Drive By

Fortunately for me my brushes with the law have been few and far between. All my encounters with the police have been traffic related. Many times it was just a case of DWB but on a few occasions I have been stopped for legitimate purposes like expired registration tags, which in my younger days was the rule not the exception.


In my impoverished young adulthood vehicle insurance and registration were at times beyond my paltry budget so I took my chances and boy did I take chances. It wasn’t like I was driving some middle of the road, financed, upstanding citizen, blend into the void, kind of car… I drove a 1965 Rambler American. It was in good shape but it was a beater. It was a ska mobile that I bought off my most excellent friend Dan Parada who had decorated it with photos of the cast of the Big Chill on the inside passenger door, and with the words “Elvis died fat” printed on the dashboard under the radio. It was a four door that made for easy piling in and piling out of with the crew while wandering the streets of Los Angeles.


I must confess that I had many a reckless night in the City of Angels negotiating the freeways and mega boulevards for mile after mile from Pasadena to Hollywood, to Westwood, to Santa Monica, to Long Beach, Newport Beach, and back, even surviving the dreaded S-curve near the end of the Pasadena Frwy just before Ave. 64. The curve doesn’t have a name and people don’t speak of it but anyone who has driven that stretch knows the curve. Built in the 30’s and the oldest freeway in California the 110 Pasadena/Harbor Frwy had curves put in to make the drive “not boring” for the snail paced Ford Model T’s. making the drive from Pasadena to Los Angeles. Well “not boring” today is now “hair raising”. I was in the Rambler with my friend Dan P, on our way to Westwood to see “The Road Warrior” of all movies and we saw a VW go airborne and do multiple flips in the air right in front of us. The woman driving the Vee Dub didn’t hit anybody she just caught her wheel on the inside curb on the S-turn and up she went. I watched the car flip twice in the air, I thought it was going to land on us. She hit the ground, rolled once more and landed on her feet. We stopped about two feet short of her. Miraculously she was unhurt. Although physically she was ok, mentally she was scathed. She and the car were a wreck.


Thanks be to gods unknown I was never involved in an accident while driving a car… a bicycle yes, but never in a car. Part of my job working for the YMCA was transporting children in vans and busses which required me to have a Class B commercial driver’s license and certification from the California Highway Patrol so I had good driving skills. I may have been an irresponsible driver at times but I was always a safe driver. Before moving to San Francisco the only moving violations I had was a speeding ticket I acquired in law abiding South Pasadena for going 40 in a 35 mph zone. On the DWB stops I never had to ride in the paddy wagon because my name always came up clean on the computer search as well it should as I am a good citizen. That all changed when I moved to San Francisco.


My first month two months living in the Bay area were spent living in Oakland although I worked in San Francisco. My boss let me use the YMCA van to get to work and back until I relocated to the City. He didn’t like leaving the van in a the YMCA lot because it was a target for vandalism. I was so busy working the new job that for the first two months I didn’t go out and since I had no friends I hadn’t gone out to any bars in San Francisco or Oakland. My first night out at a bar in San Francisco would prove to be unforgettable.


My first night out at a bar was on Halloween night, 1991. Me and the youth staff at the YMCA had just finished doing the annual Haunted House fundraiser which was a smashing success. I was invited by one of the staff to go celebrate. We went to a bar called the Covered Wagon located on Folsom street in the South of Market area of SF. I was tired from a 16 hour day at work and I had not eaten but I was in a festive mood because I had just pulled off my first major event at my new job so a little celebrating was in order. Over the course of three hours I had 4 pints of ale. When I left the bar I didn’t feel drunk but I was feeling very tired. I hopped in the van to make the drive home not thinking twice about my condition. I made it across the Bay Bridge and was just about to get off the 580 freeway at MacArthur when I saw the red and blue flashing lights in the rearview. I wasn’t speeding or swerving so I was wondering what I was being pulled over for. The CHP officer said he pulled me over because I was straddling the line. He asked if I had been drinking. I said I had a few beers. They made me do the drunk tests, you know, stand on one leg, follow the finger, touch the nose, etc, etc. I thought I did well but the officers had other ideas because the next thing I know they tell me they’re taking me in for possible Driving Under the Influence. They were a couple of polite chaps so I went with them without argument, debate, or struggle.


Being handcuffed and put into a police car was a new experience for me. I had only been in a police car once in my life before this and that was in Rosarito Beach when me and my buddy Wes were pulled over one midnight in Rosarito Beach, Mexico. They told us we were speeding but we knew that was bogus, they just wanted to search us for bribe material. The Mexican cops put me in the back of the squad car without cuffing me. I knew the situation wasn’t that serious because they didn’t cuff me and in the backseat there was basket full of freshly done laundry. These guys weren't hardcore shakedown artists they were just bored and looking for a score. They searched the VW van and found a roach in a box of Marlboro reds. The maddening part about this was that neither Wes nor I smoked cigarettes and neither of us had brought any herbage for this trip because we couldn’t find any. The Marlboro reds had been left in the van by another friend weeks ago and the herb was homegrown which in LA is practically an insult. That roach ended up costing us $50 each. They wanted more but Wes beat them down on the price thanks to his well honed negotiation skills that he had developed haggling with Mexican vendors and store owners over the years. Here I was in the US of A where haggling for a DUI was out of the question. They drove me to the Oakland city jail where I was booked and put into the community cell. I never spent much time imagining what the inside of a jail looks like. We have all seen jails in movies and television shows but when does that ever measure up to reality? Courtrooms are always so beautiful and dramatically lit in the movies but every court room I have been in has been drab, rundown, and uniformly lit by harsh fluorescent lights which is the typical look for cvic offices and buildings that deal with the masses. The Oakland jail feels subterranean because there are no windows and everything is bland off discolored white brick, painted grey metal, and 1960’s green tiled floor. They gave me the Breathalyzer test and I came in at .09. Just my luck California had just lowered the drunk standard from 0.1 to .08. A year earlier I would have been legal but now I was considered legally drunk. I was photographed, fingerprinted, and put in a cell with about a dozen other men, all black and latino.


