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Strange Situation in a Seventy
By Art Wallace
poet/author and owner of Wise One Productions
February 2004
I was traveling through north Florida, shaking an Arizona Iced Tea, the kind with ginseng
and plum juice, doing about 77 on I-10 heading west, heading home. I was hoping the tea would
refresh me, keep me from dozing off and driving off the road into a tree. Especially since my
car wasn't quite acting right.
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There was a slight but very noticeable rightward pull in my steering. Earlier, I thought it
was the heavy wind of the thunderstorms I'd been driving through, blasting me toward the road
shoulder. But it persisted, and I later deemed it to be a veritable misalignment. I'd have
to have it checked out. For now, though, the weight of my left hand resting, pulling down
easily on the left side of the steering wheel was all that was needed.
But given the pull, you can understand the slight jerk of the car. At this point, the bottle of
tea was in my right hand, the palm of which rested near the top of the steering wheel. My left
hand was reaching over to twist off the cap. Meanwhile cruising in the fast lane, I was approaching
the tail of a flat-bed 18-wheel truck in the right lane at the same time the highway was beginning
to curve to the left, and at the very same moment that I saw the state trooper sitting in the median,
her car perpendicular to the highway, just on the other side of a crop of trees, with her gun pointed
straight at me. Her radar gun! Well, I jerked the car. More so from the struggle with the tea
bottle and the right-pulling steering-wheel in a slight left turn than because of the sudden appearance
of the law. I wasn't really speeding. Maybe it looked suspicious. Maybe it looked like I decelerated
suddenly. Maybe it just looked like I was made extremely nervous by the sight of the trooper.
Maybe. I don't know. I passed her. She looked right at me. The posted speed limit was 70, and
I'd been using my cruise control, staying within ten miles over the limit because everyone knows
that that's a safe speed and the cops won't pull you over. Again, I wasn't speeding. Not really.
I hit the decel button on the cruise control anyway, and slowed down to about 75. 75 in a 70?
Come on. I wait for her image to appear in my rear- and side-view mirrors, and I watch. And hope.
And plead. And pray. Looking…
Now, let me explain my look. I have locs. Been growing them for almost a year and a half. I didn't
have them out at the moment, but tucked inside of an all black loc-cap. I was also wearing a wife-beater
(who thought of that name for t-shirts?), some beaded jewelry and an African pendant around my neck.
I mean I must have looked real menacing, like a real thug. A threat. A dangerous black man, capable
of inflicting the most asinine mayhem. You've seen us on the news, in the movies. We're bad. I must
have looked like someone to keep a suspicious eye on because you know I must be up to something, running
around looking like that. All black-power chic and everything. Hell, I probably got some weed in the car,
too. You know everyone with locs smokes weed. Maybe that's what she thought in the split second she had
to eye-ball me. Maybe she instantaneously profiled me, labeled me a potential criminal of some sort, before
her reason could activate and diffuse her initial prejudice. I mean, she certainly didn't look at me and
think, "oh, probably a former Naval Academy graduate and decorated officer in the armed forces." Highly
educated, worldly, articulate. Certainly. And then, what was that in my hand? It was just a bottle of
Arizona iced tea, mind you. Oversized, bright, colorful. I mean, personally, I can't imagine it looking
like anything other than a bottle of Arizona iced tea. But to a cop, with a quick look, in the hands of
this very threatening looking black man (tongue in cheek), it could look like anything. Hell, cops see
wallets, cell phones, and candy bars and think that they're guns! To this trooper, my bottle of iced tea
might have appeared to have been a semi-automatic assault weapon or something. And I
was shaking it in my right hand as I drove by. Was I waving a weapon at her? Was I mocking her, giving
her the "no, no, no" gesture?
I gaze through my mirrors. She's still standing there. Was she looking my way? Maybe. Hard to tell.
I was gaining distance from her, and her vehicle wasn't moving. It remained parked in the median, and
I began to think that I'd driven through a speed-trap successfully. No ticket was coming my way. I could
relax. In my rear-view mirror, she was now a small memory that I was quickly leaving behind me. I breathed
a sigh of relief, and turned my attention to the road ahead.
That's when I spotted another trooper, also parked perpendicular in the grassy median, ahead of me on the left.
Obviously a tag-team partner of the first, the pursuit vehicle, he was sitting inside his car and looked directly
at me. I pass him, again checking my mirrors for signs of a chase, and much to my chagrin I see this second
trooper pull onto the highway. My heart sinks and my pulse quickens. "Dammit," I think. I click down on
the cruise control. About 73 now.
I watch this second trooper way in the distance of my rearview mirror. He didn't appear to be in a hurry.
Maybe he wasn't after me at all. I passed a car in the slow lane driving at less than the speed limit,
signaled and moved over into the right. In my side mirror now, I could see the trooper steadily approaching,
passing other cars along the way, incrementally increasing the chances that he's truly coming for me. A few
other cars clear the left lane, leaving only him. He passes them, too. Then, much to my growing sense of
impending doom, the trooper passes the last car between him and me, and then menacingly zips over into the
right lane, right behind me, and close. That "I'm about to pull you over" close. Again, I sighed. This
time, however, it was that demoralizing "busted with no way out" sigh, waiting for the dizzying police lights
to illuminate any moment now, thinking to myself as I disgustingly glare through my rearview mirror, "you
got to be %&#@ing kidding me!"
