Louis Shalako: My Criminal Memoir, Part Three. Escape and Evasion. Louis Shalako.

Tuesday, November 7, 2023

My Criminal Memoir, Part Three. Escape and Evasion. Louis Shalako.

All of 38 horsepower.

Louis Shalako

Escape and evasion. People run from the police all the time. Sometimes they’re on foot, sometimes in a vehicle. I’ve known guys who made life so hot for themselves in their own home town, in that they have literally pulled up roots or tent-pegs and moved to another town. Some of them went out west; where inevitably, almost invariably, they just kept on keeping on.

This would have predictable results, and in fact, in order to escape the immediate consequences in British Columbia, for example, they hopped a bus or even hitch-hiked back home, where at least they had friends and family. They could rely on a hot meal and a bed for the night…two or three years have gone by, and for the most part, the cops have forgotten all about them—however temporary a state of affairs that might be.

However futile it must turn out to be.

And it was only a matter of time before they got picked up again. Even then, old charges might simply be ignored. The Crown would have a much better chance of a conviction for something you had just done the day before—that’s especially true if they caught you with dope, stolen property, somebody else’s ID or wallet or purse or bank card, whatever…witnesses, documents, material evidence. Security footage of you wheeling a fridge or something out of a local department store, with the added touch of stealing one of their heavy cargo carts as well.

It wasn’t always criminal stuff, although one wonders why any driver, any motorcycle rider would try and get away from a simple traffic stop. One must assume drugs, alcohol, perhaps an outstanding warrant. Perhaps the license is out of date, perhaps they don’t have insurance. No insurance, that’s a $5,000.00 fine here in Ontario.

Maybe they’re just crazy, in fact some of them undoubtedly are.

***

One of my buddies and I were just kids, all of sixteen years old. I had finally gotten my little Austin Mini on the road. I did have a proper license. I had a proper license plate and I had six months of insurance, which back then, for a new driver, was about $680.00 for six months. How in the hell I scraped that much up back then is a good question, but I did have a job, either at the grain elevators, or mopping floors in a downtown bar at the time.

We were out for a cruise, talking mostly about cars, girls and cars. More girls…cars, motorbikes. Girls.

I don’t even recall why, or what it was about, probably chirping the tires or speeding, or going around a corner too fast—but the cops were on to us. We got into the side streets, bounded by East Street, Exmouth Street, Indian Road and London Road. It’s a grid, fairly irregular, and we were zig-zagging. We were on Oxford Street, and we literally saw a cop car zooming down East Street as we crossed Lincoln Park…it was a dark and overcast night, late autumn or early winter.

With a 1,000-cc engine and all of 38 horsepower, I knew I couldn’t exactly outrun them. They were closing in. I kept on going south, pulling up to a stop sign at the corner of Oxford Street and London Road.

And it struck me—inspiration struck, ladies and gentlemen. What I did, was to drive across London Road. I went up (or down), someone’s driveway. Popping it into second gear, snapping off the headlights, and I just kept going. The cop must have gone through the intersection, east, west or south, right. This house had no garage. There were trees and stuff, but just enough light spilling from the house and the parks department workshop off to our right about forty metres. This was home territory, after all, and I knew there was no fence along the back of the yard, either. My biggest worry was hitting someone out walking the dog—which demonstrates just how reckless I was. I was probably doing ten, twelve miles per hour, but even so. Even so. So now, I’m out onto the grass of Germain Park. The little gravel trails of the botanical gardens and the lights on the edges of the park were the only sources of illumination. I could at least pick out a few things in the gloom, nowadays, there’s quite the little forest along in there.

I took the car past the tennis courts…across a strip of grassy ground and right into the old man’s backyard. My buddy (who shall remain nameless), hopped out, opened the garage door, and cranking the steering wheel hard, I pulled into the garage. My buddy closed the door and I shut her down.

We were standing inside the dark interior of the garage, lights out, all is quiet, the two of us looking out the little rectangular garage windows…sure enough, right about then a cop car goes zooming down Bright Street, from west to east, (right to left, from our vantage point). Opening up the side door, we went to the corner of the house, just in time to see brake lights flash, and the cop car turned hard right onto Sycamore Street.

I imagine they probably were looking for us. What were they after? Probably a speeding ticket, improper turn…signal lamp burnt out? We were not drinking, we were not smoking dope. We weren’t thieves and we weren’t wanted for anything.

We were just dumb, young, and immature, when you think about it.

Roaring down East Street...

***

This story is almost funny. It was, strangely enough, one of those little anecdotes, probably true, where so many years ago, I originally thought of writing about criminals. It wasn’t going to be about great bank or train robberies, or a daring art heist, or taking down a casino or an armored car.

A buddy, whom I can’t even think of a suitable fake name for, was walking down a street, not exactly downtown, but a few blocks away. Call it the central city area. A police cruiser drives past him, head-on sort of thing. A quick glance over the shoulder, and he knows the cop-car has pulled into a driveway—and now it’s backing out again. And poor old Buddy Two-Shoes has some paper on him. He’s got a warrant, he’s missed his court date, he’s in violation of bail or parole, whatever. The conditions of release, right.

The cop has recognized him on sight, and why not—they’d been arresting him for years already. All kinds of stuff, over the years.

He breaks into a run, the cop car has no problem whatsoever of keeping up with him. The cop was probably on the radio—with one officer in the cruiser, to stop, park, get out and run is not your best option.

Let the guy run himself out…or let him go to ground and then just circle with a bit of help from other officers.

