Candyman and I
I am a yoga therapist and trauma specialist. I
work with the manifestations of stress and trauma in the body. I have my share
of work experience in the field domestic and international, refugee groups,
first responders, post-crisis zones. On this road my own experience of tension
and trauma has changed. Nowadays I have a tendency to experience my stress in
two ways: firstly from within, as the subject, and secondly from without, as in
diagnostically. As a professional making an assessment.
But last night something happened to me. Last night I
experienced a fear that felt like terror. Last night a brutal feeling tore
through me that made my chest pound, my hands shake, my voice escape me, and
rivers of tears gush down the side of my face without me even being aware of my
crying. Last night my being incurred a wounding. Last night felt like my soul
was dragged along gravel until it was shredded with deep, dark ridges.
This morning, where things are more or less
okay and I am licking my wounds, I am trying to piece together why this
feeling, despite how brutal it was, did not feel unfamiliar to me. When had I
felt this terrified before? I am shuffling through the highlights of my fairly
average childhood traumas trying to remember.
The time that some kids managed to stop themselves in the middle
of a long and winding water slide causing all the children to pile up on top of
each other, our bare, wet legs wrapped around strangers with ten kids already
wedged in the tight, cold tunnel ahead. No. Last night was worse. Way worse.
The time I learned why minimum age requirements exist on movies,
having been exposed to the movie Candyman at way too young an
age, causing me to stumble disoriented from room to room while hysterically
laugh-crying? No. Last night was worse than that too.
What about the time when at three years old I was separated from
my family in an elevator and lost in a thirteen story hotel for hours? I
thought I would never see my mother again. Last night cut deeper than that.
Somewhere though, I had felt that terrified
before. The way I felt last night was not new territory.
First you must first know that recently I have
had a few run-ins with the law. Yup. After having a public record for most of
my adult life that was so shiny it nearly squeaked, the last two months finally
brought some drama to what was once an utterly dull read. I was hit with two
back to back traffic tickets. Both for running stop signs. Yup. Watch out. I’m
a dangerous woman.
The first ticket was sort of funny and
deserved. It’s okay. Every five years or so you just gotta. It was January and
I didn’t appreciate the 200 dollar fine so shortly after the expenses of the
holiday season, but this single girl of early thirties deserved it.
The second was only three weeks later and a
lot less funny. I had moved to a poorer neighborhood on the other side of town,
but continued my Monday night yoga class on the east side that I had been
teaching for years. It pays next to nothing and I arguably spend more in gas
than I earn from teaching, but when you do what you love, your students become
your grounding force, your community. I was not ready to let this group go.
I was just about the only white girl in my
neighborhood and most certainly the only girl living alone in a one bedroom
apartment. My landlord had been on some inexplicable war path with me, ignoring
my calls for over a week, then being insulting and then hitting me with
exorbitant fees for calling his maintenance man without consulting him first. I
had started ignoring home repair problems for as long as I could and then
sourcing my own handy help when something finally cracked, busted, fell or
broke. I currently turn my shower on and off with a wrench. My car was having
issues and needed repair, but borrowed a friend’s car while I saved the money
to fix mine. The fact that the vehicle was a red, lifted Jeep Wrangler that
finally forced me to learn to drive a stick was cool at first. But that was
before I realized how much unwanted attention I attracted.
Having finished the yoga class, I made my long
way back to my rather grimy part of town and stopped at the grocery store. The
jeep was laden to the brim with the paraphernalia that make up this life in
working transition – ten rolled yoga mats, straps, poster board, scissors,
crayons, spare shoes and clothes, plus the plastic encased basketball signed by
the entire 2015 U of A basketball team (a raffle prize I had yet to take to its
winner). I was exhausted as I hoisted the groceries into the car.
As soon as I pulled out of the
parking lot I saw the bright lights behind me. I had not the faintest idea what
I may have done and so I calmly made my way into the turn lane and came to park
right in front of a small, surprisingly still open, gaming and card trading
store. I assembled my documents from wallet and glove compartment, I sat back
in my car seat and awaited my talking-to as the store’s operator stumbled out
of the glass doors into the blue and red disco lights outside his store.
He seemed to be here for the show as he lit a cigarette and leaned up
against a wall not 12 feet from where I was sitting.
