After an early evening visit to a dear friend in Park Slope, I was journeying back to Williamsburg, Brooklyn on the always-congested Brooklyn Queens Expressway.

As it usually is in bumper-to-bumper situations, every split second is critical, and as the driver in front of me stopped suddenly for whatever reason, my mind was somewhere between “maybe he wants Cheerios?” and “maybe his milk is a little too cold?”

You see accompanying me on this trip was my one-year-old son, strapped in his car seat fussing. He was angrily making the hand sign for milk, which incidentally also is his non-verbal request for juice, fruit, water, or whatever edible is in eyeshot. In this case I assumed that since he had just tossed his soy-filled bottle at the back of my headrest, the five-fist-five-fist hand motion meant, “Screw this cold milk, I want that box of Berry Blast Cheerios sitting in plain view on the front seat.”

As we are both vegetarians, these treats serve a dual purpose: stave off dad’s in-transit hunger pangs, and quiet the little back seat driver by exercising his hand to mouth motor skills.

It was somewhere in this moment that I noticed another sign, the bright crimson illuminated taillights on the back of the SUV in front of me. In a cinch I decided that instead of jamming on my brakes and having the vehicle behind rear-end me – risking possible injury to my son still urgently signing “Milk! Milk!” – I would slow gradually and pray my car decelerates quickly enough to escape collision. It didn’t.

As a result I gently nudged the car I was tailing and let a profanity loudly leave my lips, risking it being the first word my little learning sponge safely strapped in the back seat would utter.

I alighted from my vehicle and the driver in front did the same, just a bit more erratically. He looked like a modern day Woody Allen, with better eyeglass frames, and a Cossack hat atop his head. I walked to the front, he walked to the rear, and then we both looked silently at the bit of plastic that had been knocked off of his extended bumper.

He spoke first. “Three hundred dollars!” he shouted over the passing traffic. “It cost you three hundred dollars!” “What?” I responded. “No way.” “Well… I call, cops,” he resolved; butchering the language he hadn’t mastered as quickly as his New York attitude. “Sure,” I agreed matter-of-factly, “go ahead.”

On re-entering my car I had doubts about my cocksure response. “Isn’t this what people do?” I thought. “Don’t drivers bargain when they’re in the wrong? Was I in the wrong?”

In over ten years of driving in New York, this was the first time I had every hit someone else’s car. Parking dividers, garbage dumpsters, fences, post office pick-up boxes and hydrants can be added to my list of casualties. It’s also sad to say that suicidal squirrels and the occasional imbecilic pigeon are a couple of the reasons the New York chapter of the ASPCA knows me by name. But me hit another person’s car? Never. At least not to the point where I had to stop on a major thoroughfare, throw on my hazards and await the arrival of New York’s finest.

As I sat there stewing in my apparent lack of rear ender etiquette, I watched as he stood by the side of his car mouthing words into his cell phone. He took out a pen and a bit of paper then started writing down particulars. I mirrored his actions getting the license plate numbers, make, model and other particulars of his vehicle. Such as the fact that I was certain the extended chrome tubing I ran into was not street legal.

I reached into my back pocket to retrieve my driver’s license and registration, and then it started raining Cheerios inside my Jeep. Apparently in my distracted state I had somehow transferred the package of sugary treats from the front seat to my son’s lap. As I turned to retrieve it I realized the reason he was suddenly silent, his mouth was overflowing with the rainbow colors of the specially issued multi-hued version of the standard General Mills snack.

Now that he had my attention, he solicited my help in removing the messy mush from his mouth by starring me in the eye, grunting and repeatedly jabbing his index finger toward the doughy overflow.

From this turned around position I could see the oncoming traffic through the rear windshield and was immediately terrified as to how dangerous sitting motionless in a traffic lane on a busy highway can be. Cars maneuvered dangerously close to the rear bumper regardless of my flashing hazards, and truck drivers seated high in their human-sized Tonka toys yelled as they crawled past. The latter angled their load within inches of my aluminum and steel SUV, which at this perspective was reduced to the size of a sardine can by these giants.

Thinking of my son, who had by this time deposited a ball of chewed ‘Os into my cupped palm, I seriously considered the felonious act of leaving the scene of the ‘accident’. I thought it made sense to drive to the nearest precinct and tell them that it was just too great a risk to endanger the safety of my child while waiting for the boys in blue to arrive and assess the minor damage.

Luckily I did not have to act on my instinct, for off in the distance I noticed the familiar flashing lights approaching.

As the blue and white van drew closer my childhood association with the police came to the forefront of my mind. I remembered my dad’s interactions with cops. A black man, he always seemed slightly subservient to the police officers that pulled us over while driving. He called them “Sir” even though on most occasions they were obviously his juniors. And whether routine or not, the stops were always charged with an air of uncertainty. His fears were never expressed to me, but even at a young age I suspected they were dark and sinister.

