“You look familiar son. What’s your name again?”
“It’s still Paul Drecksler sir,” I reply to the cop who asks me my name for the 5th time.
“You just look so familiar, I can’t put my finger on it. I’m not going to sleep tonight unless I figure this out–I’ll be thinking about it in the morning too.” The police officer stares at me menacingly, almost dumbfound, unless that’s just his normal flaccid expression.
I felt that he was waiting for Adventure Paul to suddenly be guilty of a crime other than being killer handsome–but it wasn’t happening that night.
“Did you go to school around here?”
“No sir, I went to Chapel Hill.”
“Man! I just can’t put my finger on it but I’m sure I know you from somewhere…”
“Look sir, I don’t know you and I don’t expect that you would know me. I’ve been in this city for 2 days. My life is an open book online so it’s near impossible to think I was somewhere that I wasn’t.”
“Well then there’s another Paul Drecksler running around town with the same name and looks identical to you.”
“No, there’s not. I already searched Facebook.”
The handcuffs are starting to irritate my smooth olive skin. In my head I question “why the dramatics” of what we figured was a routine stop. At this point there are four cop cars.
Cody and I are told to sit on the ground, handcuffed, while police officers search Brandon’s car. Next they come back and search each of us.
The problem with a one-horse-town like Monroe NC is that sometimes the cops need new tail to chase if it’s 3am and that one horse is sleeping (standing up, by the way.)
I respect most cops, but don’t trust any of them. I’ve heard too many stories like the one where a man pulls over on his motorcycle, the cop’s sirens are still blaring, the gentleman goes to take off his helmet and the police officer shoots him in the spine and permanently disables him for life. The motorcycle rider was unarmed and was just trying to follow directions.
Other than the two guns under my sleeves (get it?)–the officers found nothing other than my adventure balls at one point during his search.
The bigger story is (we found out much later)… A guy had escaped from police on foot earlier in the night after being caught selling crack. We happened to be driving on that same road late at night coming home from Charlotte–so it must’ve been us. I’m still waiting for an apology.
You might not know me now officer, but one day when your teenage daughter hangs an Adventure Paul poster above her bed you’ll scratch your chin and say, “I just can’t place him, but I know that guy…”
