Held Up

“Don’t take the ‘Express Lane’,” Paul warned. “Last time chickens slowed us down.”

Tim frowned. “Darn slowpokes! Afraid to drive fast, should stay out.”

“Na, I’m talking real chickens,” Paul continued. “Engine trouble. Took a while to get going.”

“What?”

“We was lucky. Truck behind had new barbecues. Behind him, delivery van with bbq sauce.”

Tim listened, keenly interested.

“Get this, they set up on the roadside. Best supper ever.”

“You lucky no cops showed up.”

“Two did. Said ‘twas illegal what we’s doin’.”

“You’s arrested?”

“Nope. After two rounds of chicken, they thanked us. Took off on their bikes.”

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Driver’s Ed

If you slow down for a yellow light, the cops will write you a ticket. Of course, if you blow through the light, they’ll write you a ticket for that, too. Half the drivers resist but soon give up, half try to hide. I didn’t believe my friends when they first told me. Then people started collapsing due to the stress of the situation. I’d seen rockets explode on liftoff, coyotes violate dogs. Yet I didn’t expect this at all. Our lives are just daydreams in a dead landscape. It’s now a crime in Utah to harass cattle with drones.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is on the pavement, thinking about the government.

The Beats

Gregory Corso was sitting in the window of Allen Ginsberg's East Village apartment – two, three hours, just sitting in silence. He had vowed to himself not to be a willing participant to any further chaos. Just to be every day, it took everything. You could be having a really nice time at the beach or the park one minute and in the next minute there could be cops with meaty red faces gassing and clubbing you. Once at a reading some lady asked him, “What’s an id?” and he waited a bit before answering, “Eighteenth-century sea captains carousing in Surinam.”

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of The Titanic Sails at Dawn (Alien Buddha Press, 2019).

Cannibal Snacks

The only store open at that hour was out of the first-aid cream I needed. Security cameras recorded what happened next. I ran amok in the chips and candy aisle, as if a slave to junk food. It was scary how much I could pack in. By the time the cops showed up, I was outside again and a cat had become just a red smear in the road. Someone recently asked me how I would describe red to a blind person. I shrugged. No one wants your honest opinion, ever. They may say they do, but they really don’t.From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie Good is the author of The Titanic Sails at Dawn (Alien Buddha Press, 2019)

Sonny Boy

Stop! You there STOP! Shouted the policeman.

No way was I going to stop. I didn’t do anything. The cops just wanted anyone who had been near the riot to bring in and arrest, and it wasn’t going to be me. So I ran. And I ran smack into a horse which knocked me flat on my ass.

“Where you going there sonny boy?” smiled the burly officer on the even burlier horse. “It’s Christmas mister, I was just heading home to my gran’s. She ‘d kill me if she knew I was even near a rally.”

Too Bad boy!

From Guest Contributor Philip Diehl

Citizen Watch

Let me start by saying nowhere in the United States is it illegal to film the police in public spaces. I'm sure if you asked Quincy Adams, he would tell you acting as a watchdog against an intrusive government is not only your right but your patriotic duty.

So I took to following cops in the neighborhood with my video camera.

I didn't last an hour. They must have put in a call to their buddies, because suddenly I was surrounded. They beat me straight into the hospital.

Needless to say, it's the best thing that's ever happened to me.

The Good Lieutenant

Recently, Officer Hanson spent most of his days seething. It seemed almost every cop in the city was on the take, whether for the mob or the corporate executives. It was giving him and the entire department a bad name.

With all the internal affairs investigations, it was becoming impossible to write a simple traffic citation without getting hauled before the citizen's review board.

Hanson prided himself on being a by the book cop. Sure, he might kidnap the occasional tourist and murder them in cold blood, but that was on his own time.

Maybe it was time for retirement.