Things had gotten pretty awful since I'd gottento know our local biker crime lords. My wife had taken 'a holiday' and then made it clear that she wasn't coming back, which meant I was separated from my daughter for the first time since she was born. Her departure also meant I had to deal with our scumbag tenants on my own. I had leased a duplex on the edge of Val David from a friend who had gone off to become famous on NBC in Los Angeles. We let the south side of the house to a young couple with a child, who offered references and post-dated cheques. All of them , save the first one, turned out to be pure rubber. That had been 11 months ago. My friend the owner refused to help us evict them...but justice was coming. The lease was up in two weeks, there would be be no renewal and they would have to move. So I sat in my side of the place and drank myself to sleep every night. In the morning, I would wake up in the front seat of my truck, parked on the edge of a road that I had never seen before. It was startling the first few times, then became routine, figuring out where I was without looking at a map. The last morning of the lease, I arrived home exhasuted and crashed in my own bed. I woke up covered in sweat. The bedroom, the whole house was super heated. Turning down the thermostat did nothing, the furance roared on. I ran around to the other side of the duplex and knocked. Nothing. I could see through the windows the rooms had been emptied, so I pushed the door in. It popped open. The kitchen floor was covered in excrement. I jumped into the living room and snapped the thermostat off. The furnace was roaring louder than ever. The cold air returns were covered with worn rugs. It struck me that my tenants had done this as a going away present. What they did not figure on was that they could have blown the house to pieces. I ran out outside and tried the basement door, It had a new hasp lock on it! Fuck this - I could feel the heat building inside the door. I kicked it in and fell over to one side. A wave of hot air rushed out. I fumbled around the circuit breaker. finally wacking it with my fist and the furnace began to cycle down. The steel wall was red hot and warped. Son of a bitch. First I had to call the furnace company, then the cops. I got the repairman on the way and went back outside to check on the furnace as a Surete de Quebec patrol car pulled in my driveway. Before I could say a word, the bigger of two very large cops motioned me to stop where I was. I stopped. "Look, my tenant pulled a midnight move and sabotaged the furnace so it would overheat. I want to charge him." They traded looks and chuckled. "We know all about you, asshole. Harrassing that young couple to get them out so you could open a bed and breakfast. Shut your trap." The look on my face laid some doubt on the other cop, but Number One was hot to trot. He ignored what had been done to the furnace, that the house was empty and the floors covered in shit, and the lease I tried to show him. He cautioned me and charged me with Breaking and Entering. In my own house, with no tenants, with a half melted furance! I felt the irresitable pull of a totally surreal world as they placed me in the back seat of the cruiser. Thirteen hours in the interview room changed nothing. I repeatedly told them to fuck off and get me a lawyer. "Yesh, right away." I could hear the two cops arguing outside the interview room but not what they were saying. It was 11:30 pm when they tried to take me to the holding cells in Montreal. I refused to move until I made a call to a lawyer. It netted me a voice mail. An hour and half later, I was being processed into the Surete's downtown holding cells, which included the delightful 'rubber gloved finger up the ass' search. At 6 am, I given a box of warm milk and a ham sandwich, and whisked back up to St. Jerome for my court appearance. I was in leg chains and handcuffs, attached to a diminutive Columbian who'd had the bad luck to have someone put 10 kilos of cocaine in his luggage. The courtroom in St. Jerome was like something out of the French Revolution. Chaos everywhere. I could see my arresting officer behind the Crown Attorney's desk - with my fucking tenant, his fat mouse wife and her dead drunk father, leader of the local English white trash minority. Things were coming into focus. When my turn came, I stood up and clanked forward. What had been chaotic suddenly calmed into a pool of silence. The Crown attorney, a tiny red-haired woman in a sharp suit, was reading my charge sheet. Her face took on touches of her hair color, her arms shook, she began to pound one lovely high heel into the tile floor. She looked for the duty public defender and turned to the bench. "Your Honour, conference please." There was nodding and whispering and a strange look on the judge's face as he turned to me, "Mr.....ah, McKeehan, you will be released immediately. There has been a terrible mistake. The office of the Crown Attorney