But I swear it was in self-defense

I noticed it's been a long time since I last posted anything here. I was reminded of a story recently, one that I haven't recounted here, and I thought I'd talk about it now.

Back in High School, there was this guy I considered my best friend. We remained friends for several years after graduation. I won't get into details, but I will say that I'm not friends with him any longer. I was in a real bad place mentally for a long time after High School, and I eventually realized this guy was the cause of all my problems, and I stopped hanging out with him. He never forgave me for it. I never wished any ill of the guy, and I still don't now. My only hope was that I never saw him again.

I don't want to name any names here, but I can see my story is going to get confusing if I only use pronouns the whole time. So, to protect the innocent, I'm going to use fake name from this point on.

A couple years after I stopped hanging out with Abe, my friend Bob asked me if I could do him a favor. He was friends with this guy Carl, who was dating a girl I'll call Alice. Bob was certain that Alice was cheating on Carl with Abe, but Carl didn't want to believe it. Bob was insistent, however, so Carl said that if Bob could prove that Alice was cheating on him, he'd dump her right then and there. Through random chance, Alice happened to live only a block away from me.

One fateful night, Bob was at my house, and I was getting ready to drive him home. I was in my early twenties at the time, and Bob was too young to drive, so this was a normal occurrence. On this particular night, Bob told me the whole story about Alice and Carl, and he was determined to get evidence that Alice was secretly seeing Abe. I should point out that Alice was even younger than Carl and Bob, and that Abe was my age, so if they were seeing each other, it was not only immoral, but illegal. This is why, despite the fact that I didn't want to get anywhere near Abe, I agreed to help Bob out.

Bob had me drive past Alice's house, and he spotted Abe's car outside. He saw this as his opportunity. He asked me to pull over so he could sneak around to the back of the house. I asked him what his plan was, and he pulled out a disposable camera and explained that he was going to get a picture of the two of them together. Then he got out of my car, camera in hand, and made his way to the back of the house.

He was gone for a while, long enough for me to listen to almost the entirety of "Damage, Inc." on my car stereo. I was just starting to get worried about him when he returned with a faint smile on his face. I asked Bob what had happened, but he only said that everything was fine, and asked me to take him home. I did so.

On my way home, I drove past Alice's house. As I said, we're practically neighbors, and it would have been out of my way to drive around her place on the way back to mine. to my surprise, there were police cars on the block, but I didn't think anything of it. At least, not until I drove past the squad cars, and saw that Abe was talking to them. I still didn't think anything of it until I saw Abe point me out to the cops as I drove by. Less than 100 feet away from my house, they pulled me over.

The next thing I know, I'm being asked to step out of my car. The cops ask me the normal questions, I.E. "Where are you going?" I explained I was going home. They asked where home was, and I pointed to it and said "The yellow one right there."

That seemed to put them off their stride. I guess hardened felons like me usually don't have houses within line of sight. They recovered quickly, however. They handcuffed me and stuck me in the back of a squad car. When I asked what was going on, they acted astonished that I didn't know, and informed me that I was an accessory to battery. I told them I had no idea what they were talking about, and they acted like they'd heard that one a million times, which they very well might have.

Abe, for his part, was enjoying all this immensely. He walked past the squad car I was sitting in, waved to me, and apologized. To this day, I have no idea what that was about. He wasn't, and as far as I know, still isn't mentally stable, so the apology could have meant anything. "Sorry I had to get you arrested," or "Sorry I lied to these cops that you committed a crime," or for all I know "Sorry I knocked over your lunch tray 5 years ago in the cafeteria." Whatever the meaning behind it, he did nothing to inform the cops that I had done nothing, and there was no reason for me to be sitting handcuffed in the back of a cop car.

Eventually, one of the cops got into the car, and asked me where Bob lived. By this point, I was wondering just what exactly, if anything, Bob had done. But I figured it'd be a good idea to be cooperative, so I said that while I didn't know Bob's address, I could direct them to the place.

