The Confession of an Enlightened Criminal

My head was pounding, and I’d had a tight knot deep in my gut for days. Neither was going away anytime soon. I had to come clean and tell her what happened, but it was always so much easier to rehearse in my head what I was going to say than actually stepping up and confessing to it.

Heading north on La Jolla Blvd one early summer morning, the police pulled me over. The Police! Trying to figure out what I had done wrong was just too problematic for me at that hour – my brain was still a bit fuzzy. But there it was, the flashing lightbar in the pre-dawn light.

“Hey everyone, look over here! We got us a criminal!” the intense red beacon seemed to be announcing to the world.

Shamed and embarrassed I stood on the side of the road; head down with hands behind my back. “God, I hope no one drives by and recognizes me,” I desperately thought. The worst part about this whole mess was I was working at the time; I was on the clock. If my boss found out they were paying me to stand here and be jammed up by the cops, there goes that job. My life and career as I knew it would be finished.

Now I had a court date and would have to face a judge. Oh man, how will the courts punish me? How would she punish me? I didn’t want to find out but knew there was no way to hide this any longer. I had to tell her and now was the time, just as she was leaving for work. That way, I hoped, the pain and agony would be over soon, and she’d have the rest of the day to calm down and be distracted by a classroom full of 2nd graders. Gathering up all the courage a timid 13-year old boy could muster, I blurted it out to her.

“Mom, I got a ticket last Monday morning on my paper route for not having a light on my bike,” I stammered out in a weak and shaky voice. Waiting for the punishment that was sure to follow, I meekly looked up into her eyes and continued. “We have to go to court tomorrow.”

“I thought you had a light on your bike, what happened to it?” she calmly asked.

“The batteries died last month, and I never replaced them.”

Opening her wallet, she pulled out two $1 bills and handed them to me. “Stop off at the drug store on your way home from school and buy some batteries. It’s too dangerous for you to be riding your bike that early in the morning without a light. I’ve got to go to work now, but have a good day at school. And don’t worry about it dear. I just want you to be safe.” With that, she walked out to her car and headed off to work.