3mer1ka
by
Lloyd Ramsay
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Lloyd Ramsay on Smashwords
3mer1ka
Copyright © 2009 by Lloyd Ramsay
This is a work of fiction.
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This body of work is licensed under a Creative Commons license: Attribution (by) +Noncommercial (nc) + NoDerivs (nd). For more information visit: www.creativecommons.org
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Dedicated to: Everyone
Created entirely on Apple hardware. Thought different.
Contact the auhor: lloyd@lydrmsy.com
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3mer1ka
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chapter 1
It all starts in blackest of darkness. Just pure undiluted void existing all around me. I was having the best sleep of my life. The type of sleep where you truly are dead to the world, spaceless and timeless. A rug on Valium. Then I started hearing sound and voices close by making me start to wake from this pool of oil. Voices carried on and on and on saying the most detached dreamlike things like: “Yeah we need an ambulance” and “Don’t move!”. Another step forward...why was I sleeping on the asphalt floor of a skatepark?
I turned over onto my back at the bottom of the jump box in an unfocused haze to see two English Bobbies standing over me. What was real what, was not real? They mumbled something which I could not comprehend. After a few blinks they seemed to not be there anymore. Judging from the pain in my hand and the pain in my shoulder and the pain in my foot, this was now real and something had gone wrong. After a length of time which I could never gauge two lady paramedics arrived with an ambulance. Since I had a head injury they wanted to take me to the local ER to get checked out. I could remember that no matter how badly hurt I was, I still found the paramedics cute.
“So, which hospital are you taking me to?” I asked.
“Wexham.” She replied
“Where is that?”
“It’s in Slough”
“Christ, can’t we go to another hospital? Please?”
My head felt like it had been in several non-stop epic Anime battles after I had been sitting there for what seemed like aeon’s. With no other method I could think of I kept biting my lip to stay awake as I kept nodding off. The Doctor came over to assess me and asked me to move this and move that and “how does that feel?”. Almost like some chorus in a disco song. He wrote some things down and sent me off to the x-ray ward. He gave me directions on how to get there which is just the thing for a person who just hit their head and could not even remember how many ears they had. On the floor were large green Incredible Hulk decals in the shape of his foot leading the way. Luckily for me they actually lead to the x-ray ward and not the psycho ward.
While I sat there waiting my turn this really cute girl walked in with someone who could have been a parent. She kept staring at me. I was so out of it I thought she was checking me out but was probably more interested in the road map of blood down my face. I was that guy, the one that is worse off than you when you go to the hospital. My turn arrived and got blasted with enough x-rays to give the Duracell Bunny cancer.
“Now dear..” The Radiologist said “there was a problem with the x-ray on your jaw and I can’t tell which side it was taken from. Which side of your mouth do you have your fillings on so we can judge by that.”
“I have fillings?”
On my way back to the Doctor I somehow managed to get lost despite the giant green Hulk feet stuck to the floor. I walked into a ward of people that were a lot older and sicker than I ever hope to be. Some hospital staff and a nurse standing in the corner of the room stopped mid conversation to yell at me: “You are in the wrong place! Go back!”. I slowly turned around and bid them “Good morning” since it was night and just to fuck with them.
The sickness part of my concussion kicked in. Every sore body part from my crash got worse as I had to get up to move to the bathroom. Vomit was knocking on the door and my mouth was awash with spit. I got the thought in my head like I always do that I did not want to be throwing up at that particular moment. Then I faced it and knew it was something that would be over in no time. My head was in a gray vibrating haze as I got on my knees and faced the toilet. My body seized up in pre throw up stage fright, then my mouth involuntarily opened as wide as my jaw would allow it, human mechanics reaching full realization. My throat burned and my eyes watered as what little I had in my stomach came out. My brain felt like it was drowning in super glue. I looked down at the Picasso I had just created swimming in the toilet and saw blood amongst the other content. My hand went up to my nose and came away with some blood on it. After a serious blow to the head I knew this could be hemorrhaging inside my head. I froze. My back arched up and I puked again. Eyes watering, mouth hanging open I stared down into the toilet and prepared to black out and die. In my murkiness I thought about my end and realized that it made perfect sense and timing. My friend Rich who was on his way to my apartment to keep an eye on me would find me face down in the toilet in my pj’s. I had escaped death once before years ago in a near fatal car accident but I knew I could not get out of this one. I was cornered in the bathroom. The fear I expected was not there. Still bent over I closed my eyes and just said “fuck it, I’ve had a good life”. After waiting to black out, the dizziness subsided and the murky head water thinned out. I actually began to feel better. My thoughts were no longer electric rattles down a rusty pipe but rather like when you surface from being under water and sight and sound return to their defaults. I stood up slowly, body still aching and washed my face. My reflection showed dark rings under blood shot eyes as well as the cuts padded by swollen flesh. As I lay back down in bed I had to move all my sore parts fuel injecting me with 16 valve pain. Staring at the roof, dead still as to go for dullness and not sharpness I couldn’t believe I had just lived through that moment.