will be in touch with you. My apologizes." My building rage had no where to go. I looked at the cop and his group who were now backing out of the courtroom. "Thank you, your honour. Nice to see somebody knows their job." I was whisked to the holding area, unshackled and released. I ran around to the public entrance of the courthouse and into the long central hallway. A piece of high public theatre being enacted there. The Arresting Idiot had his back to me while he faced the red-haired Crown prosecutor. Most of the crowd from the courtroom were behind her, watching the show. She read from the charge sheet in short sections, then pointed out the fallicous nature of what he had done or not done in a voice that approached a shreik. The intensity of it was remarkable. No one moved, normal activity in the whole courtroom complex seem to have been suspended. I saw the judge peeking through the door of his courtroom just as Red reached her peak. "Everything you've done has cast ridicule on a system of justice that means something to the rest of us. You are going to bear the brunt of the public scandal and expense. If Mr. McKeehan brings a wrongful arrest suit, and I hope he does, I'll be the first to to offer to testify for him. Now get out of here, you useless piece of shit." He turned and almost knocked me over. I couldn't help myself. "See you soon, fucko." I looked at the Crown prosecutor, nodded a thank you, then headed outside. A lawyer sidled up to me and slipped his card in my hand. "Give me a call, I'll do it pro bono." Once outside, I realized I had no way to get home and started to walk toward Highway 15, exhausted, elated, pissed off. A car pulled up next to me. It was my friend, Detective Andre. He'd been off duty. "Get in before you get arrested for attempted car robbery by hitch hiking." He said not a word, just dropped me at my wreck of a house and went on his way. Two months later, I agreed to a negotiated settlement and a letter of apology. The next spring, Officer Idiot got swept up in a sting operation. He had been taking kickbacks from tow truck operators in exchange for preferred calls to accident scenes. He went to jail for two years, his partner was allowed to resign. All for less than $300. Seemed about right. Me, I learned something about how the Angels feel about cops - guilty or innocent made no difference - one way or another, they'd get you. That was their job.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Two rogue elephants and a rat
Things had gotten pretty awful since I'd gottento know our local biker crime lords. My wife had taken 'a holiday' and then made it clear that she wasn't coming back, which meant I was separated from my daughter for the first time since she was born. Her departure also meant I had to deal with our scumbag tenants on my own. I had leased a duplex on the edge of Val David from a friend who had gone off to become famous on NBC in Los Angeles. We let the south side of the house to a young couple with a child, who offered references and post-dated cheques. All of them , save the first one, turned out to be pure rubber. That had been 11 months ago. My friend the owner refused to help us evict them...but justice was coming. The lease was up in two weeks, there would be be no renewal and they would have to move. So I sat in my side of the place and drank myself to sleep every night. In the morning, I would wake up in the front seat of my truck, parked on the edge of a road that I had never seen before. It was startling the first few times, then became routine, figuring out where I was without looking at a map. The last morning of the lease, I arrived home exhasuted and crashed in my own bed. I woke up covered in sweat. The bedroom, the whole house was super heated. Turning down the thermostat did nothing, the furance roared on. I ran around to the other side of the duplex and knocked. Nothing. I could see through the windows the rooms had been emptied, so I pushed the door in. It popped open. The kitchen floor was covered in excrement. I jumped into the living room and snapped the thermostat off. The furnace was roaring louder than ever. The cold air returns were covered with worn rugs. It struck me that my tenants had done this as a going away present. What they did not figure on was that they could have blown the house to pieces. I ran out outside and tried the basement door, It had a new hasp lock on it! Fuck this - I could feel the heat building inside the door. I kicked it in and fell over to one side. A wave of hot air rushed out. I fumbled around the circuit breaker. finally wacking it with my fist and the furnace began to cycle down. The steel wall was red hot and warped. Son of a bitch. First I had to call the furnace company, then the cops. I got the repairman on the way and went back outside to check on the furnace as a Surete de Quebec patrol car pulled in my driveway. Before I could say a word, the bigger of two very large cops motioned