Todd Strasser: No Place

“Besides, Olivia’ll be there… stud ,” Noah kidded at a red light.

“Oh, yeah?” I yawned.

“And you act like it’s no biggie.” Noah smirked. “Just another fox with the hots for Handsome Dan.”

I shrugged. Olivia was cute and sexy and interning at the studio. We’d flirted the last time I was there, but it was just good-natured fooling around. She knew about Talia.

The light changed and we passed a cluster of orange, blue, and military olive tents that had sprung up like mushrooms over the summer in a weedy, neglected park not far from Town Hall. It was called Dignityville and there were supposed to be homeless people living there. As we passed, a girl with curly, reddish brown hair came out of the park carrying a laundry basket. I felt a mild blip of surprise. “Is that Meg Fine?”

Noah glanced. “Yeah.”

Meg had been my lab partner in chemistry the year before, and was in government and politics with me this year. I sometimes saw her at parties, although now that I thought about it, not recently.

“What’s she doing there?” I wondered out loud.

“You have to ask?” Noah said.

Meg Fine was homeless?

It took about twenty minutes to get to Burlington. Derek’s studio was in a run-down neighborhood of old factories, auto repair establishments, and pawn shops. Broken glass glittered along the curbs. Empty bottles inside brown paper bags littered the sidewalks.

A few blocks from the studio we passed a police car with its blue and red lights flashing. Two cops had a big tattooed man bent facedown on the hood of a dark green Range Rover. They were cuffing his hands behind his back while a young woman argued with them.

“Hey, stop,” I said. “It’s Olivia and Oscar.”

Noah slowed down.

“Come on, pull over,” I said.

“It’s a bad idea, man,” Noah warned.

“Just stop.”

“Dan, you don’t—”

“I said stop! ”

Noah pulled to the curb and I got out in time to hear one of the cops say to Olivia: “Sorry, miss, but he’s got no license or registration for this vehicle.”

The handcuffed man’s name was Oscar, and he’d once been a promising college running back until a couple of severe concussions ended his career. Now that he was handcuffed, the cops let him straighten up.

“I told you I changed clothes and left my wallet in my other pants,” Oscar tried to explain. “I work for Buzzuka Joe. This is his car.”

While I watched from the sidewalk, Noah stayed in his car. We both knew why he hadn’t gotten out. I leaned into the car’s window. “Call the studio. See if you can get someone over here.”

Noah tried his phone, listened, shook his head. “I got the message. They’re probably recording.”

“Then go over there and get someone.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Noah muttered, and pulled away.

The truth was, I had no idea what I was doing. I just had this strong feeling that if Oscar had been a different color, or in a different part of the city, this wouldn’t be happening. By now the cops were glancing at me with puzzled expressions; this wasn’t a part of Burlington where you saw a lot of white teenagers.

I cleared my throat. “Excuse me, officers, but I think there’s been a mistake.”

One of the cops scowled. “Sorry?” he said in a tone that implied, And just who do you think you are?

I took my time answering. This wasn’t about changing their minds. It was about stalling while Noah went for help. Nodding at Olivia and Oscar, I said, “I’m a friend of theirs, and I’m sure everything they’ve told you is true.”

Both cops looked at me like I was whacked. “Oh, really?” One of them snorted.

“Yes, sir. This young lady works at Williams Sound, the music studio down the street, where Buzzuka Joe is recording his new album.” Buzzuka Joe was a former gangbanger turned rapper who was a big deal around Burlington. “You gentlemen are familiar with Buzzuka Joe, right? ‘If The Phone Don’t Ring, You’ll Know It’s Me’?”

“Yeah, so?” one of the cops said.

I didn’t have an answer. I’d been ad-libbing and suddenly had no libs to add.

The cops seemed to sense that I was at a loss. “Listen, kid,” one of them said, “I don’t know who the hell you are, but if I were you I’d disappear, pronto.” He took Oscar by the arm and started to guide him toward the police car.

I stepped between them and the police car, blocking their path. The cop with Oscar stopped and gave me an astonished look, then jerked his head at his partner, who came toward me. “I’m gonna count to three before I bust you for obstruction of justice and interfering with police duties. You got that? This is none of your business .”

My heart was pounding and a voice in my head was screaming to get out of the way. But in my gut I knew that if Oscar were white they wouldn’t have bent him over the hood of the car and handcuffed him. There was a time when I might have shrugged it off as just another of life’s many injustices, but a lot of things had changed since then. I didn’t budge.

“Listen, buddy, for the last time,” the cop snarled. “You don’t want to be a hero and you don’t want to get arrested. So move !”

Even Oscar agreed. “He’s right, man. Stay out of this.”

I could feel my pulse with every breath I took. I’d never been in trouble with the police before, and this was a bad time to start. I peered hopefully down the street, but there was no sign of Noah or anyone else from the studio.

“Listen to him, Dan,” urged Olivia, who’d been watching my sidewalk improv.

“Hey, you remembered my name,” I said, grinning.

It almost seemed like she blushed. “Of course.”

“Aw, for Christ’s sake,” the other cop growled, reaching for his handcuffs and starting toward me.

“Okay, okay.” Raising my hands, I backed away. “I’m going. It’s just hard to believe that you’d arrest a guy just because he forgot his wallet. Like that never happened to you?”

“You’re really asking for it, kid,” snapped the cop holding Oscar. He walked the big man to the police car, put his hand on Oscar’s head, and began to ease him down into the backseat.

There was still no sign of Noah or anyone from the studio. In a few moments they’d take Osacar downtown and book him, or whatever it was that cops did when they arrested you. It just seemed so stupid and wrong, but I couldn’t think of a way to stop it.

Oscar was in the back of the police car now, bent uncomfortably forward in the seat because his hands were cuffed behind him.

The cop started to close the door.

A horn honked. Everyone turned as Noah’s car raced up and screeched to a stop. Out jumped a little guy wearing a white suit, sunglasses, and a black fedora.

Fortunately, Buzzuka Joe had a copy of the car registration, and a little while later the cops let Oscar go with a ticket for driving without a license. He thanked me emotionally. “I don’t know why you did that, man, but God bless you.” Shaking his large hand was like shaking a baseball mitt.

Olivia gave me a grateful hug, then added in a scolding tone, “Do you have any idea how close you came to getting popped?”

I shrugged and gave her a wink. She smiled and kissed me on the cheek. “See you at the studio.”

They got into the Range Rover, leaving Noah and me on the sidewalk. Now that the danger had passed, my best friend put his hands on his hips and affected the amused patois he sometimes used in private when issues of race came up. “What de hell was dat , white boy? Trying to impress Olivia?”