Shannon came over after Rich left because I needed someone to keep an eye on me the whole night. I barely remember Rich being there. Shannon stayed the night being my home brew nurse and said “holy shit” when she saw me in daylight the next morning. My shoulder was covered in grazes, my left ear was cut as was my nose and parts of my face. A huge black eye had come to stay with me as well as my right hand hurting like a teenagers cell phone bill. My head was a lot clearer but I still had a headache running around inside there rattling the windows and knocking on the doors.
Getting dressed dictated working with circus troupe balance. I took my time testing out the limits to which I could move before it hurt. New calibrations. My left arm was still too sore to live on its own so I kept the sling on and wore my jacket just like the one armed man. The eye and face looked bad so I wore dark sunglasses to stop people staring at me while I stared at them. My friend Rick came over to help me carry groceries and get my bike back. If they gave me any pain medication I don’t recall ever taking it, or does the medication take you? We walked slowly along the road while he told me how destroyed I looked. My memory was patchy and I went over the events of the day of the crash to try to do a power on self test. We found my bike stowed away in a closet at the leisure center next to the park. I was amazed and relieved that it had not been stolen as well as not seemingly having sustained much damage in the crash I don’t recall ever having.
General consensus varied depending on who I asked how long I was unconscious for. It ranged from five seconds to two minutes. The longer the out time the worse the concussion is so I took the average of their estimates. Most importantly I thanked the person that called the ambulance for me. I had taken that week off work to do some road tripping but instead spent most of it eating yogurt and drinking milkshakes because of my pounding jaw. As I walked out of the cinema I saw someone I didn’t want to see three rows in front of me with his goon friends. He didn’t like me because his girlfriend had given me her number. He was a dick and I didn’t know they were even dating when she handed the digits over to me. Arm still in a sling and looking like one of Mike Tysons girlfriends I didn’t want to give him the chance to take me on in my weakened state. I deliberately spaced out the time between my steps walking out and stuck to the shadows of the theater avoiding him. Time. Time to leave England.
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chapter 2
I did not know what to expect moving to America. Hopefully it was everything Kerouac and then some. Was the neon lit cartoon animal reality I had seen on TV that far detached from the actual thing ? I was more inclined to believe it had a bug riddled underbelly shown exactly in David Lynchs Blue Velvet. Later on I would find this to be true facing the fake sincerity of some Californians. I was always asked how I was doing by people with a cheesy grin with no actual recourse expected. Nobody cared how you were doing especially the burn out working at the grocery store counter. Oceanside’s, tattoo parlors next to train stations, motorbikes, pancakes, cults, silicon, silicone, large fastcars and freakishly sunny weather.
The plane was full of souls and I was cutting it close to take off. Pretty much everything I had was on my back or in the belly of the plane. The rest were a collection of CD’s which had been shipped a week prior. My single serving friend next to me on the flight was a petite dark haired girl not that much older than me but would never admit it. I wore shorts while she wished someone like me would act grown up and broken like her. She had taken up all the foot room with her bag no doubt filled with senseless papers and a new laptop which she probably never quite figured out how to use. My backpack was too large for the overhead container and the cow had taken up all our foot space. For 11 hours my bag sat wedged under my seat.
“You are supposed to get on the plane earlier.” she said.
“What?”
“You got here too late and if you had gotten here earlier you would have been able to sort out your bag.” she added.
Air travel bitches.
“Well pretty much everything I have of value is in this bag and I was late because I was saying goodbye to everyone I know.” I retorted with what was hopefully a scary look on my face. She mumbled something to herself and I started to hope that I got real sick on the flight and puke all over her after my freeze dried compacted desert. A new sentence to write about the flight for me and the ultimate nightmare for her and the board members meeting she was probably on the way to.
Its never really sleep while traveling on a plane. You get the pleasure of nodding off for a few minutes until the captain banks the plane like a drunk teenager in his Dads car or your travel mate jabs you in the ribs. The ultimate awakening is when you are finally sound asleep and the retard next to you turns the cabin light on which is facing directly into your eyes. Its like the hand of god shining down a drainpipe. It is space time white noise torture in a tube and kids are allowed. My neck got sore. My mouth got dry. The babies whine got louder. My seat got smaller.
The food arrives. The food leaves. A baby cries. A baby sleeps. I watch the in flight movie but they watch me back as I try not count the hours of flying. 11 hours in total, its an experience wanting sleeping pills with a Vodka chaser. The mental asylum is being stationary for so long and having the back of your seat constantly kicked.
