The Blues & Billie Armstrong 1
INTRO: THE PERSISTENCE OF TRUTH
Perhaps you’ve seen the video of my arrest.
I was told it went semi-viral, another disease upon the disease that already is the internet. Friday night I was celebrated for receiving the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. A lavish banquet was held in my honor in the Gold Room at San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel. Saturday night—or rather, early Sunday morning—I was handcuffed by a police officer and digitally immortalized by some pixelheaded tourist kid with a smartphone and a sideways Dodgers cap.
The video appears above the clever title: Prize-winning Writer DUI’d and TKO’d. The footage opens with a wide shot of my 2010 Cadillac CTS, run aground, cockeyed and high-centered on the concrete island in the middle of Lincoln Way—mere blocks from my home. I stumble out of the car, leaving the door flapped open. On the Bose stereo, Howlin’ Wolf is growling out Moanin’ at Midnight.
A dashboard warning bell dings out of time. Red and blue lights spin and strobe in the night. You hear a quick woop-woop from a siren. The picture jiggles as the camera zooms in, the officer walks into the frame, asks if I’m alright, sweeps the beam of his flashlight across the interior of the Cadillac. The camera can’t see into the car, but I can tell the cop is curious about the mess on the passenger seat—a vintage ladies hatbox, the lid tossed aside, old letters and yellowed newspaper clippings spilled onto the seat and floorboard. No hat in sight.
It’s long after midnight, but I say, “Good evening, officer.” I lean on the Caddy, the picture of casual debauchery.
“License and registration,” he says. I pull my wallet out of my back pocket and fumble it to the ground, then manage to pick it up and hand it to the officer with a hapless shrug. Asserting my rights, I slur out a refusal to take the field sobriety test. The cop nods, unperturbed. My chest expands as if I’ve scored a minor victory. He’s not impressed. “Mr King, I’m placing you under arrest for driving under the influence. Please turn around and place your hands behind your back.”
I begin to sputter bitterly. “God damn her,” I say. “They said she was dead. Now she shows up out of nowhere after all these years… like a fucking ghost? God damn Billie Armstrong.” My arms stretch out as if I’m being unjustly martyred. The cop calmly spins me around and tries to gather my hands but I yank loose and start firing punches at the hood of my own car. A solid combination, a right and left jab followed by a hard overhand right that shoots pain throughout my body like I’ve been tased.
The cop tries again to corral my hands, but I whip around and take a wild swing in his direction. Fortunately, I miss by a mile, lose my balance, and down I go, ass-first, tailbone smack against the curb. I’m lying on the pavement for a ten-count, and he just shakes his head, helps me to my feet and snaps the cuffs on. He shoves me to the patrol car, stuffs me into the back and slams the door.
You see my face through the window, the whirling lights bouncing off the glass, my mouth in a holler. My voice now distant and faint and the tone shifted to righteous self recrimination. You only hear snatches of my crazed lament—some garbled nonsense about “the persistence of truth.”
Meanwhile, Howlin’ Wolf is still moaning the blues in my Cadillac.
The Blues & Billie Armstrong is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance of the fictional characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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