1 It was early in my drinking career when I nearly got my first DUI.
It happened in the mid-80s during the span of a few years when I went bowling every Wednesday night with my buddies, Mark and Keith. We were in college, and I worked weekends, so we were not dealing with a clearly defined “school night.” Every night was fair game. Weeknights, weekends, it didn’t matter.
Wednesday became our default drinking night, a weekly boozy group activity date which usually involved bowling in Temple City or Arcadia. Our alcohol intake varied but always involved more beers than should be wisely consumed given we all needed to return home, with one of us driving, through barren streets you see after 11 pm, a time when most people are smartly asleep, readying for work the next day.
Responsible people, unlike us.
In the mid-80s, “MADD,” had rebranded from Mothers Against Drunk Drivers to Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The organization begun to mobilize its anti-drunk driving agenda, a message that became ubiquitous then. My friends and I made light of it and “MADD mothers” became the source of much drunken and scornful hilarity between us. We were wanton abusers of alcohol and shared little regard for common sense or danger.
On those Wednesdays, the severity of our drinking spanned a continuum of lightly buzzed to falling down drunk. Sometimes we drank a few beers and were able to operate a car “safely” because the streets were empty and there were few cops patrolling to avoid, but other Wednesdays we intensified our intake for no apparent reason other than “because.” Things could have turned out very badly and it was a miracle we made it home in one piece.
I lived the furthest from Temple City so I became the default driver, which was bullshit now that I think about it.
But I was young and didn’t care. I didn’t get bothered by things that might bother me now. Why was I the one who had to drive, especially knowing we would be inebriated and risking our licenses and freedom? MADD’s educational onslaught was rife with penalties for doing the stupid shit we were doing. More specifically, that I would be doing because I was the inebriated driver. Neither of my friends thought it a nice gesture to volunteer up their car once in a while.
It was 1986, I was about 21, going on 22. Things didn’t affect me, such was my blissful folly.
That night, I picked up Keith, then Mark, anxious to party it up at the bowling alley and neighborhood taverns. Temple City was very White, very old, and had very middle American sensibilities. There was good drinking to be had with all the good old boys.
Later that night, by the time I dropped everyone off it was close to midnight. We had a relatively mild Wednesday night which simply meant I only drank “several” beers throughout the evening, probably many more than the MADD mothers would tolerate.
As I drove home at this late hour, I was more tired than drunk. I drove along Valley Boulevard in Alhambra, a city known for its police department’s utter assholery. I was not very drunk. Hell, I was barely buzzed. I had built an impressive tolerance to alcohol at such a young age.
Feeling borderline sober, I was emboldened driving my tryhard 1985 Ford Escort GT Turbo. The car was a pile of crap, a half-assed conglomeration of auto parts that FoMoCo patched together without a plan. Very few of them rolled off the assembly line and whereas such exclusivity might lend to a car’s allure, in the case of my Escort, only highlighted the tragic decision to sell this automotive disaster to the public.
And I was that public.
The underpowered car was too heavy for such a clunky engine, despite boasting its ridiculous “turbo” label. The offspring of the staid Escort model line, the bland-colored white car was my unreliable transportation from 1985 through 1988. It had begun stalling each time I depressed the clutch, an issue the dealer could never fix no matter how much my mom yelled at them. The constant stalling became such a routine part of driving the car, that my ability to start it on the fly after stalls became second nature to me. The engine would die as the car moved, I’d crank the ignition and the engine would re-start, until the next time I engaged the clutch.
Rinse, repeat.
This was the car I drove along Valley Boulevard that Wednesday night, heading home where I lived with my parents in Montebello, a few miles south. The large street was nearly empty and the streetlights cast their glow on the empty pavement. A dangerous sort of alcohol laced, late-night, testosterone-fueled bravado was goading me, daring me to fuck things up because I was david, after all, and fucking up things was my game.
I came to a red light.
Who was in the next lane, sharing this most intimate of after-hours boulevard space with me?
