Bad Good Friday

I used to love smoking weed. One of the best things about living in New York, to my young and dopey mind, was the relative ease with which buds could be secured. For a while, right after I moved to the city, I’d usually pick up from ‘street vendors’ around Washington Square Park and in Greenwich Village. Then I got arrested on Good Friday.

I’d just done the handshake with a guy who’d kindly offered to sate my jones. As I walked away, I heard a loud voice tell me to turn around. Lo and behold, there was one of New York’s finest holding a gun on the pharmacist I’d just handed money to. And, y’know, the mere sight of the firearm convinced me to do whatever my friend the cop wanted, and to do it in a timely and non-threatening a manner possible.

I got loaded into a police van with about a half-dozen other people, all black, except for one dude. None of the others seemed concerned over being in custody, especially not the cat who gave his name as Donald Duck when the presiding officer requested it. It was actually a pretty boisterous ride over to the precinct house.

Once we hit the cop shop, I got split off from the others, along with another guy. Maybe we got separated because we were buyers and not dealers. ‘Course, it could have just as easily been because we were white. Either way, I wasn’t complaining. I got issued a summons for a court date about a month later, and was sent off with a stern admonition against buying smoke on the street. Not against smoking it, just against buying on the public thoroughfares.

All in all, I thought I was having a pretty bad night. Twenty bucks down, with no weed to show for it, and arrested to boot. Not a happy trifecta, that. Then, the cop who’d arrested me came over, and started talking to the other white dude, saying that he, the cop, was gonna have to call the guy’s father. The guy pleaded with the cop not to, promising that never again would he be brought into this cop’s precinct house. After a couple of tense moments, the cop agreed, and headed back to his coply duties.

The guy caught my questioning look, and said, “Yeah, my dad was a cop, used to work with these guys.”

Damned if I didn’t feel a little better.