Lawn Boy(39)

Things were proceeding pretty smoothly until the cop pulled in behind me at Whale Dancer, flashing his red-and-blues.

“Fucking great,” I said, pulling to the shoulder.

I kept my hands at ten and two on the steering wheel, like I read somewhere you’re supposed to, so that the cop can see them at all times. That way, maybe he wouldn’t beat the shit out of me or shoot me in the face. One thing became quickly apparent as we waited on the shoulder: the situation did not agree with Nate. Maybe it was the combination of the flashing lights and being stuck in the backseat, but as the cop began walking toward the Tercel, Nate began pounding furiously at the back of my seat.

“Easy now, big dog,” said Freddy.

The officer was a hatchet-faced dude with no discernible forehead. Not that I’m big into Star Wars, but the guy looked a little like Jar Jar Binks. He tapped on the window, peering first and foremost at Freddy’s black personage with apparent suspicion. Only then, with something akin to alarm, did he seem to register the spectacle of my seething three-hundred-pound brother in the rear seat, pounding his fists against the side window.

I indicated that the driver’s window would not roll down, and when the officer didn’t seem to comprehend, I shouted as much, but he couldn’t hear me with Nate going berserk. When I opened the door to explain, he unholstered his pistol in a flash and yelled at me to stay the hell put and get my hands up where he could see them. He circled around the front of the car to Freddy’s side, pistol trained alternately on me, Freddy, and Nate. Mostly on Freddy.

“Roll down your window!” he barked at Freddy.

“It don’t roll down!”

“Step out of the vehicle!”

“Door don’t open!”

“Put your hands on the dash, where I can see them!”

Freddy complied as the cop circled back around to my side of the car, pistol trained, left eye twitching.

“Step out of the vehicle,” he said.

Slowly, I stepped out.

“The rest of you, out.”

Freddy tried to crawl out behind me, but his knee hit the stick, and the Tercel began rolling slowly backward toward the squad car with Freddy and Nate still in it.

“Oh shit,” I said.

Freddy was hanging halfway out of the car when the flustered cop, trying to get a handle on the escalating situation, inexplicably took aim at a rear tire of the Tercel, and pulled the trigger with a pop, missing the tire completely and kicking up some gravel just as Freddy managed to reach between his legs and apply the emergency brake.

The Tercel lurched to a stop on the shoulder, mere inches from the cruiser. The cop rushed forward, pistol aimed at Freddy. “Out of the vehicle, all of you!”

Freddy flopped out onto the shoulder. But Nate, kicking and screaming, was not to be reckoned with.

“He has special needs,” I explained.

“Calm him down,” said the cop, pistol still trained on Freddy.

Even though he was the guy holding the gun, Jar Jar Binks was clearly the most nervous party involved, with the possible exception of Nate, who was going off like an air-raid siren.

“Get up,” the cop said to Freddy.

Freddy stood without dusting off his knees, hands held out in front of him.

“Gotta talk to him, boss,” he said.

“Shut him up, and get him out of the car,” said the cop, twitching. “And keep your hands in the air.”

Deliberately, Freddy leaned slightly into the car, hands up.

“Okay, now, big dog, I know you’re upset. Don’t nobody like to have a gun pointed at them. But the policeman need you to step outside the car.”

It took some coaxing, but Freddy finally managed to calm Nate and persuade him to get out of the car, where the cop lined us up with our hands on the hood.

“You have any idea why I pulled you over?”

“Because he’s black?” I said.

“What did you just say?”

“He didn’t say nothin’,” said Freddy, shooting me a look.

“I pulled you over because your muffler is nearly dragging,” he said with a twitching eye.

“Is a nearly dragging your muffler against the law?” I said.

“I recommend you get it fixed.”

“Are you gonna arrest us?”

“Don’t tempt me,” said the cop.

“Boy, keep quiet,” said Freddy.

The cop looked at Freddy as though he’d spoken out of turn, then looked back at me.

“Consider this a courtesy stop.”

“You gotta be kidding me,” I said.

“Shut up, boy,” said Freddy.

The cop smiled and steadied his twitching eye.

“Disorderly conduct is no joke, I can tell you that,” he said. “You like to get a better look at the station, see what your tax dollars are paying for? Or if you’d rather, I could just hit you with a fine.”

Well, the fine should have shut me up—I certainly couldn’t afford that. I’ll be the first to admit, we were a motley-looking crew, packed into that shit-can Tercel. But last I checked, there was no law against that. The fact is, besides our dangling muffler, we did nothing worthy of suspicion. If we were driving a Lexus, and Freddy were white, I doubt we would’ve been pulled over at all.

My advice: If your window doesn’t roll down, get it fixed, even if you can’t afford to. Also, if you get pulled over, try not to be black.