Why it was an Alhambra PD patrol car waiting at the same red light as I!
Did I cower, did I retreat into the anonymity of the lawful darkness of my car’s interior? Did I have it in me to behave at least for this brief sliver of obscure weeknight time?
When the light turned green I jammed that turbo’s pedal to the metal and unleashed its furious 120 horsepower (while assuring it would not stall out).
I must have hit 20 mph in at least 4 seconds! I might have peeled out but my tires had no problem complying with that all-bark no-bite four-banger, but regardless, I left the police cruiser in my non-existent dust!
Then I let the engine rev down quickly so I could avoid exceeding the 35 mph speed limit.
It was a display, though. I’d heard of this before from other guys in the midst of their automotive testosterone mania. I thought it was bullshit, at first. In 1986 it was not like I could ask Google and I wasn’t in the mood to visit the library or the DMV just to research if it was a thing.
What is Exhibition of Speed?
Exhibition of speed is an umbrella term for several types of especially dangerous driving. It is most commonly associated with street racing but also including actions such as peeling out. Drag racing, timed racing, drifting, skidding and other similar activities are all covered by this offense. In short, it is any type of driving that is intended to exhibit the vehicle’s speed in a dangerous manner.
Interestingly, you do not need to be speeding to receive an exhibition of speed ticket. Accelerating in order to peel out is illegal even if you don’t exceed the posted speed limit. However, the law also includes an element of intent. You must be trying to drive in an illegal manner.
The cop was not impressed and immediately lit up his emergencies before I could make a clean getaway in my 4-cylinder hot rod. I pulled over quickly, making sure I focused on being as coherent and sober-appearing as possible. It had been a while since I had my last beer and I hoped any lingering odor had dissipated enough to be undetectable by now. I never had a DUI and my clean record was truly a miracle, but it was clean and I wanted to keep it that way.
Window rolled down, hands relaxed on the steering wheel.
Interacting with the police should not be rocket science but it’s usually not the rocket scientists who make stupid moves and get their asses shot because they can’t summon the barest amount of common sense required when dealing with the police. The cop was a middle-aged White dude with a pen flashlight and he studied me sternly, the sort of grave cop stare that seems more accusatory at midnight on a dark street.
“You were going too fast.”
Calmly, I replied, ”I may have taken off quickly from the stoplight, but I made sure to stay within the 35 mile per hour speed limit.”
Once again, the cop was not impressed.
After studying my driver’s license, he extended his gnarly palm which was covered, coated, with a thick layer of calluses. The officer had calluses on every inch of his upturned hand.
“Can I have you breathe into my hand?”
Sure man, whatever turns you on. I recall having had some funky food at the bowling alley, some putrid garlicky bar snack. And beers, a lot of them.
I exhaled into those scary palms, into every dimpled, discolored crevice.
He sniffed his hand inconclusively.
He then had me follow the beam from his small flashlight with my eyes as he traced imaginary paths in the air. He flicked the light off smartly.
“Let me tell you, I can get one of our traffic units here right now and they will be able to prove you’ve been drinking.”
I didn’t say anything.
He mumbled something inaudible, I don’t remember exactly what he said, but he made some thinly-veiled threats about my driving in the city tonight, blah blah, and he went back to his car without so much as a “good night” or “drive safely.”
He sat in his car a while, as did I. I was paranoid and didn’t want to drive off yet and this standoff turned into a weird waiting game in which neither of us drove off.
I’d say a minute or two passed before he finally gunned it from the curb and took off and to this day I am positive he yelled something at me.
Once he was gone, I drove off timidly, relieved that my driving record was clean for another day.
That would not last.
Update 6/18, 4 pm PDT
This post was very sloppy. I’ve made 3 important corrections:
Title: “Officer Callous Hands” to “Officer Callus Hands”
Spelling: Two instances of “Callouses” to “Calluses”
Content: My age in 1986 was 21 going on 22, not 23 going on 24. I’m old enough without padding 2 years to my age.
Other than that, everything is spot on!