And sure enough, here I am, choking on my own words. Just when I thought I’d seen and done it all, THE ROAD SCHOLARS get arrested…well, almost.
But first an apology, several actually. First and foremost, I keep mangling the names of our friends in Tennessee; so let me set the record straight once and for all. The FisCher’s (spelled with a C) reside in Chattanooga, TN with their family of four that includes (here we go): Michael, his wife CarolYN, and their two kids, Dalton, and Rachael. If I’ve spelled anything wrong now, forget about it. Secondly, I just realized I made a small error in my last issue of FROM THE ROAD. It appears that I added an extra paragraph about DotComGuy that was rather redundant. Amazingly no one flamed me regarding the error, so it must have seemed fairly natural. Now that we’ve started discussing my mistakes, let’s continue with the story, shall we?
We made the twelve-hour drive from Colorado, where we had an awesome time, to Henderson, NV on Friday, day 23. We arrived at my grandfather’s sister’s house in plenty of time for dinner and in order for you to fully appreciate this story I must share with you some of our dinner conversation. You see, Sandy (grandpa’s sister) takes over houses that have been repossessed by the bank and fixes them up so they can be sold again. Many of these houses have been repossessed because the owner has since been arrested, usually on some kind of narcotics charge, which is the case for our story. The house in question is one that Sandy purchased for herself and uses as a rental. She acquired the house after the owner was convicted of drug trafficking. Apparently this guy had a lab set up in the garage and customers would come by at all hours of the day and night to re-supply. In addition to hearing about our home for the night (since the rental is currently vacant, we would be staying there), we also got an earful about the woes of dealing with contractors and the kinds of weirdoes Sandy has to put up with in this line of work. Keep in mind that these stories are now floating through our minds as we take up our new residence—it’s like going to bed right after eating too many sweets or hearing a scary ghost story.
Fast forward to about 1AM. Chris was tired so I went downtown by myself to do some gambling and to check out one of my favorite Vegas attractions, the Fremont Street Experience. When I returned around 1AM, I parked the car in the garage next to the fully restored 197X Mercedes, closed the garage door, and jumped in the spa before heading to bed. I won a small amount of money playing Craps and I was feeling very relaxed after hitting the Jacuzzi, so you can imagine the kind of wonderful deep sleep I was in when the doorbell rang. Doorbell?? Was that the doorbell? Nah must have been a dream.
Ding-Dong Ding-Dong Ding-Dong.
Now my eyes are wide open, my arm flies up and I look at my watch, 2:30AM. A knot is developing in my stomach, my muscles tense, and I reach over to grab my cell phone. There is phone service in the house, but damned if I remember where the phone is. Who the hell would be ringing the doorbell of a vacant rental house—formerly the residence of a drug dealer—at 2:30AM? Ah, that last part is what starts all the trouble. Various thoughts are now racing through my mind as I scramble to decide what to do. There’s no way in hell I’m answering that door, that’s for sure. Might be a random drunk looking for a place to stay, a neighbor in distress, a strung out addict looking for his next fix…or Chris for some reason locked outside. While highly unlikely, I felt obligated to investigate this last possibility—hey, I was still half asleep, gimme a break. Cell phone in hand, I stumble towards the front door in the dark, trying not to make any noise and already dialing 9-1-1 on my phone. Suddenly, several thoughts hit me:
1) I don’t know where I am. The address of the rental is on a small post-it note somewhere in the kitchen. If I call 9-1-1, they will have to triangulate my cell signal to find me and even then they won’t have an address.
2) I have no one to call. Sandy’s number is in the Palm VII in the car in the garage and there’s no way I’m opening any doors I don’t have to.
3) Due to my occasional forgetful nature, I returned the key to the house to its hiding place in the yard as soon as I got home from gambling. Sure, it’s hidden, but it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to find it. As far as I’m concerned, it is now highly possible that someone could gain access to the house.
I look through the peephole and I can’t see anybody. Of course, I don’t have my contacts in so I’m not sure I would have seen anyone even if they were there. I begin to relax a little and poke my head into Chris’ room.
“Chris, CHRIS!”.
