The lights flashed in the rearview mirror. Red and blue filled every inch of space. I looked over at my roommate, Sonya. We were driving home after a night of partying in Coconut Grove. It was Sonya’s last day in Miami, where we were freshmen at Florida International University. Although she’d decided to drop out of school and move back to Trinidad, to become a flight attendant, so of course we had to go out and celebrate—one last hurrah to mark the end of our time together in this city.
It was four in the morning. We’d both had several drinks, but as the sensible nineteen-year-old that I was, I’d drunk a large glass of water in between each rum and coke.
Most clubs in Miami had a rule about age: eighteen for girls, twenty-one for guys. Owners understood that straight guys wanted to be in spaces where the girl-to-guy ratio skewed heavily in the guys’ favor. They’d lure young attractive girls into their establishments with promises of free drinks. There were nights when my girlfriends and I would be out on South Beach or in the Grove, being beckoned by bouncers and loading up on free drinks. No one bothered to check our IDs. We’d hop from club to club, drinking for free before settling on our intended destination.
So, there I was, nineteen, a little tipsy, the red and blue light, and driving west on Bird Road at four in the morning. Like an artery pumping boozy blood from the heart to the rest of the body, Bird Road delivered drunken college students from Coconut Grove back to the FIU campus. The police, all too aware of this fact, cruised up and down, hoping to ensnare smashed students before they smashed their cars.
I spotted the police cruiser coming towards us on the eastbound lane. The moment I saw it, I knew I’d get pulled over. The officer glanced into my car as he passed us. I watched him in my rearview mirror as he made an agile U-turn at the end of the block.
“Oh shit. I knew it,” I said. I put my hands at ten and two.
He sped up and turned on his lights. I don’t know if it was nerves or my blood alcohol level, but I stopped right where I was—in the left lane in the middle of the street. Luckily traffic was light at four a.m.
“Get out of your vehicle with your license and registration,” the officer’s voice resounded over his megaphone.
“What? This is weird,” I sad to Sonya.
“Calm down,” Sonya said in her musical Trini accent.
Not wanting to seem uncooperative, I did as I was told. I grabbed my documents, stepped out onto the abandoned street, and walked toward the police car. I forgot to close my door, so loud dancehall music poured out onto the dark and quiet street. I couldn’t believe I, or Sonya, hadn’t turned it down.
I took about four steps when the door of the police cruiser opened and a tall, tanned, dark-haired officer stepped out. He smiled and walked toward me.
Be nice. Smile back. Maybe he’ll let you go with a warning. This was 1999. Before cell phone cameras and body cams. Before video clips of unarmed drivers getting shot by police officers during routine interactions spread across the internet. My only fear was getting a ticket.
We met in the space between our cars. I glanced into his cruiser, and even with the flashing lights, I noticed a passenger in the front seat.
“So, where are you two pretty ladies headed this late at night?” he asked.
“Just going home.” I smiled.
“Call me Fernando,” he said. “You guys been partying?” He stepped closer to me and leaned against the back of my car.
“It’s my friend’s last night in Miami.” Play it cool. He seems nice and flirtatious. He might let me go.
“So … you guys done partying for the night?” he asked with an impish grin.
“Yeah. She’s gotta catch a flight in the morning and I’m the one taking her to the airport.” Look tired, but keep smiling. He’s buying it.
“You ladies up for partying a little longer?” His eyes travelled up and down my body.
“Uh … what do you mean?” My smile was frozen on my face. I stood there holding the papers he hadn’t bothered to check.
“I mean … I finish my shift in a little while. We should party.” He reached over and brushed that place on my torso where my crop top and low-rise jeans failed to meet. I looked down at his index finger as it moved side to side along my midriff. I glanced again toward the police cruiser, the guy in the passenger seat.
“What about your friend?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about him. He’s from the academy, just along for the ride. I’ll ditch him and meet up with you when I’m done.”
The passenger door opened, and Sonya stepped out. “Mi-meee, what’s going on?” she said in her melodic accent.
“Hey, it’s okay, beautiful,” Fernando said. “Mimi and I are just getting acquainted.”
I sent Sonya a look that said don’t worry. I got this. I sensed that the officer, like some of his other buddies I’d encountered before, was more interested in flirting than in giving out tickets. She slid back into her seat and closed the door. I looked around. Not a single car had driven by.
