Armed Robbery or Just Another Day in the Life of a Freelance Writer

Like a lot of freelance writers, I wear more than one literary hat. In addition to editing a community newspaper, I compile events calendars and write articles and essays on everything from house clutter and truck mattresses to arc welding, physician-owned wineries, and “green” paint. In addition, once a week, I write a police report for a local newspaper.

To gather the necessary information for the article, I visit two police departments, where I paw through a thick pile of forms. On a recent visit, I came across a Xerox of a hand-written note passed to a bank clerk by a bank robber:

NO COP’S FOR 5 MIN.!
HEAR ME!!
ROBBERY, I HAVE A
HUGE BOMB! NO DYE,
NO TRACKER! $20’S, $50’S,
& $100’S! NOW! OR BOOM!
EVERY ONE GOES POW!

According to the form, the police were dispatched to the bank, where they were told the suspect had left on foot with an undetermined amount of money. No one was hurt.

Another day, another police report:

“At 6:38 p.m. police were dispatched to a report of harassment on Southeast 188th Avenue, where the victim told them a repairman retiling her bathroom had grabbed her left buttock and flirted with her. According to the woman, the suspect followed her from room to room, asked her if she was single and told her, “Maybe I’ll come by and see you.” He also asked what perfume she was wearing and told her, “It’s driving me crazy like a male dog.”

Then, this morning, just when I thought things couldn’t get more dysfunctional, they did. I was sitting inside one of the police stations when a man walked in carrying a backpack that, he told a woman on the staff, he’d found outdoors.

What was inside the pack? Powder, fireworks and a small, homemade pipe bomb, of course! And me a freelancer with no health benefits! When the man reached into the backpack and pulled out a small, white pipe, I started to climb up the back of my chair while the staff person turned green and said, “I’d better get an officer” and disappeared.

A few minutes later, she returned and told the man to take the backpack outside to the parking lot, where he was joined by two uniformed cops who started asking him questions.

“Boy,” the staff person told me, “you never know what people are going to bring in.”

To me it was just another bizarre day in the life of a freelancer. I gathered up my belongings and headed out to my car, while making a mental note to add the bomb incident to my report and giving a wide berth to the backpack and its explosive contents.