Close Call

What do you do when you leave the club late at night and have nothing else to do? Before you go grab something to eat with ya peeps you get someone arrested. Whuh? Ya’ll didn’t do that? Oh, so it was just me and my friends? Well, here’s what happened anyway.

A group of five of us decided to go out. We chose this mixed crowd club in downtown. The thing I liked about this spot was it wasn’t as hot as the sweatboxes that we usually go to were and you didn’t have to worry quite as much about bouncers/popos coming through the party cause somebody done started some ish. If you don’t know, and I’m not generalizing this is a fact, white girls love to dance on a pole, especially if they’re drunk. Talk about laughing and having a good time watching them drunk white girls make their best attempts at twerking. You could find a couple of nice ones who have some melanin too. Good times to be had by all.

Anyway after we left the spot this particular night we were driving around downtown because were started to hit one more club before we called it and got something to eat. You know how downtown they have those one way streets and stuff and you have to go over a block or two and loop back up to get where you’re going? I mean, it’s like that in a lot of the cities that I’ve vistited. So yeah we were navigating and saw this white boy in the middle of the street. From what I remember he was about 5’9” 150 lbs with some matted brown hair. Nothing that really stands out. Twan was driving and said casually, “I’m bout to act like I’ma hit ‘em.” Although he said it casually everybody knew, well at least I knew, that he was definitely going to make good on his statement.

He accelerated and slowed down when he got close to the guy. I think he waited a little long to start decelerating but I guess that was to make the ‘scare’ more real. The white guy—let’s call him Scott, doesn’t flinch. He stands there in an altered state of consciousness and then begins to verbally assault us. He let’s loose a string of expletives and like a tree planted by the rivers of waters lets us know that he shall not be moved. This of course pisses Twan off so he backs up and says this time he’s not gonna stop. I’m like oh hell. What in the world? I hope Twan doesn’t hit this dude. I don’t remember what we were saying in the car to Twan but everybody was kinda indignant that Scott didn’t move from in front of the speeding vehicle since he was after all standing in the middle of the street. I mean it was late at night like 2 a.m. and even though there’s very little traffic, when you see cars you need to Ludacris.

Twan puts the car in drive and picks up speed towards Scott. Even though it wasn’t that long of an amount of time it seemed like a while because we continued to get closer to him and I didn’t feel the car slowing down. Eventually I was like slow down man don’t hit him or something like that. Twan was like no this ma phucka needs to move. Twan slams on brakes when it’s almost too late and the car appeared that it was still gonna tap Scott. In a fit of desperation and seeing that his life was probably about to take a turn for the worse, Scott jumped in the air and landed on the hood of Nesi (Twan’s nickname for his Nissan Sentra), ran up the windshield onto the roof of the car and made a dismount once he reached the trunk. When he stepped on the roof of the car the roof caved in near my head. I felt like I was in danger because he could have stepped on top of my head and hurt my neck or something. It was at this point that I felt Scott had gone too far.

It was clear to us that Scott used his spare time to partake of some of the sniffable organic stuff that the plants on God’s green earth provide. This dude was stoned—I mean so high it didn’t make any sense. Twan was silent. Not a good sign. He and I are alike in that regard. As long as I’m still bitching at talking to you, I still care and you still have a chance to win me over. If I stop talking leave it alone. All hell could potentially break lose cause at this point I no longer give a phuck. Twan broke his silence and was like oh phuck no. This ma phucka done walked on Nesi. He put the car in reverse so that he could get out the middle of the street. Meanwhile Scott is kinda meandering in the street all the while shouting more curse words and pretending that we were trying to hit him. Clearly stoned.

Twan exits stage right from the driver’s door to go to his trunk. Still on stage (inside the car) we’re all discussing what just happened and how wrong Scott was for jumping on the car yada yada. Twan is loading his gun. Right about this time a police officer drives by. I beat on the back window to alert Twan and he slowly closes the trunk. Mike gets out of the car to flag the officer down, who I’m sure was gonna come over anyway to see why these black dudes and a white dude were in the street with the white dude shouting at the group of black dudes. Twan approaches the officer and tells him how the guy just ran up on the hood of the car.

Scott is standing near too so he’s trying to over talk Twan and keeps telling this ridiculous story about us trying to hit him and all this nonsense. By this time I’m out of the vehicle too because I feel like a victim cause he stepped near my head. I suggest to the officer that I think the guy is high and needs to be tested. I mean I don’t know much about drugs but I wanted to plant the seed if it wasn’t clear to the officer that this dude is on something. The officer didn’t respond to what I said. I don’t know if it was because it was already obvious to him or if he didn’t agree with me. The officer is trying to get the whole story and Scott gets so loud and obnoxious that the officer has to cuff him and put him in the back of the police car.

