#193

Hello, friends and fugitives.
Here’s the art.

I’m always thrilled when I can experience something new, so naturally I was excited to have the police called on me for the first time! Maybe I should explain before you go picturing me knocking down Jo’s door with an ax and saying, “Here’s Johnny!”
I was walking back from the beach through that gated community that I mentioned in newsletter #191...the one that has the lovely road through the woods, no residence, and a few half finished houses waiting for bailout money to trickle towards them. I was in the middle of the road with my giant studio headphones on when this guy appeared from a half finished house and came out to the road. I took my headphones off and said, “How you doing?”
He said, “Ya know, we’re not allowing anyone to be back here.”
I said, “Yeah, I know.” and put my headphones back on and kept walking towards the exit. I could hear that he was starting to yell at me, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying because of the music. Suddenly, he ran up on me still yelling and taking a very aggressive stance. I took my headphones off again and said, “So call the police, but you need to get out of my face.” It was getting dark, and it was just the two of us on this secluded road, so it wasn’t a very good situation. He did take my advice and dialed 911, yelling a description of me into the phone, telling the 911 operator that he was going to take my picture and continue to follow me to my house. I didn’t want to lead this walking temper tantrum to my house, so I turned and headed for this low income apartment complex. He didn’t follow me in there. I took my sweater from around my waist and put it back on to hide the shirt he had described to the police. I cut through another neighborhood to get to a path that would lead to my house, but right where I came out of that neighborhood to cross the street is where the police were taking his statement. So I walked up to them and explained my side of the story. I’ve watched COPS enough on TV to know that the calmest person usually wins the police’s judgment, and that’s exactly what happened. They told me I was free to go, and they spent some time lecturing him on his temper, which they were getting a taste of themselves.

-Dylan