Stopped And Frisked
Unlawful And Disorderly. Running time 55 minutes 10 seconds. Season six. Episode four. Countdown from ten seconds on the last commercial and fade from black into the show opener.
SCENE ONE
i refuse to go to court when summoned on the summons i get. i usually go when the warrant is used as an apb and the next time i’m stopped by the puh-leez they arrest me and they escort me to court like i’m Al fucken Capone. The judge will have an exasperated look on his face, the assistant da will feel satiated, the cop will get a pat on his head.
CUT TO:
The show opening credits theme music with a montage of the just-us shit-stem in full affect. (The show is about me but i am not in the opening credits.) Freeze frame zoom in of the judge, the assistant da and the cop on the steps of a court house with a superimposed american flag blowing over them and the title Unawful and Disorderly. Again i am nowhere to be found in the closing shot even though i came up with the title for the show.
COMMERCIAL BREAK. This part of the show is paid for by Tylenol, Chevrolet, McDonald’s, the Gap, the US Army, and Master Card because it’s for everything else.
SCENE TWO: FLASHBACK
Because they caught me flaunting their law, they caught me not giving a fuck. They caught me when i was headed east on first avenue making that left on twenty-third street to go north. It’s a new regulation. The sign had been there for a year (so they say). I have been driving on twenty-third street going east to first avenue for 23 years but not in the past year so i guess i never looked for it. Besides it didn’t make sense to make a no left turn on first avenue from east bound on twenty-third street. So fuck it.
COMMERCIAL BREAK. This time the preceding part of the show is paid for by Cialis, Ford, Burger King, Old Navy, the US Navy, American Airlines and Clean Coal.
SCENE THREE
The judge, the assistant da, the cop will all feel like something has been accomplished, like they’re straightening out something crooked. The world has been put to right by putting a foot in my ass with the enforcing of the misdemeanors that make the world go round.
It’s no effort on my part to feel disinterested by it all, no effort at all. The effort is all in the shaping of my rage into an aura of violence. i do this because they have not yet found a way to outlaw an aura of violence. i know this because if it were against the law i would have been charged, happily pled guilty and done the time. They have also not yet outlawed rage but then again those laws could be on the books and these judicial clowns may not know that and so i may be getting away with it based on their ignorance.
Either way i do my best to inflate my aura to let this violence fill the court room to let them sow the seed they planted. All the while i’m polite and outwardly compliant, the aura of my rage is blooming into a psychic violence. This is confusing for them and if the docket weren’t full with a long list of misdemeanor that need to be charged, they would figure it out, but who has time to prosecute anger? That should have been handled earlier with a beating by the cop for “resisting arrest”, but unfortunately, that ship, has sailed now.
COMMERCIAL BREAK. This portion of the show brought to you by a reality cop show, Citibank, a reality show about someone who got famous for being on a reality show, Verizion, a reality show about people who don’t get along as roommates and Pork, the other white meat.
SCENE FOUR
Because i’m a bit player in this badly written shit-com and this story is about me, it’s more than irksome to see the judge and the assistant da and the cop get all the shine. They all have starring roles despite their obvious lack of talent. Cue the fucken laugh track.
Three hours, twelve hours, twenty-six hours of life that i’ll never get back. i could have been illegally painting the side of a wall and watching it dry. i could have been reading Traffic Violations by Rev. Pedro Pietri. (They don’t let you read in court, if they catch you they reprimand you and if you do it again because you forgot because it’s sooooooo fucken boring in court then they take your book away and the bailiff burns it.) i could be at the movies. i could be eating a ham and cheese sandwich. i could be at home with my dog licking my face. i could be driving around NYC blissfully breaking more laws in an unaware state as i listen to RICANSTRUCTION. But nooooooo, i have to be in court with the seconds that make up my minutes that make up my hours that make up my days that make up my life. All wasted never to be seen or had again.
Forgot to go to a COMMERCIAL BREAK. This part of the show is brought to you by my fuck you to the state.
SCENE FIVE
i’m not worth the effort of a jail sentence. Even the judge and the assistant da are aware of the overcrowding situation in prison. The assistant da thinks i don’t see him when he writes a post it note to remind to himself to ask the governor to build another privatized prison upstate. Anyway my incarceration would cost the state too much, the better idea would be to make me pay for this privilege they call judicial prudence. So it’s $150 for the summons plus the $80 state surcharge. That state surcharge is weird to me. Isn’t the money already going to the state? i keep my mouth shut because it’s a world of hurt to get into those illogical reasonings. It’s like an invitation to your own beheading.