We drove to Bob's house, and the cops all parked in front of it. I should mention at this point that I was living in Elmwood Park at the time, a suburb of Chicago. There were a good four or five squad cars involved in this, probably because it was the only interesting thing happening in the entire village.Anyway, they all parked, and got out of their cars, including the cop ferrying me around.

They all scrambled up the front porch, shining their flashlights in the windows, no doubt hoping to spot a gambling den or prostitution ring in the front room. They rang the doorbell, and waited. From where I was sitting, I could see that the light to Bob's bedroom was on. But since the window to his room was around the corner from the front door, only I saw it go off after the bell was rung. I wondered what that could mean.

Bob's mother came to the door in her bathrobe, it being the middle of the night. I couldn't see or hear what was going on from where I sat, but after a few minutes she broke off from the police and strode towards the car where I was. My window was down, and as she approached I could see she looked very distressed, and clearly was as in the dark as I was. She asked me what the hell was going on. I told her I had no idea, that I was going home, and that Abe...

I got no farther than that. As soon as I said Abe's name, Bob's mother flew off the handle. She knew Abe well enough to guess that something hinky was going on, and that he was framing Bob and me for something. She stormed back to her house, shouting that she was going to press charges on Abe for messing with her son, while the cops tried to calm her down.

I was even more confused than before, since it seemed that the cops hadn't found Bob at his house, even though I had dropped him off there maybe ten minutes earlier. The police were also confused, and the ones who weren't trying to talk Bob's mom down came to me and asked me again where Bob was. I told them I had no idea, that I had dropped him off here. As I said this, I had a fleeting image of him hiding in the basement for God only knows what reason. I kept that thought to myself.

The police were at a loss, and it seemed that they decided that they had to do something, so they took me to the police station. The officer who was driving the car I'd been put in took me into the station, and to the holding cell in the back. He cuffed me to the wall, and had me sit on a stool while he went through my pockets.

I carry a lot of stuff in my pockets, and a few of the items confused the officer. One of them was a small plastic object, L-shaped, with a canister at one end. He asked me what it was, and I told him, truthfully, that it was an emergency asthma inhaler. He looked at it doubtfully, then asked "Will you be needing it?" I told him that I didn't know, the whole point of it was that I had it on hand in case I had an attack. He stuck it in a paper bag with the rest of my belongings, and told me that he'd leave the microphone to the front desk on so that I could shout for it if I needed it. I considered pointing out that if I had an asthma attack, shouting for help wouldn't be easy, but I didn't want to try his patience. Besides, I was pretty sure I wouldn't need it.

The officer pulled out a couple sheets of paper and started reading questions off it. I guess it was some legal thing they had to do before locking anybody up, so I couldn't try and sue them or something. I don't remember most of the questionnaire, except for one part. His eyes fixed firmly on the papers, and his pen poised above them, asked me if I'd ever attempted suicide. I told him I hadn't. Still without looking at me, he asked me if I was considering suicide at the moment.

I couldn't help it. It seemed that all the tension of the last half hour had come to a head, and I couldn't take it anymore. The absurdity of the question in my situation was too much to take. I felt something break like a soap bubble inside me.

I started laughing. I laughed as if the question was the punchline to a joke he had spent the last 10 minutes carefully and expertly setting up. I laughed as if we were two guys in a bar sharing a pitcher, and not a police officer getting ready to throw someone in the tank.

The cop stole a quick glance at me as I laughed. Not a worried look, it was something between "answer the question" and "I know, it's a stupid question." I managed between chuckles to say "No," and he jotted the answer down on the paper with the grave solemnity of an undertaker making funeral arrangements.

We went through the rest of the questionnaire, and then he was ready to put me in my cell. He informed me that I had to remove my belt. I also had the choice of giving him my shoes, or my shoelaces. They were really serious about the suicide thing. I figured that taking off my laces was more trouble than it was worth, so I gave him my shoes.

