“Crap.” From behind me the flashing lights atop the Throne Eliza bounced off my rearview mirror and into my corneas. There they fired up a reflexive cringe and triggered a tenfold increase in my heart-rate; a lifetime of driving had conditioned me in fine Pavlovian style to become uneasy at best when subjected to such stimulus. Frankly, I’d prefer the meat powder. Because, you see, in the hatch of my rusty Furd Pinata was a pile of trouble named “Chuck,” a man who was currently sectioned in two strawberry scented, bloody pieces. To make matters worse, there lied next to him a steel coffee urn which was technically the property of Furd Motors and the Millwrights Local 68. The thin emergency blanket I had tossed over them may or may not still hide the mess; it had been a rough ride and I couldn’t see past my back seat to tell.
    All of this combined to form a solid, dependable foundation for a sturdy case of abject fear of the cops. I was on the doorstep of incontinence, and I suddenly felt hot around my neck and ears.
     “Mr. Minnetola,” an incredibly rough voice spoke calmly from the Nokia I held against my head, “Please tell me what is happening.”
     “Uh….,” I began with no end in sight. I would like to say that the sudden squawk of the police siren interrupted my chain of thought, but that train really hadn’t left the station. In fact, it was probably still on blocks in sanity’s front yard. Bananas would have to wait for the answer to his question until I’d ditched the stupid choo-choo metaphor.
    I had no thought of fleeing. My Pinata wasn’t actually capable of outrunning a determined moped, let alone a police cruiser. Still stupidly holding the phone to my ear, I used my remaining hand to steer the car onto the filthy shoulder of I75 and slow to a halt. The Pinata had repeatedly made it abundantly clear that it relished the idea of slamming into the side of the freeway anyway, so I didn’t so much steer as I simply quit fighting it quite so hard and allowed it to roll to a creaky halt.
     It is interesting, is it not, to look at the concrete barriers lining the freeway from such a close and motionless vantage point? I guess I always thought they were naturally blurry. The policeman, smartly dressed in State Trooper blues and topped with a fine cap upon his head, climbed from his car and strolled casually towards the back of my Pinata. He carried with him what is jokingly referred to as a “flashlight” by the law enforcement community. Let me explain the flashlight.
    Imagine yourself pounding nails with a hammer. Bang-bang-bang! Wait! Stop the hammer at the top of your swing, its head over your shoulder, poised to smash down upon the nail with great force and even greater justice. Quick, get rid of the head of the hammer and put a light-bulb on the other end of the thing, barely clearing the bottom of your clenched fist. Oh, and replace the handle with a two-foot-long heavy steel shaft filled to the brim with alkaline batteries numbering in the dozens. You are now even MORE ready to smash down with that ever-loving justice, plus you have your own illumination for as long as the electrons hold out. You now look strikingly similar to the dandy policeman just then reaching my rear bumper.
    As he passed the rear of my car I watched his eyes slide across the contents of my hatch registering interest but not concern. I suppose I felt a slight relief that the blanket must still be hiding my cargo, but in all probability he’d soon ask to see what those lumps were.
     Bananas spoke again. “Mr. Minnetola, are you still there?”
     “Yes,” I hissed, and the cop now stood next to my window. The light of his flashlight played about my head and shoulders, causing me to squint, before roaming across the sun-split vinyl of the Pinata’s dashboard, exploring the torn and dusty fabric of my passenger seat, and finally stopping briefly on the tiny cat figurine dangling from my rear-view mirror; an orange and yellow cat figurine with “Hang In There!” written across its tummy. Finally, the flashlight returned to illuminate my face and my partial mask of red, sticky goo.
    Tap-tap-tap! the imperious sound of the flashlight being used to knock on my window made me jump a little. So much for playing it cool. My right hand continued holding the phone to my ear through a combination sheer situational inertia and a certain amount of absent mindedness. With my left hand, however, I began rolling down my window. Slickened with sweat and fear, I lost grip on the window crank twice along the way. I tried to look confident and looked him directly in the eye, saying in a ever-so-slightly quavering voice,
     “What seems to be the problem, officer?”
