Functionally ReTodded

Today’s story comes to you from Auburn, Alabama in 1987.

It was winter quarter.  I was a freshman.  I was a pledging Kappa Sigma.  And due to a fluke injury while playing the punting game in our quad, I had my left arm in a cast from my fingertips to my shoulder with my elbow at a 90 degree angle.  That’s germane later in the story.

For Christmas 1986, my dad bought me a Ross Mountain Bike.  This was no Huffy as I came to find out.  I was the envy of my bike-owning friends.

Shortly after my return to school from Christmas break, I fell and tore some ligaments in my left wrist.  As luck would have it, our school infirmary got visits every two weeks from The Houston Clinic, which was staffed at the time by Dr. James Andrews and some other world-renowned Orthopedists.  It’s like you walking into a soup kitchen and finding Paula Dean and Wolfgang Puck cooking.

Anyway, I was told that I had to wear the cast for nine to twelve weeks, meaning little help with the physical parts of being a pledge (cleaning, moving, lifting, fisting, etc), and even less bike riding.

"No problem," I thought to myself.  "I’ll just lock the new bike up with the whipass U-lock I got with it."

And about a week later, a buddy from my hall says "Hey, I think your bike’s gone."

I walk down to our sub basement in Mag Hall and go to where on the rack mine was locked when last I checked.

God dammit.

Gone.

So I call the campus Police to report the theft.  Someone that looked way up the food chain to Barney Fife answered the phone.  Here is a transcript of that call:

Him:  Awbern POE-leece.  What is ye reportin’?

Me:  I’d like to report the theft of my bicycle.

Him:  Someone dun stolt yer bike?

Me:  Um.  Yes.  That’s why I am calling.

Him:  Where was it stolt frum?

Me:  Mag Hall.  The basement.

Him:  Whut’s yer bike registration number?

Me:  Pardon me?

Him:  You have to have a bike registration number to park it on campus and for us to keep on file in case your bike gets stolen.  Registration’s a dollar a year.

Me:  I was not aware of that.

Him:  It was in your orientation material.

Me:  So was a list of local synagogues, but I didn’t read every word of that packet.  Especially since I didn’t have a bike when I got said packet.

Him:  Sorry.  We can’t help you if the bike wasn’t registered.

Me:  Perfect.

So I report to my dad that the expensive bike he bought me had been stolen and the local cops weren’t going to do shit about it.  He said "Well, you never know.  Just keep your eyes open.  Maybe you’ll get lucky and spot it."

Sure.  Because I’m lucky that way.  Nevertheless, I got the word out to the entire dorm to be on the lookout for my bike.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and one of the guys from my hall comes back from class and says that he saw my bike parked over near the quad.  Me, my roommate and a couple of other guys head over to see what we can do to liberate it.

We get there and I confirm with my registration that it’s my bike.  Serial numbers match and all, so I call the Auburn Police once again.

Me:  I’d like to report that I’ve located my stolen bike.

Him:  And?

Me:  I’d like you to come and cut it loose so I can take it back to my dorm.

Him:  We can’t do that.

Me:  Why not?  I’ve got proof it’s my bike.

Him:  Because it’s not registered.

Me:  So I reported it stolen and you did nothing.  Then I found it, and you still won’t do anything?

Him:  We could impound it.

Me:  What?

Him:  We could send an officer over, confirm it’s yours and then impound it.

Me:  What would I have to do to get it back?

Him:  Register your bike with the police.  It’s a dollar a year.

Me:  I know it’s a dollar a ywar.  Can I just pay the cop you send over and be on my way?

Him:  Nope.  You’ll need to come by the station to do that.

Me:  Super.  Other side of campus.  I’ll get right on that.

And so, true to his grits-filled words, an officer showed up, waddled over, made me re-hash the story again, and finally he agreed to cut it loose.  And chucked it in the trunk like an old set of golf clubs.  He then drove away.

Victorious (sort of), I headed back to the dorm.  It was raining, and there was no rush to get to the police station.  I figured "Well, I’m in a cast for at least six more weeks, it’s winter, and my bike’s safer on the cops’ property than in my dorm basement.  I’ll wait until I get my cast off and register it then."

(insert ominous music here)

A couple of weeks later I’m in my room with my roommate watching television or something, and the phone rings.  The roommate answers and says "It’s for you.  It’s the police."

Me:  Hello?

Him:  Mr. Berger?

Me:  That’s right.

Him:  You reported your bike stolen recently.  Is that correct?

Me:  Yep.

Him:  And then we took it into the impound pending registration.  Correct?

Me:  Yep.

Him:  Would you be able to come down to the station and talk to me for a minute?

Me:  Ummm…I guess so.  What’s it about?

Him:  Your bike.  My name’s officer Mensa (not his real name).  I’ll be expecting you.

