Roughneck Grace by Michael Perry

Author:Michael Perry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wisconsin Historical Society Press
Published: 2016-04-04T16:00:00+00:00

OLD COP, NEW COP

This marks the third consecutive story about my recent roadside visit with a sheriff’s deputy (I was driving with a profoundly lapsed registration), and this time I’d like to share the one reassuring element of the incident, and it is this: The policeman who pulled me over had gray hair and a few wrinkles.

Roughly one decade ago I was working on a project in my brother-in-law’s shop. It was one-thirty a.m. before I headed for home. My route took me through a small village with one stoplight. I had recently met the woman who would become my wife and was in a state of what my brother John calls “twitterpation,” which may have contributed to the fact that I came to a full stop and sat for some time before I realized the light was—and had been—green.

Shaking my head, I accelerated and pulled away. Half a block later, the village police car filled my rearview. I checked my speedometer: thirty-five in a thirty-five. No worries. But the squad followed me out of town, past the high school, past the exit to the freeway, and just as I began to accelerate for the fifty-five-mile-per-hour zone, the blue and red lights lit up.

There was a long wait as he ran my plates, then the officer exited and approached. He swept the interior of my car with his light and I cringed, because I’d been commuting and working in the shop several days straight and the car was swimming in junk and truck parts and gas station food wrappers. When he put the light on me, it wasn’t much better: a dirty, unshaven goober out driving oddly after midnight.

“Good evening, sir,” he said, lowering his flashlight beam just enough so that I could see him. He was a small fellow, and disturbingly young. His gun belt hung on him like he dug it out of Daddy’s drawer to play dress-up. Leaning down to speak, he also tried to catch a whiff of my breath.

“Have you been drinking, sir?”

“Nope. Not for thirty-eight years.”

“Well, sir, I noticed you drifting over the fog line several times.”

This was flatly bullfeathers. If he had said he became suspicious when I spent five minutes camped at a green light, I’d have been down with that. But here he was plainly fishing.

“May I see your license, sir?”

With an eye toward his youth and his gun, I explained that I had to dig around some and waited for his permission. While I was digging I was thinking he was gonna love my license, which at that time featured a photo of me with frayed butt-length hair and an overgrown beard. Coulda been a membership card for the National Association of Deranged Street Prophets.

He spent a long time back there in the squad, allowing me a period of reflection. I have always believed that good cops can’t be thanked enough for doing their impossible job, and as far as I know, the toddler back there running my plates was one of the good guys, but every time he spoke to me I had this urge to turn him over my knee.

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