Free North Fork by Wayne M. Johnston Page A

down.
    â€œGood morning,” he said.
    I just said “Hi” without looking directly at him. I had whiskeyon my breath and didn’t want him to smell it. I didn’t know what else to say. The last thing I wanted was to get in the car with him, which is what eventually happened. He asked me how I was doing, then started in about what a nice morning it was in that fake polite way public-authority people are supposed to use before they get the Harold look in their eye and grab you or point a gun at you and put the cuffs on. Okay, you should know I’ve had my run-ins with officers of the law, mostly town cops or Shelter Bay security guys who thought I was suspicious for various reasons at different times. None of it ever came to much. The only thing that stuck was an MIP which means Minor in Possession, and drinking is something everyone does, even cops. In fact, one of the cops that cuffed me got busted later for giving beer to an underage girl who just happened to be sitting in his car up in the park. I wonder what he was after. I had to go to court and pay a fine, but so have half the other people at school. That’s a big part of why I can’t drive.
    It was obvious that something weird was going on, so I’m standing there in the road trying to come up with a strategy, and this other cop car pulls up. The new guys get out of their car. They had pulled off the road in this open area near the sewer treatment plant, and they’re standing there with their hands on their guns. The first cop tells me to walk toward them, keeping my hands visible at my sides. By now, it’s clear I’m screwed somehow, and I start thinking about how I look, what a mess I am. I’m short, but I’ve been shaving since I was fifteen and I grow a pretty good crop of stubble over night. I combed my hair by the river but I didn’t have a mirror and it gets greasy when I sleep, especially if I’ve been drinking, which makes me sweat. I’d slept in my clothes. Not a good picture.
    As I walk toward the second cop car, my mind is flashing all over the place, looking for options and not finding any. Even though they are acting polite and wording their orders likesuggestions, it doesn’t take much imagination to see how quick the pretend politeness will disappear and guns will come out if I start running or even just try to ignore them and keep walking. So when they ask if I would mind getting in the car, I cooperate, and when they want to frisk me before I get in, I make a show of assuming the spread-eagle position with my hands on top of the car to let them know I think maybe they’re in the wrong movie, and I’ve got nothing to be afraid of.
    They took me straight into Mount Vernon. From the radio talk, I can tell the cop in the other car went by the house and told Harold and my mom where I was, and I was imagining Harold’s face at the door and how pissed he’d be. But at the same time he’d be sort of self-satisfied because he thinks I’m scum and this would help him confirm it. I still didn’t know what was going on. All they said was that they wanted to ask me some questions. They were still playing the polite game and hadn’t cuffed me or told me my rights like they would if they were arresting me.
    At the courthouse, which is also the police station, with the big new county jail across the street, they put me in this room like you’d see on a TV cop show where they question suspects. There was nothing there but a video camera mounted in a corner from the ceiling, a crappy-looking table, and some of those plastic chairs like they have in the library at school that are indestructible. The walls were, you guessed it, puke green, and there was the mirror that’s really a panel of one-way glass built into the wall.
    I needed to take a dump because it was morning and I hadn’t yet. I know it’s gross and you probably don’t want to read about it