The cabin lights blinked on in random order. Miss Petite next to me was awake as well and a lot more talkative since I hadn’t bumped her or tried to hit on her the whole flight. The captain came over the loud speakers and mentioned something about a delayed connecting flight which she just happened to be going onto. She told me she was in London on business and was on her way back to Canada. I told her I was moving to San Francisco.
“Who are you going to stay with ?” she questioned.
“My company has a rental apartment that I am going to use until I can find a place to live.”
“You don’t have any friends here?”
“I don’t know anybody in America...” and with that I had her mind in overdrive and she went quiet. She was trying to figure me out. Get her head around why people did things like that. She worked for AOL. I was willing to bet she also had a six foot boyfriend who cheated on her, one of those small yapping dogs at home and a Feng Shui book on her living room table. As attractive as she was my mind was elsewhere and I was hoping the bed I found myself in that night was comfortable. I felt calm and not panicky at all. The reason being is that for a while I would not have to wake up to the same surroundings, see the same people every day, walk the same route to work, eat the same brand breakfast cereal, see the same dead faces of commuters on my route, hear the same accents day in day out, try be nice to the same dickhead, round and round the hamster wheel. The only thing that could go wrong at that stage was that my other bag could be in downtown Beirut - but it wasn’t. Miss dark haired cutie was like a rat down a drainpipe as soon as the doors opened to get to her next flight. Outside the window it was dark and the hue of the lights in San Francisco seemed a little different than in Europe. I peered around for more of my new home but could not make out much. I was in no hurry to go anywhere. The meter on my life had been set back to 00000000 miles and everything for a few months would be a new experience.
The line to immigration. Cameras every few feet on the ceiling. Drug sniffer dogs. Customs officials. X-ray machines. Non-English speakers stuck somewhere in the limbo from airplane to taxi cab. The immigration officer was a lot friendlier to deal with than the haggard burnout’s at Heathrow. Nonetheless he had been working that job too long and probably dreamed of taking finger prints in his sleep each night. He asked me odd questions as if I was going to break down and confess I was a terrorist. Then he asked for a form that I couldn’t find in my bag. He let me through without seeing it and of course I found it the next day. As I escaped the paperwork section of the airport I made my way to the taxi’s. Having being suckered in Paris once before by an illegal cab driver I was sure to only get into one at an assigned area. Nobody approached me. The air outside was warm and instantly made me 10 degrees more awake. I stood in the line and waited for my taxi.
As best I could tell my driver was Russian and much happier with life now that he was in America. I had to repeat where I needed to go a few times and he asked me for directions: "I have no idea man, you tell me‚" I told him. He got out a map while I was looking for his GPS system. Somewhere from the glove box he pulled out a small flashlight and aimed it at the map. While he was looking it over he was reading the road names to himself softly. Since the map was all over his wheel and he was looking intently at it for long periods of time I know this was how I was going to die. I get all the way to America and get killed 10 miles from the airport. On my tombstone they could have written "Yellow Death". The cab would slowly drift out of the lane and he would suddenly focus back on the road veering it back into the right direction. The best idea was to look out the window and pay no attention to Racer X trying to kill us. My new complex was an endless myriad of identical looking apartments like an a state home for people with OCD. They made no sense at all. I walked in what seemed like an infinite loop trying to find the correct apartment number and sweating. Apartment numbering that just made no sense. I came all that way no problem and could not even find my own front door. Once I got inside I took a really long shower and scattered the contents of my bags all over the apartment. There was a second bedroom in the apartment which I closed the door to so the terrorists, Scientologists, the dark or the zombies could get me. I climbed into the giant double bed and fell asleep as all my friends back home were waking up.
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chapter 3
It was getting dark but I was stuck in conversation with my friend Greg. My other friend, Cappy was with me as well visiting from England. We had just finished riding our BMX bikes in the cement park and were walking them back to my parked truck. We had no sense of urgency since none of us had any place to be and Greg‚Äôs wife was not back from work yet. We started to walk slower as we got closer to my truck. In mid conversation my head turned and I noticed headlights driving into the parking lot. When more light was shed on the car I could see it was a police cruiser. I turned to Cappy and joked: “uh oh, we are going to jail homies.” My smirk went south when the police cruiser swung in next to my truck and blocked me from reversing possibly ever reversing out. The cop parked her car in such a fashion as to indicate that we were at risk of flight and her parking was a sign of an offensive strategy. A lady officer of the law stepped out of the squad car and right away asked us for our ID’s. I was confused at this point but knew better than to question the cops since you can end up with broken fingers a la nightstick or worse. We complied because we wanted to get rid of her. Give them any reason and the long arm of the law wont stop till its reaches the back of your teeth. Greg didn’t have his ID on him and Cappy had his British drivers license. I showed the cop no fear as I battled to get my drivers license out. She had not told us to do anything but all 3 of us stood in place dumbfounded at what was happening and why we were being detained. As the female cop starts to run my ID a second squad car appears and also parks at a very odd angle.
