I had big plans, I wanted to be a womanizer, then I met ILL-TREATER MANEATER. And I was so careful what I wished for. Life went on, ambitions became less and less bold, until only one remained: to keep away from the police and courts. No crime, no time, my mission sublime.
Slovak police is pageantry in bad clothes. During the 40 years of communism they only arrested drunks and dissidents, of whom many were double agents. And drunks. When an interesting case came along, like when a wife chopped up an abusive husband, they couldn’t solve it even as the woman confessed.
I crossed paths with them thrice.
Once I interpreted for two Italian salesmen whose car got burglarized. The policewoman we gave the statement to wore a flannel lumberjack shirt and sweatpants. I was incredibly embarrassed, the worst possible nationality to bring into this situation. But maybe she was undercover, looking for drug dealers among the homeless. In which case she was very good.
The second time I ran a red light. As a pedestrian. The policeman asked for my ID, then shouted my last name in compliance with GDPR. I looked at his name tag, it said “Balamuta” which translates to “Bamboozler”, you can ask any Slovak English speaker. I begrudgingly decided not to get arrested. He gave me my ID back and said: “Next time it’s going to be 50 euros.”
The third time I took a photo of a busty girl on the train and someone told on me. I cooperated fully without a jot of sarcasm and they let me off without a record. The dumb cop, dumb cop routine didn’t work. While they interviewed me on the reasons for my gonzo art, thousands of similar pictures were taken around the country. And not the flattering portraits such as mine, but upskirts and downblouses. And yes, I shouldn’t have done it, the policeman said so too. Good thing I didn’t go through with the terrorist attack.
I’m sure many officers are competent and most citizens don’t deserve their help, but I remain unconvinced and steer clear of them. If my mother gets murdered and I discover the body, I’ll make the call just so I don’t become a suspect. It’s going to be suspicious anyway because I won’t be distraught on the phone.
As for the courts, I had relations with a lawyer, a bona fide litigator. After a month, I noticed red spots on the tip. I showed them to a urologist, he did all the tests and pronounced his diagnosis: “Don’t know.” The blemishes subsided eventually and I concluded it must have been a mild allergy to law enforcement.
I live in Prešov, a city of 90,000. We have no violent crime here. We have graffiti and tax evasion. I’ve been a resident since 2016, during this time I read about three violent deaths.
- A cop shot himself in a toilet stall at a police station.
- A cop shot another cop. At a police station.
- President of the Police Force was arrested on suspicion of corruption and moved from Bratislava to a pre-trial jail in Prešov. He was found hanged in his cell several days later.
After the train fiasco, I had an epiphany. Why did I go into all this trouble taking photos and plodding all the heavy equipment when people don’t appreciate it. I’m going to put *them* to work and take pictures of me. I went home completely mellow and threw away my 200+ books into the food waste dumpster and smashed the following items against the pavement:
- Canon PowerShot S95
- Canon EOS 50D
- Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L
- Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L
I also bent and twisted up the tripod. I was amazed how strong I was. I later saw a Gypsy finding all of it and felt sorry for his disappointment at the pawn shop.
I also deleted all digital photos and tore up the paper ones. I recently found some in the cloud.
