BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

On a recent episode of Castle, ABC’s “Moonlighting-esque” pseudo-police procedural, quick-witted “dramedy” – well, recent as of this writing which is somewhat in advance of official posting – author Richard Castle, portrayed by Nathan “Cap’n Tightpants” Fillion, was discussing with his homicide detective “partner” the life changing events that had brought them both to this point in their lives. “This Point” being what led them to be fascinated with murder and solving the mysteries surrounding same. His partner, Detective Kate Beckett, portrayed by Stana Katic, came to her profession due to the fact that her mother had been murdered. When the question was posed to Castle, he related an intricate story about his childhood and discovering the corpse of a playmate on a beach.

In response to this, Beckett is sympathetic at first, and rightfully so given the power of the tale, and the emotional response it evoked. However, within moments she asks something to the effect of, “Wait, did you just make that up?” To which Castle grins and replies, amazed that she would even have to ask, “It’s what I do.”

And so, we have the crux of the story here – “It’s what I do.”

The absolute truth of the matter is that I have stated that EXACT sentence countless times over the past decade. I’m a writer. A fiction writer. I make crap up all the time. It’s what I do…

Now, before you get the idea that I am taking them to task about this, I am most certainly not. I have yet to don an aluminum foil hat because I don’t in any way believe that someone is reading my thoughts or even following me around writing down what I say to use in TV shows. After all, the aforementioned phrase isn’t exactly some utterly unique combination of words – hell, one could even say that it was yet another homage to Fillion’s role in the series Firefly, more specifically the resulting movie, Serenity, as early in the movie he says to another character, “It’s what I do, darlin’… It’s what I do.”

Be that as it may, when it comes to making up stories, just like the fictional author Richard Castle, this real life author makes a living at it too – that’d be me, just in case I’ve lost you somewhere along this barnyard chicken chase…

There are those times, however, when also like Castle sitting across from Beckett, making stuff up is for reasons other than a paycheck. Sometimes it’s to whitewash over a painful truth (although I don’t recommend this reason, as it just gets messy and even more painful), or more importantly, in my case, to flex the neurons and keep the old brainpan engaged and entertained. Such was the case this past November 6…

E K, the o-spring, and I set out for Kansas. Not in search of Auntie Em, Dorothy, Ruby Slippers, Tornadoes, Toto, or even Wheat. Actually, a good friend was getting married and we were making the jaunt to attend the ceremony and following reception type festivities. I had dropped him a note letting him know we would be leaving STL bound for the KC area around 11:30AM. Unfortunately, we were delayed by about an hour. Not really a big deal. We still had plenty of time since things weren’t getting underway until 8 PM, however, when we didn’t arrive on schedule as expected, our friend, Duane, began to worry. Also unfortunately, due to recently losing his cell phone, Duane had also lost both E Kay’s and my cell numbers. Therefore, he did the only thing a panicky groom could do – he surfed over to a mutual friend’s Facebook page and left a note. And this, my dear readers, is where the snowball of “it’s what I do” began to form. Therefore, if we step back and look at what ensued in the proper perspective, it’s really all Duane’s fault. But, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself…

Within a very short few minutes after Duane left the above comment/message for Johnathan, we walked through his front door in Lenexa, KS. Of course, we were almost immediately subjected to a tongue lashing over not having called to say we were running late, whereupon E K kicked him really hard in the nether regions and asked him if he would really like to continue being so disrespectful to her. His response was a somewhat high-pitched “no”, whereupon she made him kiss her feet while he apologized profusely for daring to raise his voice to her supreme redheadedness. Still, as evil as she is, since he was getting married she had an attack of compassion and allowed him to live. She did, however, add the caveat “for now.” She then made certain the bride-to-be had her cell number on speed dial in case she needed her assistance in teaching Duane the proper hierarchy in the relationship. After all, E K is an expert and putting men in their place, which is usually somewhere in the general vicinity of the floor, or tied up in the basement, of course.

Then, the real fun began, and it didn’t even have anything to do with E K torturing Duane…

My phone did its little vibro dance and chirped out a metallic ding to notify me of an incoming text message. What you are about to read, with a bit of commentary added, are the actual text messages exchanged over the following hour…

5:04 PM Fri, Nov 6

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It’s Rhonda. Do-Wayne is on FB freaking customer you’re late. Give him a buzz, please. KTHXBAI!

5:04 PM Fri, Nov 6

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Damn this phone…. “freaking BECAUSE you’re late” ….stupid dictionary change my words….

