Office Supplies, Good Citizenship,
and Other Saturday Night Thrills in Portland ,
Oregon
On November's
first Saturday night - a time of year when
So I spent a couple of hours drooling over computer equipment. Finally zeroing in on a blue mouse (to match my newly-painted turquoise metal-flake computer and its black keyboard). Then I went on my way. To another Office Depot to look at a portable color printer that wasn't in stock at the first store. And that's where this small story begins. . . .
On the way to the second store, a little red
car with three people in it - a girl and two guys - suddenly cut right in front
of me, almost brushing my driver's door. The speed limit on that stretch of
I hit the brakes to avoid being sideswiped and as I did I noticed that the young girl driving the erratic red car was definitely going to run into the back of the car in front of me. She swerved at the very last instant, running onto the sidewalk in front of a Pizza Hut and bumping and scraping the side of the car in front of me.
The hit car pulled into the Pizza Hut parking lot and as it did the erratic red car shot off of the sidewalk, back into traffic right in front of me, and was about to start weaving through the lanes and into the tangled traffic arteries of the city.
I was, at that moment, confronted with the red car's license plate, UMC-488, which seemed big as a movie screen. And I realized that it was running from the accident it had just caused.
I honked and tried to follow. In a flash, it had maneuvered to put two cars between us by crazily zigzagging, and then it lost me by turning right on a red light only a block from the collision.
I tried to follow it by cutting through a
Texaco station on that corner, but I was blocked at the station's exit by a car
that had just gotten gas. So I had to watch as the little red car, and its
hit-and-run occupants, ran free, gleeful and unencumbered, down neon-lit
I had the license number though. So, repeating the number over and over to myself, I drove around the block, pulled up to the Pizza Hut and spoke with the somewhat shaken young woman who's car had been hit.
"Did you get the license plate number?" I leaned over and asked her through my passenger window.
"No! They drove away too fast!"
"UMC-488" I said.
"Did you see them? Did you get the number?" she asked, sensing hope.
"Yeah I did. Do you have a pen and paper? Let me pull in here."
The victim was a thin young woman with short
dark hair who told me that she'd just purchased her new silver
"Do you have a pen and paper?" I asked again, afraid that my leaky short term memory would fail any second.
She poked her head into her car, glanced around, withdrew, and said that she didn't. Then she pulled some bills - a couple of twenties and tens - out of her pocket and said "We'll have to write it on these."
I looked at her. Her voice quivered and her hands were trembling and she was under the influence of adrenaline. I smiled, reached into my van, easily found a piece of paper (turned out to be a six month old laundry ticket that I'd sworn to the drycleaners that I'd lost) and a pen, and wrote down the number.
And not a minute to soon, I'm sure.
Then I looked at her very seriously and said "You should call the police." I walked around to the side of her car that had been hit, inquiring as to whether or not it had been damaged, and saw that it had.
"Yeah they got me right here! They really screwed up my bumper!" And she pointed to the now-disengaged bumper that was all bent out of whack and sticking out a foot sideways from the rear passenger side of her car.
"You should call the police." I
said again. "It's a crime in
"Yes. I will." she said, beginning to come down from the adrenaline.
I wrote my phone number on the laundry ticket. She very earnestly thrust out her hand and thanked me. Her grip was firm and slightly atremble, yet undoubtedly genuine and controlled. I rather liked her touch and for the first time, I looked at her face and rather liked her smile as well. We were of about equal height. She was dark-eyed and slender and tautly muscular, and had a certain athletic grace it seemed to me.
As we shook I said "You should call the police" for the third time and she became calmer and said again that she would. Then I got back in my van and said "Wait a second, I want to make sure I gave you the right phone number."
I checked a résumé that I had with me to make sure I'd remembered the number right. I had; and because she seemed puzzled, I felt compelled to explain that "I move a lot." She smiled and nodded and thanked me again
"Good luck." I said, and was off.
This had all occurred in about six minutes so I still had time to make it to the other Office Depot and pick up the printer by nine. - Which brings me to part two of the night's adventure . . .
As I turned into the new Office Depot, a sort of "halfway marked" police car was blocking the only way into the parking lot. It was a nice new sleek, white, Chevy, with no police decals, but with a smaller than normal rectangular siren light blinking blue pulses on top. Not one of those round, bubble, magnetic, siren lights that Starsky or Hutch lean out of their windows and clamp onto the top of their unmarked cars when they start one of their high speed chases. - Those kind are so cheesy that they probably connect to the cigarette lighter.
