He pulled off the highway and onto a divided road lined with fast-food restaurants and big-box stores. A mile on, the GPS alerted him that in five hundred feet he would need to make a left turn. He was in the right lane. Checking his mirrors, Ray put on his signal and turned left.
A few minutes after, he noticed a police car behind him and began the universal prayer that all drivers intone when a police officer follows them: Please let him pass me, please let it not be me. He wasn’t speeding. He was wearing a seat belt. He waited.
Blue lights flickered behind him. Ray’s pulse quickened. It’s always nerve-racking to be pulled over by police, he told himself. But he knew it was more than that: he was a Black man in the Deep South driving a nice car. He’d seen too many news reports of Black men having awful encounters with police. No way, he thought. I haven’t done anything wrong.
Plus he had a $10 million Strad sitting on the floor of the passenger seat. He was a big-time performer now. He’d explain everything calmly and be on his way. He pulled into the parking lot of a boarded-up convenience store. The sun was beginning to set. Hopefully this wouldn’t take too long. Maybe it was just a taillight. The police car sat behind him, lights flashing. No sign of the officer yet. He turned off the Eric B. & Rakim, put both hands clearly visible on the steering wheel.
The police car door opened. One booted foot touched the ground.
“Step outside your vehicle.” The guy was using a bullhorn. “You. Step. Out. Of. The. Vehicle. Now. Are you deaf? Do it now!”
Ray’s heart was hammering. He got out of the car, both hands in the air. Yeah, sure, white cops beat Black guys up, or shot them. But he was a college grad on his way to a classical music performance. That kind of thing couldn’t happen to him. He’d just stay calm and do whatever the cop asked him to do. Sweat slid cold down his back.
“Turn around and keep your hands up.”
Ray turned around, kept his hands up. Every movement was slow, deliberate, as if in a vat of engine oil.
Boots crunched closer. The snout of a gun wavered into view. Had the guy actually drawn his gun? On Ray?
“Get down on the ground. On your knees.”
Ray’s heart threatened to pound out of his chest. The asphalt pebbles dug into his knees as he slowly lowered himself. He wanted to speak but couldn’t.
“Show me your ID.”
“It’s in my wallet. I’m going to reach into my back pocket and pull it out.” He moved his right hand to his rear pocket. The wallet wasn’t there. Damn—it was in the center console. “It’s in my car, Officer. In the middle. Between the seats.”
“Stay where you are. You make one move and I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off.” The cop looked to be in his late forties, a meaty blond man with a reddened face, scraggly goatee, and receding hair barely visible beneath his deputy’s hat. His gut hung over a wide black belt. When he bent through the front door, his shirt rode up, revealing a white back covered in coarse hair. He stood up, holding Ray’s wallet. He pulled out the driver’s license, stared at it, put it back. The name on his badge: E. Bocquet.
Officer Bocquet looked at the front passenger seat. “Well, well, well. What do we have here?” He reached for the violin case.
“No, that’s my—”
“Shut the fuck up!” Bocquet pointed his gun at Ray’s forehead. Ray bit the inside of his cheek. The muzzle of the gun was the blackest color ever. The metal around it gleamed with an oily sheen. He’d never been this close to a gun before.
Officer Bocquet pulled the case out of the car, fumbling and dropping it on the ground. Reflexively Ray lunged forward. “Officer, please, that’s a very expensive—”
The gun came back up into his face. “Keep your mouth shut. Stand up. Hands behind your back.”
Ray stood. A hand pressed between his shoulder blades, and then a jingle, and the cool metal of handcuffs embraced his wrists, rattled shut.
“Wait, what—what did I do?”
“Didn’t I tell you to shut up?” He slammed Ray’s head against the hood of the car.
Ray struggled to keep his balance, his left leg stepping back onto the man’s foot.
“Now I got you for assaulting an officer.”
“I didn’t do anything—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to step on you. I need to get to LSU—I’m doing a performance there at—”
“The only place you are going is to the county lockup, boy. Stolen property and assaulting an officer.” Officer Bocquet turned him around. The officer’s blond goatee, in need of trimming, glistened with sweat.