A very self assured caveman stepped out of the second squad car. At this point my mind was reeling as to what was going on here and why cop #1 had called for backup from cop #2. Their jurisdiction was known for plenty of gun related violence, drugs and various gang related issues. The fact that they were making such a fuss over us meant something equivalent or worse. Mrs Uniform and no personality started asking me a myriad of questions : where have you been, how often do you come here, why, who, when, wheres Waldo? Greg finally asked the million dollar question : “Look, I don’t mean to sound out of line or anything , but whats the problem here?” His tone was just right but I was watching for the cuffs to come off the belt. The Darwinesque male cop turned to him and replied: “It is illegal to be in a Redwood City park after dark..”
I still was not showing any fear and I’m not sure that either of them liked that. After all, they had the guns and badges and deserve fear. Or respect. Or something. Cappy had just had a run in with some English Bobbys so was sure to keep dead quiet the whole time. Male cop had his flashlight out and started asking me stupid questions the whole time with it shining right into my face like a lab rat. My eyes were starting to hurt so I dodged the beam left and right like a very, very slow prizefighter. My best guess is that he thought I was high on something. All he had to do was ask for a urine sample to drug test and I would have obliged all over his car. Since Greg had no ID they were taking every detail a human could possibly remember from him.
With a smirk on her face the female cop turned to me and said “Should I give him a ticket as well ?”. She tilted her head in Cappys direction. She was loving this. The gun and badge were all hers and now it was comedy hour, centre stage at officer Fuckheads mega funny super happy stand up routine. The gun was like her microphone.
“You can write him up as well,” I replied “But I’m not sure how you are going to get the money from him to pay the fine when he is in England.".
She no longer thought she was funny. I started to get annoyed that these two dickheads now had us for close to 20 minutes while crimes were going on around the city. They told us the rules of the park are posted
on boards all over and it clearly stated that the park is to be vacated after dark. While they had us there a friend of mine rode his bike past and greeted me. Male cop asked him where he was going and he replied that he was going home. They left him alone as he rode off. My confusion came back from holiday as we were trying to do the same thing before the comedian of the year had blocked me in. There was no point arguing thought because at this stage I still did not have neither a gun nor a badge. Now that it had my attention I turned around to see who else was in the park. An elderly couple to our right breezed along being old. Behind us a young couple walked hand in hand through the centre of the park. I caught Greg’s eye and he asked the cops 1 and 2 , with no disrespect , why all these other people were in the park but not getting tickets. Flashlight McGee answered with an all encompassing " because we have you guys."
As my ticket was handed over to me I asked how much I was expected to pay and was told $25. 2 weeks later a court summons appeared in my mailbox telling me the fine is actually $185 and that I had to appear in court. I had never been arrested nor broken any laws, paid all my tax, was nice to the elderly, had never been in trouble and now I had to pay a months worth of lunches and stand before a judge. Surely when the megatronic marketing machine cooked up "the land of the free" they meant we could roam said land freely even after dark?
I looped around and around various buildings trying to find the court I was supposed to be in. The site of metal detectors and guards behind plexiglass gave me every indication this was the place. There was no other markings to be found on the building so I walked in. My keys , wallet , papers and tonsils all went into a small box that was X rayed. Then I went through a metal detector. The signs just past X raysville said nothing about the small claims court I had to be in. I turned and asked a guard if he could give me directions. A haggard middle aged man who hated me with all his black heart but never knew me. When he spoke to me he never looked at me and the bitterness poured out of him like blood from a squashed tick.
"What does your paper say? Where do you have to be?" he asked knowing right away that I was lost but wanted to teach me a lesson.
"It says building 500, small claims court."
"And what building is this?" he was going all the way.
"I don’t know, there is no sign outside."
A deep breathe was drawn and he used one lazy arm to point while explaining I was in the wrong building and had to go next door. Of course he could have just pointed this out right from the start but then he would not be bitter would he. I called him a prick under my breath and hoped he worked that job till the day he died. I hoped a person like me walked in every single day until then and asked him the same question. He would keep pushing that rock but never quite ever reach the top of the hill.
They processed me like a paperclip and I sat outside the courtroom waiting to see what happened on the other side of that door. The longer I sat there the more people started to show up. We were all sitting in a squared off waiting room with wooden benches. There were 2 ladies sitting next to me and they were discussing why they were both there. They never thought to include me in their conversation because everything about me was foreign to them. I wasn’t a housewife who watched lots of TV and was a secretive drunk. The younger of the two ladies was telling the older one of how she failed to appear at an initial court appointment because she forgot. On top of that she had an unpaid ticket and had failed to update her home address with the DMV after moving house. I thought she was done for. Some guard with a mustache and a green inked tattoo on his lower forearm was going to take here away right there in front of us.
