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.