Off the seat of a bicycle
Chapter 24)  arrest and sentence / James gets thrown off my territory

The newspaper carried a composite drawing of me, and it looked pretty good, so I stopped riding a bike for a while. I was recognized on campus by a toll-booth guard a week later, but quickly disappeared over the hill.

It was silly to stay in town, and sillier for telling my friends about the ‘funny’ thing that happened, but it was my friends who narked me out … it was the Dan the Informer and my neighbor Steve, and I’ll tell you how it happened…

… we went for a walk, and Steve said he forgot to make a phone call and ran back to the house for a minute. A streetwise person would’ve seen that in a flash, but I was drooling all over myself: I didn’t leave town, I bragged, and now payback was due.

Ten minutes later, two officers stopped me. They said I matched the description blah blah. It was Larry the narc again … Hey Larry ! … but now he was detective Larry, and for some reason they forwent the line-up downtown. Instead they called that fool James who arrived pronto at the scene in his personal car and street clothes. You can’t question that boy’s eagerness.

The dumb-ass James rushed towards us, identified me as the guy, and then blew the whole case by pulling a large revolver from the back of his trousers and pointed it straight at me. Everybody backed off, leaving me standing there saying, hello.

There were no heroes that day, and a moment of shock passed before Det. Larry stepped out with his arms motioning for James to lower the gun. James put his only pistol back in his drawers. I got locked up. And you see why that lunatic wasn’t going to handcuff me at the original scene. Obviously police training is a tricky thing.

The charge was felony injury to a policeman and I made bail the next day. My lawyer pled it down to assault, and not surprisingly, James S.B. got fired.

I got sentenced to three days in jail plus probation. Assault hell, I never laid a glove on him, except the fool stuck his hand in my spinning wheel. But it wasn’t finished for the goat-roper, I would hear from that fool James S.B. four years later in Chicago.

Bad behavior, illegal behavior, arrogance? I was guilty of that, but my work as a changer accomplished the intended goal: the roper got thrown off my bike territory. He wasn’t going to bother me again when I rode, but the incident brought more legal scrutiny than ever.

Chapter 25) The-sex-try
Chapter-26) Followed by-the-police
Chapter 27) A rape trap
Index of chapters