They never searched us for weapons and let us all into the courtroom. It looked exactly like how they are depicted in the movies. While the other people attending bumbled to their seats I stealthed to a bench right at the back and sat in the corner. From there I could watch the people as well as the proceedings. My eyes scanned the room and finally settled on the bench in front of me where someone had etched the words "Fuck the Police". Sure enough a guard entered the courtroom and gave us the run down. He told us that we were not allowed to have our hands in our pockets when in front of the judge, no baseball caps, no talking and no attitudes. They loved this. The total crushing set of rules they put on you which were just staples of an even bigger illusion. What made this judge such a supreme being that I was not even allowed to have my hands in my pockets? Had this guy secretly assassinated Hitler or saved an orphanage? All these procedures and rules ended with the same result: you on your knees in front of a person wearing a black robe begging for your freedom. Under their thumb while rows of people gawk at your laundry list dragged out in public.
"All rise" monotoned the guard and we did because each and every one of us wanted to get the hell out of there.
A guy in his mid twenties got up in front of the judge and pleaded that he was a recovering drunk and drug abuser and he knows not what he does. Life had burnt this guy out and he was just an addiction with a social security number. He would get in trouble, then clean up, then get in trouble again, then clean up again, then get in trouble again, then rinse, repeat and repent. His story went on and on. The judge listened. He probably had the same broke ass archetype in his court every second day. After he begged and pleaded with some whining thrown in he basically got away.
Person after person got up and did their song and dance for the Judge. The sanctity which he was afforded made me sick with us all being forced to bow before him with broken wings. We had to suffer for our own sins unless of course you were granted vindication down from the throne.
The middle aged woman next to me caught my attention. She was listening so intently to each persons 2 minutes of being humiliated in a room full of strangers that she kept leaning forward. Sometimes after someone had finished she would shake her head in disbelief. This lady was so detached from the world around her that she thought she was in a cheap reality TV show standing in judgement of these people.
They called me up and my turn to look like an idiot was up. I stood in front of the Judge having flashbacks of teachers in high school down to me. In my minds eye I was holding both my middle fingers up to his face and breaking his spirit by pointing out all the flaws which led up to me being in front of him like some criminal. He read out my charge while the guard who probably drank and beat his kids sat like a stone toad next to him.
"What do you plead?” he asked and I replied "Guilty" since that’s what they wanted me to say and why they had me there. They just wanted to remind me that while I lived around electricity and the range of Cop cars I was not free. Afterwards I learnt that I was supposed to plead "no contest" which to me was equated to "guilty" but I guess I was the only person who passed High School English.
My fine was reduced to $65 and I walked out hoping that every one of them had kiddie porn on their computers found by their wives. I wrote a cheque at the counter and paid them off to fund the repair of the potholes in my road (but they would not really). I paused outside the courthouse looking at the buildings, the flags, the monochromatic squad cars, the ashy faces and wondered what they would do with me if I really did commit a crime.
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chapter 4
Girls can be a lot of fun and they can also be a lot of trouble so I went online and responded to a singles ad I found. A few days went by and the person replied. It felt like I had won something. No doubt every girl who submits something to a singles site gets millions of Hugh Hefs responding so I liked my chances right away. My first impression was she was a decent person, light hearted and around the same age as me. She was Asian and I liked Asian girls and I was (and still am) white and she liked white guys. She was also drug free and not affiliated with any Californian death cults, liked long walks on the beach and was a Pisces. Her name was Kobe and I never got her last name. We ended up talking over the phone a few times. We could not meet up right away since she had just finished law school and was in the process of moving back to my area from Portland. We exchanged pictures and various details and it became apparent that was crazy over her two French bulldogs. Everyone is weird with pets in their own way. This is how people meet each other.
A few weeks later she had finished moving in all her stuff and we decided to meet up for dinner. She was a bit shorter in real life and cuter. The angles of the Internet work well to skew perspectives sometimes. We had Sushi and a long comfortable silence. Throughout the night I couldn’t help but feel there was something I could not figure out about her. After dinner we walked around a strip mall and got some banana flavored milk from this Asian themed cafe. The girl behind the counter gave me a look to remind me that yellow and white don’t mix.
She invited me over for dinner. I got directions and made sure I wore clean socks. After getting lost in a maze of seemingly endless Urbania I finally found her apartment. She looked happy to see me and was getting cuter each time I saw her. As we got to her door I could hear her two dogs barking in the apartment. I was a cat person but felt compelled to make the effort to be nice to whatever dogs I found behind that door. She opened the door to let me in. I stood in the doorway for less then a second when one of the dogs bolted out the door like it was on crystal meth. Kobe ran out after the retard dog and left me standing in the doorway of a strange apartment. The only word I could think of was “awkward” after she was gone for a few minutes. I still stood in the doorway not feeling comfortable enough yet to make it across the invisible politeness barrier when you visit someones house for the first time. I looked at the other dog and noticed what an ugly little bastard it was. This dog looked like a goggle eyed bat with four legs, ears always standing upright. I looked around her apartment not really taking in too much. Just killing time until she came back with the other fugly dog and we could laugh about it. Then the dog made a move for the door real quick so I grabbed it by the neck. Nice try you little fucker. I closed the door and eyeballed the dog. It wanted it to be a sweet animal but it was just too stupid. Its head was like a cabbage with two black marbles stuck into it reflecting no signs of intelligence at all. If it had a peanut for a brain that would be boosting its IQ by 100 points.
