Off the seat of a bicycle
Chapter 37)  Fifteen policemen block the door

The big court day arrived and I met my lawyer at his office and we walked over to the courthouse together. I brought a toothbrush as instructed, and he took me to a seat half way back in the empty courtroom where I sat and waited.

There were no nerves; I was calm but calmly pissed at being constrained for riding a bicycle the way I wanted in a free country … especially since car drivers drove however they pleased.

An hour passed then my lawyer hurried out from the judge’s door. He said excitedly, ‘they changed their minds’ and I would plead guilty to running one stop sign and pay a fine … and then he added, ‘the judge is going to chew your ass out.’ It was a pretty good day.
 
They brought me before the Judge. I knew him from before and thought him very respectable. He knew many of the people I worked for but I don't remember how I knew that. Then the chewing started and he boomed out, ‘if it comes to a choice between you, and my family, it’s going to be you,’ implying he would run over me with his car.

Well bull shit, what else is new, a car driver is threatening to run over a bicyclist. But suddenly I recognized those beady eyes. The Judge was the guy speeding in that little car on First Street about 4 o’clock one afternoon. The driver of that car glared at me after I tried to run the red light out ahead of him but couldn’t make it and pulled off into the parking lot instead.

The Judge was speeding and breaking the law, and he glared at me for trying to break a law that I didn’t break, and now he was threatening to run over me. How fucking original is that?

Back at him in a voice festered with the worst blighted sarcasm, I curled out, ‘I would fully expect that.’ Which is exactly true. My lawyer’s mouth went agape, and then he bowed his head back to the judge. I looked at the stenographer, the Judge, and my lawyer and everybody was real quiet.

My big mouth.

The Judge looked down for a long time … but no more lecture this time, we both had our say … and now he put this big wide finger on the benchtop and tapped it 4 times in cadence to the words, saying, ‘one more ticket … for anything a policeman decides … in the next nine months … and you will go straight to jail for six months.’ I believed him, and my lawyer said, ‘thank you your honor.’

I paid the fine and my lawyer quickly ditched me, and then I walked down a flight of steps leading to the main entrance hall. This is where the story transforms into a bizarre social ritual.

At the far end of the entry hall, stretching across the top of the exit stairway and blocking my path were at least 15 policemen, 2 deep along the whole line, all of them looking at me. I broke into a smile when I first looked up and saw them, but regained myself quick and threw on my bicycle face and manner: all business now.

It is too strange to say what happened next, so I won’t try, but I guess it’s fair to say they had seen me spitting. On the flip side they also heard I was not going to take their intentional assaults on the road. My guy stepped back at the last moment and let me pass, and I yodeled a silly ‘howdy’ as I stepped down past the next officer.

Good god, I walked out and got on my bike and went riding.

The police stopped me twice during the next two weeks, but they were asking questions like, why did I do this? Why did I move to the center lane along Fifth Street? It’s because pedestrians walk out between parked cars and sometimes car doors open. I was actually impressed with their questions, but more so because they were listening … or maybe it emptied out the other side of their head, who knows. However that town has bike lanes now.

Nine months was never going to find me without a ticket because the police were dogging my usual routes, so I packed everything in two boxes and took the train to Chicago to live with my father. And that turned out to be a good thing.

Chapter 38) Chicago and the long miles
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