I'll hurt you 'til you need me

To quote the great Rod Serling, this is presented without comment:

It was the early 80s. Nancy and I were on our first date; she sang in a country band and I was an aspiring but decidedly mediocre guitar player. It was a Saturday night, we had just finished dinner at a steak house in downtown San Antonio and were driving through the swanky Alamo Heights neighborhood. Not sure where we were headed, but I remember feeling a little full of myself, young and especially foolish.

She was driving and it was a cool evening, and I inexplicably hung my right leg out the passenger window as she drove. Feeling lucky, or about to be lucky, I guess.

The flashing red lights came up behind us quickly; the officer approached the car and pointed his flashlight in my eyes.

Without asking Nancy for her license, he said to me, “what’s wrong with you boy?” I stammered, “excuse me?”

“Get out of the car, now!,” he yelled.

I did, and he quickly came around back of the car to meet me. “Put your hands up and lean against the car.”

I did, but apparently I wasn’t close enough to the car as he put his right knee into my backside and shoved me against the car.

“Where are you from?”

“Pennsylvania,” and I then made the mistake of smirking a little because I couldn’t believe that this whole thing was happening.

This pissed him off even more.

“We don’t act that around here,” he said as he frisked me, and then pushed me with both hands hard against the car.

That prompted Nancy to say loudly, “what did he do?”

“Shut up.”

“What have you been drinking?”

“Nothing," I said truthfully.

Surprisingly, he believed me. I was fully expecting a breathalyzer to be forthcoming.

“What makes you think you can come down here and hang your ass out of a moving car? We don’t act like that around here, “ he said again.

I started to turn around and he shoved me hard again against the car. “What are you doing,” Nancy asked, rather loudly, which again didn't make him happy.

“Take your boyfriend and get back in the car. I don’t want to see you here again.”

By this time I was really shaking and I stumbled back in the car.

“Yes sir.”

The Alamo Heights police officer, a short, stocky African-American male who resembled Issac from “The Love Boat” (without the inviting toothy smile) stood in front of his car and glared at us as we pulled away.

The lily-white occupants quickly left one of the most affluent zip codes in Texas, and I kept both feet firmly on the floor of the front seat.

I didn't act like that around there again.