I began to wonder if Kobe would ever come back with the other dog. It had been a while now. Scenarios played out in my mind about it getting run over while she was chasing it, to losing it in the dark forever. Dog death dinner date. The way she let those two mongrels take over the apartment I figured her for a pathetic dog fan right away. She finally returned and had her Retardweiller in her arms. Once I got a better look at it I saw that this dog had a lighter coat than the other one and was twice as ugly. It was so cross eyed I bet it had a permanent 180 panoramic view of the world.
“I don’t know why he did that.,” Kobe sighed as she put him down on the floor. The dog then stood there for a bit seemingly staring into some void in space. When it noticed I was there it started to bark at me. I wanted to feed it to a rabid Lion with tapeworm. I wanted to win the Superbowl by kicking it through the goal posts and come landing down smacking the president in the face, its bloated rat body filled with crumbled bones. These dogs were fucking retarded but she would never see that because she loved them so much.
Kobe and I walked to the store to get some dinner. She seemed a little more relaxed now that she didn’t have to deal with her lunatic animals. We grabbed some very simple pizza and I spent the whole time thinking about how I could get rid of her dogs if we ever got serious. One of them had fled after I simply opened a door so imagine if I really applied myself.
Since she had just moved in it took her some time to find the right pots and pans to cook the pizza. I poured myself some orange juice and we sat on her couch half watching what crap was on television and talking. Then the lighter dog walked over to me and started to screw my leg. Kobe apologized on the dogs behalf and I came up with seven new ways to get rid of the dogs right away.
When the pizza was done we took our shoes off and put our feet up. I playfully touched hers with mine but I got no feedback so withdrew. Again I got the sense there was something about her I could not figure out. We spoke about various things and like all worthwhile conversations we landed on the topic of Asian porn. She was an open person and willing to talk about it for two minutes without going "eeewww". She described some of the videos she had which sounded like they stopped just short of being snuff movies. This was odd. We spoke some more and she ended one of her sentences with “... when I’m not on my meds.”
Here it was.
“Oh meds, yeah I’m bipolar‚“ she told me nonchalantly. I stared at her waiting for more elaboration since she also mentioned that she “does weird things” when off the meds. I ran through the inventory of knifes in my head that I had seen in the kitchen earlier. Turns out she had a bout of kleptomania and did some other things that were so bad she would not tell me what they were.
She eventually took care of herself and had so many mood swings she never knew if she felt like calling me or even emailing or buying $20 000 worth of skincare products. I was glad because it meant that I didn’t have to go through the trouble of changing my phone number.
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chapter 5
My friend Endo and I went down South for the weekend to this comp in Atascadero. Middle California with fresh mornings and clean air. Littered with small towns you ever heard of when a quake hit. The space in between the hell below of LA and the heaven above of San Fran. When we got there it turned out that I knew the guy who ran the park. I had been running into him all over California for months. I always knew him as “Ted” but it turned out that was not his name. Some of the locals had screen printed shirts that read: “Kill Ted”. Something only they could make sense of.
We met up with a fellow rider from Norcal along the way. We found out he banged Miss Teen USA once and later got thrown out of our hotel when six riders from Orange County crashed on his floor. The dozens of BMX bikes trailing into the room like ants to honey gave everyone away on the CCTV. Endo and I managed to keep our room even after the manager threatened to call the cops on us. Fresh from India and coming to terms with English, the USA and life in general, the manager was being a dick so I told him to call the cops. He never did. It was only myself and him in our room. The manager refunded our friend but charged him $10 for using the soap in his room. Looking at each other we both saw destruction in each others eyes along with the fact that my credit card number was at the front desk. Endo pissed into the shampoo bottle in our room and sealed it back up again instead of filling out a comments form. The beds were tossed, every light was turned on and the heater was cranked up to 11. Fingers twitching and looking to see what else we could get away with to retaliate for the bogus $10 charge. All the coffee, tea, sugar and chemical puke sweetener went bye bye down the toilet as the shower still ran with nobody in it. It was childlike retribution within the confines of consequence.
At the comp I recognized a guy I had read an interview with who had a first name for a last name. All the ramps were freshly hand built and there was no shade. I skulked around taking photos. Afterwards this small group of good looking girls were handing out flyers for what looked like a pretty serious house party. Endo and I had a meeting and discussed the viability of us going and decided that there would be too many oddball tweakers attending.
