So, Cinco De Mayo is fun in the south. My kid and I went to a Starbucks where there was a high school mariachi band singing all the classics plus a mariachi version of a song from Mulan.
It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw, and it made me happy that America is this great melting pot of people.
I know I hardly write on here. I sometimes don’t feel like I have anything interesting happening. But last week, I did.
I’ve been helping out someone who I met in our last neighborhood. I have to admit that I needed some things to be fixed on my truck, and he likes to fix things, so he talked me into fixing it up. That was back in February or maybe beginning of March. He did a lot - new spark plugs, new alternator, vacuum tube replacements.
When we moved, he helped us, and as always, I gave him some money. It is never a lot, just some. This guy (let’s call him Guy) had a past history and he did his time, now he’s clean, and he’s in this in-between time of figuring out how to get on his feet after losing everything. He’s in a precarious position, so he does odd jobs around the old neighborhood.
The way I figure it, there’s maybe five other people helping him. One couple printed up resumes for him, and we helped him create logins to an email and to a job site. He has no computer skills, he’s been working with his hands his whole life. Lately, people in the neighborhood employ him to fix their older cars.
Guy has helped me fix multiple things around the house. I haven’t met anyone like him except for maybe my cousin in Indiana, who could fix things with duct tape and bubblegum (and I heard through the grapevine up in Indiana that people knew not to buy a used vehicle from my cousin because they wouldn’t know, exactly, what was under the hood).
Anyway, recently my family moved to a different place a few miles away, and Guy lives in the old neighborhood. He doesn’t have a vehicle. The way my family figured it is, instead of hiring a crew to mow our lawn, we can help Guy out by hiring him. So, about twice a week I go pick him up.
One day I pick him up so he can go to the food bank. If he bikes, he has to bike eight miles and some of it in heavy traffic because there are no sidewalks on that part of the town.
Just a note: for years I was sick and shaky, so I don’t drive in this town very much because I don’t know it, and I am not exactly keen about the differences of traffic between this state and the state I originally came from.
So, last week I had Guy drive to the food bank. No big deal. He can drive, he has a license. He’s a local yokel. I’m in the car with him.
He got his food, we got out, but he needed ice because where he lives doesn’t have electricity. No refrigerator. I told him we could go to the grocery store and I’d get him some ice.
It should have been simple.
It is 5:45 p.m., rush hour traffic. He says he’s getting pulled over. I’m thinking, “Did he use his turn signal?” But too late.
It turns out we got pulled over because a brake light in the middle top center of the back truck topper window didn’t light up.
However.
Remember that past record I told you that Guy had, and how he’s all clean now? Well, this young policeman made him get out of the truck, and then I realized it was going to be a big problem.
I, also, was made to get out of the truck and stand by the front passenger bumper.
I felt disappointed and a little upset at myself, and I wondered what was taking so long. I stole a glance through the truck canopy windows, and the policeman is still talking to Guy.
Two more police units roll in behind the first car, one of them is an SUV with a deer catcher on the front. It looked impressive.
I look away and just continue to lean on the truck (because what else am I gonna do), trying to keep my mind occupied with reading the business names on the fascia signs in the strip mall across the road. Oh, there’s a bar I never knew about! Oh, there’s an Italian place I’ve never heard of! Suddenly, I’m learning this town.
Traffic is backed up by the stop light, they are all looking over at us. I think, “Wow, we are tonight’s drive by entertainment. I hope no one recognizes me.”
And I think to myself, “You just HAD to pick today to wear your Alice Cooper For President T-shirt, didn’t you?”
I’m thinking: it will be bad if I have to call Spouse (my intrusive thoughts envision me making that one call from a jail cell; I haven’t broken any law but my intrusive thoughts don’t care as they gleefully make up doomsday scenarios - maybe I watch too many YouTube videos about people being pulled over).
I peer back over my shoulder to see what’s happening, and one policeman is patting Guy down. Mind you, Guy looks terrible today because he fixed someone’s car and didn’t change. Off to the side, there were four other officers.
Finally the young officer that pulled us over comes over to ask me why I was over at the old neighborhood, did I ever let the guy drive my truck without me (absolutely not), was I insured? (Yes).
And then came that old chestnut: “Can I search your vehicle?” I paused for a moment, not gonna lie. Online, they say never to say yes to a search. But, I was thinking that by the same token, some policemen can get nasty if you don’t allow it.
I still don’t know the right answer to this as this is the first time I’ve ever been in this situation.
I said, “Sure, go ahead.” At this point, inwardly, I’ve given up. I’m mad at myself for not driving my own truck in town, mad for being afraid to drive in horrible town traffic. I’m resigned.
Before the officer enters the truck, he asks me if I have any non-prescription drugs in the truck. I said, “Non-prescription?” He says yes. I said, “Like aspirin?” He said, “No, drugs.” I said no.
He asks if there is any thing that can be smoked in there, something like that. And I said, “There’s a-half a cigar!” But it came out in my rural/Appalachian accent. Probably sounded dumb. The half-a cigar-wasn’t mine, it was Guy’s.
So, this young policeman searched. He had trouble getting behind the seat (it’s a 1996 truck and I dunno, maybe they are made differently). I helpfully told him where the seat latch was.
Behind the seat is a nightmare, I think - I haven’t cleaned it out since I lived in the north. I have a pair of 1) Applebottom boots with the fur 2) Emergency bag of a scarf, wool socks, and gloves 3) a blanket 4) a broken jack because I dunno and 5) a CD container with CD’s I burned in 2009. I was actually pretty happy the policeman found them.
In the back camper area of the truck, another officer (with one observing) searched through a box of vegetables, my emergency boxes of junk, and a backpack of Guy’s dirty laundry (I previously had offered him to come over and do laundry - clean clothes make a person feel better).
After I got home I thought about the stuff in the back of the truck I haven’t cleaned out - for some reason I have a small bag of kitty litter, I guess for oil or water spills, a pair of large adjustable pliers, and about ten straps that are unusable until I untangle them).
All in all, everything was fine.
The officer said the reason he pulled us over was because of the truck light. This surprised me because it hasn’t worked since I bought the truck in 2015, and I’ve been pulled over twice for other things, like one of those checkpoints where they look for drunk drivers, and once for going over the speed limit.
The officer said he was giving me a warning but he didn’t give me the actual slip of paper. The poor young guy, he could have been my son he was so young. I felt for him. He looked deflated but I was grateful he let us go.
Regardless, as soon as I got back to my house, Guy fixed the light because we got parts at Autozone. Somehow he patched together wire and whatnot and wired in a brand new replacement light we could fit in the old mounted housing.
Honestly, I wouldn’t have known how to do it.
I asked Guy why it took so many policeman for a traffic stop, even if he’d been in trouble before but was now clean?
He said the cops asked him the same thing - there is something on his file that said he’s a a problem. Turns out that in his youth he ran from the police. Hence the file. I guess the files really do last forever.
So, all last week I thought of this event.
I was thinking Guy made some bad mistakes in his life, hurt only himself and did his time, but now he still has this following him around.
It reminds me of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.
Guy has got a mark and now he has to rebuild himself if society will let him.