Dirty South

Down the freeway, a cop rolled his cherries in my rearview. I put a fresh piece of gum in my mouth, pulled over and waited. I watched him walk toward me in the side mirror. I wondered why they allowed cops to get fat. I waited until he got to my window and tapped on it, and then I rolled it down. The dogs started barking. I told them to stop, and they did. I looked up at him and waited for him to talk first.

“Hello.”

“Officer.”

“Know why I’m pulling you over?”

“Tell me.”

“You were going 81. Where’s the fire?”

“Florida,” I said.

He squinted at me, “Huh?”

“Sexy little Italian number waiting for me. I’ll slow it down.”

He cracked a helpless smile, then became serious when something hit him, “Have you been drinking, sir?”

“Not a drop. Just in a hurry to get there. Apologies.”

He looked down the length of my car, “Any drugs in here?”

I’d gotten that a lot in my life. It was my eyes, they were constantly pinned, from birth. I smiled at him, “Nope.”

“Any objections to my searching the vehicle?”

“Only that it’s going to make me late. But if you need to do it to clear your mind, do it. I would only ask that you do it quickly, please.”

He tapped his note pad, “What do you do for a living in Washington?”

None of his fucking business, but I was in Georgia, and he wasn’t playing games.

“I’m a writer.”

“I see, and do you have your license, registration, and insurance card?”

I pulled my wallet off the dash and handed him my license. He stared at it and called me in. I looked at him, “The rest is in my glove box.”

He put his hand up and talked the language into his receiver. I stared ahead, down the road. He handed me my license and told me to pop the back. I did, he fished around, closed it, and then looked in the back windows, “Writer, huh? As in books?”

“That’s right.”

“Anything I might know?”

I looked around the seats. I had an old copy of my last one on the floor in back, along with a few new ones, leftovers from Seattle I’d meant to give to the rest of Blagg’s roommates. I handed him one. He looked at it, flipped it over to the author shot and smiled at me. He handed it back. I looked at him, “Keep it.”

“You sure?”

“Sure as the hope that you’re not going to write me a ticket.”

He stared down at me, “Hell of a deal for you, son. But my wife would sure appreciate it. You got time to sign it to her?”

“Of course I do.”

He laughed and handed me his pen. I signed it to Barb. He told me to slow it down and disappeared. I drove off, spit my gum, and some fast metal shuffled in on my playlist. I didn’t know what his wife was used to reading, but I hoped she liked foul language and whores, but also the occasional digression on life at large. I reached in the glove box and grabbed my shades behind a vial of some Valium Blagg had given me. I popped two and let Converge pound the engine south.