The Gauntlet
The whoop, whoop, whoop of the police siren died to a guttural moan as Anais pulled her Kia to the curb just inside the small Ohio town of Springfield, within striking distance of Dayton. She peeped into the rearview mirror and spied a policeman alighting from the cruiser and striding her way. What now? she thought. She was driving down Rivers Road, a virtual gauntlet of police speed traps, according to her husband.
The policeman rapped with his knuckles on her window and so Anais lowered the glass pane. “Yessir?” she asked.
“Driver’s license, registration and proof of insurance,” said the cop dully.
Anais turned and fished through her glovebox and purse and eventually turned up the requested documents. She passed them through the window to the policeman, who accepted them without a word. Anais, a recent Haitian refugee, had never been accosted by law enforcement in this country. But, she had heard stories. She didn’t know what to expect, but remembered what her grandmother, who’d raised her, always said: “Hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Do whatever they say,” she’d cautioned. Anais waited.
The 19-year-old woman turned her head and noted that the policeman was staring intently at her, through the harsh beam of a huge flashlight. She couldn’t make out his features. Did he suspect she harbored drugs, because her skin was brown and she dressed differently from others? Unable so far to buy native apparel, she was still clad in a vibrant, red and blue chambray Karabela dress.
“Get out of the vehicle,” directed the cop, taking a step back to allow Anais to open her door. She silently complied. Out on the pavement, she stood by the car, uncertain and forlorn. Where was her grandmother when she needed her? She glanced at the western sky; the sun had already slipped below the horizon. It was quite dark now. The road at this hour was little travelled and not a vehicle had passed since she was stopped. She felt very vulnerable.
“Do you have any illegal drugs, contraband or weapons in your car or on your person?” he asked next.
She shook her head no.
“Do you speak American?” asked the cop impatiently.
Anais blinked. “I speak the English,” she told him in her thick accent.
He grunted.
“Why did you stop me?” asked Anais nervously.
Ignoring her question, the cop handed back the documents she’d passed him before and said, “Do you have citizenship papers?”
Anais nodded. “I have the green card,” she said.
“Let’s see it,” grumbled the cop, extending his tiny hand.
Anais gave it to him. He drifted back to his cruiser, engaged the radio for a few minutes and then returned and handed the document back.
“What’re you doing on the roads at this hour?” queried the cop.
Anais glanced at her cell phone: it was almost 9pm.
“I’m on my way home–from the grocery store,” she said. She began to feel some dark misgivings about the way this interrogation was proceeding.
Now the cop directed his large flashlight again into Anais’s face and after a moment, said, “turn around, put your hands against the vehicle, take a step back,” he ordered. She did.
At just that moment, another police can rolled up and parked behind the first. Men got out of both doors. Their boots scunched over the gravel on the side of the road. The first cop withdrew and met them halfway to his vehicle. They talked in hushed tones. That left Anais standing awkwardly against her car.
Anais looked up as the men exchanged a bawdy laugh. Were they talking about her? she wondered. Anais was a newlywed and she longed for the comfort of her partner, to hear his voice and feel his arms around her, but the policeman had seized her phone.
Finally, the first cop tromped loudly to her car and roughly patted her down and then, without warning, seized one arm and pulled it behind her back. Handcuffs clicked into place over her wrist. He took her other arm and secured that wrist as well. What was happening? she thought wildly, as the cop opened her back door and pushed her through and face down onto the bench seat in the rear of the Kia. Now the other two cops approached and stood staring down at her supine figure, chucking malevolently. They likewise had flashlights.
“Not bad,” murmured one of the newcomers, “for a greasball.” They all laughed.
“Got a nice ass for a spic,” opined the third racist cop,” reaching in and groping Anais’s backside and running his fingers between her legs.
She whimpered and struggled fruitlessly against her bonds.
“So,” said the first cop. “Who wants to do her first?” he asked the others conversationally.
One of the cops said, “Maybe we should do dinner first. You said she’s from Haiti. What’s your pleasure, senorita, a dog or a cat?” They laughed yet again. The burning essence of marijuana now wafted through the air.
Anais thought hard, then suddenly spoke out. “I saw your face,” she rasped desperately.
The three men grew silent as statues.
“I thought she didn’t see you,” whispered another of the three.
“She didn’t,” said the first cop. “I never gave her my name or showed her a badge or nothin’. I used my flashlight, like the last time. She’s lyin’.”
“But, what if she ain’t,” said another voice.
“Then you’ll have to kill me,” Anais spoke out. “Or go to jail for kidnapping and rape. I’m a married woman,” said Anais with sudden rage. “And my husband owns a big gun. You’ll be shot, if you touch me again,” she shouted. “You release me now, and I’ll forget about the touching and the disrespect. You decide now. You got five seconds to decide.”
In a matter of only a few seconds, the handcuffs were opened and Anais was freed. The other two cops hurried off to their car and sped away. The first cop snatched the keys from Anais’s ignition and tossed them and her cell phone into the weeds a few feet away and loped to his vehicle and likewise took off. She could hear the tires burning rubber.
Finding her keys, Anais stumbled back to her car and was soon motoring home, shaking and crying as she drove. She lived only minutes away. The only thing she saw when she entered the small house was Michael.
He said, in his rich, soft baritone, “Carino. I was worried about you.”
She fell into his warm embrance and immediately told him of her narrow escape at the hands of the rogue policemen. After she’d completed her narrative, Michael gently grasped her shoulders and said, “Did you really see his face?”
Anais had the grace to blush. “No, Michael. The flashlight was in my face the whole time.”
Then he said, “Anais, I don’t even own a gun.”
She smiled up into his face. “No, but you would’ve gotten one,” she whispered with confidence.