"Do you know why I pulled you over?"
I honestly don’t know and take a guess "Umm…turning out of the
parking lot into the middle lane?"
"No, you turned into the correct lane, (YES!) but you
didn’t stop (Huh?). Every time you pull out of a parking lot onto a
street, you have to treat it like a stop sign. Even if there isn’t a stop
sign."
I ran an imaginary stop sign at 10:30 at night on a Monday on an
empty road, I think to myself. I would roll my eyes if I could. In my
sweetest ways, I attempt to explain to him that I am tired, that it is late,
that I didn’t mean to, that I just completed traffic school and that I really
appreciate him. He takes my information and goes back to his car. I feel fairly
solid that he understands that I am not the entitled college girl he may have
taken me to be, but am working on making peace with whatever will be.
Time ticks on and he is still tinkering in his
car. To calm my nerves I strike up a conversation with the cat puffin’ on his
cigarette out front of his store - what he sells, what business has been like
these days and so on. His sweaty and pasty skin and the dark rings under his
eyes along with his hoarse voice make me wonder what he uses to stay up all
night, but I don’t care. Right now his presence is helping me keep myself calm,
even if his ways seem sort of sleazy. I pull the basketball from my backseat
and proudly show it to him. He sells stuff like that all the time, he says.
Okay. I sigh and sit back in my seat once more and into the stillness my fear
rises.
I look in my rear view and then ask the sport’s shop guy "Do you
think he is actually giving me a ticket?"
"Yup," He says, "You might wanna take that sweater off and look
hot. You don’t stand a chance in that thing."
I feel like I have just been punched in the mouth. If I had had
the chance, I would have said something to him. I would have let him know what
a pig I think he is. I have worked too hard to become the woman who no longer
shoves these kinds of things down far enough so everyone stays comfortable.
But before I can collect myself from his statement, I have the
handsome face of the young officer in front of me again and my freshly printed
ticket in my hand.
"No..!" I tell him.
"Yes" he says.
"No, no, no" I tell him.
"Yes" he says.
"You know what? Fine," I am testy, "But may I at least get a few
things off my chest?" I ask him as my eyes well up.
"Sure", He sounds almost kind
I tell him that this is not fair, not my car,
not been an easy few months, that I have learned my lesson here, that I don’t
need my wings clipped, that I cannot absorb these fines every month, and that
the city does not need these 200 dollars more than I do. He waits till I finish
and we sort of thank each other and wish each other a good night.
Four weeks go by. I work my ass off. Between
work and teaching, I start an LLC, open a business account, launch the first go
around of therapeutic workshops, go on food stamps, am called a brat by my
landlord, get my taxes done, buy insurance, 250 dollars for the broken laptop,
print business cards, find a new place to live for when my lease ends at the
end of May, work on the promotional material and the business plan that is
supposed to get me out of this hole.
I decide to fight the last ticket in court. The
officer meticulously recreates the scenario on a diagram indicating me with a
red X and himself with a blue arrow. I would have preferred to be the blue
arrow. He walks around, creating the diagram, taking a superior and
authoritative position over anyone sitting on the court floor. I listen as he details
that night. I am surprised when he reiterates much of what I said. Verbatim, those
things came out of my mouth, but he is being selective and I am unclear about
relevance. He even mentions exactly when I started crying. I feel embarrassed,
but I hear my sweetheart shuffling somewhere behind me and I have to smile. We
had a joke going about my recent water works. The officer’s version does not
include where I live, what I do, how hard I work. I let him finish.
I thank the officer and tell the judge that
all that was shared was absolutely correct and that I have learned my lesson.
That said, I feel the City of Tucson did not need my 200 dollars nearly as much
I did. I tell him of my living situation, being knocked around by my landlord,
being harassed by the guy outside the gaming store, how hard I work, that that
was not my car and that from now on I will make sure to stop at all stop signs,
even if they are imaginary. He says he appreciates my ‘upright conduct’, but
it’s not in his power to waive the fine. He can’t lift my fine even if he wants
to and we have left no room for compassion in this law.
So there. Add 20 dollars to my ticket for
having requested a hearing and arrange for a payment plan. I had said my peace at least. Riding the elevator down to the ground floor, I turn to my honey as
my eyes bulge and with a huge gasp ask:
"Did we park the car and forget to pay for parking?!?"
