By Johnny Utah

I’ve been through that intersection about a million times. Out on Maddox Road there are two stop signs about 30 feet from each other. If you’re going straight ahead, no one stops for the second one. No one. I should have stopped. I didn’t see the Maryland State Police SUV until he hit his lights. He was right on top of me in a second, right on my ass. I managed to pull over to the side of the road on a wide strip of gravel next to a drainage ditch. Early on a Sunday morning, no other traffic around so I’m not worried about anybody I know seeing me. I looked at my rear-view mirror and then my wing mirror and out struts a uniformed stud.

The first thing that hit me was just the mass of him, the space he took up. His chest was big, and his shoulders sloped up to his neck. He had a tight-fitting shirt with an obvious bullet resistant vest underneath. A walking column of muscle. He had a red, white, and black State of Maryland flag patch at his left shoulder. His biceps bulged out of the tight short sleeves, halfway down each short sleeve were three gold stripes of a sergeant.

On his left wrist was a big bulky watch. His straight black tie was held in place by a tie tack. His gold trooper’s shield and name tag stood out on his silvery tan shirt. Stuck on his head was a straw-colored Stetson hat low over his eyes. Around his hips was a black duty belt with all kinds of pouches and resting on his right hip was a holster, heavy with its 9mm pistol. Below the belt was a pair of olive-green pants that stretched over his thighs. He had an ample bulge in the front of his pants. His feet were shod in a spit-shined pair of boots.

I watched him come up to the car in the rear-view mirror. The trooper strolled up to the car like he had all the time in the world. A man in charge. He took a sideways look at what way laying on the back seat. In the backseat Ryan and I had, stupidly, left our two jail jumpsuits. Mine was yellow, Ryan’s was orange. We’d left them year after last night’s photo session. Idiots.

I had the window down quick. He came up to my car door, hand resting on top of his pistol in its shiny leather holster.

“Did you see both stop sign?” he asked before I even got out a “Hello Officer what seems to the problem?”

Without taking another breath he barked, “Let me see your license, registration, and proof of insurance!” I fumbled around for my wallet with I had in the center console, wedged in next to my cup of Wawa coffee. I handed over my ID card and insurance to him, hand shaking a bit. This guy was hot. He took a very quick glance at Ryan and then ordered, “Get out of the car both of you and come up front!”

The orders came in quick succession.

“Turn around and face the car!”

“Stand back a bit from the hood of your car, lean forward and put both hands on the hood!”

“Do you have any weapons, drugs, anything that’s going to poke or cut me?”

He used the side of his boot to spread my legs wider. He started around my collar over the back then my chest. Then around my waist, then inside around the waistband of my jeans, reached in and turned out each pocket down legs, up to my butt, crotch. The trooper took his hands off me, “Just stay where you are while I search your partner.”

The trooper did the same procedure to Ryan.

“I’m going to handcuff both of you for your and my safety.”

“Oh God,” I thought. The cuffs went on quick. It was a quick snap, and they were on. Tight but not too tight, no mistaking that I was cuffed by a professional.

“Hold still while I double lock them,” the trooper said.

“OK, turn around both of you.”

We were both facing the Trooper, cuffed and clearly excited.

“I’m not arresting you two, but I want an honest answer, and I think the cuffs will help you see the benefit of telling the truth.” That sounded menacing. He paused, while I became aware that I was sweating, and hard. “What’s the deal with the jail jumpsuits?” he asked.

I kind of stuttered, my mouth was so dry for the experience of the frisk. “Ryan and I are into jail role playing,” I blurted out eventually. The trooper paused for a bit.

“Oh yeah. That’s kinda weird, though I’ve heard stranger things. You two just watch out for the stop signs, you never know who you might run into. Turn around, I’ll take those cuffs off.”

Ryan and I turned around and I got the unmistakable feeling we were both being checked out, and not for weapons! He put a hand on my shoulder and spun me around to face him, same procedure was done to Ryan.

The handcuffs were off, and we were just standing there in front of the trooper.

He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a crisp white business card. He stuck it right in my face and said, “I’ve got a program you guys might be interested in. I normally do Probation Duty but I’m out on the road filling in today.”

