I’m sure everyone can relate to the feeling of your heart simultaneously pounding inside of your chest while remaining ice cold and still. Specifically when you’re driving and a cop car begins to creep closer in your rear view. Well there’s a new fear that creeps in when they don’t pull you over, but just keep following you closer and closer. More fear develops when a separate cop car cuts in front of you and begins to slow down, trapping you in and forcing you directly where they want you to go. No lights, no sirens, no faces in the tinted windshields.
Me and my husband were driving back home after a random visit to Guitar Center. He was looking for instructional books for his cello and I impulse bought some picks and a new guitar strap. We decided to take the feeder back home instead of the highway just for the joy ride. About four minutes from our complex is when these cops showed up.
The car in front me began to slow down. Like, way too slow. I began not even pressing on the gas. The car behind me matched the speed in perfect unison, almost as if they were RC cars controlled by the same controller.
Increasing the oddity of the situation was what grew closer off to the side of the road: “Speed Limit 10.”
My memory isn’t exactly the best, and I don’t claim to be an expert when it comes to the road or traffic laws. What I can promise you is that no speed limit sign for 10 MPH exists outside of neighborhoods and parking lots in southern Texas. I realized it was a radar speed limit sign when it began to flash as we three passed it. 10 exactly. I looked at my speedometer and I was for sure going exactly 10.
Time slowed, and my car radio told me it had been around 3 minutes. You could’ve told me it had been an hour and I would’ve believed you without a doubt in my mind. I look over and my husband is white knuckling whatever the bar is called that my mom always called the “oh shit bar.” The one you grab when the driver takes too sharp a turn. His face is pale and his breath is still. We look into each other’s eyes and know for a fact we’re thinking the same thing: no sudden moves, no reaching for anything. We’ve watched enough documentaries to know you just follow along with the cops and pray that it will be fixed later. Anything more is gambling with your life, especially as a gay man in the Bible Belt.
We began to slow down some more. Not a lot, but enough to notice. Then another sign approached: “Speed Limit 9.” Again, odd, as speed limit signs typically are multiples of 5. 65 or 70 on the freeway, 35 in a school zone when the lights aren’t flashing, 5 in parking garages, y’know. Cars don’t even have dashes for that specific number sometimes, as there isn’t a need! I didn’t understand why, but I knew whatever the reason it sent shivers down and back up my spine.
I had to force the breath in and out of my lungs. The adrenaline coursing through my system was going to make me pass out if I didn’t. I began to focus on small details in hopes of finding any semblance of an intent from them. They were driving in a perfectly straight line, as if they were Disneyland rides on some magnetic, unseen track. The windows were pitch black, almost painted so. They were both perfectly clean without a speck of dirt. At least, I assumed so of the rear one, as I was getting all details from my rear views.
“Speed Limit 8”
The lights on the sign flashed as we slowed even more so. My breath caught back up in my chest. We both began to stay on alert, but not as full of adrenaline. My husband began fumbling almost imperceptibly for his phone in his pocket. When he began, my breath caught in my chest again, caught by a semblance of hope of explanation or help.
“Speed Limit 7”
“Speed Limit 6”
He dropped it in the crack of the door. Fuck. Admittedly, I was mad at him when he dropped it, but I quickly dismissed the anger. I understood the situation is not very usual, and shit is going to go haywire. I’d rather spend my possible last moments in unity, not angry.
“Speed Limit 5”
We’ve been sitting in silence pretty much the whole time. Unsure of what even to say. Not much to say. We both understood what we were feeling and understood each step to take of what we could do.
“Speed Limit 4”
“Speed Limit 3”
“Speed Limit 2”
“Speed Limit 1”
My full attention was now on my foot, balancing between holding the brake enough to not hit the car in front of us, but not too much as to get hit. I began sweating out of sheer focus and anxiousness of not making a bad situation even worse.
Eventually I followed the lead into a complete stop. I pressed down hard on the brake and inhaled deeply. The amount of oxygen needed at this point to get my mind back to normal could only be administered via a tank and a mask. I sat back and saw what I can only infer as why we had stopped: “Speed Limit 0.” Not “Stop” or “Yield” or any sign that would make sense, but I’ve given up making sense of what’s going on at this point.
We sat. We waited for a door to open, or a megaphone to sound, anything to let us know that there were even people inside these cars. I cracked my windows, threw on my hazards, and turned my car off; all of which I was taught to do in a traffic stop. I made a purposeful note that my doors were locked and my keys in the ignition. I wanted confirmation these were cops before giving up the option to disregard all vehicle safety and bust the fuck out of here.
We’ve been sitting here for an hour now. After a while we tested the waters by moving ever so slightly, to see if something would happen. Nothing did. No one did anything. No cars even passed us. Looking out the window, I wasn’t even sure where we were. It seemed like a long stretch of highway in the middle of nowhere. No street signs or identifying markers. My husband dug out his phone and immediately called 911, as any sane person would do, and explained our situation.
He spoke back and forth for a minute and informed me that she was going to try to trace our location, as the cars in front and behind us had no license plate to identify a specific officer.
She wasn’t able to get our location and no officers were in a current traffic stop with a car matching our description.
Who were these cars, then.
My stomach fell out my body so fast it left a hole in the floor of my car. Our new focus was not compliance but rather solely survival. The sun is going to start setting soon, and our phones are going to die eventually. I have a car charger plugged in, but that’s going to require starting the car back up again and I don’t want to risk starting something if I don’t have an escape plan.
Y’all, please help me out. What do we do? Who are these people? What is going on? Thank God I have a cell signal to post this, otherwise we’d be right fucked. We still might be.