Paper Chasers (20 page)

“Yo, we gotta get outta this car,” Randy informed us. “Holz, this is what you do. Make a right turn and if they turn with us, I want you to immediately turn the lights off and floor this jeep!”

For some reason I felt relaxed. I mean, under the circumstances I should have been pissing in my pants, but I wasn't nervous at all. Although the cops were following us, I felt as though we weren't gonna get caught. I followed Randy's instructions and made the right turn. And as expected the detectives made the turn with us.

“Go Holz, go! Floor this piece!” Randy screamed.

“Yo, just chill,” I said calmly. “They're not gonna pull us over.”

“Yes they are!” Latiefe yelled. “Yo, Holz, lose them!”

“Yo, we're gonna get caught if I try to outrun them. This big truck ain't fast enough.”

“Well, just drive this thing as fast as you can,” Randy instructed. “I need some way to throw this gun out the window. I ain't trying to get bagged with this gun on me!”

Latiefe then informed me that he had an ounce of coke on him, which of course only stood to make matters much worse. By the second, things just kept falling apart for us.

“Yo, Holz,” Latiefe said, “I gotta get rid of this work! Lose those pigs so that I can throw this work out the window! If we get caught for a stolen car, we'll get off, but if we get caught with a gun and drugs, we're going up North!”

“OK, OK, a'ight, check it, I'ma make another turn, and if they turn with me, I'm gonna pull over, get out, and ask them for directions like I'm lost.”

“Man, are you crazy!” Randy screamed out in disbelief. “If that ain't the most jackass backward move! That won't work! Don't you know that they probably already know that this car is stolen? With all that damn noise we made in the driveway, the people in that house probably saw us taxing their jeep and called the cops. Holz, all I know is that if we go to jail because you didn't try to outrun these pigs, man, I'm gonna hold your butt cheeks open for the cat that rapes you!”

I remained silent as I turned onto Springfield Boulevard. In the daytime Springfield Boulevard was always crowded with cars. But at night there were certain stretches along Springfield Boulevard. that were usually deserted. I drove down the boulevard and the cops were still tailing us. Although the cops didn't tell me to, I pulled over to the curb.

“Gotdamn it! Holz, what the hell are you doing? Drive this car! We still dirty! We didn't get rid of the heat or the blow!” Latiefe screamed like he'd lost his mind.

“Just chill! I'm gonna play it off like I'm using the payphone. If they step to me, I'll talk us out of any trouble.”

“Oh my gawd!” Latiefe said as he clenched his teeth. “What the . . . that's not gonna work! Yo, I can't believe that we're gonna go to jail because of this nigga! Yo, Holz, drive this car!”

“I can't do that,” I said. “I already pulled to the side and it'll definitely look too suspicious if I all of a sudden pull off and start driving again.”

“Well, yo, do this. Just sit in the car, because you know that they are gonna stop right behind us, and as soon as they get out of their car and start approaching our car, that's when you hit the accelerator and that will definitely give us enough time to dump this gun and these drugs, plus if we have to we would even have enough time to drive a few blocks and then get out and run on foot,” Randy said, sounding anxious and nervous.

“Nah, nah, trust me I got this,” I said as I prepared to step out of the truck.

Just as I was stepping out of the Blazer, the cops pulled up right behind us. They put their red flashing light onto the dashboard of their car to let us know that they indeed were cops.

I could hear the sound of thumping hearts coming from inside the stolen Blazer.

I calmly proceeded to walk to the payphone. The phone was located on the corner of Springfield Boulevard and Westgate Avenue, right in front of Montebello Park. As I picked up the telephone's receiver, one of the detectives spoke tome.

“Put the phone down right now.”

The other DT shined his flashlight into the truck so that he could see exactly who was inside. The DT that had told me to put the phone down showed me his badge while he informed me that he was detective Mark Schienbart and that his partner was named Darryl Gates. They were with the 105th police precinct.

“Oh word,” I said sounding very cheery. “Your name is Mark? That's my name. What a coincidence.”

