South of Haunted Dreams by Eddy L. Harris Read Free Book Online Page A

them kicked me hard in the stomach. He had been trying to kick me lower, but I sidestepped and he missed.
    They didn’t book me. They merely harassed me, held me there just long enough that I missed my bus.
    I brooded about this incident for a long time then, but put it behind me. Never funny to begin with, it is now even less amusing, almost absurd, slightly sad, and, when I think of the returning black soldier who had his eyes gouged out at the bus station in 1945, infuriating.
    Like my father’s old stories, over time my own remembrances take on new shapes, gain in significance, alter my outlook. What’s most important, they connect me to my father in ways I had never considered. They connect me to so many others.
    As I was driving in New Jersey the police pulled me over one evening, searched me, searched my car. My offense? I had changed lanes without signaling.
    â€œWith all the maniacs out here driving a hundred miles an hour, since when,” I wanted to know, “do you pull people over and search their cars for changing lanes without signaling?”
    In Delaware, another cop, another search, another lie.
    â€œCome on,” I said. “Why’d you really pull me over?”
    I was smiling. I wanted a good laugh and would have gone along with this joke if only they had guts enough to tell the truth. But what could they say?
    â€œYou were speeding. We clocked you doing seventy-five.”
    I had just gone through a toll booth. It couldn’t have been more than five seconds from a dead stop.
    â€œDoes this look like a race car to you?” I said. “It doesn’t to me.”
    They looked through the car and told me to open the trunk.
    â€œHave you guys got probable cause?” I asked.
    They looked up then, paid me more serious attention.
    â€œAre you a lawyer?”
    Now it was my turn to lie.
    â€œYou got it,” I said. “I sure am.”
    They left me alone.
    The police and I just don’t get along.
    I was arrested once simply for walking down the street in a high-income—white—neighborhood.
    â€œSomebody called in and said there was a black man walking in the neighborhood.”
    â€œOh, yeah?” I said in a panic. “Where? I didn’t see him.”
    The cop didn’t find me amusing. When I refused to show him my ID, he hauled me off to the police station.
    And then this last unfortunate encounter that came just before I left St. Louis on this motorcycle.
    I had ridden the bike down to the Central West End to meet a friend for lunch. As usual, I was late.
    The West End is described as a fashionable part of the city, crowded with chic little shops and cafés. In spring and summer when the weather is sunny and warm, people sit outside at these cafés and enjoy the open air and watch the goings-on. At one of them my friend sat and watched the entire happening.
    I had parked my bike down the street. I was late and was walking quickly. As I crossed the street in front of the café, a tan car turned sharply across my path and into the alley. Two men jumped out, one black, the other one white. They were not in uniform. They never flashed a badge. But I knew right away they were cops. Their haircuts. The car. The way they swaggered when they walked toward me. They made sure I saw the guns hanging from their belts. The one cop kept a hand on his pistol.
    The black cop hurried to me and yanked away the helmet I carried.
    â€œWe need to have a word with you,” he said and shoved me toward the car. “Let’s see some ID.”
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œYou match the description of a man shoplifting up the street.”
    â€œWas he on a motorcycle? Was he carrying a helmet?”
    â€œHe was carrying something. Could have been a briefcase, could have been a helmet. Let me see some ID.”
    I refused. He threw me against the car and searched me anyway. He yanked my jacket off my back and went through it. He found