 To Serve and Protect -Alex Farr It was a lazy Wednesday afternoon. There was next to nothing happening, and I was parked at a BART cabstand... reading and trying to stay awake. Eventually a little Mexican woman came up to the car, asking that I drive her the 12 blocks to an office on Pill Hill. "I have to be there 2. You can do it?" she asked, in awkward English. After a quick look at my watch, which gave me 10 minutes, I assured her "No problem, we'll be there in five." And off we went. I didn't even have to speed to make the ten minutes. I may've sped a little anyway, but that would've just been habit. I spotted a California Highway Patrol car coming up the street in the opposite direction, but relaxed when I realized that, with a fare in the car, I didn't have to wear my seatbelt. I was legal. It was a nice feeling. About a block and a half before I had to make my left turn though, there was a back up of SUVs trying to make a left into another doctor's office complex. Without thinking, I just went around into the right lane... and suddenly the lead car made its left, and the other 2 decided they didn't want to turn after all, and began accelerating. "Ohh shit..." I thought to myself, seeing that there wasn't enough room to race ahead of them, change lanes, and still get into the left turn lane. My only option was to slow down and merge between, or even back behind them. Not a woefully awful set of options, I just hate the slowing down part. Nevertheless, I was on the brake in a hot second. Surprisingly enough, a gap opened between the 2 cars. I immediately matched up speeds, and slid between them. It was a low speed maneuver, but I matched the speed of both of the cars so precisely that, once I had merged between them, I didn't have to brake, or accelerate, even in the slightest. Now, making the maneuver is all well and nice, but to pull it off with such precision... I felt like I'd just performed ballet. It was such an amazing act of vehicular grace that I just couldn't help taking a few seconds to just admire it. Besides, at that point we were going so slow it took a few seconds to even reach the turn lane. The rest of the turn was routine, waiting for pedestrians hobbling through crosswalks to coincide with a break in the oncoming traffic. It was a sleepy day though, without much traffic, and rather easy to do. Then, just as I made the turn onto 30th St., I suddenly hear a siren blaring behind me. One glance in the rearview and I was startled to see, instead of an ambulance heading to one of the nearby hospitals, I've got a CHP cruiser squealing his tires as he makes the same turn I've just made... bearing down on me with lights flashing. "Goddamn dude, hold on..." I'm thinking, as I pull over to let this psycho do whatever he's got to do. And damned if I wasn't what he was looking to do... I was shocked for a few seconds, confused even... until I remembered that I wasn't wearing a seatbelt, and that my fare was pretty short. "Ohh, the poor fool must think he's gonna be working toward his quota... only he's blown this one." I was thinking. He came up and peered at me from behind his standard issue cop glasses, and immediately asked for my license and registration. "Uhh, sure... so, what's going on?" I asked, handing him my license. "You know why I'm pulling you over." he told me, as I fished around for proof of registration, and insurance. I shrugged, still confused. Then I suddenly remembered- the car's registration and insurance were for 1998... and here I was in 2003. Shit. Fuck. I'd even asked the idiot in the office of the cabyard, and he'd told me "Yeah, we've got the registration and insurance, but I don't have a key to the room... if you come back at maybe 10 o'clock..." That would've left me out running illegal for at least 3 hours, not to mention they were still gonna be charging me for the time to run back to the office, the time for some fool to find someone who had a key, then the time while whoever had the key to finish up with whatever they were doing, then to go into whatever room it is and find the paperwork, and then of course the time to get back out to where there might be some business. It was absurd. "Yeah, well... that's what I'll tell the cop if I get pulled over." I promised the fool, not terribly worried for myself, since I wasn't the legal owner of the car anyway. So anyway, that's what I told the cop, as I presented wildy out of date paperwork. He was not amused. "So, now, what did you pull me over for, anyway." I asked again, still wondering what was going on. "You made an illegal turn back there." he informed me. I think my jaw dropped. "I did what now?" "You made an illegal turn." I thought it over in my mind. I happened to remember the turn very vividly. I went through it a second time. Nothing. "You mean, making a left turn, from the left turn lane, is illegal now?" I asked, wondering when that law had been changed. He just stared at me for a moment, and then, without a word, went back to his car to do whatever cops do when they go back to their cars. I turned back to my fare, asking her "Did I?, Do you know what he's talking about?" She just shook her head... and I suddenly remembered how broken her English was. By lucky coincidence however, I speak fluent Spanish, so I repeated what the cop had said I'd done, and asked her if she thought he was insane too. She shrugged again. She didn't seem to know what he was talking about either, but she didn't seem to have been paying enough attention to be very firm in her opinion. "Shit..." I was thinking to myself, wondering how to beat that old saying that "it's impossible to prove a negative", when I suddenly had an idea. As I waited for the cop to finish bragging to dispatch about how much he was fucking with a cabbie he was making up charges against, I quickly jotted down a statement for my fare to sign, including her phone number. It was tough going though, because I still wasn't sure just what to write that I hadn't done, because I couldn't quite grasp what he'd decided was illegal about the turn I'd made. In another minute he was back, and I asked him again "Now, wait a minute... what are you ticketing me for again?" He just glared through his cop glasses, eventually answering "I told you, you made an illegal turn." "Uhh, right... And, what was illegal about it again? I still don't understand." I tried again, not sure exactly what combination of words might cause him to react by actually answering the question. "You made a left turn from the right." he finally answered, sounding like he was sick of having to humor people like this all day. "I made... from the right? From the right what? The right curb?" I asked, not quite sure what he was trying to say, or not say maybe. He looked at me like he was losing patience with my treating him like an idiot. I'm guessing it was a chronic problem for him, having people look at him like he was an idiot, and he must've been rather sensitive about it. "I still don't understand." I told him again, "I made the left turn from the left hand turn lane. I was in the turn lane for the entire length of the turn lane. That was a legal turn." "That's not what I saw." he answered curtly, and shoved the ticket in my face to sign. "Yeah... ok, fine." I answered, "when's the court date?" I asked also, finding that his handwriting was as incomprehensible as his choice of words had been. He pointed it out, and I signed, told him to have a swell day, and finished up the statement for my fare as best I could with the vague information. I explained to her what it said, and asked her to sign, assuring her that it would not require her to do anything more. I believed, at the time, that I could just present that statement in court. Needless to say, though, I wasn't able to get her to her appointment on time. It's like my mom always told me, just because
you're paranoid, that doesn't mean they aren't out to get you...
the New Waybills there's No Place Like Home... You gotta be shitting me Alex |
