The Cop Car

The police seemed quite different when I was younger. They were enormous, most officers towering over those around them. I know, I’ve never actually been tall, and I was a kid then, so, everyone towered over me. But the stories told me suggested they were of sterner stuff. That may not be true, that may just be tinted memory.

Be that as it may, one day, when I was a kid, David Miller and I were at the base of Pinecrest, taking a break from whatever. It was hot. It was the dog days of summer. I recall us standing, straddling our bikes, leaning on the handlebars, not actually going anywhere, not actually doing anything, when we heard a distant siren. Our interest was perked. What kid doesn’t love a siren and the excitement that always seems to accompany one? We noticed the siren was getting louder, and louder still, overlaid by the high-pitched whine of a motorbike. Dave and I looked at each other, aware that their source was definitely coming our way. And then we saw it, the motorbike flying up Brousseau, actually leaving the ground as it topped the rise at Toke Street. Its scream was terrific, loud enough that we’d have cupped our hands to our ears had we not been astounded at what was playing out in front of us, had it not crossed right in front of us, so quickly that it was a blur that was already receding. The bike threw a spray of fine sand behind it as it fishtailed into the bush trail at the base of the school hill, back towards the cruiser that raced after it. Remember the cruisers then? White and blue, and as big as a ship. It too passed in a blur, a white streak that to our surprise was not slowing down. The cop car was way too wide for the trail ahead, regardless how wide its entry. We ought to know, we all but lived back there on those trails. As the cop soon found out as he sailed into the trail in hot pursuit of the bike. And then he was lost to sight. We heard the snap of branches and branches and even more branches. And then just the siren. And then silence, just a tiny motorbike in the far distance, and the thrum of the cruise however far it had carried into the trail. Dave and I hadn’t moved, never having taken our eyes off the trailhead. A short while later, not long, no more than a minute or two, the cruiser backed out, breaking still more branches. Twigs and leaves stuck out from the hood, the front lights, the wheel wells.

I suppose the cop gave us a hard look as he backed out and drove away; maybe not, maybe he was too embarrassed to want to see if those kids were still watching him. I wasn’t, I was still too bewildered at what I’d just witnessed to actually see him, still staring at the bits of bush bristling from all over the cruiser.