Back home I got on my own bike after a few weeks off from a crashed ankle. Went to my local park but was hard to ride with all the drama going on. This lady was standing in the middle of the park holding an infant when a loose skateboard hit the back of her leg. She decided to confiscate the board and took a swing at the kid who owned it. The skaters all turned on her and took the board back. If you stand in the middle of a skate park, sooner or later something will hit you. Bad parenting has put us where we are today and the world needs less of it.
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chapter 6
“I was looking for a kid playing hookey from school. But now that I can see you closer I can see you are not a kid" said the female police officer to me. The hot female Police officer.
"I hope I don’t look like a kid." I said playfully. She had really strong looking arms and a conviction executing her daily tasks that would make a coal miner blush. She wore a bullet proof vest which was a pity because it meant I could not get to see all of her when she turned her head to look for this kid. The park was empty except for the 2 of us and a few scattered people walking their dogs. Most people were holed up in their cubes at that time of day anyway. She asked were I was from and how did I like the States. The Public Relations side of my brain was working well but I was dying to lay down the line "so, I see you have your own pair of cuffs huh" and see what happened. It was too difficult to read her name tag without making it look like I was staring at her boobs or at least trying to find for them under the Kevlar. The very slight look on her face gave me the impression she was making me talk because she was getting a kick out of my accent.
A few weeks later I was back at the same park with some friends. Someone mumbled something about "the five-O" and I saw Officer Brown walking towards us. I had given her this temporary name since I had to file her under something.
"Whats up guys." she asked in the cool I-can-take-you-downtown-Leeroy-Brown Police officer voice.
"Are you looking for belligerent children again?" I asked trying to have some fun with her. She was game and just laughed back. My friend and her spoke about where they liked to surf and I was happy because that explained the strong looking arms. Officer Brown was also looking hotter that day somehow. Her dark hair was tied in a tight bun and her uniform was immaculate. No doubt she loved her job and everything that came with it.
I asked her about a local course I had heard about where citizens could train with the Police in all their various aspects. Further to that I had heard on the last day they took you to the shooting range and let you fire off a few rounds.
"Here," she said making a motion for her gun as if to give it to me "I can save you time". I laughed and replied very dryly: "You probably should not give that to me, I had a lot of PCP for breakfast this morning."
It was obvious by her demeanor that she had not been a cop long enough to become a shell of a person. Sure enough she told us that she was in her second year on the force. I was sure that after she had been shot at a few times, taken many words of abuse and been screwed over by the justice system
her demeanour would become more callous. After all that she might start asking herself “why?” each time she woke up to go to her job.
"So how do I go about doing one of those sit ins where you can spend a day with an officer in their squad car? I asked because this was something that interested me. Seeing someone else’s job first hand and not just any job, but an American Cop. You can only spend so long in there before you get cube sickness and live for anything new which deviates from the norm.
"Well you go down to the station, fill in a waiver and if there is an officer you had in mind ask for them." As she finished I got her full name tag. Her first initial was "R" and I ran through the list of names the letter could belong to. I still liked Officer Brown better though.
"Where do live around here?" she asked me and my answer of "Oak avenue" got an "ooohhhh" out of her. My friends all laughed because I lived in a shitty neighborhood.
The local Police station was in a part of town that I had never been before. It occurred to me that it was the perfect place to carjack someone because there was nobody around and who would have the balls to try that outside a Police station. It would work because its crazy enough to. The officer behind the desk initially looked confused when I asked for the indemnity form to go along for the ride. She handed me a double sided form which asked all sorts of questions and a few lines for me to describe why it was that I wanted to go along with an officer of the law. I filled it in as " I am not American and this is a facet of life that interests me". My description probably made me out to sound like the Unabomber. The form asked if I wanted to become a Cop - No. The form asked if I had a criminal record - No. The form did not ask me if I had a preference for any particular officer. I had the preference for the affirmative cuteness of Officer Brown. Not finding anywhere to fill in her name I added it on the line where it asked for a preferred date and time. Improvisation is nine tenths of the law. I handed the form back to the officer behind the desk and she said the staff Sergeant would call me to let me know.
Nobody ever called me back.
"Are you leaving already?". It was Officer Brown questioning me as I was leaving the park a few days later. I smiled.
"Yeah, I have got stuff to take care off." I replied when I just wanted to forgo any small talk and just get down to marrying her in Vegas. I told her that I filled in all the forms and nobody called me back.
"Are you free tomorrow?" she asked and even if I did have plans I was then available.
"Be there for 7:30 am."
I waited in my car outside the Police station while Officer Brown finished her morning briefing. It was serious now and she was not longer "Officer Brown" but "Officer Brown" just in case I called her that my mistake. The dull thud of 5 hours of sleep the night before was giving me a second lag time. I sat in my car playing Tetris until I saw her squad car pull around into the visitor parking lot. I greeted her but she seemed preoccupied with getting her car in order since each day they were given a new one. She told me to get in the car with her confident assertiveness. This was a strong person. Who needed a strong coffee.