The officer that pulled up to my passenger side window informed me that he was not the one to take the report. He was merely there to ask that we pull out of the traffic lane and into the emergency zone. As I did what I was told, I heard my wheel roll over the offending scrap of plastic and seriously considered walking back into the highway traffic to retrieve this important bit of evidence.

Many minutes later, as my son and I were on side B of our music class cassette singing ‘Shake Those ‘Simmons Down’, I noticed that another cop car was silently idling behind us. In the reflection of my side view mirrors I monitored the advance of this much younger police officer as he approached my window with clipboard in hand. After the formal greeting he asked that I explain what had taken place. I did, sans the bit about my momentary milk vs. snacks thoughts, and he thanked me and walked toward the auto in front.

As he approached the car I hit, its driver again sprang from his seat. I couldn’t hear what they were saying over the Pussycat song, but it involved much gesticulation and note taking. I thought for sure I’d be forced to replace this guy’s old rusted rear step with a shiny new bumper from some overpriced Toyota dealer.

The officer, on completing his animated conversation with the driver, returned to my vehicle shaking his head. In a manner that was warm and courteous on this cold night he advised me that he tried to reason with the other driver, but that he seemed beyond logic. “It seems like bull,” said the officer in a gentle voice, “but I’ll have to take a report. So let me have your license, registration and proof of insurance.” “Proof of insurance?” I questioned. I didn’t have it. How could I not have it? Dumb, dumb, dumb. “No prob.” Said the officer, just give me what you have.

More minutes, more juggling bottles and dry cereal, back to side A of the cassette. That’s when a second cop car, lit as if it were responding to some major distress, pulled up beside the first. After conversing with officer number one, officer number two taxied next to my vehicle. It took a few moments for me to realize that whatever he was saying into his CB microphone was direct at me. On turning down ‘Tingalayo’ I caught the brusque instructions directed at the driver seated in his automobile a few feet in front. “Follow my car, we’re pulling off the highway!” And with that he took off toward the Metropolitan Avenue exit.

In that moment my father’s unspoken forebodings became realized in me, and I could envision these officers separating me from my son. “Surely a bit of plastic for sure footing or proof of insurance isn’t this important?” I intoned. My thoughts were injudicious, preposterous even, but considering my deep-rooted fears, they were the only ones my mind conjured.

On pulling over to the curb of the narrow side street I decided that my presumed last moments with my son should be good ones. I devised a game of hide-the-Cheerio in which I held one between my thumb and index, put to his lips then pulled it away quickly, placing it inside mine. While chewing the singular snack I made loud munching sounds ala Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster, which in turn made him laugh hysterically. I repeated this ten to fifteen times, making him laugh and laugh, and then there was the tap at my window. It was officer number two, and he didn’t seem at all pleased.

“Good night sir.” He greeted me, and I imagined him following with “You have the right to remain silent…” I immediately came to the realization that I’d rather have been bunkoed out of three hundred bucks than spend even an instant away from my son, but instead of reading me my rights, the officer, obviously jolly on the inside, surprised me. “I think the guy is crazy.” He said. “He doesn’t want to hear reason. There isn’t any noticeable damage, and you won’t be placed at fault. Tell me what happened.”

I recounted the story and the bit about the three hundred dollars seemed to infuriate the officer. “He did what?” he questioned angrily. Apparently you run afoul of the law if you attempt to finagle your way out of a fender-bender. The officer marched back to the other car and shared a few garbled but angry words with the driver who now didn’t seem as smug and confident as he did prior to calling the police to his aide.

On returning to my car he once again requested my proof of insurance and on reminding him that I didn’t have one, he punished me with an incredulous look. “Okay he said. Don’t worry. The other officer is going to record this as ‘No Damage’, but you’ll be getting a summons for not have your insurance papers.” He went on to describe the process involved in reporting an accident, gave his and the first officer’s names and badge numbers, advised when I should visit the precinct to retrieve the report, and again admonished me for not have my insurance forms.

He then went back to his vehicle, and on the way there, shared more words with the driver in front. Unexpectedly my modern-day Mr. Allen was not concerned about his three hundred dollars any longer. He switched on his left indicator and with a few jerky motions entered the flow of traffic soon there after. Officer number two’s squad car followed a few cars behind, but it was obvious that the two were traveling independently of each other.

I looked back at my son who was now calmly chugging liquid soy from his bottle. He regarded me with a smile and a gurgle then got back to the task at hand. I returned to my forward facing position and awaited my written summons. As I sat waiting I thought that this would be a good lesson for my son, though he probably doesn’t realize it. I hoped that somewhere in his infantile mind a subliminal record was made that his first father/son encounter with the traffic police was a good one, and thus will not grow up in fear of those charged with protecting his well-being.

As Uncle Jerry, Grandma Yvette and the rest of the Music Together gang belted the tunes being blasted over the audio stereo system we sat satiated. My fear quelled and my son with a full stomach, we both ‘sang’ along happy to have made it safely through this experience with our fenders straight and our preconceived notions of the police bent for the better.

+ also published in Block magazine.