She Brought Me Home

I got pulled over tonight.

I was on my way home from pool league, doing what I always do when I turned onto the main drag: working my way to the front of the pack. I've written before about why I believe the front of the pack is the safest place for a motorcycle, so I'm not going to bore you with the whole fucking argument again. For now, push the "I believe" button and let's move on.

One of my teammates happened to be sitting in the lane to my right at the light. He rolled down his window, made some smart-ass comment about my bike, and we both laughed while we waited for the light to change.

When it turned green, I did what I always do. I looked left, right, then left again, and hit the throttle. Hard. First gear, quickly into second, then third. My goal when leaving a light isn't complicated. I want separation. I want as much empty fucking pavement as I can get between me and the pack of cars behind me.

By the time I hit about 70, I saw the lights come on way, way behind me.

Back in the pack I'd just worked so hard to get away from.

A fucking cop.

Great.

I pulled over and waited. He eventually walked up, and once again it was a pretty young guy. And once again, somewhere during our exchange, he told me that he rides too.

Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn't. But I swear to fucking God, every cop who pulls me over eventually tells me he rides a motorcycle. Statistically, at some point, I have to start questioning whether Harley-Davidson is secretly issuing motorcycles with police academy diplomas.

Look, I was my usual asshole self.

I don't like being pulled over. I don't like somebody interrupting my life and impeding my freedom, even if it's only for a few minutes. And I especially don't like the strange parent-child dynamic that seems to accompany so many traffic stops, where someone with a badge suddenly starts talking to another grown-ass adult like they're imparting some profound life lesson.

You're not my fucking parent.

You're a cop.

During our exchange, I explained several times why I ride the way I ride. In traffic, my goal is to get to the front and stay there. I want distance between me and the distracted drivers, the people staring at their phones, the people changing lanes without looking, and everyone else piloting several thousand pounds of steel around me.

I've already learned what happens when one of them doesn't see me.

And somewhere in the middle of our conversation, that came spilling out.

I said something about how I guessed this was what Santa Fe had become. A woman could mow me down in the middle of Cerrillos Road and not get a ticket, but I could get pulled over for trying to survive the same fucking streets.

That stopped him.

He seemed genuinely taken aback and asked me what I meant.

So I told him.

October 27, 2025.

A date I'll never fucking forget.

I told him about being hit on Cerrillos Road. About the accident that damn near killed me. About the fact that the driver who hit me wasn't cited.

And suddenly this wasn't really about tonight anymore.

He went back to his vehicle while I dug through my phone trying to find my insurance card. When he came back, I showed it to him, and ultimately he let me go with a warning.

I appreciate that.

I genuinely do.

Before I left, he explained that Santa Fe is apparently cracking down on what I think he called "exhibition speed" or something along those lines. We did expeditionary operations on the fast-attack submarine I served on, but apparently this is something entirely fucking different.

The idea, as he explained it, is that they're targeting people accelerating hard, showing off, racing, or whatever other behavior falls into that particular bucket. And apparently these stops are partly about "education."

Which is one of those words government loves to use when it's doing something to you for your own good.

Again, I appreciate that he gave me a warning. And by the end of the interaction, I was actually inclined to believe that maybe this guy really does ride. He listened to me. He didn't write the ticket. And when I told him about the accident, there seemed to be a genuine human being standing behind the badge for a moment.

But none of that resolves the larger thing that bothers me.

We have become remarkably comfortable with the idea that police can interrupt the movement of free citizens because an officer decides that the way someone is moving through the world deserves investigation. We barely question that power anymore. Getting pulled over is such a normal part of American life that almost everyone has a story about it.

And that feels strange to me in a country whose mythology, laws, and entire national identity are supposedly built around individual liberty.

Maybe that's an argument for another morning.

Because what surprised me tonight wasn't really the cop.

It was what happened after he left.

I put my helmet back on, started the bike, and continued toward home. But somewhere along the way, I realized I was sad.

Not angry.

Not irritated.

Sad.

The kind of sad that comes from someplace deeper than whatever just happened on the side of the road.

Talking about the accident had opened something.

I don't think I've completely dealt with the injustice I still feel about what happened that day. A woman didn't see me. She drove into me. My body was shattered. My face was torn apart. My motorcycle was destroyed. Months of my life disappeared into hospitals, wheelchairs, walkers, surgeries, and recovery.

And she wasn't even given a fucking ticket.

Tonight, I was pulled over because I accelerated too quickly while trying to put distance between myself and the same kind of traffic that nearly killed me.

Maybe the officer couldn't possibly have known what that would touch inside me.

Hell, I'm not sure I knew.

But by the time I finally rolled into my garage, I was right on the edge of tears.

So I did something that still feels strangely new to me.

I reached for someone.

I texted Dawna.

"Are you still up?"

She was.

A few moments later, my phone rang.

And I heard her voice.

That's all it took.

The anger started draining away. The accident went back into the past where it belonged. The flashing lights disappeared. The road disappeared. The fucking noise in my head finally started getting quieter.

I was standing in my garage after another night of fighting with the world, but hearing her voice reminded me that I didn't have to fight everything alone anymore.

She brought me back home.

And I'm beginning to understand that home isn't always a place.