And Two-Shoes knows he can’t run forever, he’s looking from side to side. The blocks are small, and so are the odds, but he’s looking for a fence he can hop, bounding away like a rabbit through the backyards. It’s a long shot, but he knows he’s going away for a while, for sure, and he just doesn’t care. I have no idea as to whether he may have had some incriminating evidence of anything in particular in his possession. He really didn’t need it, did he—

And his eyes light up—he has it.

It’s like a miracle.

He sees a house, he knows the people. He turns hard left, dashes across right in front of the cop car, (who slams on the brakes, desperately trying not to kill the fucking suspect), up the steps, right into the front door. He’s like a reindeer, dashing through the snow, and he dashes right on out again through the back door. And this time, at least for a while, he’s made his escape.

The cop, right on his heels, in clear pursuit of a suspect, has also dashed up those front steps and into that front door. Only difference, on his way through—surely he must have at least glanced into the kitchen, right? He’s looking for his suspect. He sees some other young man he knows.

That other guy is at the kitchen table, he’s got himself a set of triple-beam scales, and he’s cutting up a quarter pound of Mexican or something into ounces, half-bags and quarters, with all those little sandwich baggies of pot, all lined up in a row on the kitchen table.

And if the cops can’t take the one, they’re not shy about taking the other.

It also struck me, in terms of inspiration for this book, is that it was pretty small-time stuff. It was like The Trailer Park Boys. I figured out, this one time, The Trailer Park Boys was essentially not any form of reality. It was satire. It was parody. More than anything, it was the Three Stooges, on dope, ladies and gentlemen.

It was tragicomedy.

***

Just a couple more little quickies here, this chapter is already long enough.

McNuggets was pounding on my back door one morning, pretty early. Unlocking the door, he was all out of breath. He’d run all the way across Germain Park. Pushing past me into my so-called basement apartment, he told me the cops were after him, but he didn’t think they were right on his heels. I locked it up right quick on hearing that.

Studying the park out of the bathroom window, looking out the kitchen window and the front window, bedroom windows on the east side, all that sort of thing, there was nothing out of the ordinary.

And, in a short time, we were back downstairs, rolling up a joint, where he told me the story.

It seems he’d gone to his girlfriend’s place. Only problem, he was under some sort of court order, a peace bond, whatever. Someone who must have known all about it must have seen him, and of course the cops turn up in no time at all. The next bit is a little fuzzy on the details, but it was a townhouse complex. Somehow he evaded the cop at the front door and the cop at the back door. Somehow, he got over a six-foot chain-link wire fence, and down into the ditch. Get this. It was the ditch along the 402 Highway, and even then there were the noise barriers all along that stretch. There are only so many ways to get out of there.

The cops were all over the place, and there he was, laying in the ditch, vehicles smashing by at a hundred-plus kilometres per hour. He’s wet, cold, miserable, mosquitos gnawing at him. And of course he knows he’s going in the bucket if he gets caught. From that area, once the heat died down a little bit—and it would have taken at least some time—he made his way along the off-ramp, across a major street, in through the subdivision, and by this time it is literally daylight. He runs across the park and finds his way to my back door.

He hung around for most of the day. My old man came home from work, in his usual style, and hopped in the shower. I brought the car up to the back door. McNuggets got in the wheel-well of the passenger side. I think I put a blanket over him, nothing suspicious about that, right, and I took him to a place in the north end, a nice neighbourhood. He couldn’t go home. Couldn’t go back to the lady friend’s place. Couldn’t stay at my place. He made a few calls, but no one was picking up. Ah, but his brother-in-law and sister had a different last name. Blood is thicker than water, or so they say. The cops aren’t going to get too many clues from the phone-book, right. Also, a few days later, he could call the lady.

Is the car still there. That would be good to know. This was about the time he moved to another town—after a quick stop at the folk’s place to grab a toothbrush and a razor and a few little things. I reckon he’d park a couple of blocks away and hoof it, late at night, for that one last visit home for quite a while.

***

Fuck, how dumb does it get around here, anyways...

This last one is a dumb one. Buddy’s brother, let’s call him Zoom. The family lived just up the street. I grew up with them guys. One day, he’s home, mommy and daddy are working of course. What with being a habitual thief, and a real creep besides, Zoom steps out the back gate and grabs himself a few free tomatoes from the community garden right there beside the fire hall. Somebody, possibly even one of the firemen themselves, phones it in. Maybe they knew him from somewhere…maybe they knew all about him. Maybe even a little too much about him.

Maybe someone had boosted a really nice car stereo, right out of the back parking lot…and in broad daylight, too.

Anyhow, at least one cop car comes rolling on in, and Zoom makes a fucking run for it.

Somehow, Zoom ends up in my garage. Our garage. My old man’s garage. Ten houses or so up the street.

My old man somehow saw him run in through the backyard, into the garage, closing the door as quick as a wink and then, basically, just keeping quiet. The old man watched out the bathroom window, sure enough, cops on foot, going along, looking for their tomato thief…

My old man told me all about it, later on.

According to him, after a while, he went out, opened up the door, and asked Zoom how he was doing.

“I’m doing very well, Mr. Shalako,” Zoom says.

My old man, he says, ‘oh, that’s good to hear’—and then he closed the door again and left Zoom in there for a while.

My old man said he still had the bag of tomatoes.

As for a nice, toasted tomato sandwich, that would have to wait.

I have to admit, my old man was pretty cool sometimes.

END

Louis Shalako has books and stories available from Kobo.

Louis has art available from Fine Art America.

He’s giving away the free audiobook, One Million Words of Crap, here on Google Play.

My Criminal Memoir. (Part One.)