TRESPASSING
REPORTED
John Flowers of 88 Terre Mar Drive, North Kingstown, was issued a no-trespass order at the Wickford Sunoco after he argued with the clerk about paying for $16 worth of gas he had pumped. Flowers eventually paid for the gas and when questioned by police, he said he “owned all of Rhode Island” and didn’t have to pay for any gas because he already owned it.
And this instant classic – to use a horrible oxymoron – from the Narragansett police log in The South County Independent:
MEOW
A 42-year-old Narragansett woman walked into the Narragansett police station on Jan. 25 at around 10:10 p.m., saying she was concerned at her boyfriend’s level of intoxication. The complainant said he came home from skiing intoxicated. Once in the vehicle together, the man started spitting and began to meow, at which point the woman went to police. After a short period of time, the man apologized to police, and the couple went home together.
If only there were an Elmore Leonard or two to chronicle the characters that live so vividly in the police reports as transcribed in Rhode Island’s local dailies and weeklies. Maybe it was just something in the air last week, but we don’t think so. Week after week, we report locals behaving badly and bizarrely, just as they do in every town and city in America.
The bigger question is what snaps in the brain in these moments? In that split second, why does the life of an expectorating, growling tomcat seem preferable to the mundane reality of human relationships and workdays after an alcohol-infused ski trip? What triggers us to spontaneously declare ourselves King of Rhode Island after filling a quarter-tank of gas with unleaded?
Perhaps it’s just a need to blow off steam. Maybe a little insanity is necessary every once in a while in a world gone mad, when there is so much strife and anger and unfairness around us that even the relentless distractions of noise and neon can’t mask the daily frustration. Just as fairy tales and horror movies and bad dreams can be therapeutic ways to address our collective fears, perhaps the patterns of behavior uncovered in police beat show us how people keep society from driving off the cliff. The tires are flat, the doors are dented, the muffler’s broken and we stall out every now and then, but at the end of the day, we’re still moving forward, headlights be damned.
Maybe that explains Rhody Gas King and Spitting Cat Man.
What is your favorite police beat anecdote?