Unfortunately, he didn't find that to be a conversation starter.

“Oh, that's nice,” he replied. “So, Mark, let me see some papers. Do you have a driver's license?”

By this time the other detective had come over to where I was standing.

“Detective Daryll Gates,” he surprisingly and somewhat politely introduced himself. “Do you have a registration and insurance card for that vehicle?”

“Yes, I do. It's in the glove compartment. Do you wanna see it?” I asked, thinking quickly.

“Yes, we would love to see it,” Detective Schienbart arrogantly and somewhat sarcastically responded. “But first I want to see your driver's license.”

I showed him my license. He examined it real closely, and I guess he wanted to test to see if it was authentic or not, because he started to quickly grill me.

“What street do you live on?” he asked.

“234th Street,” I responded.

“How tall are you?”

“I'm six feet.”

“What's your eye color?”

“Brown.”

“What's your date of birth?”

“June 14.”

Finally he stopped with the quick line of questions, which were designed to try to see if I would slip up, and to see if I came across as nervous.

“OK, Mr. Holsey, now let's see the registration, if you don't mind.”

I was desperately trying to think of a way to buy us some time. I was willing to try anything in order to have us avoid being arrested.

“Can I use the phone first?” I asked. “I mean, that is why I pulled over.”

“No, you can't use the gotdamn phone! Now let me see the friggin' reggie and the friggin' insurance card!” Schienbart yelled.

Don't ask me what the heck friggin' means, but apparently it is some type of white slang, because angry white men are always using it.

“But it's a very important phone call,” I said, stil trying to buy some time. I then went to reach for the phone and begged as if I was trying to sound like a white boy. “Oh, c'mon. It'll only take a second.”

“Look, you little black nigger, you and your nigger friends will be making phone calls from jail if you don't let me see the registration and the insurance card right now!”

The detectives had us, and they knew it. Their actions were so cocky, it made me sick to my stomach. Other than calling me a nigger, they were being way too polite. In the past, whenever we hadn't done anything wrong and they pulled us over, they would always harass us. They would throw us on the floor and all of that. Now it was different. They didn't even make Latiefe and Randy get out of the car. I suppose that they wanted to savor the arrests that they were about to make.

Again, for some strange reason, I still wasn't as nervous as I should have been, but I would be lying if I said that my heart rate didn't increase. Reality was quickly setting in, because I knew that I was running out of both time and excuses. I walked to the passenger side of the Blazer in an attempt to reach into the window. The DT was breathing right on my back with his hand near his gun. Just as I was about to pretend as though I was reaching into the glove compartment for the paperwork, I wisely paused.

“Look, please don't shoot me or anything. I'm just gonna slowly reach into the glove compartment for the paperwork, a'ight?” I explained to the detective.

The detective didn't respond, so I took that as an OK to proceed.

“Yo, Holz, what's up, man? What did they say?” Latiefe nervously whispered as I stuck my head in the car.

“Nothing. They didn't say nothing yet. They want the paperwork. But, yo, they got us. They know that they got us,” I quickly whispered back.

Just as I was about to pull away from the window, Randy, who was sitting in the backseat, whispered back to me.

“Holz, on three, a'ight?”

“A'ight,” I replied as I looked Randy straight into his eyes, trying my hardest to use ESP. I then backed away from the Blazer. I walked back over near the payphone.

“Yo, um, I don't know, my pops must have taken the registration and the insurance card out of the car this morning, 'cause I can't find it,” I said to the cops.

“Oh, is that right?” Detective Schienbart asked very sarcastically.

“Yeah, that has to be it,” I said as if I was trying to win an Academy Award for Most Convincing Thug In A Street Drama.

“Mr. Holsey, this car was reported stolen about an hour or so ago. And it's registered to a Mrs. Jackson. You, of course, wouldn't know anything about that now, would you?” Detective Gates asked.

There was a pause for a moment. Dead silence.

