Court and the Cop

          Court Bergman was a man indifferent to genealogy.  He wasted little time on learning about his ancestors; it was enough, for him, to know that his last name came from a great grandfather who came over from Germany in the early 1800s and that his first name, Courtney, was an old family name from his Anglo-Irish ancestry.  He was proud of the German grandfather, Grandpa Bergman, who came to America’s heartland and made good.  Court wished, occasionally, that his parents had forgotten the archaic first name that was no longer used for male children, but his parents had taught him to be proud of his Irish ancestor who had first born the name.  Courtney McClellan had kissed the Blarney Stone and told stories to do it justice.  Courtney McClellan, who’d come to the Americas and won several fortunes only to lose them in the Great Depression. 

          But, Court Bergman didn’t fool himself.  He was neither of these great men.  He was simply Court.  He’d inherited Grandfather McClellan’s gift of gab and Grandpa Bergman’s eye for the prairie land of Kansas.  He’d never had to search for who he was or where he belonged.  He’d known, and yet, there was a bit of wanderlust in his soul.  To satisfy the wanderer within him, Court had begun driving a truck, usually with his wife along. After giving his thriving farm over to the capable hands of his son, Courtney Jr., Court travelled.

          Court spoke with something of a drawl, to say it was a southern drawl would be wrong, but he spoke with the relaxed tones of one who knows there is no need to be rushed and harried over the things that happened in business or in life.  On his travels, he found that this accent, this Midwestern drawl, could be a detriment or a benefit depending on where he was.   Certain people in the more populous areas of the country assumed he was dumb simply because he saw no need to get uptight and worried over every little thing.  And some people thought he was dumb simply because they saw his Kansas plates.  Court was neither slow, nor oblivious to these ideas.  He simply saw no need to acknowledge them, knowing, as he did, that this kind of attitude could be used to his advantage.  And so, he used it.

          He drove coast to coast in his big rig; he enjoyed seeing the majestic Rockies on one end of the country and the decaying beauty of the Appalachians on the other.  The oceans on both coasts were food for not only his eyes but also his soul.  But, whenever he returned to Kansas, his heart fell in love with the crops of amber and the tidy white farm houses of his homeland all over again.  It never failed.  Court loved the land he had been born to. 

          As much as he enjoyed the sights of the country, he enjoyed laughing at what he considered to be the folly of the city folks.  For him, it was fun to watch the way they came and went and behaved.  The things they concerned themselves with, more often than not, made him laugh rather than stare in fascination and envy.  After years of watching the way they did behave, Court learned a great deal about their thoughts and goals in life, and since he was not willing to live as they did, Court remained grounded in the solid principles of the Midwest that he’d been born to.   

Thus it was, that when he found himself in The Big Apple, rather than roam around for hours trying to make his way to the docks, Court found himself wondering if there wasn’t a faster way to get where he was going. He briefly considered asking for directions but quickly discarded that idea; whether due to his male tendency to dislike the asking or the desire to put one over on the city folk…well, that is anyone’s guess.  With very little planning, Court found a way to get to the docks quickly by using the city and the people in it to his advantage; the next one way street he came across, he would use for this purpose.

Never one to hesitate once his plan of action had been determined; Court quickly put his plan into action.  He spotted a one way street and simply turned the wrong way.  In his original plan, Court had thought that there would be a city police officer near the location that he turned, but there seemed to be none nearby.  He drove for several blocks without spotting one and was considering getting off the street in order to keep from endangering any locals, when he saw the lights coming up behind him.

Heaving a sigh of relief, he pulled over into the far lane and smiled.  He was going to have fun with this city cop.  He nearly laughed in anticipation of the fun to come.

The officer came up to his door and shined the light up, motioning Court to get out of the big rig, and he did, very slowly, gathering his information at rate that would have made a turtle look speedy.  He took his time getting his paperwork out of the glove box.   While he did that, he was careful to occasionally look out the window at the lights and tall buildings around him, but he was careful not to laugh and ruin his act. Finally, he got out of his truck.  Stepping to the ground, he continued staring up in simulated awe at the buildings around him. 

“Name?” The officer asked.

“Courtney Bergman.” Court replied slowly still staring up at the buildings around him.

“License and registration?”     

Court handed the required paper work to the officer and continued to stare up at the buildings. “Boy, there sure are a lot of lights in them buildings.” Court said with exaggerated slowness, adding a bit of country flair into his speech.  The officer paused and looked up at Court who was by far taller than the officer himself.  Court had trouble not laughing at the stupefied expression on the face of the officer.  He didn’t laugh, however, and he continued, “Do they leave those lights on all the time?  All night and everything?” Court said, continuing to exaggerate the slowness of his speech and enjoying the play of emotion across the face of the officer.

“Where are you from?” The officer said suddenly and looked back at the registration form, but he didn’t have opportunity to find the information because Court responded immediately.

“Why…I’m from Kansas.”

“Kansas!?!” The officer exclaimed. 

“Yessir.” Court replied, careful to keep the smirk off his face as he shifted the dumb-old-country-boy act into high gear.  “Just about the best state in the Union, I reckon.”

At this, the stunned officer handed Court’s paperwork back to him and said, “Where are you going?” 

“To the docks…”

“Which?” the officer asked.

Court tried his best to look dumbfounded, as if he were surprised that there could be docks in more than one place and said, “Well, I have that information here…somewhere.” He shuffled through the few papers, deliberately overlooking the paper with the address of the dock on it.  Finally, he relented and pulled the correct paper out of the small stack that he carried with him and gave it to the impatient officer.

“Follow me.” The officer said after glancing at the paperwork, obviously displeased with the turn of events.

Court climbed back into his truck and waited only until the officer’s lights turned on before he began laughing.  The officer was yet another city person who’d fallen for the dumb-old-country-boy act, an act that was as old as the city versus country rivalry, and they still hadn’t wised up.  Court followed the officer to the correct dock and climbed down to unload.

“Can you find your way back to the interstate?” The officer asked derisively.

Having never been directionally impaired, Court most certainly could find his way back to the interstate, but a contrariness of spirit prompted him to look uncertain and say, “Well, now, I think I can.” 

“Never mind.  You stay here. Don’t go anywhere in that truck! When my shift is over, I will come back and escort you to the interstate.” 

“Well, thank you, sir.” Court replied, smiling not at the offer but at the implication that he, Court, couldn’t find his way around NYC.  If only the officer knew, it wasn’t that he couldn’t; it was that he didn’t have to because he knew just a little bit about city psychology.

The officer left to go back to his duty, and Court climbed back into his truck and laid down in the sleeper compartment.  By the time the officer returned, and the officer did return, Court was well rested and waiting, having eaten lunch with one of the dock workers at a local eatery.  He’d not driven anywhere, as it was within walking distance.  The officer escorted him out of town, pulling him over long enough to tell him that he’d better get on that interstate and not stop until he got to Kansas – and that Court should NEVER come back to the Big Apple again.  As he rolled up his window and glanced out of it at the officer now watching from the police car, Court was already anticipating retelling this story to his family, friends, and acquaintances back in Kansas, and he laughed.  In fact, Court was still laughing as he pulled away, leaving the officer shaking his head at the unfathomable ways of backward Midwesterners.        

                   

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And, NOW, a few travel pictures.  They're not from New York, but they were taken while travelling. That counts, right? These are actually from a (semi) recent trip to Dallas.