podpolia

for those of you who have commented, no, i haven't written much lately. my life is boring, and fairly depressing, so i feel it's better for my audience not to have to listen to it. in summary of the past week: i've had tests. and regular classes. that's about it.

last night, i was doing my usual friday night thing.
i wandered around shippensburg, around the campus, past all the people partying and so on.
as i usually do, i went down and sat on the bridge where britton road crosses burd's run. for those who don't know the bridge i'm talking about, it's a concrete bridge maybe 15 feet long, and perhaps 8 feet above burd's run. on this particular evening, burd's run was slightly higher than normal, and was maybe a foot deep and 7 feet wide.
anyhow, i was sitting on this bridge, looking at the water, the sky, the rock face with the scraggly trees that overhangs craig's meadow at that place, and listening to the sound the run made passing over the rocks and under the bridge. i had taken my jacket off and was sitting on the bridge wearing my combat fatigues and a t-shirt. cars went past occasionally, and i'd glance up to see them when they got past… after about 10 minutes or so like this, a campus police cruiser drove past. it slowed down, pulled into the new university storage parking lot, and sat there for a while. a few minutes later, another cruiser drove up to the first and they sat and talked to each other for a few minutes, and then both pulled out, turning to drive past me again.
the cruiser in the lead slowed approaching the bridge, and pulled to a stop next to me. i turned around, and the officer shone a REALLY FRIGGIN' BRIGHT light in my face.
“what are you doing?”
“uh… i'm sitting on the bridge, watching the water.”
“just watching the water?”
“um… yeah…”
“you weren't thinking of hurting yourself, or jumping off the bridge, were you?”
“no! and besides, if i jumped off the bridge here i'd not do anything besides break an ankle.”
a short pause, and the light goes out, and the officer gets out of the car. at this signal, the two officers in the second cruiser, a man and a woman, both get out of their car and all three walk over to me. all three have flashlights that they shine around, but mostly at me or in my face. which is incredibly hard on my eyes, as i've been sitting in the dark for the past 10 minutes or so.
“are you a student here?”
“yes…”
“and you're feeling ok?”
“yeah…”
“are you on the football team?”
woah. that one really came out of left field. in retrospect, i suppose it's because of my really short haircut, short mohawk, and broad shoulders that he asked this. unless maybe the football team had REALLY lost badly earlier that day or something…
“um… no….”
“can i see your student ID?”
“uh… yeah, hold on.”
i unbutton the wallet pocket on my BDUs, and pull out my wallet, switching it to my left hand and pulling it out in front of me so the chain on it doesn't keep me from being able to get to it. i open it, and dig through the cards looking for my ID card and pull it out. it's worn (being close to three years old now) and faded, and the guy in the picture doesn't look much like me at all. and also looks incredibly stoned.
“how long have you been a student here?”
“uh… i think… yeah. since spring 2002.”
“are you in the military?”
this one makes more sense. i AM wearing desert pattern combat fatigues.
“no.”
he hands my card back. the flashlights play over me some more as i put the card back in my wallet and stick it back into my pocket, buttoning the pocket behind it.
“well, we just had to make sure you weren't going to do anything to hurt yourself…”
“that's ok. yeah.”
the woman officer shines her flashlight over the edge of the bridge the whole way down to the raging trickle of burd's run a dizzying eight feet below.
“well, it doesn't look like he'd be able to do TOO much damage that way…”
“yeah, i guess not…”
i opened my mouth to repeat my comment about how it would only break an ankle, and decided not to when i recalled that that was what got them to get out of their cars in the first place, and quickly closed my mouth again.
“well, you take care. we just had to make sure you were ok.”
“allright, yeah… i understand.”
they got into their cruisers, the man and woman in the second cruiser talking among themselves and the officer in the first cruiser commenting on what they were saying, and they drove off.
i watched them go (one of them pulled off into the parking lot at the township park and sat there for a couple minutes. i don't know if they were writing down in their log what had gone on, or if they were making sure i wasn't going to take a leap just to spite them) feeling an odd combination of annoyance, relief, and hysterical amusement. after enough time that it wouldn't seem like they had scared me out of jumping to my doom, i got up and walked back into town, still shaking my head.
it was all very surreal… i went from the quiet sound of a babbling brook to three campus police officers with flashing bright lights and shining flashlights into my face, and then going back to the quiet of the babbling brook, and the purple afterimages of bouncing lights floating before my eyes, between me and the stream and the meadow.
weird.