After we left the Tombs, Michael walks with me to Soho and I invite him for a drink at Cafe Noir. We both agree that this whole thing is insane. Just imagine the waste of tax dollars. What did this cost the state of NY and the city. 1,000 dollars, 2,000, 3,000? Some people who say they have a medical problem get a thorough check up at a hospital, AIDS test and all. And all this in times of scarce public resources. And what will it cost me in terms of money, lost time, not to speak of the the emotional trauma? I am not a sissie, but this hits you down to your bone marrow. A really stupid law. Preposterous and totally out of proportion. To give so much leeway to a corrupt, incompetent and run down police department. He hands me a printout from a web site of a law office in Queens trying to explain the skewed and dubious rationale for its existence. You can read it here, it's worth a read: http://www.queensdefense.com/suspend.htm We down a few beers and I go on to another bar in my neighborhood run by friends of mine and after they hear my story the drinks are on the house.
I wake up Thursday morning and for a few seconds everything seems normal until my memory kicks in. Did this really happen or was it only a bad dream? Nursing a slight hangover, I look for my glasses. Can't find them. I must have lost them in one of the bars. I remember Michael returning them along with my wallet, papers and helmet.
I decide to go up to the DMV office on 34th Street to find out what happened to the license. I want to pick up my bike as soon as possible before they take it to the impound in Queens and charge me for towing and storage. At 34th Street I take a number and soon talk to a man with burnmarks all over his face and body. His hand had only two fingers left and looked burned as well. He checks and tells me that his records show one outstanding ticket from 08/22/06 for "UNAPPROVED HELMET." A leftover from the incident with the nasty cop on 125th Street. So either I screwed up and paid only one summons for the sunglasses, or they made an error in their data entry. Somehow the same record also showed up twice in their database. It was originally for $45 and was now $145. I ask if I could pay it now and he tells me that I would have to go to the Traffic Violations Bureau at 19 Rector Street. "Take the 1 or 9 train," he recommends.
At the office on Rector Street I encounter the first sympathetic human being with a government job in this whole ordeal. A young Philippino woman with big glasses. I tell her that I was arrested because my license was suspended due to a traffic violations ticket. "That's so horrible! Is your vehicle insured?" "Yes, of course, I paid Progressive two months ago and I have the document with me." "But they are supposed to check." I don't say anything anymore. Why doesn't the DMV check when they send me the registration? I pay $145 for the ticket and leave, making sure the suspension is lifted.
I spend the rest of the afternoon walking to Bar Noir and White Slab Palace to look for my glasses. Nobody found anything. Damn, those were nice Moscot Classics. Another 400 dollars.
Friday, May 1, 2009. Immediately after breakfast I start writing this story. The impressions are still vivid and my anger is unabated. Around 11 am I call the 25th precinct and ask for officer Arroyo. "He's out." I am being told by the woman who answers the phone. "He should be back in the afternoon." I ask if I can leave my number. "Sure, I let him know you called."
I continue writing. By 3 pm I haven't received a call back and decide to take the receipt for the bike and take the 6 train up to 116th. At the precinct I hand my receipt and drivers license over the counter to the female clerk and ask for Arroyo. They can't locate him in the building. While I wait I study a vitrine with photographs of some sort of cops graduation ceremony, a party and a bicycle outing. Suddenly the door to the stairwell opens and out comes Arroyo. I ask if I can speak with him for a minute. He's a bit uncomfortable but says "Sure." I tell him the reason for the license suspension was a helmet without a DOT sticker. "Any idiot could tell that it was a legal helmet and it probably was one of your guys who wrote that ticket in 2006. It's nothing personal with you, but I am not going to take this shit!" "It was never something personal. I was not the one initiating the arrest." he says. I always had the impression that he was the guy in charge. He was the one who arrived in the black car and put the cuffs on me. But now he's passing the buck to the guy who stopped me. He suddenly takes out his cell phone and walks out in the rain. I wait for a while, but he's not coming back. The woman behind the counter is still looking for the records. "Was there a license plate on the vehicle?" she asks. "There was one when it came in here." I tell her. She comes with some forms and says "This should have been filled out when the vehicle came in." I give her my registration and help her fill out the form. "Did you check his license, he had two suspensions on it!" one cop shouts out from a desk. I smile, sure, two suspensions on one license, that must make the case a slam dunk. She takes my license and goes to check. When she comes back she tells me that an officer will get the bike. "Here you go, Sir" he says as he hands me the keys.
I ride over to Cycle Therapy and they put the lenses on my signal lights and give me a new inspection sticker. Amit tells me that this happens all the time. Apparently they catch a lot of people with no license, suspended license or just a car license. If they can't arrest you, there is always something else they find, a technical defect, expired registration, expired inspection, whatever they can stick on you. In my case the whole ordeal started with a missing paper sticker on a motorcycle helmet.
Here my story ends, but I will add a few concluding thoughts.
Tomorrow...