Chase

The sun drives the seasons and the days between Legion ball and football practice. These were the best of times—running with Richie and his brother Larry, living on unemployment and sponging off the old man—more interested in getting laid than getting paid. Traffic tickets, pecker tracks in the back seat, a police escort home after midnight. Mom wringing her hands like Lady Macbeth, crying out loud, “Where did I go wrong?”

On one of those dog day Friday afternoons, I turned my Harley onto Diagonal Boulevard. A mile from home, the bubble machine lit up on a cop car parked at a side street. I grabbed a handful of throttle—my risk insurance had expired—no license!

The Harley roar and the siren alerted mom as I swung past the house, wind in my face, the fuzz on my ass. I looped on 74th Street and flew past Marlys Pederson's, my fantasy until I saw Phoebe Crouch on the first day of seventh grade.

At Portland, a busy thoroughfare, I said a prayer, goosed it and blew across without looking. I opened my eyes and was surprised to find myself alive with a good lead. I glanced over my shoulder. The cop stopped to look both ways. I crossed left onto Stevens Avenue. Cousin Buzz leapt up from the dinner table and ran into the street when he heard me shoot by, full throttle.

I forgot Stevens ended in a tee. I yanked my wheel hard left into a lowslider, wiping out against a chain link fence. I had run out of road and sprinted barefoot into the new subdivision.

The empire struck back. Patrolman Starcevic arrived and took off after me on foot. He was followed by cousin Buzz, who had a special low regard for Starcevic, and was quite upset that the cop had his hand on his gun the whole time. More cops arrived and a crowd. My flight ended when I found no cover, gods or friends in the featureless backyards. Surrounded and captured, yes, but Buzz didn't give my name; he called dad. The cops perp-walked me back to a cruiser and loaded the fallen bike onto a trailer. The only thing missing was a Marine Color Guard.

The Richfield police station was a modest affair in those days. Bare bones. They pushed me into the tiniest interrogation room I've ever seen in my life, took the cuffs off, and sat me down in a bust chair. When my inquisitors were satisfied with getting nowhere (no recording survives), they cuffed me again and drove me downtown to a stone fortress, the Minneapolis Courthouse.

The downtown cops booked me, rolled prints, took pictures and escorted me into an impressive steel vatican. Clang! Every door that opened revealed more doors and more rooms, until I lost track of what, when or where. The last door slammed shut, and I was behind bars in an old fashioned cell like in the Westerns, but without flies or Gabby Hayes. Now I knew why the condemned commit suicide in their cells, captive, claustrophobic and panicky in an atmosphere which is anything but hospitable or jovial.

It wasn’t General Lasalle who rescued me from the pit and the pendulum, just dad. He bonded me out before I had time to entertain or befuddle my jailers. At home, I ate the supper that mom saved for me and opened a letter addressed to me. Oh, Mr. Postman!—TWO whole days remained on my insurance. I was legit all the time!

Life goes on; sometimes we have no choice. The next day, while Richie was plying his girlfriend with roses, trying to get in her pants, her skank cousin was on her back in a flashy dress, legs up, chewing gum. Forty-eight hours later I knew why—Pedpiculosis pubis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae.

Richie’s older brother Larry was adamant that I would only get six months in the workhouse, the very thing I wished to avoid. I decided to plea bargain and called the Richfield City Manager at his home. He recommended the army recruiter who agreed to take the morning off and go to bat for me. (God bless cash in a drawer.)

The trial took place in a room noted for its shabbiness. Mom and the recruiter sat together. When my case came up, the audience tittered as the clerk read my rap sheet, and went into hysterics as he ticked off the new charges. What a gas. The recruiter stood straight. He made a rousing speech—honest, I had no idea who he was talking about. I got a fine and an invitation to join the Army that day, instead of the joint. Perfect timing and sound geopolitics—the latest Berlin Crisis was over and Vietnam hadn't ramped.

Children, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your army recruiter.

Au revoir, idiot.