How I didn’t almost go to jail, but thought I was going to

Haven’t been around here in a while. Hey. How’s it going?

I think a retro look would be nice here.

There’s two songs that are quite the tune to listen to whilst tuned. The Angel and the One off Weezer’s Red Album and The Pilgrim off Mr. Sam Roberts’ Love at the End of the World. So tonight I’m off on a walk, as I’ve been known to do from time to time. They were my excuse to indulge in whatever secret I was hauling into my lungs.

When I was in high school, the walks were a front for my time spent as a secret smoker of nicotine sticks. Now my walks are a front for my time spent as a kinda-but-not-really secret smoker of tetrahydrocannabinol sticks.

This night that is now the next morning, I decide to wonder from my usual path from the park straight home and head down some street I’ve never fucking seen before. It’s dark and full of trees and there’s no sidewalk and the fucking lamp posts are far apart. As I’m walking I see a cop car flash his lights momentarily as he turned down a cul-de-sac I would walk by soon enough. Smart guy that is me, opens up his pack of Belmonts and quickly grabs both a cigarette and the roach. Somehow I manage to drop the roach while trying to put the smoke in between my lips, but that’s cool ‘cos that was pretty much the plan anyways.

So with Mr. Roberts in my ears I keep pressing onwards. Because, what the fuck, I’m harmless. Having gifted my Zippo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, in an ill-advisedly noble going away gesture I’m forced to light the smoke with a convenience store variety of lighter fluid. The smoker that is me, starts to cross the road that is the cul-de-sac just as another cop car turns in, this time, the lights are going balls out. He’s shinning one of those spotlights into my red eyes and I have to squint. I look towards the other cop car parked in the cul-de-sac then back to Mr. Bright Flashing Lights and wait for him to make his move.

I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but the strobing lights are matching the drums in my ears. Mr. Bright Flashing Lights makes his move, he takes his left down into the cul-de-sac and I start walking forwards. Soon enough I’m walking down a main street back towards the apartment. There’s this shape that’s hunched over the garbage in front of someone’s house and for a second I just think it’s a loose bag. Getting closer, I realize it’s a fucking person and when I’m about ten strides away I see that it’s a woman about my age leafing through the garbage. And there’s a fucking open box of kitty litter next to the garbage.

That blows my fucking mind and I’m coming up on a left and then a right turn home. I take the left towards the darker side street and lo and behold there’s a goddamn cop car driving through the intersection down the street I need to turn onto. But the cop’s nowhere in sight when I turn.

That’s how I almost didn’t go to jail but for a second thought I was.