     Bananas answered gruffly, “I beg your pardon?”
    The policeman paused then, looking me over through the opened window. Air drifted in past him and I noted that he smelled of soap and peppermint, and was chewing slowly on something in his mouth—gum, I suppose. His brown eyes, framed with high, chiseled cheekbones and the smooth skin of relative youth, looked everywhere at once while his hand held his flashlight tightly over his shoulder, ready to smite me with those ounces and ounces of alkaline and steel at the slightest justification.
     His walky-talky, a small black box strapped to his right breast complete with a cord running over his shoulder, chirped and let loose with a string of loud and distorted chatter incomprehensible to the untrained ear. His right hand continued to focus the flashlight upon my face as he reached across and pinched the walky-talky with his left.
     “Dispatch, ten seven sixty eight on an eleven ninety-five.” the policeman said to the world at large, “North I75 and 7.”
    The radio on his shoulder responded with renewed squawking and it just might, if one were in the correct frame of mind, have said, “Sloppy hat; hens even six to eight, 11-95, Hose seed.”
    Bananas spoke in my ear then, “Ah. Police talk! You’ve been pulled over! How exciting for you,” his voice bubbled enthusiastically in a way one wouldn’t expect of a deep guttural growl, “He did say ‘ten seven sixty eight,’ yes?”
     “Yes.” I answered, and the cop cocked his head to one side.
     “Sir,” said the state trooper after a moment, “I’m going to have to ask you to put your phone down.” His tone of voice, while studiously polite, was clearly giving an order regardless of its wording.
     Banana’s urgent and rushed voice spoke quickly from my Nokia, “10768, got it. Sir, your-satisfaction-is-valuable-to-us, and before I hang up I’d like-to-thank-you-for-using, uh,” there was a frantic tapping, “Franklin Mint activation tech support. Will-there-be-anything-else this time-of-day?”
     Still looking into the steely brown eyes of the trooper, I managed a weak, “I gotta go,” before obediently ending the phone call and laying the phone face-down on the seat beside me. The policeman stepped back, still shining that damn cudgel-lamp in my face.
     “I think you’d better step out of the car, sir.” So this was it. Hands shaking, I opened the door and slowly swung my crusty red legs out of the car. My teeth were actually chattering while I pulled myself up by the top of the car door and I felt the unmistakable slickness of intense perspiration lubricating my ass crack as I stood awkwardly in the frozen air. Such a juxtaposition of extremes would have been interesting at any other time, but this morning I simply felt panic tinged with just a pinch of despair. The officer’s radio chirped again, but this time the distorted voice on the other end sounded quite upset.
     “10-91h, 10-80 and 11-99 at Nevada East and Russel! Repeat there is a 10-91h, 10-80 and 11-99 at Nevada East and Russel!” I wasn’t sure what that all meant, but the trooper’s eyes grew wide and he nearly jerked the receiver from his shoulder in his rush to respond.
     “Ten-seven-sixty eight, I’m at I75 and 7. Repeat the 11-99?”
     “Ten-seven-sixty eight, that’s a code 30! You are closest, please respond. 10-91h, 10-80 and 11-99 at Nevada East and Russel!!”
    I watched with detached interest then as his mouth worked, silently repeating the jumble of numbers. I think I heard him mutter, “explosion, officer down, and a stray horse…” He nodded once then, apparently having decided on his next course of squeaky clean action.
     “Sir, I advise you to remain here until an officer returns to question you.” He turned then, and left me standing unsteadily next to my pinata as he ran back to his car, light from his flashlight bouncing wildly across the freeway. I heard him nearly shout,
     “Ten seven sixty eight, proceeding to Nevada East and Russel!”
    The door to the Throne Eliza slammed shut, its lights, siren and squealing tires flooded my senses with harsh stimulation and its lumbering hulk threw itself past me in a cloud of dust. I coughed a bit and blinked the particles from my now-stinging eyes. Standing there alone on the gravel and cracked concrete of the shoulder, I stared up the freeway long enough to watch him speed up an off-ramp and out of sight.
     My fingers were freezing cold. I turned toward my Pinata and sighed.