We\u2019re snuggled under the covers\u2014it\u2019s still Canada in the middle of the winter, heated room or not. My hands are moving over her inner thighs, keeping away from the magic zone for just another moment, letting the anticipation build. She\u2019s making those little cries women make, mingling joy and some ancient sorrow. I reach for her panties.
\nBAM!!
\nThere\u2019s light all over the room and shouting and I\u2019m lifted off the bed and shoved very rudely against the wall. Whack! In my condition, that really hurts.
\nI look around real quick. Nora is sitting at the head of the bed, sheets pulled around her. The door is in pieces and the room is full of people in black flack suits. One of them has his hand against the back of my throat and is holding me against the wall, his other hand holding my arm behind my back, threatening to break it if I move. I\u2019m not moving.
\nThe person in the center of the room makes one of those ominous-sounding statements about the perimeter being secured into his walkie-talkie and then an agent takes off her helmet and offers to escort Nora to the bathroom to get dressed.
\nThe guy with the walkie-talkie looks at the cop with his hand on my throat and says, \u201cOkay, get him ready, James. I don\u2019t think you\u2019ll have to frisk him.\u201d
\nTwenty minutes later, we\u2019re in the basement of the local police station in separate interrogation rooms. A few officers enter Nora\u2019s room first, but I don\u2019t hear any screams so I assume this is Canada and there\u2019s due process and we\u2019ll probably be offered tea and some kind of little English cakes or something to make our brief stay with the constabulary more pleasant. At least, that\u2019s how I used to feel about Canadian justice before the experience of a Canadian cop\u2019s fingers pressing my throat into a wall.
\nEventually, two men come into the room and take seats. Well put together, neat, trim, wholesome-looking. The antithesis of the New York doughnut cop stereotype. Blonde crewcut next to me, balding sandy hair across the table. Good cop bad cop\u2014one to confront and the other to sympathize. And, I suppose, to make sure I don\u2019t leap the table and throttle my accuser for pulling me away from a moment I\u2019ve dreamed of my whole life.
\n\u201cWhat is your business in Canada?\u201d Bald Cop asks.
\n\u201cCan I ask what I\u2019m being accused of?\u201d I respond. I try to sound polite, but I\u2019m not stupid enough to answer questions until I know what I\u2019m trying to weasel out of.
\n\u201cYou haven\u2019t been accused of anything,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is a simple interrogation and maybe we can get it done quickly if you\u2019ll cooperate with us.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019ll cooperate as long as you get the US Ambassador or someone from the consulate on the phone. I\u2019m an American citizen.\u201d
\nBaldie says something like \u2018get him\u2019 and the other cop steps to the door and calls down the hall. He returns to his seat and they both turn back to me.
\n\u201cDid you cross the border without a passport?\u201d
\n\u201cYes.\u201d Not much point in denying it\u2014they won\u2019t find a passport on me.
\n\u201cHow did you accomplish that?\u201d
\nI don\u2019t even think about this. From the moment we met Billy Hassin, I knew I\u2019d have to lie to someone about the border crossing. Now that it\u2019s actually come up, I find that same storytelling impulse Nikos has been riding the past couple days kicks in for me as well.
\n\u201cI told the man at the station I\u2019d been crossing back and forth between the US and Canada for thirty years without a passport and I\u2019d bring it next time but I don\u2019t have a passport now and I showed him a 25-year-old photograph of this absolutely gorgeous Canadian girl I knew when I was a kid who was now just waiting for me to jump into bed with her and I was just about there when you broke down the door of my fucking hotel room which I paid for fair and square and you could have at least waited till morning and arrested me while I was happy!!!!\u201d
\nI have never regarded yelling at police officers as a desirable thing to do. They have their very disagreeable jobs and they\u2019re necessary and sometimes really comforting guys to have around\u2014although never when you\u2019re alone in an interrogation room with them. Nonetheless, at this moment, several things are bubbling out of me, ebbing away so to speak, some of which I can\u2019t discuss in polite company. So I go off.
\n\u201cCan I please understand what is going on here?\u201d I demand. \u201cWe were certainly well over the age of consent!\u201d
\n\u201cWhat was your plan for this evening?\u201d Blondie asks politely. At least I haven\u2019t offended him with my tirade. Maybe I can with the next one.
\n\u201cWhat do you think my plan was?\u201d I shriek. \u201cYou found me naked and her in panties, which were almost gone.\u201d It\u2019s a wonder I don\u2019t dissolve in sobs on the spot.
\n\u201cNow, now,\u201d the sandy-haired cop next to me says, patting me on the shoulder. \u201cThere\u2019ll be other days.\u201d
\n\u201cPretty girl,\u201d says Blondie.
\n\u201cThanks,\u201d I say, dabbing my eyes with a handkerchief I pull from his jacket pocket. \u201cShe doesn\u2019t think she is\u2014you wouldn\u2019t believe how insecure she is.\u201d
\n\u201cReally?\u201d says the cop. \u201cWouldn\u2019t have believed it, looking at her.\u201d
\nThen the door opens and a tall distinguished-looking man in very expensive skipants and parka walks into the room\u2014there are several other similarly-attired personages with him.
\n\u201cAlright gentlemen,\u201d he says, \u201cwhy don\u2019t you let us do our consult?\u201d No Canadian accent. \u201cAnd no surveille, please?\u201d he says as they get up to go.
\nHe sits down opposite me and waves the rest of his party out of the room. He\u2019s not exactly angry, but his expression isn\u2019t real friendly either.
\n\u201cSo\u2014I understand you wanted to speak with me?\u201d he says.