She drove me into the compound in the back of the station which was littered with their civilian and squad cars. 15 minutes after work they were diffused and powerless driving a Honda , wearing jeans just like all the rest of us. She seemed excited that she had someone to ride along with her but you would have to be a microscope to see that. Inside the station there was an air of nothingness and it looked too modern. For someone who was being detained there it would perhaps look sterile and colourless. We walked into a room where a few cops were seated completing various tasks. None of them seemed to notice I was there which worried me because when or if they did , they might get startled. Officer Brown dug up the form I needed to complete in order to legitimize my free roller-coaster ride. She looked at my birth date over my shoulder when I wasn’t looking because I made a reference to my age later on that day and she never asked how I was. She already knew. I got a tour of the rooms where they hold perps for questioning. These rooms troubled me with their dozens of cameras , thick doors and one way glass. As she opened one of the doors to show me inside I stopped her as I saw nothing to indicate that someone was inside or not. She said not to worry and that she was sure they were all empty. That whole area of the Police station emanated a Shining vibe so strong that Jack Torrance could finish 3 novels a week in there. Its pathological industrial finish and crushing certainty made me not want to be anywhere near it ever again.
About 30 minutes into my real life Police experience I noticed that my fly had been down the whole time. I hoped she had not noticed thinking I was some type of sexual deviant traveling the country getting kicks by exposing himself to Police officers. I wondered how many of the Cops inside the station had noticed - there was no way anyone could have said anything anyway. We stopped by a coffee shop so she could get her fix. As we walked in together I started to wonder if people would look at me differently while I was walking around with a police officer. Since I didn’t drink coffee I waited around the store looking around trying to kill time in my mind. I was still half asleep.
She got a call over the radio and explained that we were responding to a house alarm that was going off. I was told most of them were false alarms. We parked a few houses down the street as to not give it away that we were there in case it was an actual burglary. Since it was broad daylight on a relatively busy street I doubted the great train robbery was taking place in there. Brown armed herself with a large black flashlight and asked if I wanted to come with. I was game and there was no point in sitting in the squad car the whole time. We started walking down the road looking for the house. I asked for the house number which was an odd number making the house on the other side of the street. Being as attentive and sharp as she was I was surprised that she overlooked this. I secretly hoped it was because she thought I was totally hot , but probably not. The voice which I could not hear (the one in her earpiece) told her it was a false alarm so she stopped halfway and myself, her and the flashlight got back into the squad car.
The next call was an elderly lady that had called the Police Station and said that was the victim of scammers. We pulled up alongside her house and her garden was very well taken of. She was obviously someone with time on her hands. Brown got out and I elected to stay inside the car not wanting to intrude on this old dears privacy. Once she had spoken to the old lady she said something I didn’t hear and motioned for me to come inside. I climbed out the car and left the doors unlocked and her window open. Brown had told me to lock and close but this is what I had missed. The inside of her house was spotless and picture frames were everywhere. I sat down at her dining room table being dead quiet while Brown did her job. The old lady had received a random fax and had responded to it which in turn led to someone arriving at her doorstep. Although she described this person as not being too menacing it was obvious to me that they would have bled her account dry faster than a lawyer. She was a widower and I knew this because she made a point to mention it several times. I got the distinct feeling that she had put herself in this position on purpose to get some attention. In anticipation of our arrival she had put on her make-up and wore jewelry. It was sad that some douche bags trying to steal money from her would have been the highlight of her week. The old dear went into the other room to get the fax she was sent. I looked over at the Officer and we both smiled - earlier she had mentioned that some calls were elderly people wasting their time. Brown scanned through the document reading through it carefully. I took it for what it was right away, a total scam , since I had seen dozens of similar ones. Hundreds of shady people holed away all over the country in unmarked business parks sending out these faxes and scam letters looking for just one bite. If you send out a million scam letters and only 10 people reply that could equate to $10 000 with a less than 1% success race. The Widower sat across from me wringing her hands talking it over with Brown. She mentioned her dead husband again. The list grew longer when she mentioned her dead son as well. She stopped before she went through her list of dead pets. She knew all about mortality and loneliness. We all stood up from the table and the old lady remarked on how ferocious Brown looked. The two ladies got to talking about the photos on the mantel piece and before I knew it Brown was very slyly taking some time out of her day to make conversation but not in a way that was too obvious. I had always figured that being a Cop would make someone callous and to a certain extent dead to the world yet she was full of empathy and made that old ladies day. To look at all six feet of her and the never changing expression on her face you would never think to use the word “empathy”when describing her. The truth about her was that she was a snugly teddy bear of a person but you would never see that from the outside.
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