'time to ride' was the name of the first one. i guess this is time to ride 2. the first one sold! I am a professional artist now! jk but seriously you never know with art. i already have ideas on how to make more of these, different iterations each one better than the last. get in on the ground floor and buy this one up! it's a wheel. it's a clock. it's a wheel clock! it works!
THE LAST PART.
Is it over? Conspiracy theories abound.
I retreat to my apartment for a while. I'm in shock. I don't know who to call or text or whether I should call anyone at all. My neighbor downstairs has like 5 people over almost every day. Are they gonna give them all the SWAT treatment? It seems like I'm the only one that got the special treatment and I wonder if I'm being told the truth.
I mean.. supposedly this all started because my neighbor had a nosebleed?
The police told me I could leave if I wanted, so after about another half hour I take a stroll, thinking I will get a beer at the corner store or something.
All is quiet on the western front when I go outside..
I slowly walk around the neighborhood, I am still too wound up after being cuffed and having heavy artillery pointed at my head to go straight to the store.
I see an old friend from work they pull up and say hi. I told them I missed them. They asked what I was up to and I said I was just out for a walk. I thought about telling them about being SWATTED* but it was too soon, so we made small talk and we said our goodbyes.
AT THAT EXACT MOMENT my other friend from work texts me 5 times..
I had called and told no one of my ordeal,, WTF was happening?
I ignored the text and kept walking. I could get back to my other friend later (had he somehow heard about what had happened?)
I felt like GOD or the universe or GODDESS was telling me to leave my apartment and this small town.
But then I asked GODDESS, if you want me to leave town why send a SWAT team?? Why not just send me the three months of back unemployment checks I was owed? Then I can AFFORD to leave town!
It had been a rough summer, I felt like I was fired for bogus reasons. It made me question everything. If I can get fired from a job I gave years of my life to for bogus reasons, what other things could happen? Could I be arrested for bogus reasons? Could I be SWATTED* (or killed, or both?) for bogus reasons? Why not? It wouldn't be the first time it happened and so why not me.
The summer of 2020 was a bit of an existential crisis, much like 2016 in some ways but for different reasons. Being SWATTED* actually didn't even come as that much of a surprise to me. I basically took it in stride. The police officers and I handled the situation as best we could. I know the police basically have an impossible job and I told them so. I don't envy them, and I told them so.
After my usual walkabout, I stop at the corner store and get two 22 ounce beers. NO BAG (they aren't required anymore and I don't want some police officer thinking I'm brown-bagging a piece.)
As I approach my crib, a 22 ounce beer in each hand I see two more police squad cars the one rolls by me says supervisor on the side (so glad I had refused the brown bag!) I give him the head nod and acknowledge his presence as he rolls past.
The other squad car is parked on my dead end street. He gets up and out of the seat and I nod at him as well, one of my neighbors' regular visitors is also pulling up in a big truck and not only that but my on-site landlady is up by my door.
It's not quite like all hell is breaking loose, but it's way more activity than what we normally see in my small town little apartment complex.
As I approach my place the second policeman got in his car and drove off. My on-site manager is speaking to another tenant. I am cluthching my IPA bottles as I approach.
“So do we all have to move out now?” I joke. I can see she is posting a flyer on everyone's door. I am waiting for some weird news like one of my neighbors has killed themselves and we all have to evacuate.
“It's just a routine fire alarm inspection.”
mmm.hmmm. A routine fire alarm inspection that you happen to be posting on everyone's door on the exact same day the SWAT team was here and they just left a half hour ago?
“Did they ever figure out what happened earlier?” I asked. “Did someone's water heater explode or something?”
“No they never figured it out, that's why they came back they said it doesn't make any sense.”
I check my door and yes, there is a notice they now want to do an inspection about the fire alarms.
My apartments are under new management and the new management hasn't done any of the regular inspections or walk throughs or fire alarm checks or anything the previous managers have done.
It's a little bit of a co-inky-dink that they chose TODAY, of all days, to do it.
My manager says
“So I guess I missed all the fun earlier.”
“Yes, I think I had the most fun.” (AFAIK, I was the only one handcuffed and questioned.)
“Well, at least you will have one quiet night tonight.”
“Okay.?” I was skeptical. I guess what she was saying is that my neighbor got arrested and would not be home tonight to disturb me?
I hadn't realized. I felt like there was a lot of missing information in what the police, my landlady, and the universe in general was providing me.
I finally had to talk to someone about it, so I phoned a friend and spilled my guts.
Just after that, THE CENSUS TAKER showed up at the apartment downstairs!!
Then they went to my neighbor's who might have gotten arrested!!
Consipiracy theories abound, police coordinating with federal census takers coordinating with fire alarm inspectors etc....
As I am typing this up, I'm afraid to close my blinds and turn off the lights. I figure if the cops are watching me I will let them check me out tonight. It is quiet as a crypt outside. The usual comings and goings of a few neighbors, but no police. Not a peep from the neighbor next door.
The end?
*The term SWATTED is used loosely in this story, it may or may not refer to having someone call a SWAT team on you on purpose with false accusations.
The SWAT team (I think it was a big green vehicle) drove straight down my cul-de-sac and parked outside my peripheral view.
The phone rang again.
“Hello?”
“Hi this is officer so and so again.”
“Oh, hello” listen by this time, I am not a dead man I do have some kind of sixth sense, my heart is RACING! I figure that my neighbor has made some kind of accusation against me and I am about to spend the night in jail.
“Hey do you mind coming outside and talking to us for a while about what happened earlier, we have a couple of more questions.”
“OK.”
I was FREAKED OUT, I had kind of expected them to maybe come back and ask to look around my apartment, but this was on another level.