\n\u201cI did? Who are you?\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m the United States Ambassador to Canada.\u201d
\nI look him over twice, blinking repeatedly. Finally he pulls a little billfold-type thing from his pocket and flashes it in my face. They even give them little ID cards and State Department laminated badges and such\u2014not much better-looking than what I could get in Times Square, though.
\n\u201cOkay,\u201d I say, feeling a bit goofy. \u201cI\u2019ll admit it\u2014this is service. I\u2019ll never complain about my taxes again.\u201d
\nI see a wisp of a smile around the edge of his mouth, but he doesn\u2019t seem to have a lot of difficulty repressing it.
\n\u201cI was at dinner with the Prime Minister, so naturally I\u2019m here,\u201d he says. \u201cWe had to make a statement.\u201d
\nI\u2019m now in way over my head. I\u2019m getting some information here, which is more than I got from the cops, but I can\u2019t make head or tail of it.
\n\u201cWhat happened?\u201d I ask with total ingenuousness. I feel like a child, yet I also fear that, once he tells me what happened, any childhood I have left in me will be gone.
\n\u201cYou don\u2019t know?\u201d he gasps.
\n\u201cNo\u2014they just keep asking me what my plan was tonight. I wanted to make the girl\u2014that was my plan, en toto.\u201d
\nThat little smile dances around his lips again and lingers a little longer this time.
\n\u201cOkay, I think we can get this over with fairly quickly. I doubt any charges will be filed. I doubt they will even prohibit you from entering Canada again.\u201d
\n\u201dI would hate that\u2014it would really cut into my love life,\u201d I say. \u201cAlthough the way things are going, that might be over too.\u201d
\n\u201cOkay,\u201d he stands up. \u201cI\u2019ll see what I can arrange.\u201d
\n\u201cWait a minute,\u201d I insist, standing across from him. \u201cBefore anyone else comes in here, at least tell me what I did.\u201d
\nHe sits. I sit. He seems to be searching his mind, to try to figure out how to tell me. Is it that horrible or that confusing?
\n\u201cDid you rent a Super8 projector tonight?\u201d
\nOhhh yeah\u2014I forgot all about the projector. \u201cYes,\u201d I admit guiltily. \u201cBut it wasn\u2019t due back till tomorrow morning.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m sure that\u2019s fine,\u201d he says. \u201cDo you know where it is?\u201d
\n\u201cOh shit,\u201d I moan. \u201cWe left it under the table at the restaurant.\u201d I feel like the kid in the principal\u2019s office. Then I shake my head.
\n\u201cOkay,\u201d I tell him, \u201cso I get that we left the Super-8 projector in the restaurant and it was the personal property of the camera store and we really should have returned it. But why are you and the Prime Minister of Canada making statements to the police? Is there really that little crime in this country?\u201d
\n\u201cThe Prime Minister and I are on a skiing trip up here,\u201d he explains. \u201cWe must have come in just after you left and sat at a table near the one you\u2019d just vacated. Somewhere during the appetizer, someone noticed the metal box under your table. They notified the maitre\u2019d, who did the appropriate thing\u2014he evacuated the restaurant and called the bomb squad, who helicoptered in from Ottawa. The man in the big lead blast suit went into the restaurant with the robot bomb disposer and placed your Super8 projector in a blast container and very gingerly took it out to their truck outside. In the truck, they X-rayed the box. However, because there is a motor inside a Super8 projector, they couldn\u2019t X-ray all the way through. Therefore,\u201d he concludes, \u201cthey took it out behind the County Court House and detonated it with a small charge.\u201d
\nI hear this twice in my head, on replay, before it really registers, and then I replay it several more times before I can speak.
\n\u201cYou detonated it?\u201d
\n\u201cThe Canadian authorities did,\u201d he says. \u201cThey had to\u2014couldn\u2019t take the chance it was a bomb.\u201d
\n\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a bomb.\u201d
\n\u201cWe know that now.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s left?\u201d
\n\u201cYou don\u2019t want it.\u201d
\n\u201cCan I have the pieces?\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s gravel.\u201d
\n\u201cBut\u2014but\u2014I rented it from the camera store,\u201d I say pathetically. \u201cIt was the guy\u2019s prized possession.\u201d
\n\u201cI know\u2014he took down your hotel on the slip as security\u2014that\u2019s how we found you. I\u2019m sorry,\u201d the United States Ambassador tells me. \u201cYou\u2019ll have to explain it to him.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m really going to get in trouble with that guy,\u201d I continue to whine, all the air coming out of me at once. \u201cIsn\u2019t there a State Department spokesman or someone who can come with me to make this right?\u201d
\nHe stands over me, making the most of his height and that very expensive ski suit for persuasion. \u201cThe United States Government has already agreed to compensate the Canadian Government for the use of a military helicopter, a bomb truck, robot bomb disposer, explosives, personnel and equipment, compensating the restaurant for an evacuation in the busiest time of day and your motel for a busted door, because you, an American citizen, were responsible for this damage. Don\u2019t you think you can handle the camera rental?\u201d he asks, and the brusque expression is very clear on his face.
\n\u201cSure\u2014give millions to friendly governments and begrudge five or six hundred bucks to help out one of your own unemployed citizens,\u201d I growse.
\n\u201cWell, maybe we should look into how you\u2019re traveling to Canada on unemployment,\u201d he says, standing up again. \u201cI\u2019ll get you out of here in one piece. Find your way back across the border as soon as you can, alright?\u201d And then he\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We\u2019re snuggled under the covers\u2014it\u2019s still Canada in the middle of the winter, heated room or not. My hands are moving over her inner thighs, keeping away from the magic zone for just another moment, letting the anticipation build. She\u2019s …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":61,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-284","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":297,"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/284\/revisions\/297"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/61"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}