Travelogue #14 (I'll do my best to get this shit written about when I get... somewhere)
Delaware Police
"What the fuck are you doing? Why the fuck are you on the highway?" said a violent-looking once-removed-from-immigration police officer. His crew cut was as trim and cropped as his speech. The questions he asked were rhetorical appetizers to the entree: pat-down, garnished with a "link your fingers behind your head. Yeah, link your fingers!" He grabbed every pocket except for the right shoulder one, which had remnants of marijuana from some ANCIENT kickdown (Moriarty, New Mexico--thank you.) all of a week prior. "Do you have any weapons, needles, drugs?" I listed off every pocket:
"The front pocket contains some writing and sunglasses. The left front has some granola."
He went through my backpack. "What's in here?!"
"That one has musical things, including a tape recorder and guitar strings, an antiquated cell phone. I think that's it. The middle, you'll find shaving needs, duct tape, Sharpies. In the last one, there's a water.
This search was some serious-shit in the officer's book. To me, I was ambivalent--a stay in jail was three square meals and place to sleep. Innocence was freedom, and most likely, a drive to the next truckstop--which would also be an asset.
I looked at the passing traffic, hoping for a sympathetic face, or a grimace, or... something. Five minutes outside of Wilmington and no one could bear to rubberneck ("just a little turn, a little peek!"). Hands at ten and two for the drivers, my knuckles braided behind.
Another police officer arrived as I shifted my focus to the old officer, now laughing and grinning. Would I be tortured at 8am? Would karma be so cruel, especially after I spent the duration of the ride that got myself in this predicament teaching a young kid about farm animals from his book with an erasable red marker.
"Grab your shit. All of it!"
Fuck. I was surely arrested. The other police officer stood on the other side of me, gestured me to the back of my vehicle. The one thing I would not be able to prepare for is being ostracized--socially, that is, nor the pivotal moment when my future to-be employers would ask:
"So, tell me, Thomas, have you ever been arrested on any serious criminal charges?"
"No, but... let me ask you something, Mrs. Feldman, what is your opinion of hitchhiking?"
"You have been caught hitchhiking, Mr. Senkus?"
"To me and many state laws, it is not a crime. However, to Delaware, I may as well have committed homocide."
"I see," would say Mrs. Feldman, and I would most certainly not be calling me back for a second interview.
"Grab your shit." Ahhh, our familiar greeting, Mr. Officer. He led me to the back of his vehicle. "Put your shit in here," said the police officer, gesturing to the open trunk of his vehicle. It was hard not to laugh--what must his reality be to 1) charge me with a benign crime, and 2) why would he want me to put shit in his car, let alone mine?
Oh, it gets better.
He leads me into the passenger-side door, opens it, and allows me a seat. The door closed--No Miranda rights, no handcuffs. On the seat a foot away is an orange box of ammunition. Instincts shouted impulses: "Grab the bullets and find a rock/hard object to immediately discharge the shell into the officer's brain." Reason intervened with, um, reason: "Okay, listen. Don't grab the bullets. Hell, don't even look at them. Pretend they're not there, because... if you notice, he might notice. And, if he notices, then he might consider your thoughts malicious, and what's another hitchhiker? And, to Mr. Instinct, tell him to shut the fuck up. If you kill a cop, just what kind of life would you lead? Who escapes, and you've seen too many episodes of Cops to not believe that there might be some smart people in law enforcement. Just.... uhh, make small-talk."
To which I did. After the other officer left, Mr. Officer came back and we drove towards what he described as "Pennsylvania". "I don't do this often," he added, under the auspices that my ride was a privilege (all the officers that had picked me up at one time or another had mentioned this to me, actually driving me further than most rides). We chatted, him still trying to maintain his anger, but he softened:
"Do you want a pair of sunglasses?"
I was taken aback and confused. Immediately turning them down, I felt as if I had rejected his peace-offering. "I'm just a man. We're just men, Children of the Earth, and I wish to perpetuate our existence. With these glasses, surely your eyes would be preserved for longer than if they had not been protected. Take them. With love."
But no, I turned him down and he took a mild, mild offense. Barely perceptible, but it made sense--a show for the crowd and his buddy, now kibble to the smitten dog by his Master. Or, not. Maybe his instincts misfired a bit, but he covered up his act with: "Yeah, I found 'em on the street."
Mr. Officer's plan was to drive me to the border of Delaware and Pennsylvania. He did, dropping me off in a parking lot bus stop with three drunk black bums. Mind you, this was 8:30am. I grabbed my "shit" from his trunk, leaving the sign for last. "No, leave THAT! You're not doing any more hitchhiking in this town."
And, then he was gone. My life in 1/2 hour segments, all episodes towards some conclusion. The bums encouraged me to grab a bus for $2.25, the SEPTA transit bus system. However, I needed change, and I went into the local laundromat. An Asian attendant helped me out with five-singles-for-a-dollar. When I asked for quarters from a woman, she looked at me as if I was insane, gestured to a machine that read "These Tokens are for Use Only in the Machines of this Establishment". Those tokens were quarters. They bought my liberty from Delaware.
I walked down the street in the direction pointed out by a store clerk ("the police are assholes around here," said a beautiful girl with all the usual signs of pretty face, poor breeding, poverty), feeling a bit of fear well-up when confronted with the idea that SEPTA bus that passed me might have been my way towards Philadelphia. However, God was on my side, and He wanted me to see a town with Blueball Avenue in the middle of a residential neighborhood, itself adjacent to massive gas tanks of a Sunoco refinery.
Then I ate some nuts (salty, non-blueballed) and got nauseous from the almonds. Almonds make me sick. Delaware, too.
