I was stopped by a New York State Trooper, who happened to be on his
lunch break.  He needed a toothpick and a friend, so I asked if he reached his quota
that month and did he like carrying around a gun? Did he really feel like he was
"serving & protecting" and did he know he looked a bit like Alan Thicke, the father
on Growing Pains and if he felt working for a union was actually going to keep him
covered when he retired and what his wife, if he had one, felt about these things
and was it worth it for me to fight a ticket if I was only going 18 miles above the speed limit
and had no points on my license thus far?

          He answered all the questions articulately, in the same order I asked him,
not faltering once, ultimately saying he had to "make it back to the beat" but would I
like to see him again, just to chat, and did I enjoy driving a truck? What was the first
thing I did in the morning and did I know I had a complexion that told him I eat a lot
of sushi (mostly eel and yellow tail), and perhaps that was why I looked familiar.
Had he seen me at the local sushi bar? The one next to the carpet store which used
to be a five 'n dime until the man who owned it lost his wife to colon cancer and felt
he couldn't run the store without her. He packed up all the Florida ashtrays, rubber
balls, spools of thread, stale candy, crayons, jars, magazines, split the goods into
three equal portions and mailed them to his children: two of whom were twins who
studied forensic science at Alabama State, and to his eldest boy who married a
black woman named Elizabeth Zuba Tanning and eloped to Kalamazoo Michigan to
find God and market the Bruce Springsteen t-shirts he designed. When their father
knew the goods had arrived safely, he killed himself quietly, wearing the felt
slippers his sister brought back from China.

          Oh that Sushi Bar, I said. Yes, I have seen you there.