Fire in the Hole

There are events in our lives that burn into our being and our memory. Things we never forget because the heat leaves its mark. So to get back to my story, I was on a slow decent to despair, but still had a long way to go to hit bottom.

As soon as the Bad Cop got a whiff of our sweet smelling incense he immediately accused of smoking illegal substances. Our explanation meant nothing to him, though the Good Cop seemed to understand our predicament, but did nothing to help us.

We were hauled out of the van and had to show our papers. Then the thorough search of our van commenced. We sat inside helpless as the Bad Cop went through every nook and cranny looking for stuff. He came upon a switch blade that we had picked up as a souvenir in Mexico from an early adventure. He was quite pleased at the find and informed us that it was a felony to have such a weapon, but quickly added that it would be a nice addition to his collection.

He was accumulating a pile of ‘evidence’ on the couch as he searched through our belongings. He came upon a ‘hippie’ pipe and asked what we used that for. Well now, I don’t want to incriminate myself here, but the truth is the pipe had only been recently used to smoke tobacco collected from cigarette butts. Later we learned that this pipe was actually a narcotic implement.

Further searching, he found an old 35mm film canister. We had forgotten about that, it was about one third full of some round looking seeds, something you might find in commercial bird seed. This was his prize find!

Finally he moved to the front of the van and left us sitting alone in the back. The Good Cop was no where to be seen at the time. We all looked at each other and whispered how easy it would be for us to throw his stash out the door into the bushes. No one had the nerve to do that, but I quietly covered the stash up with a blanket that was lying there.

Oh boy! Have you ever seen a Bad Cop when he is angry? He was nearly frantic asking us where his stash was. We all acted dumb as he searched recklessly. Finally I moved the blanket slightly so he could see that his stuff was exactly where he had left it.

Well that was enough. He picked up all the stuff he had collected and put us in the back of the squad car. We were headed for police headquarters, but there were a few stops on the way. We had to check out a noisy party and then a stop to harass a truck driver that was peeing on the side of the road.

We finally made it to the station some time after 5 am on Sunday morning.