Chapter 8: MVP (Most Valuable Payer)

ADSS Presents Genesis

Dec 06, 2025

I was pulled over at twenty-one. My major run in with the law. I was intoxicated and driving. I was in my mom’s SUV, with a friend. Leaving the bar. We spotted the cop as I was pulling out of the parking lot for the diner we were leaving. Late night snacks. I pulled left, and he followed right behind. I never turned my lights on. I was trying my hardest to keep within the lines, so I knew that wasn’t the issue. He made me do a few tests. I failed the last one because of some issue with how I counted. Up from ten instead of down from ten, or something like that. I was handcuffed and put in the back of his car.

While I was sitting handcuffed, the forest green, central New Jersey highway sign posts blowing by, I thought, shit. There’s just nothing I can do. I was completely in their control. It wasn’t a scary feeling, it was just one of, whatever happens is going to happen. We chatted. About Mike Vick, the quarterback for the Eagles, who later would become infamous because of a dog-betting scandal. He was playing really well. We chatted through the officer taking my fingerprints.

He told me he probably shouldn’t have waited as long as he did to take my breath, but he did. It was 0.002 under the legal limit. Meaning, just right on the edge of being a drunk driver. I blew my breath again, this time 0.001. I thread right under the needle.

I would never tell my parents that my friend was in the car, though they talked with my lawyer and probably knew. If they’re reading this, yeah.

Being honest is hard with them. Always being fearful of the result of honesty, but as an adult, that’s on me. My mom paid the ten-thousand dollar bill. She took that hit for me. I’m a privileged kid. At the trial, the cop let them drop the DUI charges. It was reduced to careless and reckless driving charges. My license was suspended for six months.

I wouldn’t fully stop drinking and driving until I was in my early thirties.

I would get pulled over again, in my late twenties, by an African American cop. They must have known I was drunk. I was with my girlfriend at the time. I was shocked when the cop gave me my license back and said I was free to go. I can still see those red and blue lights, sitting on the side of the highway, when I close my eyes. I got lucky.

Life, like a coin flipping through the air, is made in those revolutions. The outcome, unpredictable, is based on the movement that came before. Heads or tails simplifies the true story.

She may not have wanted to see another black guy, locked up, for driving under the influence, knowing so many people do it. She may have seriously not have seen any glossy eyes or any other tells. I just doubt that was the case.

It’s taken me a long time to realize, you don’t always have to put yourself in those coinflip situations. I used to run into those vertical spirals; rolling, rolling, rolling. Since I’ve learned how to stop running from myself, I’ve also learned to take a moment to discern.

We all learn to discern at different paces. Some never take a moment. We all have to follow our own movement though.

The Earth (2006-2008)