Matt and Neal Tango with the Law - Part 1

The following is a very lengthy (and I am sorry about that! skip to Neal's funnier story below if you're in a hurry), but very true and accurate statement of the events that transpired between the times of approximately 1:00am - 4:00am on the morning of July 23, shortly after this story begins.

Date: Tuesday, July 22
Time: 11:55pm
Setting: 2171 College Street - Studio

PROLOGUE

The night began like many Tuesdays at 2171. Neal and I more or less to ourselves, drawing, watching TV, whatever. It has already been a sleep-deprived week due to the fact that we have no concept of "weekdays" as we've heard them called, and more than likely had a Margarita Monday the night prior.

So it should be said that Tuesdays are chill. We behave. Mostly.

Our dear friend Zach hosts a radio show at midnight on Tuesdays, and its an all request show. So Neal is going to stay up, and my plan had been to finish the last few brush strokes of a painting and head to bed.

However, when one of those Russleritas hits the table, there's no turning it down, even if its midnight on a 'weekday'. It's like someone just walked up and handed you a $100 bill, and says, "You can have this. Oh, I'm sorry, is this bad timing for you?" No. You take it with great pleasure and no questions as to why this is happening to you. Just accept the good graces of the fates (or Neal, as the case may be. The two are not mutually exclusive.)

So, an hour later, I decide against another batch and head to bed. Wait, I'm gonna step outside first, as my routine usually dictates.

It should be noted that every single time the radio show is on, the two of us go out back for any outdoor time. But this night, I decide to go out front. Neal comes along.

This single, arbitrary decision is the linchpin for what our lives would be like for the next month. The difference between living in irrational fear of death, or just going about our merry lives at 2171. Why oh why, didn't I pick the back......

PART 1:

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Taking a quick look around the area, almost immediately we see something we never should have seen.

There is an athletic-build African-American male looking through the trunk of a car. Innocent Enough.

UNLESS:

(a) its 1am

(b) it is our friend Stefania's car

(c) Stefania is in Hawaii

(d) All of the Above.

If you guessed D, you would be correct. Unable to believe our eyes, we watch this man take a ton of stuff from her car, and put it in his.

Me: "Do you...who is..."

Neal: "Is he breakin into her car...?"

Me: "I think...could that be a friend of hers? Surely not."

M: "yeah, that's what he's doing...."
[string of quiet astonished expletives, and 'is this happening like...for real?' in disappointed tones]

N: What do we do?

M: I don't know man Idon'tknowIdon'tknow

Guy hops in his car, and drives right in front of us.....and.....slows....down.....

As if our heart-rates weren't already about to top out, the car sputters like he's going to break down. The engine silences. Terror is too lax of a word. More like, pants-shitting-cry-for-your-mom-confess-your-sins-these-are-your-last-moments terror. Yeah. That'll do it.

A half-second passes of just sheer numbness. And he turns over the motor again and drives away. I decide to follow my gut, and we call 911, with the afterthought that we might be over-reacting racist bastards if we're mistaken.

Well, as it turns out, we were not.

Shortly after we called the cops, we notice that the window is broken, sparkling on the asphalt now amongst the CDs and the bugs and the beercaps.

Moments later, a black SUV crawls up. I'm on high-alert, so this is a big deal. However, seeing the caged windows and the bear-like german shephard crawling around in the back makes me realize this is the cop we've been waiting for. But not just a cop, one of those hardcore, camo-wearing, things strapped to everywhere G.I. Joe looking motherfuckers.

[edit: when telling this to Heather, she says, "I always want to ask them if they have any gum."]

After the usual clammer of questions and numbers barked back and forth in walk-talkies, we're asked if we could identify the man if we saw him again.

IF WE SAW HIM AGAIN. Well, we all know where this goes.

Moments later, after many cops have arrived on this life-threatening scene full of bombs, terrorists and rabid zombies (thanks, city of Montgomery, for spending my taxes wisely) one last cop drives up to the scene. With an athletic-build African-American male looking through the rear passenger window.

So, being the Citizen Heroes that we are, we immediately duck around anything we can (and keep our dignity intact) to avoid being seen by the 28 Days Later, Rage Infected looking 'suspect' in the back seat.

"Fellas.....this him?" says GI Cop.
In unison, in a grumble: "yeahyeahthat's himthat'shim..."

The only thing I even saw other than his obvious attachment to the scene of the crime was that he was dirty. He wasn't dirty when he was stealing shit out of Stefania's car....hhm...

I use neal's towering height to block my view and neal constricts himself to about 90 degrees of movement it's ok he's only going to be there for like 30 seconds......ORRRR ten minutes.

