Crazy Night

Ok, so... Sarah and I had a long, crazy night last night.

I took the day off of work yesterday and we planned to go to the Phillies-Red Sox game. We left around 4:30 for the game and didn't get into the stadium until almost 7:00. We took our seats among dozens of obnoxious Red Sox fans in the 200 level near the right field foul pole. The game was underwhelming until the bottom of the 9th inning, when Ryan Howard hit a game-tying home run. The game got boring again until the 13th, when the Red Sox scored 3 runs on 4 hits and a walk. The Phils were retired in the bottom half of the inning and the game was over.

Then there was the drive home. Bumper to bumper traffic, despite the fact that approximately half of the fans left the game before it was over. Unfortunately for us, there was a concert across the street at the Wachovia Center (Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood) that probably let out at the same time. Well, route 76 was a parking lot. We sat in bumper to bumper traffic for about a half hour. We were a mile away from the construction zone on 76, where 6 lanes merge down to 2 when... I got rear-ended. It was just a bump, nothing serious, but I was kind of pissed. I looked back and pointed at the guy behind me, an Asian guy in a Jeep Liberty. He pointed behind him, as to say it was the guy behind him that bumped me. When he went around us on the right, he confirmed that fact by telling us as he drove past. I was steaming but willing to let it go since I was fairly certain there was no damage. Sarah and I kept watching the guy in our rear views. He kept fiddling with something in his car, he had his interior light on, and he kept falling back when there was a gap in traffic, only to speed up and slam on his brakes, almost hitting me again. We watched him pull over in the right lane (which by the way, is an exit lane), stop, and turn his headlights off before turning them back on and going again. He then proceeded to rear-end another car. The woman pulled her car over, so I decided to do the same.

I got out of my car and walked back to his car, a silver Mercedes. I demanded to see his license and insurance information and told him that I was going to take his license plate number. He got out of his car with his pants unbuttoned and with only one shoe on. I can't make this shit up. I asked him for his license and he handed me his shoe. He told me that he takes his left shoe off when he drives because he doesn't drive with his left foot. When I told him I didn't want his shoe, he told me he was just trying to be honest. He assured me that he has never been in an accident and he has never gotten a ticket. At this point, we knew there was something wrong with this guy. He actually almost gave me his license and insurance card (which, by the way, was expired - that turned out being the least of his worries). We decided that we needed to stall him. The woman in the other car, Virginia, called the cops and we wanted to keep him at the scene until the cops got there. We kept inspecting the non-damage to our vehicles and I pulled my car over to the shoulder. I lent Virginia a towel to wipe off her bumper to see if there was damage. Finally, the cops arrived. When we heard the sirens, the guy said to us, "Oh, here they come. Can we just get out of here?" To which Sarah responded, "no."

The cops pulled up and took all our information. We told him what happened to both of us and then they went to interview the guy in the Mercedes. After about 5 minutes of what looked like sobriety tests, he was in cuffs and being escorted to the police cruiser. This is when we knew this was serious. After another half hour of God-knows-what goes on in that cruiser when the cops take your information, the one cop came back with our forms. Virginia's son, Mark, said he felt bad about ruining the guy's life, to which the officer responded, "Oh, you don't have to worry about him. He's going to jail." He said this while showing off his nifty new flashlight that has a slide-proof rubber seal on it. We asked him what the guy did to get arrested and he said, "Oh we found a bag of heroin in his backseat." Our jaws all dropped. We said we knew something wasn't right about him, but we didn't smell any alcohol on his breath. The cop said, "Yeah he wasn't drunk, he was just high on heroin and cocaine." I responded by asking if he was at the Clapton concert. Apparently, the guy had been in South Philly, scoring some heroin. This wasn't a junkie-looking guy either. He was in his late 40s or early 50s, with a Lower Gwynedd address (a wealthy area) and he told me he was a corporate executive. We told the cop that when I asked for his license, he gave me his shoe. The cop responded by saying, "Yeah, he's a crackhead."

So that was our evening. We made our first citizen's arrest, and it turned out being a heroin addict. We didn't get home until after 2:00 a.m. but we were wide awake on the drive home. Oh yeah, and when I went to start my car to leave the scene, my battery was dead. We had to get the tow truck driver to give me a jump. We got home way late, but I'm glad we stopped. I don't think that Virginia would have been able to keep him there on her own. And I have to give an assist to the Asian guy in the Jeep Liberty. Without him, I may not have even known which guy hit me. We still can't really believe what happened last night, but we have a hell of a story to tell for the rest of our lives.