Almost jailed for the Clash.

[ChicoHarris]

28 years ago this morning, I woke up in the parking lot of a Shell gasoline station in New Orleans.
Wayne the Human was in the Subaru with me. We had been to a Clash show at the Warehouse the night before and Lee Dorsey opened.
On one of his songs, Dorsey sang, "...and I shot her" and pulled out a starter's pistol, shot it, and threw it into the crowd. Wayne the Human caught the pistol and stuck it in his pocket. After the show, he threw it in the back floorboard of the Subaru.
As we headed back up I-55 towards Tupelo, Wayne the Human wanted to stop at Brookhaven and jump in the pool at the Holiday Inn. We parked, and when he got out, he noticed the starter's pistol in the back floorboard. He picked it up, pulled the trigger and it went off with a loud bang. We laughed and he threw it back into the back seat. Wayne the Human headed toward the pool and I leaned back in the passenger's seat and was soon asleep.
There was a bag of pleasure in the glove compartment.
I was wakened by a voice demanding: "Where's your gun?!" I opened my eyes as a large, older black cop was pulling me out of the Subaru. I quickly figured what had happened and quickly started explaining. He examined the starter's pistol, told me some maids had heard a gunshot, looked out a window, saw a couple of freaks with a gun and called the cops. I told him the Lee Dorsey story and we shared a laugh.
"Tell you what," he said, "Sit here in the back of my car, let me get your buddy and you boys better head on up to Tupelo."
"No problem," I said as I got in the back of his squad car, thankful it was a older, black cop. My experience with law enforcement was that I liked the deal I got from black cops better than that that I got from those of another shade.
I was sitting there in the police car, watching the black cop and Wayne the Human come around the corner of the building, laughing, when I spied another Brookhaven police car speed around the corner. It stopped quick and a young white cop got out quick.
The black cop and Wayne the Human were stopped, talking. Wayne the Human was probably telling him about the Clash show.
The white cop opened the driver's door of the Subaru and looked around, felt under the seat and moved on to do the same to the back seats. I thought about the bag of pleasure in the glove compartment and I about shit all over myself.
The white cop was just finishing up on the back passenger's side when the black cop let me out of the squad car and --I'm not making this up-- the white cop opened the passenger's side front door and I slid in, saying, "Thanks. Let's go, Wayne The Human."
As we pulled away toward I-55, the older black cop was laughing and waving, while the young white cop was standing there with his hands on his hips.

[Tequila Cowboy]

Great story!

[Smitty]

That is an awesome story -

My experience with law enforcement was that I liked the deal I got from black cops better than that that I got from those of another shade.

Agreed - I got a couple of stories to back that up too -

[RevMatt]

Great story.

Clash concerts were something else. I always had the feeling that 1) that the show we were seeing that night was the single most important thing happening in rock at that moment and 2) that anything could happen, like a riot. I experienced a riot the night at Bonds in NYC when the fire department cancelled the show and they had to send the mounted police to quell all of us in mid-town Manhattan.