A Strange Tale of the New IPD

Copyright ©2021 Elder Road Books
Original draft, 1971
Revised September 2021

FROM THE TIME I got up Thursday morning, it had been “one of those days.” There was an accident on I-70 that held up traffic, so I was late for work. The boss was unhappy with that and gave me a ten-minute lecture on why I needed to plan ahead for such things and leave earlier in the morning. By the time I made it to my station, I was even later and the supervisor had to give me an earful, too. I had a backlog on the assembly and managed to get my knuckles scraped up trying to loosen a part from the mess. At lunch, I grabbed my brown bag and found my thermos had leaked all over my sandwich and the bottom of the bag fell out when I picked it up.

I finally got out of there and managed to drive through a food pickup for dinner. The fries were cold and so covered with salt that I couldn’t wash it down with the diluted soda they served. When I got to the college for my night class, there was no parking within half a mile, so I ran from my car—in the rain—to class in time to find I’d left the paper that was due today at home. After class, that cute Darlene started talking to me and we were making some time when she dropped a book. I bent over to pick it up and ripped out the seat of my pants. That ended that conversation, with a few titters and “See you!”

When I got back to my car, I discovered I’d left the lights on and the battery was dead. AAA promised to be there in thirty minutes. Two hours later, the truck showed up, couldn’t get the battery to jump, and sold me a new one on the spot. At least it started the car.

Finally, after midnight, I was wearily driving home, hoping to get there before I fell asleep. I thought I was alone on the street, until suddenly I saw flashing red lights in my rearview mirror. “Ah,” I thought, “the guardians of our fair city are wakeful. This noble policeman is hot on the trail of some archvillain—an enemy of the people. I shall pull aside and let him pass.”

But he did not pass. He pulled over behind me. There he was at my window, asking to see my driver’s license. I was the archcriminal he was after. Forty in a thirty-five mph zone at one o’clock in the morning is worth a ticket.

As I pulled up to the next stoplight, there was a car ahead of me with one of those cute bumper stickers on the left side that said, “America, love it or leave it.” On the right side of the bumper, one said, “If you don’t like police, next time you need help, call a hippie.” After the day I’d had, neither seemed like a bad idea.

Friday is garbage collection day, so when I got home and had changed into a comfy non-ripped pair of sweats, I tied my big green bag of garbage up and walked out to the back alley to deposit it in the dumpster. The sharp command of a voice brought me up short as it said, “Hold it! Turn around real slow.”

The figure I saw wore a leather jacket, dungarees, a slouch hat, and held a gun. But the voice was unmistakably female. I didn’t know what it was she wanted. I’d left my wallet in my apartment and all my money with it. In fact, all I had with me was my bag of garbage and my virtue. I could tell by the way she was pointing her gun at my sack, she didn’t want that! She just stood there pointing her gun and didn’t say anything. Finally, in desperation, I yelled out, “I need a hippie!” That’s not what I meant to say. I meant to yell ‘cop’ but somehow it slipped out wrong.

She jerked at first and raised her gun up at me. Fortunately, before she shot, what I had said sank in. She looked at me a moment, then broke out in uncontrollable laughter. I joined her quickly, thinking that perhaps I had just saved my bacon. Our laughter was cut off by another voice.

“You need help, daddio?” he said as I saw him coming around the corner. He was in a tie-dyed sweatshirt and blue jeans, and his hair and beard hung down in strings past his shoulders.

All I could think was, “Oh, my God! What have I done?” Then two more guys appeared from the opposite direction. My assailant swung her gun around and commanded us all against a wall. I saw two dark shadows materialize behind her.

“What do you want from me?” I asked. She didn’t have time to answer. One of the dark shadows, a black man dressed in black, reached out and grabbed the gun from her hand, while the other pinned her arms behind her. Somehow, however, I had the uneasy feeling my troubles were not yet over.

One of my ‘rescuers’ stepped around a corner and whistled. The two remaining with me took me by the arms and one said, “You’ll come with us, please.” It wasn’t really a request. The other two moved with my assailant beside us as a beat-up but gaily painted old panel van pulled up in front of us. We were ushered inside. I was twenty-one years old and had recently considered getting a similar vehicle and outfitting it with a mattress and some cool tie-dyed curtains like this one had. I mean, not the mattress. We just sat on the floor. But it did have curtains.

We rode in silence about twenty minutes before stopping on a shady looking street, and were led into a nondescript brick building. The lighting was poor and the room dirty. Dust covered everything we touched as we went down a dark stairway and through a door at the bottom. The sudden glare of light that burst forth through the door blinded me as I walked into the room, but as my eyes adjusted, I noticed the obvious differences between this room and the rest of the building.

This room was not at all dirty. In fact, ‘immaculate’ would describe it perfectly. I was standing on thick red carpet. Around us were benches that looked like old church pews facing the same direction I was. The room was set up just like an old-fashioned English courtroom, if all you had was what you could find in a church basement. A panel of judges sat at the table in front. Three men with long hair and beards. Two women with straight hair that hung below the top of the table. I was led to the front and seated to the right. My assailant was seated to the left. There was a kind of sweet smell in the room and a stick of incense burned on the judges’ table.