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Stop Watch, Stop Life
Getting pulled over by police leads to unforeseen event
Jesus Christ, not again. I ease my foot off the gas, veering cautiously to the right, looking for a safe place to stop. The flashing blue lights pull up behind. I think about seeing the police on the news recently. I lower the window and place both hands on the steering wheel, clearly visible. My insurance documents are in the glove box. I’m not going to retrieve them until told to do so. The police car’s headlights shine bright in my rearview mirror.
In my seventies, I’m white, not drunk, wasn’t speeding, and if I have a taillight out, I was unaware. I look at my watch, it isn’t on my wrist. I must have left without it. The dash clock is showing 11:35 P.M. I don’t want to die before midnight.
The woman who comes to the window is not smiling, expressionless, and asks politely. “Good evening, sir. Do you know why I’ve pulled you over?” She is a young officer, hair tied back, looking very prim and proper.
“I do not, officer,” I say.
“A mile back, I was coming toward you, and you didn’t dip your headlights. California law states you are required to lower headlight beams when behind or approaching another vehicle. This is a one-point violation and may result in a fine of up to $238 plus court costs and fees,” she says. “Is this your car?”
“Yes.”
“Your driver’s license and insurance, please?”
“I have to reach over to the glove box,” I say, not overly worried as she has no gun drawn. Maybe because I’m white, not in Oakland, and in an expensive car. My license plate notes that I’m a donor to the Police Federation. I retrieve my papers wait to hand them over. She is talking on her radio. Then she is gone. The bright lights swerve alongside and disappear at high speed. Fuck, what now? Do I wait? Am I free to go? The officer didn’t exactly release me. I’m two miles from home, two more bends, and a half-mile straight. I would see the house lights in a couple of minutes.
Ahead, coming around the second bend, I’m horrified to come across the police car having smashed into a telegraph pole, the engine still running in a tangle of brittle brush, upside down. Another yard it would have tumbled over the edge of the bluff, a hundred-foot drop to rocks below.
I pull up, partially blinded by the one working headlight beam, hop out and run toward the wreckage. Perhaps I’m foolish, as there is a strong smell of gas, but in my mind is the image of the young policewoman’s face as I had seen it, no more than a couple of minutes before.
I stoop to look through the side window. I can see nothing but blackness and think, at first, that she may have been thrown clear before hearing a groan inside. I stoop lower, a piece of carpet is hanging, like a curtain, in front of the window, hiding the officer. I try the door, expecting it to be jammed, but, thankfully, it opens enough to get my shoulder against it and force it open wide enough to lean inside. She’s hanging upside down, her head against the roof, blood oozing from a cut over her left eye, dripping into her hair, now untied and spilling across the car’s upturned ceiling. Clearly, the airbag has saved her life.
I take her weight, feeling for the clasp of her seatbelt. She groans in a semi-conscious state. I’m concerned about broken bones, but more the smell of gas and don’t know where to find a button or key to turn the engine off. She is lighter than I expect, but it still takes all my reserves of strength to lift her free, dragging her through the tangle of brambles and stagger us toward my car and lie her gently down, almost collapsing on top of her. Then slowly, pushing myself up from a squatting position, I turn back to face the wrecked police car as it burst into flames.
The policewoman is groaning. A gash in her knee has torn her tights, blood seeping down the black nylon. I look at my cell phone but know there will be no signal and was relieved to hear my wife’s voice calling out. She is crying. I think she believes the accident to be me, after hearing the police siren. But that is not the case.
“Honey, we had a burglar in the house,” she says, “I called the police,” she gasps, trying to catch her breath, still wearing her dressing gown and slippers. “Oh god, is she dead?” She asks, suddenly seeing the policewoman lying wounded.
“Honey, stay with her. I need to run home and call an ambulance,” I say, looking at my useless cellphone.
“Wait…” she says, in the distance, we can hear sirens. “Thank God,” I say.
I look at my wife, shivering, frightened, and hug her. I cannot imagine what she has gone through, waking to see a burglar in the bedroom. Thank heavens he’d decided to run when she heard him.
The policewoman, coming around, is groaning. I kneel at her side, “It’s okay, someone is coming, just a minute or two.” She doesn’t respond. I wipe the blood from her eyes.
The sirens come closer. I can see the glare of headlights approaching the bend. A mile behind is a medical unit. Thirty minutes later, the policewoman is being put into the ambulance. She will be fine, a medic tells me. Another medic is checking my wife for the shock. He has a blanket around her while I answer an officer’s questions.
Back home, we sit up all night talking about the events. Both feeling shaken. I can now take in the terror of what she must have felt, waking to find a stranger in the room. We couldn’t sleep and made hot tea. She doesn’t believe anything is missing. We live remotely, and she hadn’t locked the door, expecting me home very soon. When daylight breaks, I’m surprised to see so many police still in the crash area.
Later in the morning, an officer knocks on the door. He shows me a watch. Yes, it is mine. The burglar had taken it.
“It didn’t do him a lot of good, I’m afraid,” he says, “while escaping, he ran across the road. Our officer hit him. He’s dead. We found him below the bluff,” he says.
I look at my watch. It is broken.
It shows midnight.
