DISTILLED :: A Police Story

No, Elvis is not in Jail.

Nor was I actually, but then I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you.

It was another one of those Saturdays, One of those Saturdays where fortunately or unfortunately there was no unknown chappie throwing a party, we could all crash.

So, we decided to have a night camp. The only condition, being that we got back early, as one of the “Villains of the night” as it were; Cool J had the dreaded TNPCEE exam the following morning. So, Me, Donnie (Also known as Mark Joshua) and Cool J (Else unknown) planned out a sedentary evening at the local tavern Distil expecting the usual diet of a drink, some chips and a few pretty faces.

Like most evenings in our beloved city, of the 3 ingredients, only the first 2 delivered. To help us confirm that, we were greeted by the sight of 3 khaki clad men, with oversized moustaches and matching pot bellies.

The Cops were in town, and surprisingly none of their children were in the same tavern that evening.

We then took the most natural course of action, which was to leave and call it a night.

The valet pulled up my car, I got in, and I drove out of the gate.

BREAKING NEWS......

I was like a turkey caught in the headlights, like a toddler caught in a topless bar, or whatever similar expression you might have heard Jonty Singh use.

It was a guerilla warfare operation, something Chattrapati Shivaji would have been proud of.

The bellied khaki gate crashers had positioned their cousins outside. The first man flagged me down, and asked me to blow. (No pun intended)

Relief! I was passed, only to be flagged down again by a stouter man. I did so again, and he smelt a rat or to be more precise a swig.

I blew again, and that only made him more sure.

Before, I knew it, in the dead of the night, I was whisked away by 2 other stouter khaki clad men, and no, mentions of other cops names like Pandiappan and Kuppasamy didn’t work this time.

I was huddled into one of those jeeps, you would only see in the front page of newspapers, when one those “Most wanted” criminals were bought to trial. I was whisked in, and they were 3 other people already in the jeep.

For some reason, I couldn’t help but feel that this was probably how Edmund Dantes felt in the Count of Monte Cristo. Was I being taken to the locker, and would I need 17 years to get out?!?!

It probably wasn’t the most opportune moment to be social, but hell, I figured we were all in this together. It appeared of the 3 other men, 2 seemed alright while the other confused aussie, was atleast 7 drinks down. For one he smelt like a fully stocked Tasmac kiosk apart from which he couldn’t seem to remember which part of Australia he had spent the last 4 years of his life in.

We were then joined by Dr. Saab (Mostly unknown), who assured us (or me atleast) that we had little to worry about and everything in due course would be getting back to normalcy.

We stepped out, only to notice that we were at a cop station, with only what appeared like hardened criminals giving us company.

We were made to sit around a table, like criminals awaiting death row, come to think of it; it actually reminded me of Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper”, well without the supper of course.

One by one, we were summoned into the meeting room.

And then the inquisition started.

Q1. Name Phleeez?

Q2. Address Phleeez?

Q3. Birth Mark Phleeez? (By far their favourite question)

After about half an hour of close examining, they were convinced that the spot on my left cheek was a mole after all, and we the prisoners were free to leave.

It was about 1 AM and our interrogation was over.

In no time at all, the same jeep that brought us to the cop station, would take me back to my fellow “Villains of the night”, one of whom had a big exam the next day.

Or atleast that’s what I thought….

To be continued.....