| Walking
The Expressway Ronnie Dee (c) Copyright 2025 by Ronnie Dee 
|
 Photo by Aakash Marshal Aravind Raj on Unsplash. |
Now I admit to drinking a lot of beer in my life, but I was never really into drugs. I smoked pot off and on for a couple years and took a few pills as a teen, but that was it. But beer can get one to do some crazy things, too.
No doubt one of the stupidest things I ever did was to walk down the middle of the Expressway. I was in the Zanzibar one night and saw no one I knew. I didn't know where they could be, but it wasn't at the Z Bar. So when I left at about 1:00 I had no car. I thought the quickest way home was to go down I-65 to downtown, then west to home. About 2 1/2 miles each way.
So I walked down to the ramp and began strolling down the middle lane of I-65, a major expressway, in a suit and tie, smoking a cigarette and singing at the top of my lungs. Cars were flying by on my left and right, many honking their horns and some of the drivers cursing at me as they sped by. At one point, a semi rig stopped right behind me. I heard his brakes squeaking and when I turned around, I was staring directly at a huge grill right in my face. I had a flashback to the movie "North by Northwest" with Cary Grant. The driver yelled, "Get the Hell out of the way, son. You're going to get killed!"
I moved over to let him pass and then resumed my walk downtown.
I don 't know how, but I made it downtown and headed straight to the police station. I strolled in and went to the front desk. "Lock me up," I announced, "I'm drunk."
The officer behind the counter said, "Oh yeah, where have you been?"
I said, "At the Zanzibar."
He scowled at me and barked, "Yeah, I've heard of that Goddamn place and I don't like the Goddamn place."
So he sent me up to the second floor to the 7th division room. I looked in and there must have been ten or twelve cops just milling around. I lumbered in and made my request and some of them looked at me and others paid me no attention. Finally, one young cop approached me.
"Look," he started, "you don't really want to get arrested. Just sit here for a while and then go home," and then he left.
Soon after, they all left and I was sitting there alone.
"Oh well, " I said after a few minutes, then got up and left the police station.
I
went walking down the middle of Jefferson Street and immediately a
patrol car pulled up beside me and the driver ordered, "Get out
of the street buddy, or I'll lock you up."
I just started laughing and informed him, "Yeah, well I was just in there and they told me to get out."
The cop didn't think it was funny and warned me, "We're going around the block and if you're still in the street when we come back, we WILL lock you up."
I finally decided I did not want to get locked up and got on the sidewalk and started walking home. The cops never did come back. It was another 2 1/2 miles through an unseemly neighborhood, who's denizens were every bit as dangerous as the expressway, but I made it through, again unscathed, and went to bed.
The next day one of my office mates came up to me and inquired, "Did I see you walking down I-65 late last night?"
I said, "Yes."
I offered no explanation, so he just said, "I thought that was you," and wandered off.
I mean, I didn't know what else to say and neither did he.
I
still don't know what else to say about it.