At that moment, I recalled the last words of a woman I ran into at the book fair I was heading home from.
We had met, shared casual conversation, and flirted. Before leaving, she wished me a safe trip back home,
and then added while walking away, "don't speed!" Don't speed? "Why would she say that", I pondered. And
at that instant I felt a twinge of recognition, like those words were more than just a gentle warning but
exacting prophecy to be heeded at all cost. I appreciated the reminder, for I possess a heavy lead foot
and have been addicted to speed for quite some time now. I'm a recovering velociholic, though I have it
much more under control now than I ever have before, and besides, I wasn't really speeding! After meeting
this woman at the book fair, who left several impressions upon me, I immediately and on the spot jotted
down the following in my notebook.
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Haiku for the Haitian Woman I Met in Miami
Meeting you was nice
But watching you walk away
Was sheer poetry
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I lingered a moment on her image, but the pissed-off feeling slowly returned to the center
of my attention, and I was disappointed I hadn't listened more closely to the vibes. But I
digress…
The trooper, still harassingly close behind, was also lingering and not turning on his lights.
I imagine he's checking my registration, which is current. Maybe he's running my plates.
Nothing there either. I wonder if he notices my FAMU Graduate license plate, and if he thinks
anything of it. Maybe. I don't know. Suddenly, after looming ominously behind me for what
seemed like a minute, he switched over into the left lane, the fast lane, and pulled up slightly
to get into my blind spot. He hovered there, as I thought "what is this mother@#$%^& doing?"
Maybe that's what he was thinking about me, too. Maybe. I clicked down to 72.
Then I had a revelation, or more of a confirmation of principle. I figured, with the benefit of
previous experience, that the ticket would be anywhere from $75-$125. I'm angry at the idea of
having to, but I can pay it. In fact, I actually have more than enough money on me, money made
from the book fair, only some of which is profit considering my expenses. This impending speeding
ticket becomes measured, then, in sales lost. This will cost me, what, ten, twelve books? The
time and effort it took to sell this amount will now, in retrospect, become time and effort wasted.
There is nothing that I despise more than wasting my time. Have I just blown nearly an entire day
at the book fair simply because I was doing six or seven miles over the speed limit? Has my whole
trip now become a complete waste? It just drives home the fact that though you may have money to
pay for something, it doesn't necessarily mean that you can afford it. It's a principle I've tried
to convey several times with varying degrees of success. Maybe this experience will help. Maybe
that is indeed why I'm having this experience. Maybe I needed to have this lesson reinforced.
Then again, maybe it's some form of karmic retribution for an unrighteous act. I ponder. Maybe.
Again, I digress.
The trooper slowly pulls up along my left side, slightly behind me, no longer in my blind spot
but not adjacent either. He's watching me. I take a few sips of my iced tea, coolly, then replace
the cap and put the bottle down and out of view. Maybe he was trying to see if I was drinking a
beer or wine cooler or something, and will pull me over only to find an innocent non-carbonated
beverage. Maybe. The late afternoon sun peaks through a break in the clouds, causing me to squint
slightly. I reflexively reach onto the front passenger seat with my right hand and retrieve my
shades, pulling the left side of the frames open with my mouth, and slipping them on. It was then
I decided to look over. I turned my head, as if checking my blind spot before attempting to change
lanes, looking left and slightly behind me. The trooper was staring at me. I stared back for a
moment, like "what?" With my black loc-cap and now my shades, I must have really looked hostile.
No head nods, no shoulder shrugs, no smile or smirk, I just stare for what was probably, oh, all
of a second. Simultaneously, I discreetly clicked twice on the decel button, gradually slowing
to about 70, and then turned my attention back to the road once again. The trooper's vehicle,
previously matching my speed, now inched passed me.
He got about two car lengths ahead of me. We were coming up on the intersection with I-75,
with exits going both north and south. I thought maybe I'll mess with him and exit at the last
second, leaving him ahead of me going west while I make my getaway north. Besides, I needed to
use the bathroom. This trooper must have read my mind, for he abruptly braked, quickly and fairly
dangerously moving from two car lengths ahead on my left, back to a car length directly behind me.
Again, I'm thinking, "what is this fool…?" We pass the exit for I-75 north. I look in the mirror.
He's still behind me. No lights. I look ahead, resigned to continue westerly and deal with the
consequences. Passing the exit heading south, I glance back. He signals to the right, switches
over, and exits as abruptly as he appeared. I continue straight ahead, west.
I didn't feel drowsy anymore. A convoy of three or four cars proceeded to zoom past me in the
fast lane, doing well over 80 it seemed. The sun ducked back behind the clouds, not far from
setting, and would soon kiss the horizon. I, too, would soon be at my destination, would soon be home.
Funny, I wondered, and sipped some more of my plum tea. Maybe I think too much. Maybe this was all just
my imagination. Maybe.
Copyright © 2004, Wiseone Productions. All rights reserved.
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