me to stop where I was. I stopped. "Look, my tenant pulled a midnight move and sabotaged the furnace so it would overheat. I want to charge him." They traded looks and chuckled. "We know all about you, asshole. Harrassing that young couple to get them out so you could open a bed and breakfast. Shut your trap." The look on my face laid some doubt on the other cop, but Number One was hot to trot. He ignored what had been done to the furnace, that the house was empty and the floors covered in shit, and the lease I tried to show him. He cautioned me and charged me with Breaking and Entering. In my own house, with no tenants, with a half melted furance! I felt the irresitable pull of a totally surreal world as they placed me in the back seat of the cruiser. Thirteen hours in the interview room changed nothing. I repeatedly told them to fuck off and get me a lawyer. "Yesh, right away." I could hear the two cops arguing outside the interview room but not what they were saying. It was 11:30 pm when they tried to take me to the holding cells in Montreal. I refused to move until I made a call to a lawyer. It netted me a voice mail. An hour and half later, I was being processed into the Surete's downtown holding cells, which included the delightful 'rubber gloved finger up the ass' search. At 6 am, I given a box of warm milk and a ham sandwich, and whisked back up to St. Jerome for my court appearance. I was in leg chains and handcuffs, attached to a diminutive Columbian who'd had the bad luck to have someone put 10 kilos of cocaine in his luggage. The courtroom in St. Jerome was like something out of the French Revolution. Chaos everywhere. I could see my arresting officer behind the Crown Attorney's desk - with my fucking tenant, his fat mouse wife and her dead drunk father, leader of the local English white trash minority. Things were coming into focus. When my turn came, I stood up and clanked forward. What had been chaotic suddenly calmed into a pool of silence. The Crown attorney, a tiny red-haired woman in a sharp suit, was reading my charge sheet. Her face took on touches of her hair color, her arms shook, she began to pound one lovely high heel into the tile floor. She looked for the duty public defender and turned to the bench. "Your Honour, conference please." There was nodding and whispering and a strange look on the judge's face as he turned to me, "Mr.....ah, McKeehan, you will be released immediately. There has been a terrible mistake. The office of the Crown Attorney will be in touch with you. My apologizes." My building rage had no where to go. I looked at the cop and his group who were now backing out of the courtroom. "Thank you, your honour. Nice to see somebody knows their job." I was whisked to the holding area, unshackled and released. I ran around to the public entrance of the courthouse and into the long central hallway. A piece of high public theatre being enacted there. The Arresting Idiot had his back to me while he faced the red-haired Crown prosecutor. Most of the crowd from the courtroom were behind her, watching the show. She read from the charge sheet in short sections, then pointed out the fallicous nature of what he had done or not done in a voice that approached a shreik. The intensity of it was remarkable. No one moved, normal activity in the whole courtroom complex seem to have been suspended. I saw the judge peeking through the door of his courtroom just as Red reached her peak. "Everything you've done has cast ridicule on a system of justice that means something to the rest of us. You are going to bear the brunt of the public scandal and expense. If Mr. McKeehan brings a wrongful arrest suit, and I hope he does, I'll be the first to to offer to testify for him. Now get out of here, you useless piece of shit." He turned and almost knocked me over. I couldn't help myself. "See you soon, fucko." I looked at the Crown prosecutor, nodded a thank you, then headed outside. A lawyer sidled up to me and slipped his card in my hand. "Give me a call, I'll do it pro bono." Once outside, I realized I had no way to get home and started to walk toward Highway 15, exhausted, elated, pissed off. A car pulled up next to me. It was my friend, Detective Andre. He'd been off duty. "Get in before you get arrested for attempted car robbery by hitch hiking." He said not a word, just dropped me at my wreck of a house and went on his way. Two months later, I agreed to a negotiated settlement and a letter of apology. The next spring, Officer Idiot got swept up in a sting operation. He had been taking kickbacks from tow truck operators in exchange for preferred calls to accident scenes. He went to jail for two years, his partner was allowed to resign. All for less than $300. Seemed about right. Me, I learned something about how the Angels feel about cops - guilty or innocent made no difference - one way or another, they'd get you. That was their job.
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