Rhonda is another mutual friend. I love Rhonda like a little sister and her husband Dave like a little brother. And, I also love making stuff up to screw with them because they are both so good-natured about enjoying a well woven prank. Therefore, I had no choice but to reply with:

5:07 PM Fri, Nov 6

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You got access 2 cash? EK arrested

Her reply told me that the start of my story was misunderstood.

5:12 PM Fri, Nov 6

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Yeah, like I’d bail him outta that one. What’d he do THIS time?

Since Rhonda also knows Duane, she naturally assumed he had done something to antagonize The Evil Redhead, as he so often does, and that he was the one wearing handcuffs. After all, E K does have the “sexy dominatrix cop” costume from Halloweens past, and she’s not afraid to use it. I hastened to straighten out that particular point, lest the story forming in my head go unused, which would have been a crying shame…

5:14 PM Fri, Nov 6

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No hon kat in shawnee cty jail

5:15 PM Fri, Nov 6

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Ah. What’d SHE do?

At this point, even with it being a text message, I could sense that Rhonda was merely playing along, fully expecting my reply to be a punch line. However, my brain had been atrophying due to watching asphalt slip by the window for over 4 plus hours. It needed a bit of exercise and the story treadmill was already running. I couldn’t stop now… I mean, after all, it was a moral imperative that I see it through to a satisfactory conclusion.

As my mind raced, I also remembered something important – Whenever texting I tend to be meticulous about forming coherent sentences with full words. I’m just not the type to do text speak, unless I’m in a big hurry. It was obvious to my runaway gray matter that in order to be convincing, now would be one of those frantic times and I needed to start texting like a twenty-something.

5:18 PM Fri, Nov 6

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Argued w cop wtg 4 call frm atty

That prompted a query which told me I was on the right track…

5:21 PM Fri, Nov 6

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I’m assuming you’re yanking my chain, as you are apt to do…

As I suspected, Rhonda wasn’t going to go down without a fight. Not a problem. I was expecting as much. Besides, what fun would this be unless there was a bit of a challenge?

5:22 PM Fri, Nov 6

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I wish

My reply kept things rolling…

5:24 PM Fri, Nov 6

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I’ll need more convincing before I haul ass off this couch….

Now it was time to pull out some stops. We did a frantic search for a pair of handcuffs so that we could stage a mock arrest out on the street in front of Duane’s house that I could capture with my cell phone camera, then picture message to Rhonda. Unfortunately, E K had left her cuffs at home. Besides, we didn’t have a cop car or cop on hand to enhance the photo. I was going to have to paint the picture with words, and since that’s… yeah… what I do… I decided to become suitably distracted and leverage Rhonda’s imagination against her.

5:26 PM Fri, Nov 6

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Cant talk atty

I set it up…

8 minutes later I kicked the chair out from underneath the noose…

5:34 PM Fri, Nov 6

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F*ck! Hlding her ovr 4 bail hrng mndy

A minute after that, my phone dinged. Even the mechanical sound and jittery vibration of the electronic device came across as concerned and frantic. I read the screen, and announced to the audience sitting about the living room that the hook was set, the catch reeled in, and it was time for the reveal, because Rhonda had sent…

5:35 PM Fri, Nov 6

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We can get about a grand, probably…let me know.

Now, I need to point out something that is very important to this entire endeavor. Had this been executed in a different fashion, with me being the one behind the bars, I would have never been able to pull it off. You see, I started out being the cool writer guy and friend, but before long the redhead had taken my place. Yes. For some reason, Rhonda and Dave worship the ground she walks on. What this irresistible power she has over folks happens to be, I have no idea. My best guess is that it’s the red hair. In any event, at this point they were actually willing to scrape together cash and beat feet to wherever we were in order to rescue the redhead from the evil clutches of the local constabulary. Had the tables been turned, I’m betting it would have been more like, “You’re in jail? HA! Sucks to be you…”

Okay, just kidding. But not about the part where they literally worship the redhead, because they do and that’s what helped make the story work. While they wouldn’t have really just blown me off as far as being in jail, the joke would never have progresses beyond “Yeah, right, not buying it” had E K or Duane ostensibly been texting them that I was the “arrestee”.

At this juncture I made a voice call – something I would have done to begin with had this been real, not to mention that I would have been calling my attorney not my non-attorney friends. After all, this is definitely not something one handles via text message and we simply do not hit up friends for money over anything, period. It’s not how E K and I work.

