STORY BEHIND THE POEM BLACK
CLOUD
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Chris Smith had been a police
officer for some time, serving the City of
.
We were actually on the way
to meet up for coffee and they stopped for the red light at Victoria and
Hastings. Sitting beside them in a black Honda were
two Middle Eastern men. Suddenly the Honda accelerated
right through the red light. Chris and Jana could
not believe what the had just seen and so they
pulled the pair over. A computer check revealed one
of the men to be a Dangerous Offender. Hearing this
I pulled around the corner to provide cover.
.
The Honda was facing south
on the west side of the road, with the police car directly behind. I was facing north on the east side of the street and
just watching the two looking for signs of trouble. Chris
gave the driver a ticket. He became enraged, slammed
the car into gear, revved it up and screamed away with screaming smoking
tires. Chris tossed his metal ticket book cover onto
the dash, while his hardcover fines book was on the console. As Chris jumped into the car, the fines book slipped off
the console onto the floor. When Chris accelerated,
the ticket book slid backwards and jammed in the steering wheel. The fines book then became wedged under the brake pedal. An amazing and freakish set of coincidences
to be sure. The car came forward with Chris
jamming the brakes and desperately trying to steer. No
luck, and his car slammed right into the side
of me.
.
I was already trying to do
a poem about one of Chris’s other mishaps, and this one just sealed the deal. Since coming from
.
On another occasion, Chris
responded to the scene of a break in. It was believed
that the suspect was still inside the building. There
was an air conditioning vent on the side of the building on which the grill
had been removed. This was believed to be where the
suspect got inside. Chris volunteered to climb in
because he was small enough to fit through the opening. As
he got in, he slipped and fell into an adjacent vertical shaft and came to
rest at ground level, staring out through the steel bars of the grating. Other officers were there and just howling with laughter
because Chris was staring out through the bars like he was in jail.
.
Because of his series of mishaps,
his squad mates have started referring to him as “Black Cloud” and in fact
took a piece of black material cut in the shape of a cloud and stuck it over
his chair, with the wording “Chris Smith, the Black Cloud Sits Here” with
an arrow pointing down. Ironically, just before going
on duty this day, Chris had asked me “when is my poem coming out anyway?” After the accident, I looked at him and laughed saying,
“I knew you wanted a poem but this is a little extreme don’t you think?” Right after the incident was done I sat and wrote up the
poem and presented it to him later over dinner.
.
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