The Badge in My Pocket
The red and blue lights strobed across my rearview mirror at 11:40 p.m., painting the empty stretch of Route 9 in sharp flashes of color. I had been driving for nearly forty minutes, heading home after a long day that had begun before sunrise, when the patrol car appeared behind me and stayed there. At first, I assumed the officer was simply moving through traffic. There was hardly any traffic to move through. The highway was quiet, the businesses along the road were dark, and the cold wind pushed loose leaves across the shoulder.
Then the lights came on.
I eased off the accelerator, signaled, and guided my car onto the gravel shoulder. I put the transmission in park, lowered the window, and placed both hands on the steering wheel where they could be seen. The patrol car stopped behind me at an angle, its headlights filling my mirrors. A door opened. Boots crunched over gravel.
The officer leaned down toward my window.
“Get your hands off the wheel and get out, before I drag you out.”
His nameplate read DANIELS. He was a white man in his forties, broad through the shoulders, with a close-cropped haircut and a smile that looked friendly until you noticed that nothing in his eyes matched it. I knew that smile. I had seen it described in three separate civilian complaints during the previous six months: too friendly at first, too cold a second later, as though the person wearing it were enjoying a private joke.
I had read those complaints in a quiet office, on a computer screen, with a file open beside me and a cup of coffee cooling near my elbow. Now I was sitting on the shoulder of Route 9, looking directly at the man whose behavior I had been studying.
“Is there a problem, Officer?” I asked.
“My lights are on, aren't they?”
“I can see that. I'm asking what the problem is.”
His smile tightened. “Your taillight.”
I glanced at the mirror, though I already knew the light was working. Before leaving home, I had checked the car after a warning on the dashboard turned out to be a loose connection. Both taillights were bright and steady. My registration was current. My insurance was active. I had no reason to believe I had done anything wrong.
“Could you tell me which taillight?” I asked.
“Don't start with me.”
“I'm not starting anything. I'm asking so I can understand.”
He straightened, looked toward the rear of the car, then back at me. He did not inspect the taillight. He did not ask for my license or registration. Instead, he put one hand on his duty belt and leaned closer to the open window.
“People like you always want to make this harder than it needs to be.”
The words settled between us.
People like you.
He said them as if they explained everything. As if my face, my skin, my voice, or the fact that I was asking a simple question had already decided what kind of person I was in his mind.
I kept my hands on the wheel.
“Officer, I'm cooperating. Please tell me what you need me to do.”
“I just did. Get out.”
I took a breath, released the seat belt slowly, and opened the door with my left hand. I moved carefully, making sure not to reach across my body or surprise him. The night air hit me at once. It was colder than I had expected, and the wind coming across the open highway slipped beneath my coat. Gravel shifted under my shoes.
“Step away from the vehicle,” Daniels ordered.
I did.
“Turn around.”
I turned, keeping my hands open and visible.
“Feet apart.”
I moved them apart.
He kicked the back of my ankle, hard enough to make my foot skid over the gravel.
“Wider.”
I widened my stance.
There was no reason for the kick. He had room to direct my feet with a word. He could have placed a hand near my elbow or asked me to adjust my position. Instead, he chose pain. It was a small, deliberate act, and that was precisely what made it important. He wanted to establish, from the beginning, that he could touch me however he liked and that I was expected to accept it without comment.
I did not turn around. I did not jerk away. I stared at a point in the darkness beyond the shoulder and kept my hands where he could see them.
“Hands on your head.”
I complied.