was a film of alcohol blocking my sharp-sighted vision from picking up the exact shapes and sounds. I noted that it was 3:84 am.

Mr. Chuck was grinning in a way that made me question his sagacity. I no longer trusted him as a full grown adult. I wanted to tell him that this was not Christmas morning, I wanted to yell at this awful absurdity. This was anarchy, and then he flipped the switch.

Lights blazed the environment surrounding. Potent variables flicked out of darkness and into those unreasonable shadows that flashlights make.

“Bleeeeeroo! Bleeeeeroo!”

It was dizzying and nauseous, but the moment I felt it hit my stomach I realized that stakes were too high, and that these seats were too springy, too nice, too perfect, to redeem my stomach on.

"These hours are too tame to resist the fun! Can you blame me...wait, well I can’t believe I missed it, but what is your name?" why it was Larry, though through all of our introductions it completely slipped my stupor.

"Larry, friend, and it certainly is eye-opening."

"Hah! I knew you'd enjoy it Larry," he sighed relieved and I felt the nausea swell up higher, skipping my throat and swamping my cortexes. The scenery blended and each house lingered on my cornea long after we passed each. He was content with the radio playing now. He was content to let bygones be bygones. But was I?

As we finally pulled up by my house I tried not to imagine all the different insides that weren't quite right. I stayed composed without a crutch, like a compass on a pole glued to North.

"I had a time and a half, Chuck, sir…and you know, I’ve never consorted much with the boys in blue, but I'm feeling sort of, indigo myself,” I gave him a drunk smile, “presumably there is life in your kind yet…And thanks, again."

Chuck shifted it back into drive, and even though his feet were idle, the car slid past as he gave one final tidbit:

"Just remember the next time you see an officer, men are men, boy."

An amalgamation of all the times I walked, biked, and drove home drunk last summer. This piece was ambitious at first, and here and there it still is, but I didn't have the skill or ability to be ambitious throughout and maintain the character or narrative in any sort of comprehensible way. The police are a ripe subject for literary analysis today. Do you remember growing up with them in reverence? Were you a junior deputy when you were younger? Maybe you loathe their tactics and goading power in your worldliness. Perhaps you're just sympathetic when you realize the stigma against them has cost innocent men their lives.

There is something wrong, something horrifying, and something fascinating in the way police exist today. This story scratches the surface of a subject that I one day hope to be able to take on. Today, I fear I don't have the talent to climb such a mountain though.

-Dan