Either way, after a single ring I connected with a somewhat frantic Rhonda. After weaving a bit more of the tale about how we’d been pulled over, E K had argued with the cop, then gone ballistic and started slapping him around which resulted in her arrest, I paused for effect.

I allowed her stunned silence to hang in the air for a moment or two, then let her off the hook, because even though Duane wanted to get back on Facebook and see how much farther we could take the prank, I’m nowhere near as Evil as EKay, and wasn’t willing to torture Rhonda any more than I already had. Especially since her husband, Dave, was in the background having a nervous breakdown while putting everything they own up for sale on Craigslist in order to raise bail money while simultaneously plotting a prison break. After all, this was only a joke and it was time for it to end before it got out of hand.

Besides, like I said, for some odd reason these two absolutely worship The Evil Redhead and we didn’t want them skulking about in the darkness trying to break her out of a jail she wasn’t even in…

And so, Rhonda called me a few choice names. We shared a good laugh. She made some threats that I am reasonably certain she learned from EKay, called me some more unrepeatable names (unrepeatable because I’m not even sure what some of them mean), and then we shared some more laughs…

A few minutes later while we were still waiting for the wedding hour to arrive, I felt compelled to warn Rhonda of impending bloggage…

5:45 PM Fri, Nov 6

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You know this is blog material

5:50 PM Fri, Nov 6

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Yeah

5:52 PM Fri, Nov 6

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Srsly 😀

5:53 PM Fri, Nov 6

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Poopie head….

While normally this would be the end, Rhonda decided to fire a parting shot…

5:56 PM Fri, Nov 6

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Plotting your demise as we speak….

But, I was ready for that one…

5:59 PM Fri, Nov 6

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You don’t scare me I’m married to EK 😉

There was only one response Rhonda could make to that trump card…

6:05 PM Fri, Nov 6

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Pbbbbbbbbbbb!

:-p’.

I suspect Rhonda and Dave will plot something good. These are some wayyyy smart cookies we’re talking about here. And, I’m certain it’ll be funny for all involved. Of course, if they get E K in on it, I might end up with a few size 7 stiletto heeled pump shaped bruises up and down my body, but what’s new about that? Like I told Rhonda, I’m married to E K – that’s par for the course.

Still, my friends should bear in mind something ultimately important about the whole making up stories thing:

It’s what I do…

More to come…

Murv

PS. BTW, if you aren’t already watching Castle, you should be.

Part 1 of 2

We don’t have an Alice’s Restaurant here in town. I wish we did… Then I could write a song about my little story here and be famous like Arlo Guthrie. But alas, we don’t, so no Thanksgiving Dinner that can’t be beat for me… Well, that’s not actually true, but the person who generally prepares it is named Liz… Or, every other year, me… Just not Alice… I did actually know an Alice once, but she never cooked for me, so I don’t think she counts…

Either way, once upon a time we had a place called Charlie’s. Served the best biscuits and gravy this side of the Mississippi, outside of homemade of course. But, unfortunately, Charlie’s is long gone. I think a plumbing outfit is in that spot now (see footnote)…

But, I’m getting off the subject, as usual…

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, or happen to be a Facebook friend, you’ve more than likely noticed my recent tweets / status updates lamenting the fact that I recently had to deal with a bogus traffic ticket.

And, that’s the subject I am going to focus on here…

You see, this blog entry is all about Adventures In Night Court… Not the old Night Court with Harry Anderson… After all, Anderson and Larroquette were a riot, and Markie Post… Well… Let’s just say she made the screen a whole lot of fun to look at in addition to being funny.

No, the Night Court I’m talking about wasn’t funny. It was an annoying waste of 3 hours for me. Of course, it probably will be funny once I get done writing about it, because I am going to endeavor to tell you about the weird that went on during my 180 minutes in close proximity to Hell. But, as usual, that remains to be seen. Guess I’ll just have to start writing and see what happens…

Now, to properly grasp the reason I visited Hell’s waiting room – also know as the City of Saint Ann Municipal Court – we have to start at the beginning. Wouldn’t you know it, the beginning involves Hell House… Please note, that the name of the city has NOT been changed, because very simply the citation is a matter of public record… And, in that public record is the City of Saint Ann Missouri’s side of the story. Not mine. Therefore, here you have my side, being made a matter of public record as well. I did, however, change the names of individuals involved just because I’m a nice guy. The real names are a matter of public record too, but I really doubt any of you will go look them up.