“Can you just come out and slowly walk down your stairs?” Are you alone?”
“Ya, I'm alone. I will come out.”
I set down my cell phone and headed out my front door, leaving it ajar and unlocked behind me in case they wanted to search the place.
“PUT YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD”
I comply.
“PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD AND WALK BACKWARD THIS WAY”
I do my best to comply.
I am dressed in shorts and a lime green t-shirt with a a rainbow tie-dye bandanna around my neck! I wish I had a picture of it! (If you are one of my neighbors and you you have video please send!!)
They back me up to the SWAT van and cuff me, read me my rights, and question me!
This is the first time in my life I have ever been handcuffed!
To their credit, the man closest to the van had his assault rifle pointed towards the ground, not directly at me.
There was probably every other cop in the city that DID have their guns pointed at me. They were all over the place. Kevlar vests, temporary bulletproof mobile shields they were hiding behind, the works.
They even flew a drone outside my bedroom window to see inside.
They asked permission to search my place. I said they could. I wanted them to set their minds at ease. There are times when I might have said no. This wasn't one of those times.
“Do you own a gun?”
“No, I don't like guns and I don't own one.”
I told them they would probably think I was up to something because my apartment was really messy and I was in the middle of all those home improvement projects. I told them I had been making noise like drilling and sawing, but nothing really loud like firing a gun or anything.
They seemed to loosen up after a while, I told them about the disturbances my neighbor had been up to and they kept questioning me about what the noise sounded like and where it came from.
I missed my golden opportunity to say. “It sounded like Joe Biden just picked Kamala Harris to be Vice-President! BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE!”
It probably wouldn't have gone over too well at the time, but they might have seen the humor in it later.
I picture them laughing their asses off afterward, having to fill out the paperwork and describe my rainbow bandanna!
Funny thing, I had actually been thinking about getting arrested and handcuffed recently, maybe at one of the BLM protests, but I never went. (full disclosure I am Irish, Basque, German, and part Mexican but I appear very white.) After being SWATTED* today though, I am cool for a while. Maybe I can cross getting arrested off my bucket list next year.
If I WAS arrested, I would have a rainbow bandanna mugshot that I could treasure forever, and post to this blog. I am wearing it now. I think I will never take it off maybe it saved my life! Tie-dye forever Rainbow Ray?
To be continued?
*The term SWATTED is used loosely in this story, it may or may not refer to having someone call a SWAT team on you on purpose with false accusations.
It started off quiet, another day in the COVID-19 pandemic chillin' at home my back was sore from doing home improvement.
I took my cruiser bicycle for a ride to the local middle school and tried to shoot some buckets but my back wasn't havin' it.
I had been trying to remake my apartment and add a workbench to fix bikes so I could make ends meet because I had been laid off from my nine to five.
My neighbor lady had been trippin from me makin' noise so I was trying to limit my activities to the back bedroom/shop.
My baby mama and son came by to get some stuff he had left from a previous visit. They surprised me with a very sweet birthday present.
My neighbor lady yelled some profanity at them for knocking on MY door.
So when a couple of units rolled up to my apartments a half an hour later I thought nothing of it. They were probably just here to do a welfare check.
My neighbor is not 'crazy' I do believe that we all fall short of greatness and we all do OUR best. You think that your friend or relative WON'T do the right thing but no, they mentally and physically (they are all connected) CAN'T do the right thing. Don't judge people for that. They are doing THEIR best.
I retreated to my back bedroom to wait everything out. I had a feeling if ever the police had to drag my neighbor out of their apartment, she might not cooperate. She didn't like people in her apartment part of the reason was because she didn't want to catch COVID. She had expressed her fears about it before.
I checked my Twitter feed and Kamala Harris had been chosen to run as Vice-President!
That's when I heard a loud BOOM!
I assumed they were breaking my neighbor's door down with a battering ram or something, but I didn't hear anything else after. It was louder than a gunshot, with more bass.
It was quiet for a while, so I eventually wandered back to my living room/front room/kitchen (my apartment is small!) and got on my computer to check my email and facebook updates for any possible marketplace or craigslist deals.
That's when I received a call from a local number that of course I didn't answer because it's 2020 and who answers their phone? But I do check my voicemail if somebody leaves one so I did that.
And the caller called a second time as I was checking the voicemail and it was the Local PD.
Then they called a third time, OK!, if someone leaves me a voicemail I will answer my phone (most people don't) It was Officer so and so I said Hi, yes I am home yes that's my name I am doing well today.
“Did you hear a loud sound a half an hour ago?”
“Yes I did I was in my bedroom and I heard it.”
“What did it sound
like?”
“I don't really know but it was loud like maybe louder than a gunshot with more bass.” (I grew up in Northeast Portland and I had been questioned about noises by cops before. They tend to be interested in loud noises that could be gunshots and where they originate from.)
“I figured it was something to do with whatever you guys were doing next door.”
“No it was unrelated. We were responding to a call from your neighbor she had a nosebleed...
(Yeah right!? Why send two police cruisers to a nosebleed? Don't you just send ambulance?)
… when we heard the sound. Do you know what direction it came from?”
“Uhhh. Not really. Like I said I figured it was coming from the apartment next door maybe it was you guys.”
“Okay, well thanks for talking to us, if we have any other questions we will call you back, can you stay close to your phone and pick up if we do?”
“Yeah, sure. No problem”
“Thank you.”
That was that for a while. I went back to my usual spot on my computer, in front of my picture window.
My blinds were half closed. I like to peep the cul-de-sac for traffic but not to be too snoopy.
Then the SWAT team rolled up.
To be continued
