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The Note
Ok, listen: I know it’s not all about me but here’s what happened.
I’m in that demographic that has to undergo unpleasant diagnostic procedures to try to detect the presence of deadly, disabling, and otherwise inconvenient diseases. Through a chain of events too irritating to summarize in a non-irritating way, I recently found myself on a diagnostic treadmill under the supervision of cardiac technicians half my age. (By the way, cardiac diagnosticians can’t
take a joke any better than airport security screeners.) Against all reason, the cardiac stress test went pretty well and I am not scheduled to have a heart attack anytime soon.
I immediately left the hospital to get new tires on my Honda Fit. This took me to a very fine tire store, run by guys who have better senses of humor than cardiac technicians and airport security personnel. The store is in a rather sketchy part of town. With new tires in place and balanced (the tires, not me, particularly), I left the Firestone place, where they didn’t even charge me for lecturing me about getting my tires rotated more often. (I did ask them if next time, for variety,
they’d lecture me about flossing my teeth.)
About half a block away from Firestone, I topped a little hill in a residential area and drove up on one of those scenes in which one can tell something is wrong, but one's brain can’t quite process what is happening. What I could see was a red Volvo sedan, rusty and in bad repair, backing up on the street in front of me, burning rubber and struggling to maintain control, and backing precisely in my direction. This display of reckless driving appeared to be related to the car being chased by a large man, on foot, with a pistol, screaming, “Stop! Police!” The large police officer had on a Metallica T-shirt. Because the Volvo was rapidly heading my way, the police officer also was pointing the gun in my direction. I mean, it was a few degrees off a trajectory that would have hit me in the face, but it was close enough.
I did what any good citizen does in this situation. Any citizen who knows he may be called upon later to testify to what he has seen. Realizing the Volvo is about to hit my Honda Fit, I closed my eyes, wrapped my arms around my head, and went horizontal in the front seat. I think I may have made a high-pitched noise in my throat. I opened my eyes and locked them on the case of the CD I was playing at the time, Tom Waits’ “Real Gone.” I highly recommend that CD, which includes the song “Make it Rain,” in which Tom sings “I'm close to heaven / Crushed at the gate / They sharpen their knives / On my mistakes.” But, perhaps I digress.
Shortly after going horizontal, I felt a shock of impact of the Volvo colliding with my Honda. Now, I don’t want to over-dramatize here. I remember thinking, ok, that’s gonna be a pretty nasty dent, but could be worse. From the sound of things--I could hear pretty well over Tom Waits (“I'm born to trouble / I'm born to fate / Inside a promise / I can't escape”)--the Volvo had managed to pull away and exit the scene. I came up vertical just in time to see the officer holster his gun and turn away, motion to me to stay put, and stroll over to help his partner cuff the other party to the cocaine transaction gone bad. This unfortunate suspect was a extremely large man who, inexplicably, was wearing a child’s teddy bear backpack. The officer’s partner was
assertively insisting that the handcuffed gentleman spit something out.
Once confident things have settled down a bit, I got out of my car to inspect the damage. There was none. None. I was baffled. I definitely had felt the collision. To shorten this story a bit (I know, I know, too late for that), the corner of the Volvo’s bumper struck my left front tire, breaking the hubcap. That’s it. No other damage. I suddenly decided I’m not unlucky. I’m lucky.
The gun-pointing officer’s partner came over to see me. He was as short as his partner was tall. He, also, was wearing a Metallica T-shirt. This disturbed me. It disturbs me still. One of the two plainclothes officers in a Metallica T-shirt is fine. But both of them? No, no, no. This is undoubtedly what tipped off Volvo guy to flee the scene. Both of these dudes are wearing the same t-shirt. Must be cops.
This young man had a bit of Barney Fife happening. “Sir,” he explained to me with gravity, “what we had here was a drug bust, and you are what we call an 'innocent bystander.’”
“Wow. Seriously?,” I said, “That’s good, but, you know, I’m already kinda clear about my role in this thing. Or my lack of role. You know?”
The big cop with the now-holstered weapon came over and wrote me an accident report, in case my tires are knocked out of alignment. (Keep in mind, they had only been aligned for the 15 minutes since I left Firestone.)
“Enough excitement for today?” asked the officer.
“Yeah, I think so. You know, I just had a stress test this morning,” I said.
“No kidding,” said the officer, “Well, I think you just had another one.”
He wished me a happy day. Which I went on to have.
Here’s our latest issue. My thanks to all the writers with work herein, along with the visual artists. It's Issue 30. We could celebrate. I’m already celebrating.
Have a happy day.
Dale
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