“If you’re both interested,” he paused then he barked, “be in my office tomorrow at ten hundred hours!” He turned around quickly. We both watched him strut back to his State Police SUV. Ryan and I drooled over his broad shoulders tapering down to waist carrying duty gear belt and pistol. His duty belt rode high of his firm set of glutes.

We both looked at the card. There was a gold State of Maryland Seal under that was, “Senior Trooper Justin Shaw,” under that was “Probation Service Senior Supervisor” and then his office address and phone number.

Ryan and I were up all night thinking and talking about if we should go to the Probation Office in the morning. We must have gone over a thousand reasons each for going and a thousand for not going. In the end we decided we’d probably never get another chance like this, so we’d go for it. I kind of felt like a fly flying into the spider’s web.

The probation office was in a 1980s style strip mall. The probation office was at the end of the row of stores. Next to the probation office was a Vietnamese nail salon and next to that was a liquor store that and then a few vacant stores. On the glass door was an ominous “State of Maryland Probation Office.” I opened the door, and a chime went off. The office was brown. Brown walls that old kind of wood paneling, brown carpet and a dirty white celling stained with nicotine from back when you could smoke in the office judging from the smell. On one wall was a large map of Maryland with lots of red pins in it. The secretary’s desk was piled high with manila file folders. Wedged in with the files was a computer, a phone, and a middle-aged clerk who was clearly overworked. The clerk said, “take a seat, there’s three ahead of you.”

There was a row of six plastic molded chairs that looked like they were original to the strip mall, or they could have been from an old airport terminal. There were two other guys waiting. One looked extremely nervous. He was about 20 years old was my guess. He was in a pair of jeans and a gray sweatshirt. I looked at his shoes and it was clear just above his right ankle was a strapped-on ankle monitor. The other guy looked like he didn’t give a shit about anything. He might have been over 30, hard to tell. His hair was buzzed practically down to the skin. He was in jeans and a gray sweatshirt too, and like scraggy guy, he had an ankle monitor strapped to his right ankle. His skin looked like he had been in out in the sun all week.

Ryan and I took the two end seats near the door. We were there for maybe five nervous minutes when I looked outside the window.

A St. Mary’s County Police cruiser pulled up. The back-office door opened and out came a regular looking guy, handcuffed and with leg shackles. Our trooper had a firm hand on his shoulder and was pushing him forward to the door. The cop driving the St. Mary’s cruiser came in, “this the guy?” he said. Trooper Shaw said, “yep, failed his piss test, now he’s facing 10 years, stupid fucker!”

The St. Mary’s cop took the guy out the door and put him in the back seat of the cruiser. The cop pushed the guy into the cruiser, using his hand to guide the guy’s head.

Normally I would have thought about what the guy going off to jail would be thinking, what kind of life behind bars he was facing, not now. Trooper Shaw turned to Ryan and me and said, “I got to take care of this guy first then I’ll be with you two.”  After about 15 minutes the guy came out looking scared, he didn’t look at me or Ryan but just looked straight ahead and walked fast out of the office.

“You two get in here!” came bellowing out of the office. Ryan and I got up and went into his office. “Close the door,” the trooper ordered. He fixed his eyes on us and I started to sweat. I was waiting to be told to sit down but there weren’t any chairs. We were kept standing. “You two wanna-be inmates have a great opportunity to live out your fantasies. Don’t start jerking off in my office now.” He smiled a little.

“West Virginia has built a new facility out near Charleston. They want to have some regular civilians come in to be inmates so they can work out procedures without having to risk and escapes or assaults and stuff like that. I got a buddy who works there, and he wants to test out the procedures for interstate transport. Are you two interested?”

The first thing that popped into my head to ask was, “How long would we be gone for?”  The trooper answered me authoritatively, “It would be for five days, plus a day to get there and back, they’ll take you to jail and bring you back here just as if you are inmates.”

Ryan spoke up and asked, “What will we be in jail for, I mean other than volunteering to try this place out?”

Standing up behind his desk the trooper said, “I’ll send you away from here with simulated documentation that will let them process you into the jail. It should be just what gets you guys off.” He smiled with a kind of smirk on his face, the fucker!

“You two need to be here Friday at 0900 sharp in jeans and a T Shirt. The transport van will be around 0930, but I want to make sure you are ready to go.”

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