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Stopped Along the Way on a Summers Day

Michael Summerleigh

    I came around the last curve and locked my cruise control in at the speed limit. Ahead of me was twenty or so minutes of flat straight blacktop to where I was going. I had Otis Redding Live in Europe on the thumb drive connect to the CD player, but I wasn’t more than four or five minutes on my way when I saw the black-and-white behind me and the carnival lights start up on top. I took my foot off the gas and just cruised down to where I could pull off onto the shoulder...put the car in park...turned the stereo down... looked up into the rearview to find out what was going on behind me.
    The trooper lurched a bit cokin’ out of seat...weighed down by Kevlar and whatnot-else, including a taser...a service automatic...the com on his shoulder...
    He looked really warm in his black uniform. He also looked pretty damn cranky. I had no idea why he’d pulled me over, but I thought the way things had been going, it would be a good way to go if I was all cheery and helpful.
    I said: “G’morning, officer. Can I help you?”
    He asked for my license and registration. It was disconcerting to be staring up into the mirror sunglasses; I handed over my license and registration slowly, but fast enough to show him I had was not gonna be anything but cooperative.
    “Is there a problem?” I asked, just to be on the safe side.
    According to the stitched ID on his uniform blouse, Officer R. Franklin remained noncommittal.
    “Insurance?”
    I gave up my insurance card. Officer Franklin appeared to be agitated. He was carrying a few too many pounds over his gun-belt and that was all I could see of him for a couple of minutes while went over all my ID...but there was something about his attitude that was making me nervous...messing with my cheery morning-on-my–way-to-a-meeting drive up the line...
    “Can you tell me if there’s a problem, officer?”
    “Can you step out of the vehicle, sir?” he said.
    It wasn’t a question. Or a request. The way he said it was somethin’ that felt insulting without actually being that way. I realised it was makin’ me angry, raisin’ up some of my own attitude.
    “I’m kind of okay where I am, thank you.”
    I did my best to sound unthreatening. Respectful. But suddenly it got real obvious to me I was in the middle of something I’d never run into before.
    “Just get out of the car, sir.”
    I said: “No thank you officer. I’m gonna need a good reason first.”
    Officer Franklin gave me this mirrored-sunglass glare like I had to be out of my fuckin’ mind to fucking with him.
    “I’m the only reason you need...”
    He stepped back with my ID and unsnapped the black-leather flap over top of his black-metal nine mil...
    I said: “I’m sorry, officer, but I need to know why you stopped me. I’m not trying to be troublesome, but as far as I know I wasn’t doing anything wrong. If I’m mistaken, then please just tell me what it was I did, why it is we’re doing this, and I’ll be happy to stop bein’ a pain in your ass...”
    It took him a while. I could almost see the wheels turning behind his mirror-shades. His right hand fluttered around aimlessly for a handful of heartbeats and then came to rest on the hand-grips of his firearm. Everything in my world got slowed down to something like molasses in a snowstorm.
    “You were exceeding the speed limit,” he said.
    “No, sir, I was not,” I said slowly.
    And I was starting to feel the beginning of bein’ scared shitless, because I watched the news every night and I knew how things could go.
    “I’m reaching for my cell phone now,” I told him, and it was there in plain sight on the passenger seat if I could get to it okay.
    “You don’t need your cell phone.”
    “No, I do, officer,” I said, and forced myself to look away from him long enough to start the camera recording.
    We were stopped beside a long open expanse of water, covered over by lily-pads that was showing white flowers up into the sunshine. I could hear little frogs croakin’ their little hearts out...saw some geese up ahead of us splash down into the water from the shoulder of the highway. It was hot all of a sudden...real hot...and I could feel my shirt getting damp with sweat.
    “Turn it off,” he said.
    “No, sir,” I said. “I’ve got every right in the world to record our conversation...for my protection and yours...”
    “Get out of the vehicle, sir. I will not ask you again.”
    Looking at him, seein’ my reflection in those damn sunglasses scared me even more, but I reached for the latch on my door real slow and he backed up another three-four feet watching me do it.
    “I wasn’t speeding, officer,” I said.
    “Turn around and put your hands on the roof of your car.”
    “When you write me up and we see each other in court, I’m gonna have a print-out from the onboard computer of this car, officer. It’s gonna say I engaged my cruise control... at the speed limit...five minutes before you pulled me over for exceeding the speed limit.”
    He’d been muttering something into his shoulder-com but now he stopped.
    “You were using your cell-phone while driving a motor vehicle,” he said. “That’s against the law too.”
    “’Xcept I wasn’t doin’ that either,” I said, looking over top of my car...at the water lilies...and the geese...and the sunshine bouncing up off the water...and thinkin’ maybe I’d done the wrong thing to do anything but just shut the fuck up and let this Officer Franklin get over whatever it was made him stop me in the first place.
    “Phone’s gonna tell the judge it didn’t get used for half an hour before I started up that camera.”
     And realised my phone could just disappear mysteriously if it came down to that.
    “Have you got your body-cam goin’, Officer Franklin?” I said. “What’s gonna be worse for you if it ain’t on right now, and you do to me whatever the fuck you think you need to do because somebody up and pissed in your cornflakes this morning?”
    I rested my head on the top of the car and the sweat on my forehead started to sizzle against the heat. I closed my eyes. Kept my hands spread out where he could see them, with my fingertips startin’ to burn on the hot metal and my head filling up with the thought I was never gonna see my wife or my kids ever again...or that I’d never be able to look at them again unless I managed to stand up past being scared shitless.
    “Is your body-cam on, Officer Franklin?” I asked him again. “‘Cause if it is, then it’s pretty obvious to anybody sees that tape that you stopped me for no good reason. So now you just go on ahead and do whatever the fuck you think you need t’do, because I’m through with tryin’ t’be polite and helpful...and you can go fuck yourself before I do anything else you tell me t’do.”
    I didn’t move, and I didn’t even turn my head to look at him. He didn’t say a damn thing. He never made a damn sound. I saw my license and my registration and my insurance card sift up under my car and heard him walking on back to his black-and-white.
    With his back to me he said: “I don’t need t’take this kind of shit from you.”
    I whispered after him, “Well if you hadn’t stopped to bust my ass for some bullshit reason like maybe your wife told you go fuck yourself last night, then maybe you wouldn’t be gettin’ another dose from me.”
    He slammed himself into the driver’s seat of his cruiser. Cranked the engine and sprayed gravel out onto the water-lilies as he drove away.
    I picked up my stuff from under the car. Took me five minutes putting it all back in my wallet. I stood there shakin’ for another five minutes, looking over top of my car...at the water lilies...and the geese...and the sunshine bouncing up off the water...
    It occurred to me that if I’d have been a black man instead of a transplanted white dental surgeon from Atlanta, I’d likely have been bleeding out beside that lake while Officer Franklin waited for his back-up team.

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