Which was a shame.
lots more drama.
© 1998 Jamie Zawinski
<jwz@jwz.org>
In the fullness of time, the abandoned bank's parking lot was bought by a parking lot company, who put up a pay-box and produced real employees rather than the charming homeless simulations with which we had been blessed until then.
The level of drama in the parking lot dropped off significantly after that; since the lot was no longer free, it tended to be used less frequently, resulting in fewer visible displays of drunkenness.
Which was a shame.
Then one night, some folks came over to watch some movies, and between the first feature and the second, Randy said, ``I think someone is stealing that car!''
We all rushed over to the window to see, and sure enough, that's what it looked like: four hispanic hip-hop boys in baggy pants were loitering around a car, sliding a slim-jim into the door.
``Well someone should call the police!'' said Kristen.
``Be my guest,'' said I.
As Kristen was on the phone to 911, a police car making its rounds
drove
Imagine the cry that rose from our peanut gallery at this turn of events.
The car thieves, now laughing their asses off, had gotten the car's door
open, had popped the hood, and were in the process of disabling the car's
alarm. An increasingly flustered Kristen was still yelling at the 911
operator.
Finally, they got the car started. Two of them got into the car, and started to drive away. Just then, the police car returned! The thieves had only made it halfway across the parking lot, and with amazing nonchalance, they pulled the stolen car into a parking space, got out, and started walking away, as if they had just arrived themselves.
Thankfully, the cops weren't having any of that, and rounded them up.
Three of them, that is. The fourth thief (one of the two who had not been in the car) was on the far side of the parking lot by now, walking, not running, determinedly away.
``That guy's getting away!'' yelled Jeremy. He sprang up. ``I'm going to go stop him!'' And with that, he ran out the door.
Jeremy, it turns out, is a maniac.
We were leaning out the window, shouting down at the cops,
gesticulating wildly and trying to make them understand that one was
getting away.
It didn't seem to be working. The cops didn't know what
we were saying. Half a minute later, Jeremy came into view, and
started running towards the
(I really, really wanted to point at Jeremy and start screaming, that's the guy! That's the guy! but I didn't.)
Jeremy and the cop ran off down the street. And a minute later, they returned, with car thief number four in tow. It was at about this point that someone said, ``Jamie, man, I love the view from your apartment.''
``Yeah,'' I said, ``you just can't buy
entertainment like this.''
When they had all four thieves restrained, the cop shouted up that we
should send down some witnesses to make a statement. So down went
Randy, Kristen and Sage (the ones who had seen the
theft begin) to join
Jeremy. After talking with them for a little while, the cops had them
spread out along the sidewalk, while they had
the thieves line up on the other end of the parking lot, with the cars'
searchlights shining on them. Was this to be a duel, some new form of
street justice? After a few seconds we realized what was going on: a
line-up! An impromptu police line-up! And they had our friends spread
out so that they couldn't discuss their
answers with each other.
So, that was that. The thieves were carted off to jail, and after making sure the nearly-stolen car was again locked, the police left as well. Our civic duty done, we watched True Romance.
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