Least Somebody Wants Me
The
following is close to an actual conversation between two individuals after one
of them “broke” into the home of the other one in
Praise
God the huge majority of the time law enforcement leaves me alone. A very few times I’m treated the way a little
old lady would be treated, you know with dignity and respect. And then there is a much larger time when I
am guilty until proven innocent. Believe
me it gets, “old” being a threat to society when I’m not.
Sometimes
I wish we’d learn to judge a book by it’s cover and forget the don’t judge a
book by it’s cover stuff. I mean why
learn something we aren’t going to do.
Next time you go to a bookstore look at the covers. There are flashy, sexy, colorful, bright, and
attention grabbing covers on most books for sale. The dirty rotten truth is we do judge books
by their covers, book manufacturers know it, and play to our natural instincts
in order to sell their ware.
The
dirty rotten truth is most of us judge others by the way they look and law
enforcement does too. It’s called
profiling and is supposed to be illegal for the authorities to do this.
Saturday
night home was the
Some
how, the Sunday night patrol wasn’t informed by their central command properly
and eventually three officers showed up in three different cruisers. I wanted to tell them every time they used
the word transient, “you got that right, and that’s the only thing you got
right”, but didn’t for obvious reasons.
Every time they used the “T” word it reminded me of the negative impact
the “N” word has on African Americans.
Being a transient or a black person is a good way to be profiled. I can get off the road and clean up and my
“T” will disappear. A black person is
stuck with “N” forever.
The
truth didn’t convince them I was in my home.
My driver’s license didn’t convince them, nor did the dated church
bulletin from October 23, 2005 with Brother Don Vermilyea preaching, ditto the
newspaper articles I carry with me. The
pastor and another family’s phone numbers didn’t work, as most of us don’t answer
our phone when it’s 11:15 at night.
As
they went through my possessions without my permission I told them, “don’t be
doing that” and was informed, “don’t lawyer us, we have the power and you have
none.”
Praise
God after telling them ten times y’all were informed I was going to be here
Saturday and Sunday nights one of them got the bright idea to call in and ask
if I had permission. It was cool hearing
dispatch respond in a way that backed my story.
Not so cool that I snapped my fingers and told them to beat it. I know my place cuz I’m still a “T”.
Yes,
they left and no, they didn’t apologize for busting into my home, hassling me,
or going through my possessions. Hey,
one out of four isn’t bad especially when the one is they left.
As
always when two or more officials are gathered things get more than twice as
rough on this looser in societies eyes.
In fact if you know about the Richter scale for calculating the
devastating effect of earth quakes the same exponential growth happens for
hassling as the number of officers increases.
If four of them ever surround me it will be tar and feather and tied
to tracks time. Praise God it’s only been three officers
twice.
Two
young state troopers stopped me after walking
Both
officers where ornery. I wondered two
things about them as they were trashing me out.
I wondered if they’d started shaving yet and wondered if this was their
first official day on the job. Being a
pro at this looser drifter career, discretion was exercised, thus I didn’t ask
any questions about their peach fuzz or length of employment.
I
pleaded with them when they handed down their verdict of walk in the unmowed
ditch with the rattle snakes, gopher holes, beer bottles, rocks, sand burrs,
ticks, and other obstacle course type materials. I asked how come the scores of
They
didn’t want to hear any of it and told me they would be calling the sheriff to
transport me over the county line despite my pleas of I’m walking across
I
was irate, fuming on the inside when they left as I walked and stumbled along
the ditch. I plotted how I was gonna
make it rough on the sheriff when he arrived.
Praise
God I finally gave up those feelings and gave them to the Lord. “Lord I need your help, I’m going to
disrespect someone who has nothing to do with this whole thing, please soften
my heart, please help me to forgive.”
Rather
than be injured in the ditch I disobeyed an order, returned to the paved
shoulder, and continued praying and walking.
Less than a minute later a
The
peach fuzzers had returned. The one who
treated me the harshest exited his car with a thick book and pointed me to his
vehicle. “O boy, I got a bad feeling
about this”. He put the book on the hood
of his car and showed me in his
My
heart softened, and not in a way I could have ever imagined. God is Great, all the time and we must give
everything up to him if we and the world are to be healed.
The
apostle Paul writes in Romans chapter twelve verse nineteen, “do not take
revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath for it is written it’s mine
to avenge, I will repay say’s the Lord.”
It’s not about us taking getting even into our own hands.
I’ve
been apologized to only once in over four years of walking across
Till the next time…
In Christ’s love,
Don