So I head down to the PoPoSto, ask for Officer Mensa, and wait.  Eventually he comes out, says "Come with me," and walks me into a room, follows me in, and closes the door.

I quickly realize that I’m in the cliche’d interrogation room.  Small.  One wall has a big window.  two chairs, one table, my chair is shorter than his, there’s an ashtray full of butts, and he’s close to me and between me and the door.  Fuck.  I may need to call a lawyer.  Or my mommy.  Or someone.

He says "So.  Have you seen your bike lately?"

Me:  Not since I found it and let you take possession of it.

Him:  You’re sure.

Me:  (A bit snippy)  Yes.  I’m sure.  Why?

Him:  Your bike is missing.

Me:  What?  You lost my bike?

Him:  No.  We didn’t lose it.  Someone stole it.  Did you?

Me:  Did I what?  Steal it?

Him:  That’s right.

Me:  Absolutely not.

Him:  You sure about that?  You see, SOMEONE used a folding table to stand on, threw another folding table into the yard, and stole your bike.  And we think it was you.

Me:  (No angry, falsely brave and sanctimonious) Let me see if I’ve got this straight.  My bike got stolen.  I reported it.  You did nothing because it wasn’t registered.  I found the bike, you said all you  could do was impound it.  I agreed.  You took my bike to your impound yard.  Now it’s gone, and I’m your suspect?  When all I had to do to get it back legally and WITHOUT COMMITTING A FELONY WAS TO PAY YOU ONE DAMN DOLLAR?  Really?

Him:  That’s right.  Did you?

Hold on.  Let me walk thru this theory of yours.  I could walk into your office, register the bike, and you’d bring it to me and I could take it home.  But instead of paying you a hundred pennies, you believe that I, with my left and dominant arm in a cast up to the shoulder and my elbow bent at 90 degrees, took two folding picnic tables to your impound yard on the far side of town, a yard which is surrounded by ten foot chain link fencing with barbed wire around the top I might add, and I setup the first table, climbed it, threw in the second table, hopped the fence and received zero injuries in the process, found my bike, threw it out and over the fence, then used the inside table to climb back out, again sustaining no injuries, and just rode back to my dorm? Is that seriously the conclusion you’ve reached?  Really?  You believe that I committed a felony, in that manner, and all that was done to save myself a dollar?

Him:  Did you?

Me:  Sweet Jesus.  I’m out of here.

Him:  Where do you think you’re going?

Me:  If you want to charge me with something, then I’m going out to the lobby to call my dad and an attorney.  If you’re not, I’m going home.

Him:  You can go, but don’t leave town.  And you can tell your friends that they can expect to be called in as well.

And he wasn’t kidding.  This douchenozzle called in about fifty guys that lived on my side of the dorm and questioned them, one at a time, with that same preposterous theory.  Since no one was involved in anything like that, it was a huge waste of time and an inconvenience for many people besides me.

While that was going on, I told my roommate what was coming and then I called my dad.  He was as shocked as me but found time to criticize me for not registering the bike and taking it back sooner.  (As if it was safer where it was originally stolen from than the police impound yard)  He said he’d make a couple of calls and for me to not say anything else and to tell my friends not to talk either.

And as is usually the case, my dad knew someone.  My dad always knows someone.  I don’t even try to know people anymore.  I just tell folks I know my dad and HE knows someone.

This particular someone happened to be a circuit court judge or state judge or some such thing that covered Auburn and the surrounding pastures.  My dad explained the situation, the guy called me and asked me a few questions, and then said to sit tight.

The next day, the phone rang in my room.  I answered it.  It was Officer Mensa’s secretary.

Him:  Could you come over to the station please?  Officer Mensa needs to speak with you.

Me:  Resisting the overwhelming urge to be a smartass, said "Sure."

When I got there, Officer Mensa invited me into the same interrogation room I was in before, but things were different this time.  I could sense some not so subtle anger in him, and I figured it out after he started to speak.

Him:  I’d like to…umm…apologize for before.  You know, when I accused you of stealing your bike.  We ummm…there was a misunderstanding…ummm…I’m sorry about that…it was confusing and…ummm…

And so on.  I smirked a little thru the second half of his obviously coerced apology, realizing that my dad knew a guy that reached out and laid a hand on this tiny town cop and made him apologize to me.  And every other person that was interrogated during the course of the "investigation."

But here’s the best part:

The policeman also advised me that since the bicycle was lost while under their custody and in their police impound yard, the Auburn PD would be writing me a check for $495 to replace my bike.

High mother fucking five.

My dad then called me and advised that I ought to keep my nose clean and do whatever I could to avoid any interaction with said cop, as he might have an axe to grind with me in the future and I could very well find myself UNDER the jail.

And of course I didn’t. But that’s another story for another time.

FRT