At some point during this whole information gathering session T took Scott’s shoe and dropped it down a storm drain. The shoe came off when he ran on top of the car. Scott saw T drop the shoe down the drain and became even more loud and belligerent and told the officer that T dropped the shoe down the drain. When the officer shifted his focus to the car to see if there was any truth to Scott’s assertion, T acted indignant. He was like what shoe? What are you talking about? That sent Scott over the edge. He started hollering even more and eventually kicked the window out the back of the police car with his shoeless foot. Only a stoned out fool would do some ish like that.

The realism is that that’s just what we needed to convince the officers that Scott’s story was bogus about the attempted hitting and to believe that he was high. That could have went either way because from the officer's point of view there were five black dudes and one white dude. It could have appeared that we were doing something wrong. The officer was like he’s definitely going downtown now for destruction of property. The officer dismissed us and said he’d handle it from there. We drove off relieved that everything went our way and grinning because we definitely were culpable in what happened. What did we do next? Waffle House foo! Nothing like some omelets, orange juice and laughs to end the night. Especially since none of us left the club with anyone.

Coach Carter

I got up early and put on a nice outfit because on that day we were going to be having an assembly at school. Someone had arranged for out students to meet the real Coach Carter. When the students found out about it, some of them thought that Samuel L. Jackson was coming. I had to remind them that movies are not real and the people playing in the movies are just actors.

For some reason I had to go by the ATM this particular morning. I don't remember the reason why now. After I got some $$$ I continued up the same road the ATM was on, which is not my normal route. It was raining but not too hard. An officer came up behind me and got closer to my bumper than necessary. I knew then that he was running my tag to find out who I was. Driving while black is a mutha. He stops me. I pull over and he comes up to tell me that my tag is expired. I tell him that I think he is incorrect because I had already paid the taxes on my car.

Where I'm originally from (Georgia) when you pay the taxes you get a new decal. I did not realize in NC that you pay taxes and a separate decal fee. Ignorance of the law, however, is no excuse. He finds out that I also had a revoked license. I knew my license was revoked but I just hadn't found the time to handle the paperwork associated with getting it reinstated. It got revoked because I had gotten a ticket earlier. I paid the fine but did not send the receipt back to Georgia, where I was still maintaining a license at the time, even though I was living in NC.

He tells me to get out of the car so that he can arrest me for driving with a revoked license and having an expired tag. I am disappointed but not shocked. I knew I was getting arrested as soon as he pulled me over. I get out of the car and he puts the handcuff on while other cars speed by me on their way to wherever. I tell him that I'm sick and I don't need to be in the rain. He says he'll try to make it quick. He checks my pockets and inquires about the contents. I had some flash drives/jump drives/thumb drives (I've heard so many names for them) in my pocket. He asked what they were. I told him, but he seemed like he wasn't sure about my response. He asked where I worked. I told him I worked for the county. I was certainly not going to reveal to him that I worked for the school system so that he could try to make this a bigger deal than it was.

At some point he led me to his cruiser and had me sit down and told me he was going to search my vehicle. All I could think about was this white cop was going to plant some drugs in my car (Jaguar) to try to get a promotion on the force or something. Maybe I overanalyze but that's all I could think about. Plus if he did plant the drugs how would I convince anyone that the drugs weren't mine? He didn't find any drugs but he came back with a knife that I had in the armrest. He told me that I was carrying a concealed weapon, but that he would not add that to the charge. Somewhere in the midst of all that was going on he called another officer for backup. Mind you I'm 5'6" 152 lbs. Why the fuck did he need backup? Plus I was sick and I thought I was fly(see paragraph one).

They towed the car to some tow place way far away from where I live. I rode in the car to the local jail downtown. I told the officer while I was in the car that the cuffs were too tight. He told me that he knew what they felt like because they have to wear them as a part of their training. I'm thinking if you know mutha*#2&#@! take them off me. When we got to the garage under the jail we had to wait in the car because they were filming a commercail in the jail. The officer joked saying that I could be on tv. He asked me if I wanted to be in the commercial. I very curtly replied no and I told him I didn't think it was funny. He got out of the car after a while and led me inside. I had to sit on a bench and he handcuffed me to a bar that was on the back of the bench like I was a member of a cow herd. I told him that I did not want to be cuffed to the bar. He said his sargeant would get him if he didn't. I asked him if his sargeant had plans to come by here at 7:45 on a Tuesday morning. He didn't respond. I continued trying to pressure him to not cuff me. I asked him if he had checked out my shoes. I then followed up with do you think I'm going to run and scuff up my shoes? He still cuffed me to the bar anyway.

He started doing the paperwork and I was given a chance to contact a bailbondsman. I called a bondsman, but I still had to go upstairs to be booked and fingerprinted. After I was processed they made me answer a million questions and put me in a holding cell. I was in the cell for at least 2 hours. It only had a bench and a toilet sink thing that was all in one hooked together. Finally they released me when my bailbondsman arrived. I got my belongings and called someone from work to come and get me.

Luckily for me things at work were okay because we were having the assembly that day. If we weren't I would have had to call and tell them I couldn't make it for whatever reason. I really think all this happened because a white cop saw a young handsome black male driving what he thinks is an expensive ride.