And, also for that record I’m sure you will note that my story is flip and punctuated with observational satire.  Otherwise this would just be me griping about getting a ticket… However, since the officer involved elected to try his hand at writing fiction I thought I’d try my hand at writing reality. I just figure I’ll make it funny so it’s worth reading…

To make a long story short, back in early October Scuba and I ventured off to “The Depot,” better known as “Home Depot,” in order to obtain some materials necessary to the completion of a project or two over at Hell House.  One of these items was a long section of wire rack shelving for a closet. We put it into the bed of my truck, along with the other materials, then secured it firmly in the center, jutting out at an upward angle so as to not present a hazard to other motorists. It was long, and it hung over the rear of the vehicle, as one would expect. We looked around for flag material, but found none (I forgot that I had a plastic, orange emergency flag under the seat in the cab, but we’ll get to that in a bit…)

So, we couldn’t find a flag, however, in the state of Missouri, per Missouri Vehicle Regulations, revised statutes (August 28, 2009) section 307.170 item 5 – Projections on vehicles:

All vehicles carrying poles or other objects, which project more than five feet from the rear of such vehicle, shall, during the period when lights are required by this chapter, carry a red light at or near the rear end of the pole or other object so projecting. At other times a red flag or cloth, not less than sixteen inches square, shall be displayed at the end of such projection.

The piece of shelving projected 4 feet 10 1/2 inches from the back of the truck. We knew it would be prudent to have a flag, however, we also knew full well that we were still perfectly legal, not to mention the oblique positioning of the item rendered it harmless to all around us (except perhaps extremely low flying aircraft… and I mean EXTREMELY LOW.) Furthermore, if one employed the Pythagorean Theorem, the actual end of the item was only projecting 4 feet 7 inches from the rear of the vehicle as measured parallel to the cargo box.  The point here being that while we were close to the limit, we were still legal, so off we went.

Just over two miles down the road – and oddly enough, just over two miles from our destination – flashy red lights appeared in my rear view mirror. The thing is, I had seen the police car traveling alongside us. I had watched him drift back and slide in behind us. I even told Scuba, “This cop is getting ready to pull us over.”

Officer JellyDonut, though I didn’t know his name at that particular moment, proceeded to follow along behind for several blocks. I began to wonder if perhaps I was wrong, because if he was going to pull me over he had plenty of opportunities to do so safely and with room for us to pull off the road. But alas, no, he elected to make the traffic stop. But, for some unknown reason he waited until I entered an intersection. He stopped at the white line, because as I entered the intersection the green light flipped over to yellow. In my rear view I saw him come to a halt. Then, as the light was going from yellow to red, he lit up his light bar and sped into the intersection to chase me down – what with me being a hardened criminal trying to make an escape and such.

Doing as one should do, I pulled over, immediately turning onto a side street so as to be out of traffic. I parked, shut off my vehicle, removed the keys from the ignition and placed them on the dash. I then extracted my license from my wallet, as well as my registration and insurance card, placing them on the dash as well. Then rolled down my window, and waited patiently with my hands in plain sight.

Officer JellyDonut extracted himself from his cruiser. And kept extracting himself from his cruiser… And kept extracting himself from his cruiser…

Eventually, when he had gathered himself and hitched his belt up underneath a belly that Santa Claus would have endeavored to reduce, he lumbered the 35 feet or so from his vehicle to mine. This took a good minute and a half if not longer. When he arrived at my window he was huffing and puffing as if he had just chased us on foot. To be honest, I wasn’t feeling particularly confident in his ability to protect and serve should the need truly arise.

I was immediately given the impression that he was angry with me for making him get out of his car, because the first words from his mouth (once he caught his breath) were, “Where’s your flag!”

“We don’t have one,” I replied.

“Why not?” he barked.

Scuba piped up. “We don’t actually need one, and we’re just going up the road.”

“That’s more than two feet!” the officer announced in a very agitated voice. “You have to have a flag on anything more than two feet.”

Now we knew we were screwed. Number one, we had ourselves a cop who either didn’t know the law or was making it up on the fly because he figured he could. Number two, we had a pissed off cop – probably because we interrupted his lunch, but that’s just speculation on my part – and when you have a pissed off cop you can’t even reason with them. Even my cop friends will tell you that. My only hope at this point would have been to distract him with a dozen donuts, but I didn’t have any on hand.

Besides, I was taught that you don’t argue with a police officer. Enough said.