I wanted to make sure he was in the house. The low groan gave me the answer I was hoping for.
“Are you expecting anyone? It’s 2:30AM and the doorbell just rang three times”.
I figured I had to ask, you never know, right?
He was not expecting anyone. I headed back to bed, but there was no way I was anywhere near going back to sleep. I lay there for a minute, one with the house, listening for the slightest possible noise. Suddenly I hear footsteps and Chris scares the hell out of me as he groggily walks into my room.
“Are you serious?”
I could hear the panic building in his voice as I told him that yes, I was indeed very serious.
“Call the police”.
RED ALERT!! What?
“Call the police, I don’t want anyone creeping around outside trying to get in”
It’s about 2:34 and I’m up again, phone in hand. I’m not ready to make any phone calls I can’t explain yet, so I figure I’ll venture into the garage, get the Palm out of the car and call Sandy. We both creep into the kitchen; I grab my flashlight and the address of the rental. I tiptoe back to the front door and Chris is peeking out the shutters of the front window.
“See anybody?”
“Yeah, there’s a black guy on a cell phone in front of the house”
WHAT!!??? Okay, now I’m getting scared, and now I’m concerned about another matter. There is light coming from the door leading to the garage. Chris was the first one in the house when we arrived and he opened the garage door, so I asked him if the light was on when he got there. He couldn’t remember but he thought so.
“Is he still out there?” I asked.
“Yeah, but he’s got a Cadillac”
Drug dealers drive Cadillac’s, right? It was time to do something. Flashlight and cell phone in hand, I unlocked the door to the garage and opened it. The garage door is wide open. I quickly shut the door to the house again and we regrouped.
Two thoughts are now going through my mind. One: when I closed the garage door, I never actually saw it close all the way and I did have some trouble at first with the button, maybe it never closed. Two: someone has gained access to the garage.
Chris is standing right behind me and as we take the situation in he says to me, “okay, go”.
“Go where?”
“Go get the Palm out of the car”
Ah, good of you to volunteer, in fact, why don’t you wait here; after all, I’m expendable and I have this $2 plastic flashlight to protect me if anything happens. So I opened the door again, dash out to the car, grab the Palm, note that the Mercedes is still in the garage, and head back in. Chris faithfully closes the door behind me. Now another thought crosses my mind. What if whoever is outside thinks the same thing about us as we think about them? Maybe the bad guy isn’t outside after all. Suddenly I remember that Sandy did tell us her neighbors are dancers in one of the shows downtown. In fact, we joked about having them hook us up with tickets. I peek out the window and the black guy is now walking into the house next door, his Cadillac blatantly parked in front. Suddenly, this latter option seemed more likely.
“I have to go out there,” I said.
“I’ll go with you” and Chris went to put some shorts on.
We open the door and step outside, flashlight and phone still in hand and I’m blind as a damn bat. The neighbor sees us and makes the correct assumption that we aren’t exactly hostile in intent. I explain our situation as concisely and as quickly as I can and this guy buys every word of it, THANK GOD! He was coming home from the show, saw the garage door open with an out of state car inside and made the same assumption about us as we made about him. Usually Sandy alerts him when the house is occupied and since he couldn’t get a hold of her he called the police, just in case. After all, he lived next door when this place was still a cartel. Luckily, he was able to cancel his call to the police before the officers arrived on scene. We applauded his vigilance, thanked him for his concern, and went back to bed (after Chris closed the garage door). I figured now was not the time to hit him up for tickets to his show.
I was awakened again at 6AM by Sandy (found the phone, by the way, right next to my head) who was highly concerned about us after getting the message from her neighbor on her machine. He said her garage door was open, there was a car with North Carolina plates next to the Mercedes, he couldn’t get in contact with her so he was getting his gun and calling the police. It’s a good thing THE ROAD SCHOLARS don’t pack any heat because I would have been locked loaded and ready and we might very well have had a shootout.
The moral of this story, kids, is always take precautions. Know where you are at all times because wherever you go, there you are, and 911 operators like to know that kind of thing.
Drive safely and make sure the garage door is closed,
-Sean