Friday, 5:00 PM, Out and About |
GilThe first rule of red boxing is to avoid public places. A lot of cops don't know what a red box is, but the ones that do will bust you the moment they see a punk with a tone dialer. I guess I'm not thinking when I decided to call home, because I pick the nearest payphone, pulled out my red box and held it to the receiver. The cop couldn't have been farther away than twenty feet, watching the crosswalk on Wisconsin Avenue. Liesl leaned up against the store front a little ways away and smoked a cigarette.Lo and behold he comes up an hassles me. My luck. In any case, I tell him to fuck off. In retrospect, this is probably not the right thing to say to a cop who clearly doesn't think much of standard procedure. "You watch it," he says, "I'm about this close to bringing you
in."
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LeislGil needs to call home, so he decides to use his redbox, with a cop standing right there.The cop walks up to him and says, "Let me see that, son." Gil gives it to him without hesitation. "It's a tone dialer with memory. Handy if you can't remember numbers. Only $9.95 at Radio Shack. And I'm not your son." He smiled patronizingly at me. "I know what it is and I'm going to keep it. No more free phone calls for you." "What? That's my private property!" "Not any more. I'm taking it with me back to the station." "The fuck you are!" "That was pretty smooth, telling that cop to fuck off. This sort thing happen to you often?" "Actually, you wouldn't think it, but no, I don't tell cops to fuck off on a daily basis. In fact I've almost manages to cut back to weekly." "Hey," I say, "Let's go get the car."
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Fritz |
Ted |
Lindsay |