I thought about bolting and running for my life and my freedom. I contemplated hitting one of the cops in the mouth with the phone receiver, but it was too late for that.

“All right, get up against the gate and assume the position. Play time is over!”

I tried to keep both of the cops' attention on myself. I figured that if I was at least able to keep them distracted, that would give Randy and Latiefe a chance to get away. There was no sense in all of us going to jail.

“Nah, nah! I'm tired of this harassment! I ain't assuming no position! What! What!” I yelled in an attempt to show up both cops.

“Get your hands up behind your head and spread your legs apart right now!” DT Gates yelled as he kicked my legs apart and pushed me against a fence. The other DT was talking on his walkie-talkie. I guess he was asking for a squad car to assist them in the arrest. I mean, after all, there were three of us that they had to haul in.

As I was being frisked, I purposely continued to resist. Again, I was hoping to at least free Randy and Latiefe. I couldn't believe they hadn't bounced by now! I didn't know what the hell they were doing, but they were blowing their chance.

“Yo, money, you don't gotta be grabbing all up on my nuts like that! I'm clean! I ain't got nothing on me. Damn! Y'all cats be buggin'!”

These cops were way too confident. In fact, they were forgetting that they were cops, and that was probably because they knew that they were about to make a big arrest. They probably only made the rank of detective based on the color of their white skin, 'cause, man, they were so dumb with their tactics.

“Pull your pants down. I wanna see what's under your ball sack!” Gates ordered as he rammed my face up against the park fence.

“What?” I asked. Even with all of my years of being harassed, that command was a new one for me.

“What the hell is under your balls? You got crack rocks? Let me know now!” Gates barked.

By this time Schienbart was off of his walkie talkie and he joined in on the crusade. He proceeded to sift through my belongings that Detective Gates had taken from my pockets, which at this time were on the ground.

“Where did you get all of this money from?” Schienbart asked.

I kept silent.

“Cuff him,” Schienbart said.

“Handcuff me for what?” I demanded to know. “What did I do?”

“Where did you get all of this cash from?” Schienbart asked again.

With my fingers interlocked in place behind my head, I turned slightly and looked at the cop.

“I worked for it. I work for the utility company. Can't a black man have a job? Or is that also against the law?”

As I said that, I glanced at Latiefe. It looked as if he had winked his eye at me, but it was dark and kind of hard to see with the glare from the street light. I then turned my head back toward the fence.

“Yeah, right!” one of the cops yelled while he slapped me upside my head. “No job pays an eighteen-year-old nigger that kind of money.”

While he was saying that racist mumbo-jumbo, I counted in my head.

“One thousand and one . . . one thousand and two, one thousand and three.”

As soon as I reached one thousand and three I heard either Latiefe or Randy make a hissing sound, sort of like when you're flirting with the opposite sex.

“Spsss, pssss, sssps.”

Being with the crew day in and day out for so many years, and based on my empirical wisdom and intuition, I knew at that moment to just hit the ground.

Right after the last “Sssps” sound, I instantly and violently dropped to the concrete and covered my head with my arms. I sort of squished and balled up into the fetal position. As I lay balled up on the ground, I heard the massive sound of shattering glass, followed by the sound of rapid gunfire.

The gun that was being fired sounded as if it was just spitting out bullets and it wouldn't stop. I felt a thump on my body. I then cautiously peeked up and saw that it was one of the detectives. He'd fallen on top of me after being shot! I tried to look to my left and I saw the other detective, Darryl Gates, fall to the ground!

As the sound of gunfire was still rapidly erupting, I could hear Schienbart groaning in pain as he continued to lie on top of me, sort of acting as my human bulletproof vest. As I lay underneath him, I didn't know who it was that was doing the shooting. I couldn't tell whether it was Randy or Latiefe. And to tell you the truth, I really didn't care who was pulling the trigger. I just knew to concentrate on keeping myself covered up, and to hope that I didn't catch a bullet. The detective still had bullets entering into his body as he lay on top of me.