No Opening Handle in the Back Seat of a Police Car

Oops!

Chester Slay was a buddy and competitor all the way through 12 years of school. He lived on Cleveland Street about two miles to the south east of us. We played together, were in Boy Scouts and DeMolay together and went to North End Baptist together. We are still friends although the 100 miles between Beaumont and Richmond limits our connectedness.

In the summer of 1959 we decided to ‘camp out’ in our back yard. We had a couple of old army cots and we ran a rope between two trees and threw an old tarp over the rope to create a tent.

We had flash lights and canteens with water. I am sure we had some form of snacks. As dusk was falling, dad issued the edict, ‘I don’t want to hear that back door opening and closing all night long.’

We laughed, told stories, shined our flashlights and generally goofed around --- forever.

About 2 AM we decided we needed two cokes. We couldn’t go into the house via the back door of the house - and it is unlikely there were cokes in the ‘fridge anyhow. Kool-Aid maybe, but not cokes.

So these two boy geniuses came up with a plan. We would ride our bikes to the 24 hour laundromat at the corner of Cleveland and Filmore (a couple of miles away) and buy cokes from the coke machine.

Laughing and whisper yelling we loaded up and headed off to the laundromat on our trusty two wheelers. The fluorescent lighting of the laundromat drew us like moths to a flame and the coke machine regurgitated two cans of sweet carbonated beverage.

Back on our bikes, we began an impromptu race to get to my house. We split up, each thinking we could gain an advantage despite the strict Cartesian nature of the north-south and east-west grid of streets.

About two blocks from home a police cruiser roared up with lights flashing and blocked my progress.

Terrified, I stopped and with eyes like saucers listened to the officers. Who was I? What was I doing? (I had the coke can for evidence) Where did I live? Was I alone? (I immediately gave up Chester - I would do poorly under interrogation in a prison camp.)

They put my bike in the trunk and me in the back seat and drove me home. As we pulled into the drive way, Mom and Dad and Chester were waiting for me on the front porch. He had seen the police action, continued home and awakened my parents (all really good decisions).

I reached for the door handle to get out and - THERE WASN’T ONE!

I was let out and remanded to the custody of my parents.

Someone had called in a peeping Tom and that alerted the officers to be on the lookout. Clearly, at least to Chester and me, we were not guilty. That was not so clear to the officers or my parents. I don’t remember exactly how the incident wound up, but none of us got a good night’s sleep that night. I was up again at 5 and on my bike to deliver the morning papers - I think Chester went with me.