A
Trying to Be Helpful With Cops Who Carry Guns
Fresh off the boat about two weeks before, I'm finally let loose alone in America, driving my girlfriend/fiancee's American car on the funny side of the road, with a whole day ahead of me to explore this strange land. The car is enormous, with air conditioning, which is just astonishing! And ridiculously overpowered (what we're talking about here is a relatively tiny 4.2 litre Dodge Dart with the famous Slant Six engine).
Having immediately smashed a brand-new Alfa Romeo head on into a police car on my first attempt at driving over here, I constantly repeat the mantra: "Left is wrong; Right is right..." (Unlike earrings, as I discover years later.)
I'm in Boulder, CO, and the Flatirons are soaring out of the plains, inviting me to try out some real mountains, not those piddly little Scottish molehills, but since I've only been here a week, and I'm already a mile high and gasping constantly, I decide I'd like to see what the Plains look like. Like -- just how flat can the world get?
(A week later, I took up the Flatiron invitation, drove up to 12,500 feet, and with the car wheezing and stalling, and me doing the same, we both passed out. Cop found us, fed me some oxygen, twiddled with my carburettor, pointed downward. I took his advice.)
I'm starting to feel comfortable driving here, and getting used to the different rules, like you can turn right even on red!
Sitting at the light at an enormous twenty-lane intersection, I belatedly realize that I should turn right, so I check to see if it's safe, and take off.
Hey! Police sirens over here sound exactly like they do in the movies!
Cop: "Licence and registration, please."
Jeesus Christ! This guy has a gun on his hip! What a strange fucking country this is!
I fumble for my International driver's licence, while asking: "What is a 'registration?'"
He doesn't like that, at all. His mirror sunglasses glint ugly at me. Then I hand him my enormous, weird, multipaged International driver's license, and he suddenly realizes that what he has here is a foreign ignoramous.
He takes his mirror glasses off, and I can see him thinking about the pages and pages of shit he'd have to fill out if he busts me (what I'd done was turn right from the leftmost lane of three).
He lets me go, and I drive off, but before I've gone ten yards, I glance in the rear view mirror and notice something is dripping on the ground out of his engine.
I'm a helpful chap, so I stop, walk back to his car (he doesn't notice me -- he's busy filling out an incident report or some shit like that). I look under his car, and realize that what's pouring out is a mixture of oil and antifreeze. That combination is an engine death sentence, unless he turns it off right now. He has his head down, scribbling away, so I knock on his window.
He glances up, realizes he's been taken by surprise, and goes into automatic mode. It would take too long to get his gun out of the holster on his hip, so what I get in my face is his instantly-available sawn-off shotgun.
Never had a gun pointed at me before. Welcome to America. I'm terrified, but I motion to him to roll the window down, and tell him his engine is in trouble, and he should take a look. He tells me to stand ten yards away, gets out with his shotgun never pointing anywhere but at my guts, bends down, sees the disaster going on, quickly shuts everything down, looks at me strangely, and asks: "Why'd you come back to tell me that?"
I shrug: "Wouldn't anyone?"
He smiles at me, says: "Boy, you haven't been here long, have you?"
Welcome to America.
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