Cop, to suspect: "What!? What!? You need to shut yur fuckin mouth why didn't you stop when a police vehicle came up on you??"
Suspect: "mumblemumble lights wuttin' on mumble"
Cop: "I don't give one good god damn don't you know what a fucking cop car looks like!?? NO, of course your dumb ass doesn't know you piece of shit cause you're fucking trashed! How much you had to drink tonight? Yeah, nothing my ass."

Suspect, in reference to his arresting officers: "mumble.....mumble....they drunk."

Cop, as he slams the door with his foot: "you need to shut your fucking mouth cause you're in enough trouble as it is."

Needless to say, we're stunned and trying not to laugh or cry.

N: "You ok man?"
M: "aah....yeah, you know....just...taking it all in."
N: "....."
M: "....."

1:25AM (still standing on the street having to watch the cops do their thing)

M: "Hey neal?"
N: "Yeah buddy?"
M: "Can we get the hell out of 2171? Please?"

So they're completely baffled that Stefania is in Hawaii, so we got the same three questions over and over again:
"Do you know the victim here?"
"Where is she right now?"
[scoff] "What, she on her honeymoon or sum'n?"

Then, the 'main dude' shows up an old guy looks all kinds of old school but cool as hell....pats some guys on the shoulders...."good policework gentlemen"

Main Dude: "Are these the two that spotted that bastard?"
Us: Ah, yeah, that's us.
MD: "hhm..do you know the victim?"
Us: sigh yes
MD: "where is she right now?"
Us: She's in hawaii....
MD: "What, she on a honeymoon or somethin'? Hahaha!"
Us: No, just...on vacation.
MD [stands and chews for a moment]: "Hell. Wish I was in Hawaii. Lucky if I make it to goddam Lake Martin these days." and walks away.

The way he said it was so cliche and just....perfect. Like the newspaper editor in the Spiderman movies.

So we overhear the story from here....turns out, the man jumped from a MOVING CAR once they spotted him, CRASHED INTO A FENCE, and they had to catch him in a foot pursuit somewhere in the ghetto. Un. Effing. Believable.

But this is where the story takes a turn for the worse....I'm sorry for the length, but trust me, this is a quality tale.

Main Dude: "So gentlemen. here's the deal. Since miss....cue...cuemue... [looks at us like its our fault she has a complicated last name]"
Neal, correcting him: "Cumuze [cuhmoozee]"
MD: "Since she's not here....we're gonna need someone to file an official complaint. If someone doesn't go downtown and do that, we're forced to let him go."

....no comment...

MD: "Do you have everything you need to make the trip...or...?"
M: "oh! uh....I guess lock up and we're good to go?" I say to Neal.

Neal does so. Leaving ipod, sketchbooks, etc. We're under the impression we're getting a ride, the citizens-good-deed-ride, the tax-payers witness-taxi.

Well, that wasn't true. "Yall know how to get there?" was the first clue.

So we get in the car and freak out for a minute, and then get downtown to the station. And, there's absolutely no one there. Completely desolate. So we just knock on a random door that seems geographically linked to the meat of the building.... and then it gets fun.

After barrelling around the police station for a few minutes banging on random doors, someone finally presents themselves..... its this dumpy, short, too nicely dressed black guy who looks my age or younger, and has braces he looks like he just got woken up, just got punched in the gut, or needs to take a shit real bad. Scowl doesn't describe his mean, clean-cut pudgem face. You just wanna slap the "mama still cooks for me" right off his chubby little face, for real....

Pudgem: "whatchoo need."

M: "Ah, they told us to come here." [logic being, there are OBVIOUSLY very few crimes to deal with considering the desolate nature of this station]
P: "Who did"
M: "The officers on the scene?"
P: "Who were they. What fuh [for]."
M: "eh, we didn't get any names, see [insert story up to now, here]"
P: "gimmeyeaeyeD" [which i shrewdly deduced to mean, in english, "May I see some identification, please."]

Neal took my cue and got his out, also. (all this is through bulletproof glass, mind you) so we put the ids down and th-- "I only need ONE."

I could go on about this, but this post is long enough....

P: "Yall take a seat on the bench "

So neal slowly retracts his after we kind of body language through the whole "I'll deal with it, dude, go sit down" thing.

P:"mumblemumble"

Did he just say son of a bitch? I think he just called me a son of a bitch!

Me: "excuse me?"
P: "Yall take a SEAT on the BENCH!"

So - of course - we joke about him for a while, then he asks me to come back. We're the ONLY ones there. We get to the bench and I say, "Neal, not to complicate matters, but I swear to god I just saw a woman going through the trashcan outside."