This light was built right into a slight indentation on the top of the car and was pretty high-tech looking actually. Kind of like a big blue pulsing, glowing LED.
It looked like a policeman was giving someone a traffic ticket. I waited about a minute and then, since I was feeling such the good citizen, I flashed my headlights at the cop car because it was blocking the only entrance into the parking lot. An officer was sitting in the car writing on a metal clipboard. His head moved up very briefly, but he didn't turn toward me. Then he returned to what he was doing. About 30 seconds later, now feeling kind of mischievous, I honked.
Well. That got his attention. Out of his car he came. Intense and agitated, he asked me what I wanted. I very politely asked him if he could move because I needed to get into the store. He went ballistic! Told me "I'm a policeman on official police business and I'm not going to move until I'm done." "Are you trying to obstruct me?" he threatened.
"No Officer." I said, "I just need to get into the store before it closes."
I said this with the earnest good-citizen confidence that only someone who had, minutes-before, tried to chase a hit-and-run driver, could muster.
"You are rude." he said. "It's just extremely rude for you to honk your horn at me. I'm a police officer. If you have something to say to me you wait until I'm done, then you get out of your car and come and ask me whatever it is you want to ask. You are extremely rude. Extremely rude."
Wow. I had really gotten to this guy. His response was far out of proportion to how a reasonable police officer would be reacting. He didn't seem well balanced. His complexion had that bright red, high blood pressured, stressed-out, boiling-at-the-surface glow. The kind of bright red skin that if touched, turns white briefly at the point of touching, and then goes back to red very quickly after the touch is gone.
I'm kind of a hothead at times too, and after bearing the brunt of this guy's tirade (and seeing that I could in fact goad him just a little!) I waited about a minute in my van - with its lights on, shining into his car - and then walked up to his car and knocked on his window. When he rolled it down I said "Officer my name is Bill Frick, I'm an attorney and I need to pick up a printer here before they close at nine o'clock"
"I don't care if you're the mayor." he said. "If you wanna talk to me you wait til I'm done. Now go back to your car."
I creened my neck to read his nameplate, hoping that he'd notice, and then I walked back to my van. I waited 30 seconds or so, then backed out and parked on the street. (carefully avoiding the No Parking Zone even though it probably wasn't valid on Saturday night)
I walked into the store's entrance, stopping behind his car and very deliberately taking my notebook out of my bag and writing his license plate number in it. Then closing the notebook, putting it back in the bag and continuing into the store.
What I hadn't noticed up until now was that almost everyone who was in the store was gathered at the front entrance watching the whole scene. They'd been there, in fact, since before I pulled up because a passenger in the car that the cop had pulled over had come into the store complaining about the policeman's abusive behavior.
"Are you the guy who honked?" one of the larger, high school male employees asked me when I walked through the automatic sliding glass doors and into the congregation.
"Yeah." I nodded.
He looked at me for a moment to size me up. Not quite knowing what to think about a guy who honks at cops. But I think he decided that I was OK, and there may even have been a little twinkle of mischievous admiration after he made his judgment. Then he motioned toward the manager's desk and said "The lady there says that cop is going crazy."
I looked over at an obviously angered and distraught late 30ish college educated looking woman, who was gazing over at me, and who then walked over and asked me what the cop had said to me.
I told her what had happened and then she told me that the cop had pulled them over, claiming that they'd made an illegal turn (which she denied) and had then been unnecessarily abusive in his language and his manner, causing her to leave the car and come into the store.
I said I was going to report the cop, or something to that effect, and she asked me to wait until her driving partner, who was still in the car (and I guess getting a ticket) could talk with me.
"Sure." I said. "I think you've got to hold cops to a higher standard." and went off to find my printer since it was now about a quarter till nine.
When I asked where the Cannon portable printers were, the manager woman, who'd just come in from outside and smelled heavily of cigarette, asked "Are you the guy the Halsey store sent over?"
"Uh . . . yeah. I think that's me." I said cheerily.
"We've got your printer right here." she smiled.
"Great." I smiled back, and at that moment the poor schmuck who had been getting ticketed came in to the store as if he were receiving sanctuary, and I, still glowing from my good deed earlier in the night decided to step outside and speak once again with the cop.
He was backing out of the parking lot, using the entrance that he'd been blocking, when he saw me step outside. He stopped his car abruptly, flung open his door, sprang out sideways and shouted "Did you have something to say to me?"
"Well, yeah." I said, still much calmer than I usually am in such situations, and walked over to his car.
