FRESH YARN presents: Whatcha Gonna Do...by George McGrath

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

If you're like I used to be, when you see someone surrounded by a dozen crouching policemen with their rifles aimed at him - and there's a police helicopter overhead - and that "someone" is walking backwards with their hands over their head, or lying face down, or being handcuffed with the old knee-in-the-back routine, you think to yourself, "I wonder what they did?" If you're like I used to be, and you've basically admitted you are, you don't think "I wonder if they did something." Based on the production value involved alone, you assume they had to have done something. And probably something really really bad.

It was August 21, the year that Almost Perfect and Just Shoot Me were both on our TV sets. I know it's very sad that those are my only clues to identify the year, but I was consulting on both shows at the time, and a little Google search won't kill you. When your days are "god-only-knows" how many hours long, you try to make good use of your day off. And on this August 21st, I was. I had a post-it on my dashboard listing the errands on my agenda for the day: P.O. Box, Staples for fax machine ink roll replacement thing, and Color Tile to check on the samples that had come in. I was having my house remodeled - and was replacing every inch of linoleum with tiles purchased exclusively from the Color Tile on Laurel before you hit the Sears on Victory. I shopped their store and catalogs with the help of my tile consultant, a strict thorough woman whose name was, I believe, Noney (like bony). She was from Vietnam, and I was from Valley Village. We had forged a relationship based on my desire to buy large boxes of tiles and her desire to sell them to me. But I digress…

Okay. So I'm driving up Ventura Boulevard - leaving my P.O. Box on my way to Staples per my post-it. A police car is behind me. When I pass Laurel Canyon, I notice another police car traveling in the opposite direction make a U-turn and follow behind them. Then another police car makes a U-ey, then another. It's a parade of police cars. I'm driving my leased (it's just easier) silver Infiniti J30T, and the car in front of me is a beat up Volkswagen with lots of clothes in the back window, so I figure they must be the target, and I'm providing the police "cover." When you see laundry piled up in the back window of a moving vehicle, you know there's more laundry underneath it. And the driver of said vehicle is automatically a suspicious character. Of course the police should stop him. Dear God, what if he's got a dead prostitute under that laundry? By the time I cross Whitsett, two other police cars have U-turned and lined up behind me. I make sure to signal when I make the turn into the Staples/Jerry's Deli parking lot.

That's when the "police action" kicked into gear. The car behind me started flashing its lights, and turned on their siren. I stopped, of course, thinking "What the fuck?" I am told to turn off the car and put my hands outside the window through that "CB radio thing that sounds like a megaphone" police use. When I stick my hands out the window I see we have been joined by a police helicopter that hovers closer than a helicopter should. On the ground, all of the U-turning police cars had pulled in behind at various angles, and the police were outside their vehicles on one knee, rifles pointed at me. They shouted instructions. "Put your hands up over your head. Outside the car. Outside the car! Now, open the door with your right hand." This was the moment they could have shot me and gotten away with it. "From the outside! From the outside!" When the power struggle over who was to yell at me was through, one officer continued instructions solo. "Open the door and step out of the vehicle. Keep your hands up. Drop the cigarette. Walk three steps forward! Pull your shirt up over your head! Your T-shirt too! Pull your pockets out. Spin around! Spin around the other way! Kneel down on the ground! Kneel down on the ground!" Okay, I don't know about you, but I'm not completely comfortable pulling my shirt over my head and spinning around in the privacy of my own home. So, not surprisingly, I was a little "ooky" about doing it for the gathering crowd of interested Jerry's parkers.

This might be a good time to describe myself. Okay. Say Mike Douglas (the talk show host, not the movie star) and Merv Griffin combined their sperm, and chose Andrea McCardle as the surrogate mother. That baby would quite possibly grow up to look something like me when he was around 40. Okay, now put that 40 year old large headed adult baby in charcoal gray pleated linen pants, black demi boots, and a short sleeved dress shirt worn mu-mu style, and, on this day, he could be my twin.
I tell you that with absolutely no sense of pride at the details, only to let you know I didn't look like a criminal that day. Did I mention it was 100 degrees? Okay, consider it mentioned.