Just then i notice above the head of the judge the “o” in god we trust is missing this is too much. Just too much. Is that what the state surcharge is going to fill in? The void of the “o” in God? Can i continue without falling to the floor holding my gut, laughing hysterically? Stay tuned.
COMMERCIAL BREAK. A drug for restless leg syndrome, Lockheed Martin protecting us from something and creating jobs in the US somewhere, Sunoco has gas that cleans your engine, Life insurance for non smokers for a dollar a month, and a new mop that squirts. i don’t know, i’m not paying attention anymore, i can’t afford it, i have $230 in fines to pay.
SCENE SIX
When can you pay the judge asks i say two weeks but i won’t pay for six because i can go six weeks without getting arrested after that it gets dicey. After that, it’s like a $8.99 all you eat buffet in Vegas but the house always wins.
This is not the worst part of it. The worst part is coming home listening to people who love you and who you love back tell you how much they agree with your resistance but want you to comply with the role that you were literally cuffed into, in this theater of absurdity, adapted for television and commonly known as a shit-com but shot like a game show and classified as an anti-drug Public Service Announcement. The announcer under a blinking applause sign, introduces the show “THIS IS YOUR LIFE – ON LAW ENFORCEMENT!” Cue the fucken laugh track.
COMMERCIAL BREAK. Mute button. i just watch the pretty images and add my own soundtrack. It’s an exercise in imagination. i just want to flex my creativity muscle. It’s difficult to do because i know that BP is talking about how quickly they are paying for the oil spill, i know that the Red Cross is looking for donations for Japanese tsunami victims, i know that the Marines are looking for a few good men, i know that Exxon-Mobil is talking about how much they are spending on renewable energy, i know that the Snuggle blanket will keep my girlfriend warm and help keep the ConEd gas bill down… i know this. All of this. But all i can think of is the assassinated hours and the $230 i owe. And it strangles my imagination and makes my creativity muscle weak.
SCENE SEVEN
This is where they win. In the division it creates between the people who love you and you love back. This where the judge and the assistant da and the cop get the last laugh. Cue the sad melody.
My girlfriend who has proved her love to me on a constant and consistent basis for these many many years will argue with me because i cannot contain the frustration of this shit-uation and she will pick up on the toxic bad vibe infection that the laughter of the judge, assistant da and the cop made airborne. We will argue about something completely unrelated to my adventures in the just-us shit-stem and this will be a wedge driven between us.
i can’t help but feel that theses attempts by the state to make it seem like i am a reckless fool with the woman i love are the real punishment that is administered for a no left turn on twenty-third street and first avenue. But that could just be my own paranoia. Or a sad attempt to place the blame elsewhere when it’s me at fault.
COMMERCIAL BREAK. Our supporters in this installment of our show brought to you by Ameritrade, Lending Tree, 1-800-LAWYERS, ProActiv, AARP Reverse Mortgage, the US Air Force, Budweiser and BMW.
IN NEXT WEEK’S EPISODE…
SPOLIER ALERT! This is how it ends.
SCENE EIGHT
This is where i’m caught acquiescing to the theater of absurdity that they call justice in an effort to ease the minds of the people who love me and who i love back. The people who worry that one day i’ll never make it to the precinct or the courthouse because a cop will shoot me for not assuming a position in which i can be more easily violated.
This is where the ones i love and who love me back worry for me, worry i will be murdered by a puh-leez officer for resisting authority for authorities sake because there is an “A” with a circle around it tattooed to my left wrist that frees me from such indignities. But i guess he didn’t get the memo at roll call.
The cop will admit to killing me saying that as i pulled my hands from my pocket he could see the threat of an equal symbol tattooed on my right wrist and that equality was just too much of a threat to his superiority so he shot first so that he didn’t need to ask questions later.
And so i will not add to my $230 bill with a funeral at Ortiz Funeral Home on Havemeyer in Williamsburg Brooklyn, that will have the ones who i love and who love me back crying over a closed casket. i will hold my end of the bargain and not give the state an excuse to kill me… just yet. i will find another way to resist. Maybe in a pom.
Cue the laugh track. Roll the credits. FADE TO BLACK.
– vagabond
Shortlink: http://wp.me/p1eniL-3I
PS Check out the photos of Sam Lahoz he’s a talented photographer…
#nothingtobegainedhere 
I’m sure that if they are lucky enough to find you in front of your building, they would deal with that aura of violence you speak of as you pull out the wallet to offer up the ID they ask for. As bad as it is for business (court fees and such), it keeps those few good men from those commercials sharp with their “tools of the trade” that they learned to use defending the oil companies from the other commercials.