Once I was safely behind bars, the cop asked me if I knew where Bob was. I said that I had dropped Bob off at his house, and I had no idea beyond that where he could be. Privately, I was wondering what the hell Bob was up to, and how he was hiding from the cops. I decided that I could try and help him buy some time, in case was cooking up some way to get the both of us out of trouble. And for about the umpteenth time, I wondered what I was supposed to have done.

I found out later that Abe had fed the cops some cock-and-bull story that Bob had beaten Abe up, and that I had either helped, or stood back and watched. It was the classic "my word against yours," and the police therefore had no interest in my claims that I had no idea what was going on. I hadn't even seen Abe before he fingered me, let alone aided and abetted while Bob jumped him.

So, the officer asked if I had any idea where Bob might be. I said I didn't. He asked me to think about it. So, I figured that if they were going to be that way, I'd lead them on a wild goose chase. I thought about the farthest away house I could that was still in Elmwood Park, and told them they might want to try Dan Smith's house. The officer didn't even ask for the address, but walked out. Dan's house, it seemed, was well known to the Elmwood Park Police Department. Considering some of the stuff that I know happened there, I'm not surprised.

Before he left, the officer reminded me that the microphone to the front desk was on, so that I could call for help if I needed it. Then he left, and I was all alone in a concrete and steel cell. Standing in my socks as I was, my feet got cold quick. Since there was no one else in there with me, I stretched out on the lone bench. To stave off boredom, I sang to myself. I was about halfway through the first verse of "I Shot The Sheriff" before I remembered that whoever was in the front of the station could hear me. I decided I didn't care. For all I know, they found it as morbidly appropriate as I did.

I don't remember what time it was when I was thrown in the cell, but it was before midnight. I sat in there until well after dawn the next day. It seems that about seven in the morning, Abe came into the police station to file a formal report, and finally admitted that I hadn't been around when the "crime" was committed. With nothing to hold me on, the police let me go. To their credit, they were nice enough to drive me back to my car. I moved it up a few spaces, parked it again, and went home. I was asleep in my own bed moments later.

I awoke several hours later to the sound of my phone ringing. I answered it, and it was Bob. With no preliminaries, I asked just what the in the hell had gone on last night. He seemed surprised, and asked me what I was talking about. I informed him that I had just spent the night in jail because of him. He was shocked. He'd just come back from the police station himself, having found out that they were looking for him. No one, not the police, or his mother, or anyone, had mentioned that I had been behind bars while they looked for him.

The full story, as it turned out, was this. Bob had gone around to the back of Alice's house, and spotted her and Abe kissing. He snapped a picture. They hadn't realized he was there until the flash went off, and then Abe jumped Bob. Bob was still holding the camera in front of his face, and Abe swung at it, breaking it against Bob's face. Bob retaliated, and the two scuffled briefly. As Bob made his retreat, Abe shouted that Bob had attacked him. Bob pointed out that Abe had swung first. Abe said he was going to press charges, and Alice said she was going to back his side of the story. Bob ignored them and returned to my car, whereupon I drove him home. He figured they were both full of hot air, and so hadn't told me about it.

No sooner had I dropped Bob off at his house and rounded the corner, when another friend of his, Edgar, had pulled up. He had been on his way to Denny's, and seeing Bob, had pulled over to see if he wanted to come with. Bob had agreed, and the two of them headed off for coffee and male bonding while I rotted in a cell. Needless to say, I was rather peeved to find that out.

The only real good thing about all this is that I have no police record. They never actually booked me, just "held me for questioning" or some other folderol. I wasn't officially arrested, or accused of a crime, so my record is clean. There might be a piece of paper in some file folder in the police department with my name on it. Then again, it might have been thrown out years ago. Either way, I'm clear of it.

And it does make a nice story to tell people. "Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I got arrested?"

-Long Days and Pleasant Nights