N [astonished]: "shut up"
M: "sweartogod."

We sit for a minute. Neal goes and checks for her, and of course she's moved on to her next trash digging endeavor, we assume, because she's not there. A few minutes later we hear around the corner, the doors open, which is kind of terrifying because it could be anything at 2am Wednesday morning in the deserted police station.

In walks the green dress trash digging woman. She goes over to the doors [beep] and walks right in.

The point being, that we go from being complete non-racists - a guy was rummaging through a friend's car and we debated not even calling the cops - to complete and TOTAL racists.

Sitting, sitting, waiting...watching Neal saved a Roly-Poly's life...then I saved it...then he saved it again (the thing had a death wish.)

N: "This place sucks. The cells here really suck. You don't wanna be here roly poly."
M: "Everything you just said is funny on many levels right now."
[long pause, just sitting...]
N: "No ipod, no sketchbooks....fuck."
M: "No food. We could be here for days. I never said goodbye to my mom."
[long pause, just sitting...]
N: Hey....look at us....could we look any more different than we do right now?

I'm wearing a polo and khaki shorts, neal is in worn out jeans and a zero hoodie, his laundry day uniform.

[long pause, just sitting...]

M: "Of the countless times, how many more times am I gonna end up on a bench with you in a law enforcement situation before this friendship ends?"

FINALLY, Pudgem asks me to come back and after he literally thumbs through a law book for THIRTY MINUTES while I watch, he decides that we aren't even supposed to be here.

It's 3:00am.

I'm not even supposed to BE here!? What wait, no, there's gotta be a mistake...about this time an officer comes from upstairs, one of the guys from the scene, and he's like "hey where you guys been? that your buddy outside?" And we go upstairs to be recorded telling our story.

But first, Pudgem has been making me TRANSCRIBE THE EVENTS OF THE NIGHT. Luckily I was too tired and pissed to be a worried about dramatic effect. I summed it up with a "this is what we saw" kind of thing. He made me finish it, even after the confusion was cleared up as to why we were there, mumbling something about covering his [substantial] ass.

Upstairs, this old energetic tough but incredibly informal guy comes out. Gray/Bald, tight little detective 'stache, polo with a badge embroidered on it, the whole nine yards. He's wrestling with a fingerprint kit that looks like an ammo box from Vietnam, cussing if he pinches a finger or fails an attempt to 'pry the bastard open'. This goes on for the duration of the following monologue:

"Heeyyy there fellas. So. Here's how this is gonna - fuck - go down. [slams case latch] Cpl. Collins here is going to record your statements of the incident on tape, and separately. This here is a fingerprint kit we give the trainees. He's gonna get your statements...you're going to have to give testimony to the grand jury, as this is a felony case. [scratches his chin] the suspect will be present for those hearings. You'd think they'd make these cases easier to open, god dammit."

Now this is just great. Not only has he seen us, but he now gets to see us while he's clean and pissed. He's gonna have his friends come do things to us.

"Now. It's real simple. It's not that bigga deal. You guys go to AUM? My son goes to Huntingdon....[we talk about work and Huntingdon for a second] You boys want some coffee?" spoken like he just offered us black market cuban cigars.

"Get on over here and make yourselves at home." Spoken with the open hands and then onto the hips, like he's showing off a new car or something. He was a happy guy. I think he's quite the caffeine addict.

"Alright!" he says. "Yer up!" to me, so I go in the room and take a seat across from the detective, who is pecking one finger at a time at the keyboard. M-o-n-t-m.......backspace.....g-o-m-e-r-y

Detective: "how ya doin?"
Me: "Oh, I'm tired, but I'm here." (which is a loose translation on 'I'm pissed and I wanna go to bed' but whatever)
Detective: "Yeah, we all tired, for sure."
Me: "This is all kind of scary, being involved and all.."
Detective: "Oh is it? Why is that?" Like I'd just told him I like throwing babies. "Do you spell roommate with one M or two? It just don't look right."

I don't go for the definitive answer, I go for the "don't make him feel too stupid" answer

Me: "uummm....is it one? No, I'm almost certain its two. Yeah, its two. That looks right to me. That one always gets me, too!"

So he stumbles through asking me to repeat the story. which was rather unremarkable at this point. I'm sick of it. Ready to die. Or at least sleep.

Eventually he walks us out to the car, telling us how long the guy's rap sheet is, what a good thing we did, and how he'll see us in court. Wonderful. We'll be there this afternoon, sitting like we sat on that bench, for hours, talking about random stuff until our heads explode.

On the bright side, its like our apartment, sans alcohol.