I surmised by the body language I was the only newcomer there. The cell was all hard surfaces with one metal bench, one dirty metal toilet, and one dirty pay phone. The phone was in constant use but nobody went near the toilet. Men were stretched out on the floor catching some z’s or or sitting against walls nodding off. I wouldn’t say that they were comfortable but they seemed used to the conditions. I was the only one standing up looking around checking everything and everybody out. Nobody in the cell was talking. All seemed quite content to pretend that the others didn’t exist. It was relatively quiet. I could hear the officers joking around with each other like people do on any job and I could hear them processing the perps. About every 10 minutes or so one of the inmates in another cell would start belting out the song “Somewhere” with a voice that eerily sounded like the lead singer from Blood, Sweat, and Tears. The Oakland jail was the last place I would expect to hear someone singing a song from West Side Story but since I’m a huge fan of that musical I found the singing rather comforting plus it's difficult to feel like you are in a hard place when some gravelly voice down the hallway starts belting out, "There's a place for us! Somewhere a place for us...!" The irony, which escaped cops and inmate alike, put everything into proper perspective for me. For this night the Oakland jail was my place of existence and a place for me to make up for past transgressions and pay my dues.


I chose to forgo making a phone call and trying to post bail because I was too embarrassed. I figured I messed up and needed to take my punishment like a man which meant staying the whole night in jail. After they let me out I would go retrieve the van and go to work and try to act like nothing happened. In my mind I was set to deal with whatever fallout that would come from my debacle. That actually put my mind at ease so I stood there in the cell just taking in the jail experience. More men were brought in over the course of the night. Sensing I was not a regular a few of the guys struck up conversations with me. I don’t know if I would call them conversations, they were more like confessions. It was like all of a sudden I was the cell priest or psychiatrist. Guys were telling me stories of remorse and how they ended up in jail…again. One guy I remember in particular because I really felt bad for him. He had been in jail for three or four years for armed robbery and all he wanted to do was get straight and see his kid who had just been born right before he went into the slammer. He was back in on parole violation. He said he had only been out a few days when he borrowed his brother’s car to go see some old friends. He was spotted and pulled over. He gave consent to check the car and the police found some crack cocaine underneath the driver’s seat. He said it wasn’t his but if you are a black man with a record there is no way the cops will give you the benefit of the doubt so here he was back in jail. I believed him. He had no reason to lie to me and he seemed really busted up about not being able to see his son. Most of the guys I talked to were back in for parole violations. The most common violation was hanging out with friends who were also known felons. These aren’t the smartest guys in the world to begin with but the way the system is utilized by law enforcement these guys will be in and out of jail most of their lives. I felt sympathy for them. I don’t know how they were on the street but in the cell they were polite and cordial. There was no fighting, dirty looks, or signifying. They were just quietly biding their time until release. Nobody was coming for them they just had to do their time.


I was released at about 7am. I retrieved my belongings and it felt good to be free once I hit the streets of downtown Oakland. I hailed a cab, picked up the van and drove home. I cleaned myself up and went to work. I told my boss what happened. I didn’t know what to expect. I felt bad because I let him down. He recruited me to come to work in San Francisco and I had impressed his superiors so this was definitely going to be a blow to my image. It seemed my worries were unfounded because he supported me 100%. I wasn’t proud of getting the DUI so I didn’t tell anybody, not even my parents. I just made a vow to do everything that would be required of me for the DUI, like paying the $1500 fine and attending the 6 weeks of DUI classes. For me it was a lesson learned. I wasn’t mad at the world or even myself. I made a mistake, plain and simple. The best thing for me to do was deal with the consequences without pity or apology.


About two weeks after the incident I finally received mail from the City of Oakland. I figured it was my court date notice. When I opened the envelop and read the letter I couldn’t believe what I was reading. The DUI charge had been dropped with no explanation. No further action on my part was needed. I didn’t have to go to court, I didn’t have to pay any fines, and I didn‘t have to attend any classes. Sometimes in life you get lucky and this was one of those times. Even though I was not a religious man I thanked the Lord for my fortune. I’d had plenty of misfortune in my life up to that point so I guess in the end it all balances out. In life sometimes you are up like a hang glider riding the thermal winds as free as a bird and other times you are down in the dumps with no way out. Sometimes it is by your own hand and sometimes it's just how the world turns.


Even though the charges were dropped my license was suspended for a year. I could only drive to and from and during the course of employment. That was not a problem for me since I only drove to and from work. I had been riding my bike as my main mode of transportation for five years so driving was something I only did for work. A few weeks later I moved to San Francisco where I have lived in various sections of the Western Addition for the last 18 years. San Francisco is the perfect place to live if you prefer to ride a bike over driving a car. It is the one thing that has kept me here for all these years. The City is so small geographically all you need is two feet and a pair of working legs. You don’t even need a bike. If you have too much to drink you can just walk home. It’s my preferred way to travel after leaving a bar or party. You never know what you will see or who you will meet and best of all I don’t have to worry about getting stopped by the cops for DUI or DWB. That’s something a brutha can live with.