"Now lay face down with your hands out," officer Screamey screamed. The parking lot is black tar, and it's lunchtime on August 21st. I tried to hold my palms a smidge above the ground, but officer Screamey wasn't having it. "All the way down! All the way down!"

Another officer (Officer Yankey) yanked my arm, handcuffed me and said "Stand up." I have never been asked to stand starting in the face down position with my hands cuffed before, and let me tell you, I was never more aware of the fact that I am no Kerry Scruggs. But I did it. I saw a young officer (think Leisel's boyfriend in Sound of Music) say "We got him!" Very enthusiastically. And I thought to myself, "You do not, you stupid Nazi."

As most of the police ran to my car, they began screaming as a group again. "Is there anyone else in the car? Is there anyone else in the car?" "No," I replied. That didn't relax them enough for them to lower their guns, which they pointed into my empty car, apparently to shoot any hiding passengers.

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.)

So I'm worried that I'm going to be stopped again, and a police car behind me causes more than the standard posturing concern. I tell my attorney what happened, and he has the perfect idea. There is a deputy D.A.. who is gay (!?) and he would be the perfect person to speak to about this. I guess his enthusiasm was based on the old expression "It takes a gay to help a gay" and not the less quoted but equally true "Gays often have a lot of issues with other gays and can sometimes destroy one another and then go out dancing."

So I take my lawyer's advice and I write this guy. (I dare not mention his name, as I am still frightened that he can, and might, send me to prison for life by pushing a button). In the letter I basically tell him what happened, tell him my recently deceased father was a NYC policeman all his life, and that I had lived in L.A. a long time, never had a ticket, donate to the library and other worthwhile L.A. causes, and that I didn't want to sue anybody, but I wanted his help in finding out what happened and get some assurance it wouldn't happen again.

A week later, he calls me. He is not a "fun gay." He is more what you might call a "creepy scary gay." He immediately informs me that there was no mistake. A warrant was issued by a judge (not the D.A.'s office) because my car was used in a crime. I asked what crime and he said "Barbara Stone was driving my car in Compton and they found drug paraphernalia on her, and she never turned up for her court date." First of all, this didn't seem like the caliber of crime required for a super duper felony warrant. But I pressed on without comment.

"I've never been to Compton and I don't know Barbara Stone." "Well, she is a prostitute and of course you're going to say you don't know her. But you're going to have a hard time convincing a judge of that in court." "But I'm gay." "Maybe she is a transvestite prostitute. Of course you're going to be embarrassed and deny it." He is not getting any friendlier.

"No one has ever borrowed my car." "Maybe you fell asleep when she was at your house and she took the car and returned it without you knowing it." "I have an alarm on the garage." "You probably were high and gave her the code or she saw you punch it in." He was quick with each of his insane "but what if" comebacks. No matter what he said, I heard "Another low-life whore-using, car lending scumbag who won't tell us where the damn court no-show is. God you make me sick."

"Believe me, no one has ever borrowed my car." "Well, this isn't a mistake. It's right here. A black Lexus." "I have a silver Infiniti." "Well, they could have the make and model wrong."

"Or they could have it right, and the license plate number wrong." "That's not likely, but I will check it out."

About ten days later, I got a message from him on my answering machine. "They had transposed two of the numbers on your license plate. I'm going to have a judge lift the warrant."

The warrant that, according to DMV records, never was. I didn't call him back. He was too scary to talk to twice.

I know this is a completely unsatisfying ending to this story. I'm with you. I'm unsatisfied, too.

I still am a little more nervous than I used to be when a police car is behind me for too long. And when I think of that day I think, "Imagine if I was less Caucasian, or a guy in a tank top and a ponytail, with laundry in my back window. I would have been put in jail. No question about it. And I might still be there, denying my wild night in Compton with the drug paraphernalia-carrying, possibly transvestite prostitute Barbara Stone."

Follow up: The tile turned out beautiful. I went with marble in the back bathroom and it is still one of my favorite remodeling touches. The Color Tile store has been replaced by a mattress store; I replaced my Infiniti with a Cadillac Catera and then an Acura TSX (It's all about the navigation system.) Jerry's Deli has been completely remodeled and Barbara Stone, as far as I know, remains a drug-addicted fugitive from justice. (Baby, if you're reading this, you know how to get in the garage. XOXO Little Merv.)