Reality

...continued

A few days later Mike, the same friend, and I jumped aboard our bikes for a new adventure.  Our intention was to meet up, go to what we considered downtown at the time, and ride on a few pieces of curb and street by the vacant Murphy's Mart Parking lot.  We had discussed things that had previously happened and all decided that the cop was just being a "pest".  Probably the same thing he thought of us by associating us with other kids that might have been.  We didn't care though, we wanted treated with the respect of the individuals we were.  Why should we be treated like crap because of others?  It didn't make any sense either.

We headed out and were by the same parking lot by Roseland Park Southern Baptist Church.  Our friend all of a sudden had a problem with his bike as we rode in front of the church, by the street mind you, clearly away from the church.  His handle bar stem had become lose and the handle bars could not easily be used to steer the bike.  This was a dangerous thing to try to do, ride a bike with this problem, when we were about to go across the old Highway 11 Bridge toward downtown with traffic.  The Highway 11 Bridge was an old style bridge with no sidewalk, and absolutely zero way for anything other than cars and truck to cross.  So we stopped and tried to see what we could do, pending either getting it fixed or returning to our friends house to find some tools to fix the problem.

With dust kicking up from the tires as the car pulled off of Highway 11 toward us, the same harassing Picayune Police Office drove toward us.  Now mind you, he drove at us, straight at us.  We immediately felt threatened, and in our youthful pride and already determined minds that this guy was a prick and we tensed up prepared for impact.  He at the last minute pulled parallel to us and immediately in a gruff voice stated, "I told you boys to not come around here!"  I said, "we're trying to leave, we aren't riding in the lot or near the church but our friends bike is busted".  He didn't care and immediately grunted, "I don't care if his leg is broke get out of here, I told you kids before!"  At this point our pride was close to hurt, and me being the one to not stand for injustice, bulked up and stepped toward his car.  I believe, this might have been my first use of this term publicly, but it felt right and it was what I meant, "Quit being an asshole dude!"  The officer looked startled and leaned toward me since I had approached his passenger side window.  He chirped, without the grunt of before, "I told you kids to leave and I want you out of here in a minute or I'm taking you in and your parents can come pick you up."  I was sickened by his lack of patience, his bully attitude, and simple stupidity in this situation.  I told him, knowing I was in the right, "We'll leave when we can get our friends bike working, he can't ride it right now.  You can just wait."

Yeah, I didn't like injustice and this was when I learned that justice didn't matter one bit if the other guy was bigger.  No matter what though, I was going to do everything I could reasonably do to enforce some semblance of honor and justice.  Then the officer stepped out of his car, slamming his door and looking perturbed.  I backed up in fear at this point, not knowing what this guy was going to do.  He walked up and grabbed my upper arm, I squirmed a bit but didn't break free.  Mike asked, "What's your problem man?" or something akin to that.  The officer spouted something about, "Ya'll are!" and I knew we were in trouble.  That's when I lost it, all of 13 and now pissed that justice was being spit on, desecrated in a way that was just unbearable to me.  I had my bike handle bar cross bar in one hand, my other arm grasped by the officer, and I turned my head.  I stated again, "Let me go."  Mike and our friend both said, "Let him go, he didn't do anything!"  I then instantaneously thought that I was going to just have to do it.  I was going to do something super stupid.  I was going to either hit the cop with my bike or spit on him or something, he more than deserved.  I had at that moment lost all respect for this Police Officer.  I said to Mike and our friend, "You guys run, run and we'll meet up later."  I added, "Go tell your mom Mike, tell your dad and tell them to call the police station."  They looked at me oddly and I stated again in an almost scream, "RUN!"  The cop said, "shut up" and as he turned his head I lobbed spit at his face, missing miserably and getting it all over his uniform.  But that did it, he let go to wipe the spit off and I took off like a bat out of hell.  The officer yelled, "Hey, get back here".  But I rode, with Mike and our other friend in the distance peddling away, hard as all of us could.

I'm not sure what that cop did, or were Mike and our buddy ended up that day, but I went straight home.  I told my parents and they tried to apply logic and reason to the situation again, asking what I had done.  The simple and only answer was, "nothing".

This was my awakening that just because someone is in uniform, or supposed to uphold the law and be a respectful, honorable, noble person, doesn't mean a damn thing.  It all boils down to how the individual is going to behave, not the ideal of what they're upholding.

To be continued...

The Politics, The Wars, My Mind Smashes into Reality

13.  13 Years old was when I went brashly, unknowingly, and slamming into reality.  Yeah, it was what happens to everyone then, every kid all of a sudden hits the teens and BAM, everything changes.  Well my years definitely did that, and as with most kids, I had my unique experiences of it.  For the most part my teen years were great, and in many ways they sucked.  The worse thing that came smashing into me when I was a teenager was politics.  Most kids suffer the angst of sex, drugs, alcohol, or some other average twist of fate, mine was politics.

Reality

At the age of 13, waning from the interest in GI Joe's I found a new love.  That love was bicycling.  Bicycling gave me the freedom of movement, of going to see my friends, of removing myself from the grasp of those in charge.  I could go and do whatever the hell I wanted to.  This freedom was enrapturing, greater than any feeling I had known up until then.  I could go to school, I could skip school, I could get away from people or go find people, I could go to the store, I could live because I had a bicycle.

During this time I also met who would become one of my best friends.  Michael Gronmeyer, or simply Mike.  Mike was a calm and cool, yet weird kid.  I wasn't too sure about this guy, but one day when I stated I was bored, my mother drove me over there since she had to meet his mother for some reason.  She said I could, "go play with Mike".  I thought, "that Mike kid is kind of weird".  Upon actually hanging out at his house though I realized he was a rather cool dude, and thus a friendship born of common interest and a whole lot of Mississippi mischievousness was created.

Mike and I would ride together everywhere.  At first we started out with some crappy bikes.  We understood, to get better gear we'd have to earn it through chores or whatever, and we busted butt doing so.  We would ride from sun up and often until long after the sun had left the sky.  We didn't have the safety mess of today's kids, no helmets, no reflectors because they got in the way.  We rode straight, hard, and close to the street.  We lived on edge and loved it.

Mind you, our parents just didn't whimsically let us do this, we tried to let em' know what we were up to.  The problem is, often as a kid you just can't let them because you don't know.  This is were some of my burgeoning political thought was about to smack me in the face.  It would smack me in the face hard.

Mike and I were out and about as usual.  We were riding near a parking lot by the Roseland Park Southern Baptist Church.  We weren't hurting a thing.  Another friend of ours joined us and we kept jumping, trying tricks, and figuring out how to push the envelope however we could.  We weren't grinding corners, breaking anything, or smashing a thing.  That didn't matter.  A Picayune Police Officer approached Mike, our other friend and myself.  He said we had to leave immediately.  I remember asking as a curious kid, "leave, why do we have to leave, we aren't doing anything"?  I asked because I wanted to know and because this request made no sense at all.  As far as all three of us were concerned it was an absolutely stupid request.  The officer didn't care about a reason and snarled back, "because I said so, now get out of here".  I was stunned at his brashness toward a couple of 13 year old kids.  So I spouted, "whatever".  We all left.

I got to thinking that night and asked my parents why we had to leave.  My father and mother as always tried to deduce some reason why this had happened.  I couldn't figure it out, and they unfortunately couldn't provide me a good reason why an officer would do this.  I stewed on the thought for a few days.

To be Continued...