THE DECISION - PARTE THE LASTE
What the hell, right? She was in a crosswalk at a school. She backed into a crosswalk, saw people in it and then drove by close enough that putting my arms out, I hit her car. Let her take her lumps and maybe learn a lesson. And to use the word “Car” or “Van”. She wouldn’t let it go, she thinks she’s in her rights. Let the guys with the badge handle it.
So we sit down to wait. It’s midafternoon and it’s getting hotter, probably in the nineties. I buy the kids water. I’m hungry and I’d like to get home and do some work. I call the guy I’m working for to see if there’s anything pressing. I know there are some animation models waiting for me but being a freelance producer, I could work my own hours most of the time.
He’s aghast when I tell him the story and wants me to call him back and tell him what the police do.
I call Patricia and tell her what went on. She’s not aghast, just tired of the sum of the shitty parts of living there.
I see the Odyssey. It drives back and forth a couple of times. It drives off, then it drives back. She double-parks so she won’t have to get out of her car to talk to someone else in an equally ugly van.[1]Then she pulls into the teacher’s parking lot. She’s on the phone. I walk over and show her my call log and said that I had called the police. A school administrator comes out and tells he she’s in the teacher’s parking lot.
“I’m WAITING for the POLICE because he HIT MY CAR,” Russian Ruda says.
“She backed into the crosswalk while my daughter and I were in it,” I volunteer.
“Uh-uh! Oh, no!” the administrator says and walks away shaking her hear.
It takes the police about an hour to show up, which is pretty good for the LAPD. Two officers get out. I start to explain what’s happened; in a voice that’s so calm it surprises me. I’ve remained calm the whole time, which surprises me[2].
The officers separate and take us to get our stories. I relate mine in the peaceful voice even while part of me is asking myself “What the fuck? GO NUTS!”
I can hear the winner of the greater San Fernando Valley Safest Driver competition yelling and she takes the cop around to look at the car where I had dented it. I can hear her yell:
“And I had my BABY in the car.”
Apparently her baby being wrapped in American assembled steel is somehow more dramatic to her than my daughter, wrapped in a cotton “Hugs not drugs” t-shirt in the cross walk.
The cops meet and talk it over very quietly, their heads close together. It’s very warm now.
The cop who had spoken to me approached me and said: “Anyone hurt?”
I raised my hands to show him as I said:
“Nope.”
Then he walks back to his partner.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“I’m going to try to not take you to jail for vandalism.”
WHAT?
I mean seriously…
WHAT?!
So this is the short version: They didn’t SEE her drive into the crosswalk[3], but the can see the dents in the car. I’m not hurt. No one’s hurt except the Odyssey. So they can see what I did and I could be booked on a vandalism charge.
I wasn’t. They took insurance information and sent her on her way – after I pointed out that if she was such a good driver, she’d broken at least three traffic laws while I watched her – including being parked in a red zone yet again while talking to the officers.
“I HAD to speak to them SIR!” she said, totally ignoring the now wide-open parking around the school.
The policemen, to their credit, shooed her off telling her she’d done enough yelling for the day. They stayed and talked to me for a bit.
“So what,” I asked. “Do I tell the kids? My daughter saw that woman almost hit us and heard you say I could get taken to jail. What are they going to get out of this?”
“Well, what do you want me say,” One officer said. “They’re just children.”
And that summed it just about up as to what anyone thought about anything. “Just” children. ‘Cause how could they ever be important. Let’s just make it easy and if anyone asks any pesky question, find a way not to answer it.
I went home that night and told Patricia this story with Lauren chiming in to add details as she thought necessary. And when it was over, I said:
“That’s it. We’re going. We’re outta here.”
Yeah. Like it would be that easy.
I know what you want to say: There are assholes everywhere. There are people like this everywhere. No place is any different.
Well, to begin with, you’re wrong…
And to continue: If L.A. hasn’t cornered the market on people like this, it sure seemed to have a majority share. I’m willing to own that it was my own negative attitude and desire to move someplace else that contributed to my experience of L.A. But it wasn’t the whole ball game.
For instance, that night I discovered a hole in my favorite shorts[4]. I don’t thing my personal zeitgeist contributed to that. But it was a nice capper to the day.
But I was determined to get my family out of there.
For real this time.
The clock started ticking. Only fifteen months to go
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