Po Po

What chronicle of high school dayz would be complete without at least one zany story of teenage hijinks, which resulted in facing the Long Arm of The Law? We didn’t call cops po-po back in 1970; no, it was The Man, as in, “The Man! The MAN! THE MAN!”

My first car, a '64 Chevy Nova

There were five of us in my red Chevy Nova as I pulled away from the party raging at Molly's home, just in time to be lit up like the 4th of July. Though that couldn’t have been right since it was now mid-July, the brilliant red light spun dizzily in my rear view mirror anyway. There were party-goers scattering, sprinting in every direction and man, was that flashing light blinding me. 

We had returned form our odyssey up north a few weeks before and life had resumed as normal. Three of us had jobs that required we look clean-cut, and the other two just looked clean-cut also, in spite of efforts to the contrary. It was easy to spot us as Amat students from a block away. I mention that because there was no reason from a legal point of view for us to be on the wrong side of a policeman’s spotlight.

“What do you think I should do?” I inquired of no one in particular.

Sammy’s voice came from the back seat, the calm voice of reason, “You should pull over.” Sammy had been at work when we picked him up earlier, so he was still sporting a yellow dress shirt, tie and dress slacks. He was also the only one of us wearing shoes.

Pulling over and presenting my license and registration was not the problem. That would be the plastic bag with some of Mexico’s finest stems and seeds sitting in plain sight on the front seat, between me and the guy riding shotgun. That was probably Paul, but it could have been Ron or Ben. It made no difference. The reefer was mine.

I did as Sammy suggested and pulled over, opening up the Chilton’s Manual that was on the front seat, and stashing the little plastic bag inside the front cover. The hard cover bulged up a bit, so I flipped the manual over and it looked better. It had taken me all of three seconds to take care of business, before I was bailing out of the car. There were two policemen; one was in my face and the other was around by the side of the passenger door. 

The nice policeman was bellowing at us, his face beet red.

“Get out of the car! Get out of the car-NOW! I’ll look at your license in a minute but right now, you all line up against that vehicle over there,” directing us to the nearest car, about twenty feet from my Nova.

“While I check your licenses, my partner is going to search your car.” He was so matter-of-fact about it.

“You can’t do that!” I practically shouted, the words of the indomitable Mrs. Felps flashing on the neon marquee in my mind from senior civics class. 

“Don’t give me any bull-stuff about not being able to search your car. I can do anything I want,” he snapped at me, and I shut my trap. I was not intimidated by the uniform, but I was  terrified of this man in front of me. I was expecting the worst and decided discretion was the better part of valor. Besides, a minute later the other nice police ossifer was back and some unspoken message passed between them.

The first nice policeman turned to me, and handed me back my license. “The reason I pulled you over is because that man is dirty; he was making furtive movements in the back seat of your car.” To my shock the dude was pointing at Sammy.

I was so stunned I spit out, “What the heck were you doing back there, Sam?” only I started cracking up and so did everyone else. Point the finger at me, or point it at any of the others, but Sammy?

It was ludicrous but so was the fact that I should have been sitting in the back of the squad car, relinquishing the keys to Ron. And I clearly was not. The searching policeman either did not find my paltry stash, or else he found it and decided it wasn’t worth all of the paperwork. I always thought the latter because I don’t see how he could have missed it.

We decided the only thing to do was go immediately to Bob’s Big Boy and celebrate my good fortune. I ordered a combo of cheeseburger and fries with a BLTA thrown in. 

Poor Sammy. Furtive movements? We got more mileage out of poking fun at Sammy than we ever did out of that little bag of Mexican dirt. And it didn’t cost us ten bucks, either.