He was about my height, maybe 5'8", and although his uniform was tight and starched and ironed, he wasn't in shape. He was pudgy and lumps of flesh seemed to pop out in places, and his waist hung over his belt even though he wasn't grossly overweight. He had short dark brown buzzcut hair (with "sidewalls" - you can see skin through the hair on the sides and back of his head, but on top the hair is left thicker) and a well trimmed little mustache.
And a plastered-on, tough guy look.
He may have been 33 and he may have been 45; depending on how out of shape he really was. I finally was able to read his nametag and as he saw me looking at it he grabbed it, pulled it toward me and said "It's Caw. C-A-W."
"OK" I said, nodding and giving him the sincere-but-puzzled look. Then I explained again how I was just there to get a printer, to which he, still much more agitated than I, retorted "I'm a Police Officer."
"Yeah but you're still part of the community." I said. "We're all in this together. We're on the same side. I just wondered if you could move up. I really didn't mean to get you upset."
He softened now. He liked what I'd said.
"I'm very afraid of traffic stops. They're extremely dangerous for
This traffic stop shouldn't have been that threatening for him though. The two people he'd stopped were middle class white and driving a recent vintage Volvo.
This was a "bad" part of town
though. Not Southeast Chicago mind you, but "bad/dangerous" in the
"All I saw was a van pulling up behind
Not a perfect explanation for his behavior, but he was certainly trying to explain. And he may have even believed what he was saying. One thing was certain - this guy was having a bad night and he knew it.
"I apologize" I said, and stuck out my hand, which he took; and we shook hands.
"I'm sorry if I was rude." he said eagerly. "I apologize. Traffic stops are very dangerous for me."
He certainly seemed to believe what he was saying. I gave him a look of bona fide appreciation for him being that thin blue line that he obviously considered himself to be. Then I nodded and said "Hey, good luck." and kind of waved as I headed back to the store.
He seemed taken aback and gave me a very genuine "Thanks" as he watched me go back toward the sliding glass doors of the store, and as he slid back into the driver's side of his unit.
Everyone was still fluttering when I went back into the store. The guy who'd gotten the ticket was able to talk now, although he was obviously still upset in that unreleased anger sort of way. He asked me for my phone number, which I gave him, and then I went into one of the aisles to look for 2800 baud modems but I didn't see any.
Then it was time for the store to close so I came back to the checkout and paid for the printer which took awhile because I didn't have enough on my Office Depot card but the manager put in an approval code and I finally walked out with my Canon C-70 Bubble Jet at about 10 minutes after nine.
On my way home, a couple of blocks from the store, I passed the cop's car, which was sitting a block or so from a big intersection with its lights out. I could have turned on red at the intersection's stoplight, but I didn't.
I kind of felt bad for teasing the guy. I guess maybe I had done a little goading there at first. Sometimes - if I think they're pompous - I can really "get to" someone - yet not quite cross that line to where they're positive that I'm being smart alec. It's a wonderful talent to have - in spite of the fact that it has the frightening potential to keep me permanently unemployed.
I had a tinge of satisfaction too, though. Cops are human and sometimes they need to be cooled out just like the rest of us. In fact, maybe more so than the rest of us. And I honestly believe all the stuff about being on the same side and being part of the community.
I really did hope the best for this cop. He probably wasn't such a bad guy; and I hoped he'd get some time off soon, cause he was obviously too tightly wound, tonight.
. . .
When I got home there was a message on the answering machine from the Portland Police asking me to call. It was about the hit and run, and the woman officer on the phone was profuse in her praise of my actions in getting the plate number. She said most people wouldn't get involved like that and she was extremely sweet and extremely nice and made me feel proud even though I really hadn't done much of anything.
I suppose that if I had any kind of a life
I wouldn't be chasing people around (or hanging out at Office Depot) on a
Saturday night in
The officer said that the "hit-and-run-squad" would be calling me in a couple of days so that I could help them track down the fleeing driver. But they never did call.
The victim's insurance company called me, though. Two days later, on Monday. The agent seemed mostly concerned with trying to get me to state (on tape) that the victim wasn't hurt. I sidestepped that question four times (I really am a lawyer) and the agent finally gave up.
The victim ("Maxine") called me on Tuesday to thank me. She asked me for my address and sent me a thank-you card a couple of days later. Which was very sweet, I thought.
Sadly, I returned the printer the next day. Just wasn't what I wanted. But I'm still very happy with the blue mouse.
And uh . . . I haven't run into that stressed-out cop again. Not yet.
But I'm obeying all traffic laws. Like the good citizen that I am.
You can still reach me by e-mail at: bill@tomjoad.us
Text © 1995 Bill Frick (All Rights Reserved)
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