The Perpetual Nomad
By: Jillian Ada Burrows
Tags: Personal Growth, Travel, Police, Native Americans

San Jose, Illinois village limit. Photo by Jill Burrows.

While visiting the mounds my relatives built at various times between 1000BCE and 1000CE, I recently found myself parked on the side of a road in the vicinity of San Jose, Illinois. I thought it would be a fun quick stop to snap a picture, post it to Facebook, and peruse my map to plan my next stop. A San Jose with population of 700? I’ve got to take a picture of this or no one will believe me. I know I just passed by stars and bars, but I’ll be quick. Except, it wasn’t quick. As I crossed over the highway, I saw that a cop had pulled over another person with out of state plates. I snapped a picture. I got back in my van. The car which was stopped drove past me. Leaving the cop just 200 feet behind me.

I thought, I should go right now, but where? I haven’t looked at my map. I should stay and see if he drives off, but then he might stop ahead and wait for me. I waited. He drove about 300 ft in front of me to the nearest turnout and waited. I just kept looking at my map. He then turned around and drove past me, only to turn around and park behind me. Great! Now what? He’s just going to see if I’m alright, isn’t he? He turns his lights on and steps out of the police car. He walks up to me. He asks what I’m doing and asks to see my driver’s license. I say, “Are you serious? I’m just looking at my map.” He says, “I like to check everyone who comes through here.” I don’t want to cause a ruckus and end up going to prison, so I cave in. I hand him my ID even though he has no reasonable cause. He walks back to his car to run a check.

“I’m arresting you for driving with a suspended license,” he says as he walks up to me. “What?” I question. “You didn’t know your license was suspended?” he asks. “No,” I reply. “You’re going to have to step out of the vehicle,” he tells me, then asking, “Have you ever been arrested before?” I reply, “No, never.” He walks me to the back of my van, while he gets his cuffs out. “Do you have any weapons on you?” he asks. I acknowledge having a knife in my back pocket. He grabs it out of my pocket. He puts me in the handcuffs and double locks them so they don’t get too tight. He then places me in the back of his car. Not in a seat, but a plastic amorphous form that can support sitting, or someone laying down whom was just cuffed and indiscriminately thrown inside face first. It occurs to me that latter option might have been more comfortable.

I end up “sitting” in the back for probably over an hour, this means alternating between hunching forward allowing circulation to one hand at a time and laying back, shifting weight and position from side to side to allow circulation to get to my hands. He calls for a tow truck to impound my vehicle. That takes about 40 minutes. In the mean time he searches my van a little, but gives up due to shear volume of life stored in my van.

He asks me my address and my phone number. He repeats it back wrong. I correct him. He asks if I’m living out of my van. I admit that hoping he’d feel some remorse for what he’s doing. He asks, “You were reluctant to hand me your drivers license, was that because you knew you had a suspended license?” Calmly, I reply, “No.” I realize what he is doing. He is trying to get my to incriminate myself. He asks about the various things he sees for reasons that my license is suspended. I say I had taken care of those things. I am never given my rights. Do people being arrested have right these days?

We wait for what seems too long a time. The tow truck finally arrives. He hands the driver paperwork. He walks back over to my window, which he had fortunately rolled down since the AC doesn’t reach the holding cell in the car. He tells me, “I could only get you for driving with a suspended license. If you had been moving, I could have gotten you for a few more things. I’m going to take you to the Sheriff’s station in Havana. They’ll book you, bail is $150.”

There are two stars and bars in this picture taken of one of the main intersections at the edge of Havana, Illinois. Photo by Jill Burrows.

The towing truck leaves. We start driving the half hour to Havana, IL. I start realizing the two of us are completely alone, only surrounded by cornfields. He could kill me if he wanted to. I briefly teared up, but I remained calm. All control was out of my reach. I could only accept that if I was killed, my life had been what it was and that would be it.

There is complete silence until we reach the edge of town and he puts on the Three Days Grace cover of “Give In To Me”. I began to think, He’s not taking me to the Sheriff is he. He’s going to rape me. My previous time being raped flashed through my mind. For a moment I almost thought death would be preferable to being raped again. I decided to accept fate, whatever it may be, without flinching. That was the one and only song he played.

We finally arrive at the Sheriff’s station. Once we are locked in the room, the two ladies ask the officer to take my cuffs off. When the first cuff comes off, I immediately swing my arm around as I notice the two female officers flinch. I just continue to stretch my arm and move it around. My deltoids have never been stretched so much and for so long. I let out a loud sigh of relief and the officers realize I’m not swinging at them. The take my wrist out of the other handcuff. I reach around to massage my deltoids. The officer who arrested me goes into another room. The two ladies ask if I have anything on my person. I reply, “I forgot to mention it to the officer, but I have tobacco wrapped in cloth in my pocket. I also have a lighter in my pants pocket.” She reaches into my pockets and takes the item and puts them in the plastic bin. They enter my data into their system. They pat me down and take my finger prints.

They have the officer verify the tobacco in the bundle is indeed tobacco. At first, he’s confused and says, “I didn’t notice that at all, how did I not notice that?” He opens the yellow fabric and bends down to sniff it and says, “Yes, that smells like tobacco to me.” The ladies are all in awe of how old fashioned it is to wrap tobacco this way and voice their awe with several comments. The ladies thank the officer. He heads toward the door to leave, but as he gets part of way through I say, “What about my ID? Have you given that to them?” He stops, turns around, and says, “I almost forgot.” All the while, fishing through several pockets since he moved it from the clip where it was visible to everyone. He finds it where he hid it and hands it to the ladies and then leaves.

I pay bail. They let me go. They escort me out the building. I find my way to the nearest motel. I call one of my best friends and let her know what had happened and where I was. I hatched a plan. I flew her out to help me get my van out of impound, assuming my driver’s license actually was suspended.

While I waited for my friend’s flight to land, I discovered the Rockwell Mound in town. I spent a while there atop the mound. It was surprisingly peaceful. While realizing I miraculously still had my tobacco, I said a prayer in each of the directions and laid down some tobacco. As I sat there, I realized it’s time to bring back the knowledge of our societies here in the Americas before Columbus arrived and European countries invaded.

For now, I wait. I still need to appear in court to get past this.