I was lying on a hospital gurney. A clear plastic oxygen mask covered my nose and mouth. My right leg was tethered to the gurney. Well, it wasn’t actually a tether; it was more like a belt. A leather belt with a buckle. That was so I couldn’t escape. It was a leather belt with a buckle so that I couldn’t escape.
I don’t know how many times in my life I’ve struggled with the belt around my waist thinking, “I have to go to the bathroom but I can’t figure out how you operate this goddamned thing!”
If they really wanted to keep me there, why didn’t they tether my hands together or something? I suppose that would have been too logical.
I lay there pondering various Houdini scenarios as two cops walked in. The first one spoke to me.
“Do you know where you are?”
His voice had a hint of Boston. Isn’t that the city where that husband shot his pregnant wife in the head and blamed a black carjacker? The cops spent days rousting every male over the age of twelve and darker than a brown paper bag until the guilty husband jumped off a bridge. I can’t get away from it, can I?
“Do you know where you are?” he asked me again.
Yeah, I knew where I was. A lot better off than I had been a couple of hours before. I had awakened in the garage to the firm grip of a hand on my shoulder. Through bleary eyes, I followed the hand up the sleeve to the mug of a freckle-faced police officer.
Do you mean to tell me, that after everything I’ve been through, that St. Peter is a white motherfucking cop?? This is some bullshit.
It turned out that one of the neighbors had heard music blaring in the garage and called the police because she thought that something might be amiss. That’s what white people do. They notice when things are “amiss.” Since there was no telling how long I’d been breathing in fumes, I was rushed by ambulance to the hospital.
“Do you know where you are?” Boston repeated.
“I’m in Highland Hospital in Oakland.”
Highland is the county hospital. It’s where they send the uninsured, the drive-by-shooting victims, and the crazies. Mom had worked there as a secretary in the ’70s. In the psych ward as I recall. I had come full circle.
“So,” Boston said, “what was going on out there?”
“I guess I fell asleep.”
“Why were you trying to hurt yourself?”
“Is that what you think? No. No. I was just having a cigar and a martini when I noticed that my car was in the driveway. I put it in the garage, started listening to music, and I guess I fell asleep. With the motor running,” I added, almost as an afterthought.
He looked at me with skepticism in his eyes.
“What were all the pictures?”
I’d forgotten that I’d brought pictures out there with me. Grandma, my kids, and Mom.
“My sister wanted me to get some copies made. I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”
“Why were you trying to hurt yourself,” he said again with a sigh. He’d heard these bullshit denials a million times.
I exploded.
“I wasn’t! I was listening to Rick Springfield for God’s sake.”
I saw some hope. I could tell that he was fighting a smile.
“Look,” I babbled, “I was just having a cigar and a martini in my closed garage, listening to music with pictures when I fell asleep with the motor running. Like that’s never happened to you!”
Yeah, I know. It even sounded crazy to me when I said it.
He nodded his head sympathetically.
“All right, I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do, here. We’re gonna hold you on a 5150. That means you’re a danger to yourself or others. We can keep you for up to seventy-two hours for observation.”
He put his hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes.
“It’ll be okay. You get some rest.” I cast my eyes downward, looking at the strap on my leg. How in the world had it come to this? “Yeah,” I whispered.
He headed for the door, with the other officer following behind him. After the first cop walked out, the second one, who up to this point hadn’t said a word, turned and looked at me. Wait. I think I know this guy.
I studied him through the muddled haze that fogged my brain. His hair was not as blond and the mirrored sunglasses were gone. No. It couldn’t be. Could it? I pictured him thrusting my baseball bat in my mother’s face.
“He was using this as a weapon. That’s very serious.”
Could he have transferred to Oakland? Or was my mind playing tricks on me? Did that cop become every cop in my eyes?
Suddenly he was walking toward me. Was it the same guy, and did he recognize me, too?
As he approached, he put his hands in his pocket and took out a pad and pen.
“Mr. Copeland?” he said obsequiously, sticking the writing implements in my face. “My wife is a really big fan. Would you mind?”
I’ve been asked for autographs in some weird places around the Bay Area, from dentist chairs to rosaries for the dead to men’s room urinals, but this was a first.
“Sure,” I said, taking the paper and pen. “What’s her name?”
“Phyllis.”
“To Phyllis” I scratched on the pad, stopping suddenly when I had an epiphany.
This is why they didn’t tether my hands together!
Celebrity is a strange thing. I’m only a regional celebrity and here I had gone from being hassled by the police simply for existing as a black child, to signing autographs for their wives after being involuntarily committed.