"SHIT!" he responds.
Then I go for a quick bike ride - at ten at
night on a Friday.
My lover asks me several times if this is a
good idea. But having learned that getting in the way of my roaring
independence will get a guy mauled, he resigns himself to worrying about me. I am
going to be real quick and real careful. Not even taking my phone, wallet or
keys. No drama. Be right back. I ride a large loop south and when I came back
by his house, I decide to take another small loop north. Just to the main road
and back.
I am a strong bike rider and I don’t mean in
the Spandex sense. I mean in the city riding sense. I am confident and steady
on my mountain bike and when I take my hands off the handlebars, feel the wind
in my hair and my music in my ears, I let go. I fly. This is when I can feel my
central nervous system unwind and I finally relax.
And then, with the beats of Jurassic 5
in my ears, I get cocky again and push into the busy intersection on a
yellow light. I should know that I was playing with my luck, but I stupidly think
I am invincible. Before I even made it to the other side of the street, I see
the flashing lights of a squad car. It’s okay. I’m a girl on a bike. There is
no way this guy is going to give me more than a warning. I slow my bike, still
happy and floating from the joy of riding and climb off as I smile at the
police officer who is walking toward me.
His face says, he isn’t in a mood to chat.
"Can I see your ID?"
I say "Officer, I am so sorry, I am headed straight home, I
didn’t bring my wallet, I just ate a big dinner and wanted to head out for a
quick spin before bed. We don’t need to do this. I get it."
"You don’t have your ID?"
"No, I am just five minutes from my house, really."
He pulls out a notepad and asks me for my name. I am stunned.
Didn’t we skip a part?
"Wait! No! No! No! We don’t have to…"
I am shocked. I can’t handle another ticket. He is not really
giving me a ticket for this?! I can’t afford another ticket.
He repeats himself.
"Name!?"
"Sarah". I spell it out. "S-A-R-A-H".
I am used to spelling out my name since no-one can spell Spieth right,
but I am hoping Jordan Spieth, the up-and coming golfer who recently glossed
the cover of a Sports Illustrated, will change that.
"Last name?"
I freeze. I have never been in this situation. I have nothing on
me verifying my ID. Do I have to give him my real name?
He lifts the mic on his left breast pocket to his mouth.
"Single, white female on a bicycle. Yes."
"Last name!", he shouts at me.
"Smith!" I blurt out. Then I spell it "S-M-I-T-H"
"Date of birth?"
My voice is shaky.
"10/08/82"
Back into his radio: "Yes. E Speedway."
"Last four digits of your social?"
"What?! I don’t have to give you that! This is ridiculous! Come
on. Let me go home! Let me just go home!"
He skips onto the next question.
"Address?"
I take a big inhale and push out the first number of the
permanent address associated with my driver’s license.
"5" then the next "6….2"
Then I freeze. I can’t get another word out.
My mind goes to my lover. His apartment so close that I can
almost see it. But the safety that I feel when my head rests on his chest is a
million miles away. I can barely breathe as my eyes well up.
He looks up from his notepad: "Now, I am going to warn you - "
"Oh god!? Oh God! Really!? Thank you!"
My chest opens up.
"No! No, I am warning you that if I go to my car and call this
in and find that you have been giving me fake information, I am taking you to
jail."
My throat closes more tightly than before, my wide eyes watch as
two more squad cars show up. I am petrified.
I don’t see the other two officers get out of their cars and
walk over. I only notice them once they are already standing in formation
around me. I am encircled by three grown men, their three squad cars, and all
their lights that are turning my night into day. My insides are trembling. My
body is getting so hot under my hoodie and my eyes start pouring out tears. I
would have never expected myself to require that much man power.
He sneers at me: "Now do you want to start over?"
"Yes" I push out.
We start over.
"First name?"
"Sarah. S-A-R-A-H."
"Last name?"
"Spieth. S-P-I-E-T-H"
"Date of birth?"
"10/08/82"
"Address?"
I churn out the rest of the information he is asking me for.
"Do you have a warrant out for your arrest?"
"NO!" I let out in a helpless shout.
"Then why are you crying?"
Why am I crying? Is he serious?!
