The Cop Who Hated Me

Under threat of arrest, I resumed my position inside our dented old Honda and hung my head, trying to appear remorseful. Officer Minnerly and one of his four backup cops loomed large in my peripheral vision. Two uniformed cops grew closer, flanking my rightly disgusted son, who had run from his mom’s insane contentiousness. 

My long-limbed, long-suffering son jumped in the car, careful to belt the restraint tightly. He stared at the floor for a minute and slowly whispered (as if to an ornery animal), “Take it easy, Mom.”

Soon Officer Minnerly was bending inside, through my rolled-down window, trying to  appraise my expression. He handed me the three moving violations and the parking ticket we had gotten outside the DMV. Beneath these were my still-temporarily-valid driver’s license, registration, and insurance card.

“Can we go now?”

“Not until I say so.” Minnerly returned to his phalanx of backup officers, who had gathered around his squad car, parked directly behind mine. The other squad car, the unmarked car, and two motorcycles sat directly behind Minnerly’s car. We were all parked on a dirt clearing made by several construction vehicles, which stood ominously to the right. 

My son sank low under his restraining belt, but as the cop approached our car again, he quickly sat up straight. Officer Minnerly strode briskly to my side. He swayed, holding his belt and holster, bending to peer beneath my hanging head. “You can’t drive angry.” He returned to his posse.

Every five or so minutes, he reappeared at the open window. “Get yourself under control, lady. You broke the law. You’ve no right to be angry.”

Then he resumed his stance and waited. With his next arrival to gauge my mood, I spoke levelly and honestly. “Officer Minnerly, I’ll be angry about this the rest of my life. But I’m not out of control; I can drive.”

“Lady, if I ever saw anyone out of control, it’s you.”

Who knows how long this continued? Dusk had turned to darkness. The traffic behind us had seethed at a standstill since he had first pulled me over.

Finally, I had an idea. With his next arrival to gauge my mood, Officer Minnerly glanced at my mask-like face, but not without noticing my white knuckles and trembling fingers gripping the steering wheel.

Softly, my voice as feminine as I could make it, I asked if perhaps my son might drive. Minnerly had flagged us down on our way home from the DMV. My son handed the cop his temporary learner’s permit without being asked. The cop squinted at the fine print and handed it back, reaching over me for my son’s steady, open palm,

He then tucked his thumbs inside his belt and holster again, grinning approval. “Now that’s an excellent idea.”

“Great. Do I have your permission to get out of the car or should we crawl over each other?”

“Your choice, lady.”

My choice was to crawl over each other, but I deferred to my son, who was muttering what a great job I had done teaching him what not to do.

Still in play, however, same as the cop, I slowly inched my way out of the car, hands up, lowering them only once I was ensconced.

“You know I can’t do this,” my son said. He had practiced driving on an automatic, while I only drove stick shifts.

“Of course, you can. Just follow my instructions.”

He exhaled straight up from his young mouth. But by now the backup police had disappeared. And Officer Minnerly had kindly (gotta give him this) stepped into the road, holding his right palm to make the angry traffic wait up, while my son eased from the dirt road back onto Broadway.

“Press the left pedal to the floor with your left foot and while pushing down on the knob hard, shift forward. And, slowly, simultaneously, release the left pedal while gently pressing the gas pedal. Give them about equal weight, releasing the clutch and pressing the gas.”

The construction path gave us more than five-hundred feet for him to get the car into gear before we would have to turn onto the main road.

Officer Minnerly looked over his shoulder in time to see car the buck twice and stall out.

“That’s not bad, honey. Just try it again. Slowly and easily push down on the stick and shift from neutral to first.”

We rolled a foot or two. “Go got it! First gear’s the hardest. Now just press on the clutch and weight down on the stick knob, before moving straight back into second.”

Officer Minnerly turned to watch the car buck twice more and stall out.

“Try again. You’re phenomenally close.”

By now, however, the traffic was surging ahead, and Officer Minnerly had driven away.

“Please, honey? What if Minnerly’s waiting for us in Odell Plaza?

“I doubt that, Mom. The guy’s had enough.”

So we changed places again. When I signaled, the car with the right of way, which had undoubtedly sat in the traffic long enough to see the ordeal, flipped on his emergency flashers and waved me ahead.

I continued home in the right-hand lane, sticking to the speed limit. Past Hastings, I’d lost the rubber-necks. Cars behind me honked relentlessly, because people routinely drove at 45 or 50, in a 35 mph zone. Horns blasted nonstop until I pulled into our driveway, hours past dinner-time. 

Comments

[Manictastic]

Koolest story ever! Did that really happen to you? Because if it did, wow, how weird must that have been. I think you are very brave to drive in and around New York, it must be a madhouse out there.

[wise one]

..and lived happily ever after?
I'll bet your husband got an earful that night.

[Dan Leo]

Whew!

Home at last.

Did you know Alfred Hitchcock had a morbid fear of policemen?

Well, you get the last laugh on Officer Krupsky, 'cause you made literachure out of the incident.

[Kathleen Maher]

Manictastic, Driving in Westchester is far more dangerous than driving in the city. Fewer people should drive, but we in the US tend to think it's part of the second amendment.

wise one, My beleaguered husband must only have wished for an earful. Rather, once inside, a desperate remorse and indelible terror overwhelmed me. I cried myself sick and he had to shell out for the fines and the preposterous re-education classes to erase those points from my record. Later, I tried taking a self-defense class (to fend off rapists), which I failed due to my hypothetical reluctance to kill anyone, even if he were attacking me.

Dan, In another life, maybe, I'll get to laugh at vicious policemen. To this day, I anxiously clapping my hands over my mouth, flinching as they go through my purse full of peanuts and raisins, and when I haven't thought it through, a small, damning tube of hand lotion. Worst case scenario? A sharp pointed pencil or pen. I cower and squirm, and occasionally if subjected to too much inquiry, watch my steeliest resolve crumble before their good ol' boy nudges, winks, and tasers. I still react sarcastically to that first thrush of fear, however, and have volunteered to recite the alphabet backwards at sobriety checks. That's when my daughter speaks up, "Saying don't mind her; she's always like this--100% sober but so smart she's stupid."

[Creechman]

You should have pretended you were a doctor like Lilly Tomlin with her badge in "Nine to Five."

[Kathleen]

Really? I was past pretending almost from the start, though.

[Honda S2000]

I just can't imagine finding myself in your shoes at that time.. I remembered hectic traffic was always horrifying for me learning to drive. To do it in new york would be the nightmare come to reality.. Thank god I wasn't.