Two years ago, I was at my friend’s house in the nearest town. Very small town, about 900 people. We all piled into my old Escrotch, four of us. We were just going two streets down to my friend Bailey’s house. As we pulled up to Bailey’s house, this huge truck barreled up right in front of us. I though “Great. Another drunk hick.”
Oh, how wrong I was. He runs us off the road, into Bailey’s yard, stops his car inches from my bumper, jumps out of his car, runs up to my window, and starts gesturing wildly. I roll my window down about half way, and he starts screaming and reaches into the window, grabbing my neck and ear. He tries his hick best to pull me from the car through the window, but I punch him in the chest and he lets go. By now, Bailey is standing on his front porch with a knife (he later says it was to protect himself), Cole is staring out the window, and Bailey’s parents have come around the side of the house, watching.
The hick (only about 5’5", 150) is screaming something about his kids and me running the stop sign. He reaches back into the car to grab me again, and I yell something along the lines of “How do you like the sound of jail, asshole? I’m only 16!”
He retreats again, still screaming. Now he’s coherent enough that I can make out that he saw me run the stop sign, and he’s angry because “Dammit, muh kids play in 'at 'ere road!”
About this time, I roll up my window and take off. There’s a cop around town, somewhere, and I’m gonna find him. Finally, when I find the cop, hick is already there, talking to him. Nothing like CYA, huh?
So anyway, I pull up, the cop yells at me to stop, show him my ID (?), and get out of the car. We all get out, and the guy starts yelling again, something about he’ll kick my ass. I dare him to. “I’m twice your size, you scrawny dickweed!” I say, or something near that. That turns him about 3 shades more purple (he was a redhead, so he already had quite a ruddy complexion). He starts talking about “You can hit me first. C’mon! Free one, right here!” pointing to his nose. Naw, I’m smarter than that. A guy can’t assault a person under 18 without getting in deep shit, but if they strike first, self-defense kicks in.
The cop finally tells this beligerant SOB to stand ‘over there’ by his truck. The cop starts questioning me about what happened, and I explain it truthfully. Yeah, I ran the stop sign, etc. The cop says “You little fucker. If I weren’t an officer, I’d kick the shit out of you.” I ask the officer if he knows what assault is. He tells me that I should keep my damn mouth shut. I tell him that his statements count not only as a threat, but also as verbal assault. He calms down a bit, but still insists that I was the one in the wrong.
The cop basically tells me I’m lying about the guy grabbing me, even though I have marks on my neck and ear, that I aggravated the guy, that he didn’t run me off the road, and that, basically, it was all my fault. I tell the cop that I want to file charges against the guy. He says “No dice. I didn’t see it, you can’t file.” I tell him it’s bullshit. He tells me to take it up with City Hall the next day. He goes over to talk to the hick, and ends up giving the hick the information off of my drivers license and tells him that if I ever bother him again, I’ll be taken care of!
That night, I told my dad about it, and barely convinced him not to go ‘talk’ to the guy. Then, dad makes the mistake of telling my mom. Smart lady, she is. She begs me, crying, not to file charges against this asshole, because ‘he probably has family around here who knows us’ and ‘he lives near your friends’. Always keeping up appearances, eh, mom?
I talked to a lawyer about it a few weeks later at Boy’s State. I showed him all the notes I took about the incident, and he told me I had until I was 21 to decide if I wanted to file, since assault and battery has a 5 year statute of limitations in MO.
It still pisses me off thinking about that incompotent cop.
A few months later, the hick was arrested for beating his wife, or something. I’ve been seeing him around again lately, so I suppose he’s out.
He also owns some sort of earth moving company, and considers the road his. He almost always has the road at least 75% blocked with his equipment, which also blocks visibility coming onto and leaving the road. He blocks the stop sign completely most of the time, and he’s hit it numerous times, so now it’s twisted completely around, and bent quite a bit.
Of course, the city turns a blind eye towards the asshole for some reason.
Injustice.
–Tim
We are the children of the Eighties. We are not the first “lost generation” nor today’s lost generation; in fact, we think we know just where we stand - or are discovering it as we speak.