"Because you scare me! Because this is scary! Because I want to
go home!"
"Do you have anything on you?"
"NO!"
I sound like an idiot as I whimper: "I am a
yoga teacher! I have a Master’s degree!"
I feel neither served nor protected.
"Can I search you?"
"Yes!"
I think it can only help my case as he runs his hands over my
body, hot and trembling inside my hoodie.
"If I put my hand in this pocket, will I get poked?"
Is anyone hearing me?
"No!" I push past my tears.
The other pocket. "If I put my hand in this pocket, will I get
poked?"
"No", as I shake my head and then let my tears pull my head
down.
The officer goes back to his car while the
other two keep an eye on me. Even in my hysteria, I am not blind to the fact
that there is a well-rehearsed protocol at play here. The officer standing
closest to me now has to engage me. He is older and corpulent and has a lisp
and I can tell he is struggling to think of things to talk to me about. So the
questions repeat, which just adds to me agony.
"Do you have a warrant out for your arrest or something?"
"NO!" I whine.
He doesn’t seem smart. The angle at which he is standing has him
questioning me without making direct eye contact. I don’t know if it is by
protocol or because he is socially awkward. He seems awkward.
"Then why did you lie about your last name? If you have nothing
to hide?"
"Because I am scared! Because you scare me! Because I am not
exactly in this situation every day, you know!"
"Well that was stupid."
Seriously? Stupid? Right now I want to tell him how small he is.
Right now I want to tell him that I watched the Wall fall, that I speak four
languages, that I remember Desert Storm, and that I have sat in a bomb bunker
waiting for the sirens to stop.
Why am I continuously given the idea that
because I don’t have a warrant out for my arrest, I ought to be just fine with
the events of my current situation? Armed and around me in formation, shining
their bright lights on me and making efforts to intimidate me, the three grown
men just can’t figure out what’s got the girl so scared! Maybe if I take my
sweater off and try to look hot.
The third officer, standing farthest away from me is young and
handsome and seems to have a pained expression on his face in what almost looks
like empathy for how I am unraveling. But I realize there is a chain of command
at work here and I know better than to put my hope in it.
The first officer’s head pokes out from behind
his squad car and tells the other two they can leave telling me to "hang out
for a minute". At this point I know I am not ‘hanging out’ to await my gentle
warning and my heartfelt wishes for a safe evening. I am hanging out while he
takes down everything that I said that he liked in detail in case I decide to
fight the stupid ticket he is currently printing for me in court. I am a
fucking veteran at this by now!
"Sarah, I am citing you for running a red
light." as he hands me my ticket.
350 dollars. The law treats a bike like a car.
I rip the ticket out of his hand and shout at him: "You are a
detestable person! How on EARTH am I supposed to absorb another ticket?!"
I can tell he doesn’t give a shit about what I
think of him as he makes his way back around his car. As I turn to pick up my
bike a tear rolls off my cheek and hits the ground, I shout into the night air "You are a fucking prick!"
The single syllable has barely left my lips
before remorse sets in. Fuck! These things are only over as long as the officer
says they’re over. A cold shiver runs down my back. I stand frozen staring
straight ahead into the night and bracing myself to hear his car door slam and
see him stomp back around his car to teach me a lesson about insulting an
officer.
He doesn’t. He drives off.
I am still trembling as I turn my bike around
and push it back to my lover’s house. My tears slow and then stop. My mouth is
dry. My mind is blank. I walk through the dodgy neighborhood, shaken and
insecure. My throat and my gut are clenched as tightly as the crumpled ticket
in my hand. I cannot figure out what exactly was made safer in all this. It
surely wasn’t me.
When I arrive at his house, I drop my bike in
front of his door, walk in and unhinge myself onto his bed where he is lying. I
wrap his arms around me and curl myself into a ball.
"Hey!? Hey!? Hey…What’s going on, Baby? Hey."
Seeing that something has definitely happened to me, he says sweetly: "Heeey You. Wanna talk to me? Hmmm.?"
I couldn’t get a word out for one-one
thousand, two-one thousand, three- and then I busted open. I just busted open.
In no time, I drenched his shirt with hot tears and struggled to squeeze words
past the shame of my stupidity and having been hit with yet another ticket.
