Mirabile Scriptu

Anonymousbuyer was wrapping up a sixth consecutive night sleeping in the car. You may recall that the week before he had been invited to leave the house of a so-called friend. He had been staying at this house for the past couple months. Pity he couldn't have used those few months more productively. But then he's pretty much shot, spent, done, down for the count--probably going back many years. He may just as well shoot himself in that old rental car in the front yard of that friend where we parked day after day for the past couple months. Ugly sentence. Anyway, after getting a few hours sleep parked on a quiet sidestreet, anonymousbuyer decided to part with a few remaining SBAs in exchange for a couple gallons of gas. He drove a few blocks into what appeared a quiet motel parking lot. The idea was to get another hour or so of sleep before "Rosy-fingered dawn rose once again". Unfortunately, he parked facing a main thoroughfare and was also just inside of the boundaries of a little island hamlet called glendale, landlocked on all sides by the much larger C & C. He was sound asleep when a wakeup call came from a member of that hamlet's police department. This could be it, he thought. Times up. Finally ran out of luck. Don't outlive your money or your luck!
"May I please have you driver's license, sir. What are you doing here, sir?"

"I was just sleeping, officer. This is rental car. I had to leave the place I had been staying at." (Here, imagine Bill Murray in "Stripes": What are you doing soldier? Training, Sir. What kind of training? Aaarrmmyy training, sir.)

After presumably running the driver's license, the officer asked anonymousbuyer to please get out of the car. He said he smelled booze, a certain anonymous cheap vodka aroma. We had always thought vodka was odorless. Maybe just a lucky guess on the officer's part.

"Have you been drinking tonight, sir?"

"No, not for a while officer", anonymousbuyer courteously slurred.

"When WAS the last time you had something to drink?", the officer asked.

"Oh, maybe, eleven or twelve last night," he lied.

Then the nice police officer had me do the-follow-the-tip of his-pen-with-my-eyes roadside sobriety thing. Luckily he didn't make me walk a white line. (Here, insert old Dean Martin joke: I ain't going to walk no white line until you put a net under it.) He volunteered that he was just tired, not intoxicated. That WAS in fact the truth. Anonymousbuyer even volunteered to do a breathalyzer test. No, that wouldn't be necessary. By this time I noticed the officer's sergeant had siddled up and joined the festivities. A charming, quiet lady sergeant. Now two patrol vehicles had anonymousbuyer cornered this crisp early Sunday Morning Coming Down. The officer finally concluded that I was probably only .02 or .03 drunk, not enough probable cause to arrest for DUI. He asked anonymousbuyer if he needed help. Anonymous lied and said no. (He wanted to add that he had enjoyed sleeping in the rental car the past five nights, but thought better of it. Earlier he had admitted to the officer that his house was in foreclosure and he still had access to it but couldn't stay there. Said he might have a friend to stay with tonight. Ya, sure. Good luck with that pally. So long story short anonymousbuyer was free to drive away. The officer reminded him that even though he is a fellow of Brobdingnagian proportions, it's still dangerous to sleep in a car like that. Funny the officer never pursued a line of questioning about the rental car and California plates. You've got enough money to have a rental car from California but not enough for a motel room? Curious, very curious. Guess there are no outstanding warrants on old anonymousbuyer at the moment. Or, the check was not comprehensive. Who knows? He HAD been curious about that but how does one go about asking the cops to run a warrant check? Aren't there still laws on the books against vagrancy? How much money do you have on you, sir? Anonymousbuyer benefitted, he imagined, from being fairly anglo and not excessively disheveled. Had he been of a darker skin tone there would no doubt of arrest and taking the car, etc. God, his heart was pounding as the police officer checked the license out and ran through the tip of the pen thing. His heart would similiarly pound calling a ten thousand dollar bet on a good drawing hand. He once hit an on-line pot limit hold 'em hand on the river for a $15K pot. Those were the days. Sitting in his robe in the morning sipping Glenlivit from the bottle and playing on-line poker. He also knew that parking a sleeping a little more within that hamlet of glendale was tempting fate. Maybe that's why he did it. One last thrill before checking out of the Hotel Still-living. How many more nights could this go one? There's only enough money for a handful of gallons of gasoline. Maybe he can finish that Wilt/Bill Russell book today. Just incredible the racism during those early days of the NBA. Remnants still remain. But there is no fighting today like there was back then. I mean Red Auerbach would rush into the stands and beat up a fan. Players regularly got into fist fights. Competing with hockey and wrestling. The shots that Namath and others took, late hits, cheap shots. Brutal. Football is still a violant game but they protect the QBs. For anyone who cares, there is also a new book by Micheal Strahan. Fairly candid look, it seems to us, at reality in the NFL.

There will be no more books started in this lifetime. Oh, we broke 1.4 million on Galaga at Dave and B's. Damn thing doesn't show the high score. Oh, well. A seventh night in the car beckons. We'll avoid that hamlet of glendale. But will our luck hold out on the "safe" streets? Why not just pack it it tonight. We are bone tired....yet oddly exhilarated....