FRESH YARN PRESENTS:

Whatcha Gonna Do When They Come For You?
A completely true, albeit unlikely story about the day I appeared
in an unfilmed, non-televised episode of Cops.
By George McGrath

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I was hustled over to a police car. A tiny (about 5'6" - I had never seen a tinier policeman, and have never since) muscle-bound Asian officer gets in my face screaming, "Who's Stone?" I thought he was saying "Who's stoned?" And I answered, "Not me," thinking to myself, "Thank our precious savior." "No, who's Barbara Stone?" "I have no idea," I replied. At that point, he had had enough of my filthy lies, and he grabbed my sunglasses off my face (prescription - it was one of my "give my eyes a break from contact lenses" days) and threw them to the ground. "What do you got those on for? You know what you've done." Unfortunately again, I did not, and told him so. "Well then why did you turn in here to get away from the police?" I said, "I turned in here to go to Staples, and you can find a to-do post-it in my car that will back me up." (Oh, how I love a to-do post-it!)

At that point he took my wallet and I was shoved into the back of the police car and got a bird's eye view of six or seven officers going through my car as if there were buried treasure inside. CD cases were opened, CD's thrown to the ground, tissue boxes emptied, even my Altoid box was suspicious and was emptied onto the ground.

A "nice" officer was left to guard me, and he informed me that I should tell the officers everything I know. I told him I didn't know anything, and he informed me that my car had a felony warrant on it, and that it was used in committing some horrible crime, and that the warrant was super super special because it was issued by the district attorney's office directly. Unfortunately, his explanation brought no clarity to the subject for me. Nobody had ever driven my car but me (don't judge me - maybe I'm completely happy living alone).

Re-enter muscle-bound tiny Asian, doing a nice impression of officers Angry and Screamie. "Do you deny you know a Barbara Stone?" "When was the last time you lent your car to Barbara Stone?" "Were you ever charged in a crime and didn't show up to court?" "Does someone have a vendetta against you?" "An ex-wife? A business partner?" None of my answers gave him any satisfaction. Suddenly, the police still at my car began screaming "Where's the registration" and I told them it was in the door. I mean, they'd already emptied the freakin' Altoid box onto the pavement, and they hadn't come across the registration. Officer Disappointed Nazi was explaining what was going on to the crowd of deli-destined gawkers. They scowled at me and clucked.

Officer Tiny got his second wind, and shoved his tiny head into my face. "So, are you gonna tell us? Who is Barbara Stone?" "I don't know." "She's not your girlfriend?" "No." "Your wife?" "No." "Okay, then what is your girlfriend's name?" "I don't have a girlfriend." "Don't tell me you don't have a girlfriend." (Note to reader: Officer Tiny had absolutely no gaydar, and perhaps had been so busy building his muscles that he never encountered the kind of man who has no girlfriend.) "I don't." "Is your girlfriend Barbara Stone?" Apparently he was the king of the trick question, and was angry when this time it didn't pan out.

After 15 or twenty more minutes of car-rifling and disappointed clucking, I was taken out of the car and walked over to Officer In-Chargie who was surrounded by the other officers. He said, disgusted, "Well, we're gonna have to let you go." He paused, just in case I might empathize with him and give myself up after all. Then, shaking his head, "Uncuff him. This is going to happen again and again, you know." "Well, what should I do so that it doesn't? Should I get new plates?" "That might work, but I doubt it - the warrant is on your VIN number. If you want to stop it from happening, you need to come down to the station and tell us where we can find Barbara Stone." It was as if someone yelled "Encore." "I don't know any Barbara Stone." "You can go." And go I did, while the crowd of onlookers clucked and shook their heads along with the cluster of officers. "This damn justice system. Look at that guy, getting away with whatever it is he did."

Now this part of the story is slightly surreal. I was completely calm, and pulled into the Staples parking lot and bought my fax ink roller thing. Then, per my post-it, off to Color Tile to check on the samples that had come in.

It was during this visit, that I started to have a reaction. I snapped at Noney about something that hadn't gotten there or something. Immediately I was sorry I had, and explained that I had just had a stressful police incident, and was stressed out. Well, Noney went berserk. "Oh no, no, God. Not you George! You of all people!" She must have said the phrase "You of all people!" 50 times in a sort of shriek/cry and by then I was with her. I started freaking out, and realized my to do list had a couple of new items that needed attention more than my color tile samples.

So I get home, and call the Infiniti people (the Lessor) and explained that I wanted new license plates because of the felony warrant on my current ones. In ten minutes, they call back - they ran the DMV report on my plates and there was no warrant on them. There was nothing - no tickets, nothing. They ran my drivers license and got the same result. So I'm thinking, "Wait a minute - if there's no felony warrant on my car what just happened? Did they read the wrong number and either never figured it out or got too into it to correct their mistake? Or was there a typo on their police blotter that ended up in making some felon's license plate number the same as mine? Or was the whole thing an excuse to search my car?"

Next day, working on Almost Perfect, we get their attorney consultant on the phone, who says if there had been a felony warrant on my car they would have taken the car regardless of what they found or didn't find. And she also informed that "Barbara Stone" is kind of like the female version of "John Doe" in the jail system. A woman who doesn't want to give her real name might call herself that. And all police know that too. She told me something was very fishy about it, and she wanted to help me find out what. Then someone was shot outside her window and she had to go. (Swear to God.)

continued...
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