At this point, although I had been more than cooperative as well as appropriately respectful and polite, Officer JellyDonut proceeded to announce in no uncertain terms, “I’m writing you a ticket! Give me your license and insurance card!”

By the way, the exclamation points punctuating the officer’s dialogue aren’t just there to end the sentences. Everything with him was an angry declaration.

Knowing that discussion was out of the question and that arguing would only serve to get me a pair of bracelets of the type I am only good with if E K is the one applying them, I kept my mouth shut other than to say, “Yes, sir,” which is pretty much what I had been doing all along except when other words were necessary due to a direct question. Each of those sentences, however, always ended with, “sir.”

After the arduous huffing and puffing 35 foot trek back to his vehicle, the officer piddled about calling in my license to make sure I wasn’t a hardened criminal who had gone around putting envelopes underneath piles of garbage. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about that. It’s part of the job and necessary – remember, I write books about cops and portray them as the good guys. I know what they are up against. I like cops. Some of my best friends are cops (hey, I couldn’t resist that last one)… However, there’s a bad apple in every bunch, whether it be rotten to the core or simply bruised and mushy. It seemed to me that what we had happened upon on this particular day was an entire barrel in and of itself that wasn’t even good enough for making cider.

So, on with the story. Unfortunately for Officer JellyDonut, he had not captured the Kowalski* of Saint Louis. I say unfortunately because this seemed to agitate him even more. He got out of his car, and got out of his car, and got out of his car (you get the idea) then rummaged about for several minutes in his trunk. Eventually he came to the back of my truck with a tape measure the size one might find in my wife’s purse – i.e. pretty small (make all the jokes you want she doesn’t use it for measuring that.)

Officer JellyDonut then proceeded to huff and puff around the back of my truck, bending the measuring tape, slapping it around, dropping it, wrapping it around things, and generally re-enacting a scene from a Three Stooges short.  With Curly or Shemp. Not Joe, although Joe had is good points.

But, moving right along…

Scuba and I watched the officer as he measured from several inches inside the cargo bed of my truck (as opposed to the actual rear of the vehicle  from whence the measurement was supposed to be made) to the far end of the piece of shelving, all while a nice, arcing droop fell along the middle of the tape. At one point Scuba even remarked, “Do you think I should go out there and offer to hold the stupid end for him?” (the stupid end, in case you haven’t already figured it out, is the start of the tape, as in end that doesn’t require reading.)

After several more minutes of huffing and puffing I was finally presented with a traffic citation to sign, which stated I was being charged with – “Reckless driving due to not having a flag on a load that extended more than 2 feet beyond the rear of the vehicle.” It also included the wholly inaccurate measurement of 5 feet 3 inches. Please make note – Per Officer JellyDonut himself, I wasn’t operating the vehicle in a reckless fashion other than the whole not having a flag thing, which legally I was not required to have in the first place.

Officer JellyDonut informed me that I had a court date of December 1st, but that if I wished to plead guilty I could just go by the City Hall any time before that and pay the fine. He then started the long trek back to his vehicle, whereupon I annoyed him even more by calling after him and asking for a copy of the citation, to which he replied – after staring at me for several seconds as if I was some sort of alien with three heads – “Yeah, I guess.”

Yeah, I guess? I can’t be positive about this but I’m pretty sure they are supposed to give you a copy of the ticket… But, I digress yet again…

It was about this time I remembered the emergency flag underneath my seat. I asked him if that would suffice to which he replied, “Maybe.” We won’t even go into his strongly implied threat that I might very well be pulled over again because the flag was safety orange instead of red.

Scuba and I attached the orange plastic to the load and climbed back into the truck to head on our way. I watched in the rear view as  Officer JellyDonut made a swift turn into the Burger King across from which we had been parked.

I guess with all that hiking and measuring he had worked up an appetite, and it was time for something that didn’t involve jelly, icing, or glaze…

More to come…

Murv

To be continued in Part 2: The Group W Bench…

Footnote: A little bit of trivia, just for the hell of it: Charlie’s, the Eat-Rite Diner (another Saint Louis institution), and a little mother-daughter run place in small town Michigan called “The Spot” were the combined inspiration for “Charlie’s Eats,” the diner frequented by Ben and Rowan in the RGI novels.

* Kowalski is the name of the main character in a cult classic movie titled, Vanishing Point. The character drives cars for a company and… well, either follow the link in the body above for a full synopsis, or watch the movie. I highly recommend option 2, but watch the 1971 original, not the remake.