This happened when I was just eighteen. My mom had sent me out to the grocery store down the block late once night for a pack of cigarettes and I was on my way home. I didn't feel like going straight back so I decided to roll up a joint and go sit in the park and smoke it. There was no one around on the street, so I lit it as I was walking. It was a still, stuffy evening, like it needed to rain. I remember I'd shaved all my hair off that afternoon to try to keep a little cooler. There was some kind of heat wave or something, the hottest it had been for forty years. Something like that.
So I was strolling along in my favourite army fatigue pants and a scruffy white vest, puffing away, and I crossed this dark alleyway. About halfway across, my bootlace came out and I stumbled on it. I swore, and with the joint hanging outta my mouth, I knelt down to re-tie it, and then suddenly I was caught in the bright white headlamp beams of a car. I jumped up as the driver's door swung open and a figure got out, putting a cap on. That's when I figured out it was a cop car, waiting in the alley to catch speed-freaks on the avenue. I took the reefer out of my mouth.
"Hold it kid!" the cop hollered at me. Female! That was something, anyway. I was still in deep shit though. I turned my back a little and threw the illegal smoke to the side, hurriedly lighting up a Marlboro instead. The blinding lights flicked off and she slammed the door and walked towards me. I didn't know what to do. I considered running but thought better of it. I was kinda curious, tell the truth.
She was about 30, taller than me, stocky. She looked fine in her uniform coming up that alley and I grinned in spite of the situation. "Somethin' funny?" she asked, facing off with me, one hand on her nightstick, casually scratching the back of her neck with the other. She was nice-looking up close too, kinda handsome in the orange glow from the sodium lights on the street, short dark hair, dark eyes. She stood with her hands on her hips, looked me up and down. "Wanna tell me what you're doin' out so late?" she enquired, focusing her attention on the smouldering spliff lying a few feet away from me. I took a drag on my cigarette. I felt sort of panicky and I didn't know what to say, so I said something really dumb. "Not really," I told her.
"Is that so..." She moved past me and picked up the joint. She sniffed at the smoke coming off it. "I believe you dropped this," she said matter-of-factly, waving it in my face. I smiled at her winningly. "Nope, don't think so officer," I countered. There's a fine line between brave and stupid. I put the Marlboro to my lips. "This is the only kind of smoking I do."
"That's real bad for you, y'know," she said, taking the cig from my fingers and looking at it for a moment.
"Yes ma'am," I answered coyly. She really was cute, there was no doubt about it. I remember thinking that I'd like to go for a coffee with her. I had the words ready to ask. She took a puff on my cigarette, and I felt a weird sensation watching her do it. Then she crushed it out with her boot. "You mind turning out your pockets for me sweetheart?" she said, but it wasn't a question, I knew that. I also knew I was screwed 'cause I had a dime-bag of top quality weed on me. "Step this way please," said the cop, deadpan, and I trembled over to the patrolcar.
I laid out my wares on the hood – a pack of Marlboros, my silver Zippo, a ripped-up pack of papers, a bunch of change, my doorkey...and left it at that. The cop looked at me. "That everything?" she asked. There was something teasing in her voice. She knew she had me. I guess I knew it too and I hung my head a little.