Delaware Police
"What the fuck are you doing? Why the fuck are you on the highway?" said a violent-looking once-removed-from-immigration police officer. His crew cut was as trim and cropped as his speech. The questions he asked were rhetorical appetizers to the entree: pat-down, garnished with a "link your fingers behind your head. Yeah, link your fingers!" He grabbed every pocket except for the right shoulder one, which had remnants of marijuana from some ANCIENT kickdown (Moriarty, New Mexico--thank you.) all of a week prior. "Do you have any weapons, needles, drugs?" I listed off every pocket:
"The front pocket contains some writing and sunglasses. The left front has some granola."
He went through my backpack. "What's in here?!"
"That one has musical things, including a tape recorder and guitar strings, an antiquated cell phone. I think that's it. The middle, you'll find shaving needs, duct tape, Sharpies. In the last one, there's a water.
This search was some serious-shit in the officer's book. To me, I was ambivalent--a stay in jail was three square meals and place to sleep. Innocence was freedom, and most likely, a drive to the next truckstop--which would also be an asset.
I looked at the passing traffic, hoping for a sympathetic face, or a grimace, or... something. Five minutes outside of Wilmington and no one could bear to rubberneck ("just a little turn, a little peek!"). Hands at ten and two for the drivers, my knuckles braided behind.
Another police officer arrived as I shifted my focus to the old officer, now laughing and grinning. Would I be tortured at 8am? Would karma be so cruel, especially after I spent the duration of the ride that got myself in this predicament teaching a young kid about farm animals from his book with an erasable red marker.
"Grab your shit. All of it!"
Fuck. I was surely arrested. The other police officer stood on the other side of me, gestured me to the back of my vehicle. The one thing I would not be able to prepare for is being ostracized--socially, that is, nor the pivotal moment when my future to-be employers would ask:
"So, tell me, Thomas, have you ever been arrested on any serious criminal charges?"
"No, but... let me ask you something, Mrs. Feldman, what is your opinion of hitchhiking?"
"You have been caught hitchhiking, Mr. Senkus?"
"To me and many state laws, it is not a crime. However, to Delaware, I may as well have committed homocide."
"I see," would say Mrs. Feldman, and I would most certainly not be calling me back for a second interview.
"Grab your shit." Ahhh, our familiar greeting, Mr. Officer. He led me to the back of his vehicle. "Put your shit in here," said the police officer, gesturing to the open trunk of his vehicle. It was hard not to laugh--what must his reality be to 1) charge me with a benign crime, and 2) why would he want me to put shit in his car, let alone mine?
Oh, it gets better.
He leads me into the passenger-side door, opens it, and allows me a seat. The door closed--No Miranda rights, no handcuffs. On the seat a foot away is an orange box of ammunition. Instincts shouted impulses: "Grab the bullets and find a rock/hard object to immediately discharge the shell into the officer's brain." Reason intervened with, um, reason: "Okay, listen. Don't grab the bullets. Hell, don't even look at them. Pretend they're not there, because... if you notice, he might notice. And, if he notices, then he might consider your thoughts malicious, and what's another hitchhiker? And, to Mr. Instinct, tell him to shut the fuck up. If you kill a cop, just what kind of life would you lead? Who escapes, and you've seen too many episodes of Cops to not believe that there might be some smart people in law enforcement. Just.... uhh, make small-talk."
To which I did. After the other officer left, Mr. Officer came back and we drove towards what he described as "Pennsylvania". "I don't do this often," he added, under the auspices that my ride was a privilege (all the officers that had picked me up at one time or another had mentioned this to me, actually driving me further than most rides). We chatted, him still trying to maintain his anger, but he softened:
"Do you want a pair of sunglasses?"
I was taken aback and confused. Immediately turning them down, I felt as if I had rejected his peace-offering. "I'm just a man. We're just men, Children of the Earth, and I wish to perpetuate our existence. With these glasses, surely your eyes would be preserved for longer than if they had not been protected. Take them. With love."
But no, I turned him down and he took a mild, mild offense. Barely perceptible, but it made sense--a show for the crowd and his buddy, now kibble to the smitten dog by his Master. Or, not. Maybe his instincts misfired a bit, but he covered up his act with: "Yeah, I found 'em on the street."
Mr. Officer's plan was to drive me to the border of Delaware and Pennsylvania. He did, dropping me off in a parking lot bus stop with three drunk black bums. Mind you, this was 8:30am. I grabbed my "shit" from his trunk, leaving the sign for last. "No, leave THAT! You're not doing any more hitchhiking in this town."
And, then he was gone. My life in 1/2 hour segments, all episodes towards some conclusion. The bums encouraged me to grab a bus for $2.25, the SEPTA transit bus system. However, I needed change, and I went into the local laundromat. An Asian attendant helped me out with five-singles-for-a-dollar. When I asked for quarters from a woman, she looked at me as if I was insane, gestured to a machine that read "These Tokens are for Use Only in the Machines of this Establishment". Those tokens were quarters. They bought my liberty from Delaware.
I walked down the street in the direction pointed out by a store clerk ("the police are assholes around here," said a beautiful girl with all the usual signs of pretty face, poor breeding, poverty), feeling a bit of fear well-up when confronted with the idea that SEPTA bus that passed me might have been my way towards Philadelphia. However, God was on my side, and He wanted me to see a town with Blueball Avenue in the middle of a residential neighborhood, itself adjacent to massive gas tanks of a Sunoco refinery.
Then I ate some nuts (salty, non-blueballed) and got nauseous from the almonds. Almonds make me sick. Delaware, too.
