May Day 04/04/2006 - The Trip Up

Just to get to the apartment was a story in and of itself. After stopping for lunch at a local sandwich shop in Delaware (The name of the establishment escapes me at the moment. Their special, as Joel so eloquently put it, was a turkey dinner on a roll.) the three of us continued on to New Jersey. I consider myself a fairly competent driver. I try to maintain my speed and refrain from rubbernecking, especially when a police officer has someone pulled to the side of the road. Not surprisingly this exact situation occurred while I was driving on the Turnpike. I mean I wouldn’t even be telling how great I am behind the wheel if it didn’t. I maintained my speed of seventy-five zooming past the cop and speeder but as I was passing the speeder began to pull away. I thought I was fucked for sure. The cop pulled up behind me with the lights flashing but for some reason I decided it would be best if I kept on zooming. Well, I wasn’t quite zooming at this point, not that seventy-five is that fast any ways. I slowed down to sixty-five. I needed to hear those sirens before I even thought about pulling over. I blame the whole thing on my ignorance. I just didn’t know what to do. I told this to Joel; however he didn’t suggest an alternative. Luckily, the next exit was a scant two miles away. I continued this until the next exit and for some reason the cop turned off his lights and went ahead and got off the Turnpike. Nothing came of it. What I keep on telling myself is that the cop figured that if I pulled over he’d ticket me, if I didn’t, no harm no foul. I continue to thank God for my ignorance. Once we got into the city my ignorance once again played a role in another close call. This time with the N.Y.P.D.
I had gotten the address of where I was staying mixed up and for some reason thought I had to cross the Queensboro Bridge to get to the apartment on Manhattan Island. Don’t Ask. In my infinite wisdom I got Steve, who had been drinking, to drive to Harlem. He was far from being drunk but there were empty beer cans littered across the back floor of my car. We were having a nice tour of the Harlem projects until Steve made a right hand turn on red. Unbeknown to Steve that was illegal. While waiting at the next light a car cut us off. We figured it was another dickhead from New York. We were half right. It was the narcotic officers of the N.Y.P.D. It was a New York City shakedown. These guys were satirizing themselves. Steve used a different word but I can’t spell it for the life of me. One of the officers looked as if he had been hit in the face one too many times, the other was just, I guess normal. We all got out of the car and patted down. Steve and Joel were carrying knives. The cops informed them that carrying knives was a class one misdemeanor. The haggard one made the astute observation that Steve’s knife was “gravity-assisted”. Fucking idiot.

“What are you’s guys lost?”
“Yeah, we’re lost.”
( We were nothing but a bunch of dumb shit tourists.)
“You’s guys knows you’re about seventy blocks from where you need to be?”
“Yeah, we’re lost.”
“So, you’s guys are lost?”
“Yeah, we’re lost.”
“Where are the guns? I knows you’s guys from Virginia like to carry guns.”
“No guns officer. We’re just lost.”
“Open the trunk.”

Once the officer’s saw all the shit I had back there they didn’t even bother searching it. They didn’t even care about the empty beer cans either. Frankly, that is what I was worried about the most but to Steve’s credit he was “more than confident in his sobriety”. He even offered to take a breathalyzer but it never came to that. They told us to get on the FDR and get the fuck out of Harlem.
On our way back to the Upper East Side some piece of shit cabbie hit my car. The asshole was reversing in the middle of the intersection. Fucking moron. I was able to get a good yell at him though which was nice (get some of that aggression out after being pulled by the narcs).
We finally got to my destination and found a parking spot right outside of the building .We couldn’t have gotten a better spot. The next day I got up at dawn and walked to Columbus Circle.