Every time I get a little breathing room, I fuck everything up again.
He was still trying to keep himself calm. It
wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to leave him guessing. He has seen too much. He has
seen too much of the very, very worst of what happens to people. And he has met
the people who do the very, very worst to people. Twelve years in the joint. He
has shared only some of the dark stories because he knows how sensitive I am,
but what I do know is enough to know that he had reason to imagine a kind of
worst case scenario that is far, far beyond what most of us have been
confronted with.
As I started squeezing out the words of what had happened, he
got angry. He got angry at himself for letting me go and he got angry at me for
being so damn naïve.
I didn’t know. I didn’t know until he explained to me, that
those women out there are hookin’ and that this is a drug neighborhood, that
the cops have lost a couple of their own around here and are real uptight, that
I would have been more likely on a drug run than on a bike ride because ‘I had
a big dinner’.
I didn’t know. I didn’t know that who I was
and what I was doing made next to no sense for the neighborhood. I didn’t know
that the officers had little precedent on a master’s degree’d, yoga therapist
just going for a spin. I didn’t know the high likelihood that any other person
they would have stopped on the bike would have indeed had something in their
pocket to poke them. My lover struggled to empathize with my collapsed state.
He didn’t want to coddle me. He wanted me to grow up, be smart.
I felt really alone. I begged him to hear me,
but he couldn’t. Not then. Not till the next day when the horrors that were
thrashing around in his mind of what could have happened to me finally stilled.
I can’t figure out if I am naïve or European.
I had gotten half way through my teens before I left Germany and I still come
from a time where the police were like us. They helped me get home safely and
even cheersed champagne with us on the streets on New Years’ Eve. I don’t
remember ever being afraid of the police. I rightfully understood myself as
part of the peaceful majority. None of my friends in Germany are afraid of the
police. But then this is crazy socialist Germany, where you can climb a tree
without getting arrested, tactfully alleviate your bladder without being
slapped with a lifelong label as sex offender, where you may be belligerently
drunk in public as long as you are not hurting anyone or yourself, where
children aren’t hit with arrest records that will haunt them for the rest of
their lives, and where prison is, believe it or not, rehabilitative.
There is a notion at work in this country that I may ‘expect’ to get in trouble with the police if certain conditions are present. Am I supposed to expect harsh treatment because of what I am doing and how I look? And if that is the case, then is this justice of ours really all that blind? And what if I don’t look like I look? What if I look brown?
Over the last months, I have often thought of
the famous Ted talk where brain research expert Jill Bolte Taylor recounts the
events of her very own stroke. Much like that, I have been able to apply my
Master’s level expertise in Peace and Conflict Studies to the bubble of my very
own life. I have had to render the privilege of considering only intellectually
the profound injustices in our system and had a chance to feel a few of them on
my own skin. I am better for it.
Recently, as I have been driving past scenes
of 6 or 8 officers standing around a single homeless-looking person, I wonder
why we act surprised that we have a bullying problem in our children.
This is us. And we are looking at two very
frightening and interrelated facts: 1) an overstaffed, over-equipped,
over-eager and over-funded police force and 2) a system of private prisons that
are entering contracts with state and local governments that guarantee a
minimum occupancy rate of 90 to 100 percent.
What I am telling you, even If you don’t
believe it yet, is that it will be you. It will be you and you and me. It will
be us. Injustice and structural violence are a dish no longer just served to
the poor.
Forget that the federal prison population more
than doubled between 2000 and 2010. Forget that more people are being funneled
into the prison system even if actual crime rates are falling. Forget that we
are looking at what is called a positive feedback loop with our own societal
disease. People are profiting from a malfunctioning system. People thus have a
vested interest in maintaining a malfunctioning system. This, by definition,
will grow the malfunctioning of the system. Forget all that.
What is much, much worse, is that currently there is a board room somewhere, where people are analyzing recent reading levels of second graders and deciding how many prisons to build.
What is much, much worse, is that currently there is a board room somewhere, where people are analyzing recent reading levels of second graders and deciding how many prisons to build.
It is time.
It is time.
As for me, I am headed back to court on June 10. I have no
illusions about getting out of this ticket. But I am going to stand in my
dignity. I am going to take back my power. And I may even decide to draw a few
diagrams of my own.
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