“She’s cute,” Fernando said to me. “So what do you say? Let’s hang out.” I had to admit, he was good looking. He was also persistent. I wonder how often he drives around at night trying to hook up with random girls. If he was going to bust me for underage drinking, he would’ve done it already. I grew confident and started to relax. I had him under my spell. I felt powerful.
We stood on Bird Road flirting, him leaning against my car, and me pretending to have a good time. With the flashing lights from his cruiser illuminating the street, and Beenie Man now blasting from my car, it felt like we were in our own private club, but an open-air one, here under the Miami stars. What seemed like ages later, the guy in the cruiser finally stepped out.
“What’s going on, bro? Why are we still here?” He seemed agitated.
Fernando’s demeaner changed. “Yeah. Yeah. We’re leaving. I was just giving this young lady here a warning. Gimme a minute.” He donned his police-officer persona as he addressed the guy. He turned back to me, rolling his eyes. “Listen, call me in about an hour and we’ll party.” He pulled a business card out of his pocket, wrote what I assumed was his personal cell phone number on the back, and handed it to me. I looked down at the card. Thank you, Officer Fernando Cortez of the Miami Dade Police Department. So glad it was you that stopped me and not one of your buddies.
I assured him I’d call, thanked him profusely, got into my car, turned down my music, fastened my seat belt and started driving. I held my breath, certain Fernando would change his mind. I watched in the rearview mirror as he made an illegal U-turn, and sped away on the wrong side of the road.
Sonya and I, now both suddenly and miraculously sober, sighed in relief.
“That was close. I should get off this street before I get pulled over by another cop,” I said.
Just as those words left my lips, my heart sank as I saw another police cruiser creeping behind me. Shit. I decided to alter my route. I made a right turn on the next street. He made a right. I turned left. He turned left. What the hell? Why is he following me?
He turned on his lights. This time I pulled over and turned off my music.
“Get out of the car and bring me your license and registration,” he yelled over his megaphone.
“What dee hell is going on with these cops tonight?” Sonya asked as we exchanged a look of worry.
We recognized that this was odd. Were these cops just too tired to get out of their cars at this late hour? But what choice did I have? I had to comply.
This time, the officer stayed in his vehicle and told me to come to his window.
“Hi, Officer,” I said in my friendliest voice. I was reaching out with my paperwork.
“Oh, I don’t need that. Listen, my buddy Fernando just called me and told me you and your friend are down to party. I wanted to see if I can get your number so we can call you when we’re done.”
You’ve got to be kidding me. Here we go again. I sighed.
“Oh yeah. Fernando was so cool. I promised I’d call him.”
I stood on another dark abandoned Miami street, flirting with a police officer who couldn’t be bothered to even get out of his car. Living in Miami and constantly fending off aggressive men had taught me a thing or two about evasive flirting tactics.
Smile. Lean forward. Giggle. Compliment. Respond with non-answers. Make eye contact, but only briefly, then look away coyly. It was an art I’d refined in my limited experience as a young woman living here in the city. My proficiency paid off.
“OK, call Fernando. We really want to party.”
I promised to call as I walked back to my car.
“What dee hell, Mi-meee?” Sonya asked as I drove off.
“Two cops and no tickets,” I said, proud of my prowess. I checked the mirror. “But why is he following us?” He crept behind us. I didn’t want him to know where we lived so I couldn’t drive home. My car wasn’t registered in Florida so I assumed he couldn’t run my license plates. I kept driving. He kept following.
And then, suddenly, he turned on his lights and siren and sped off, leaving us in the dark, silent street. Stiff, speechless, and startled from the past hour, I drove home.
I took Fernando’s card and tossed it into a shoebox where I kept random business cards. There was no way in hell I’d be calling him. I stripped out of my clothes and slipped into bed. As I drifted off to sleep, the intensity from the events that night receded from my mind.
***
As a nineteen-year-old, I didn’t understand the gravity of the night’s events, or how much power Fernando had.
I was young and just starting to understand the power of my own sexuality. I was proud that I was able to flirt my way out of a ticket. My girlfriends and I would joke about the hot Miami police officers who’d stop us just to ask for our numbers. This was an open secret in Miami. We thought it was a symptom of having a young attractive police force in a city known for its young attractive citizens. Miami in the late 90s and early 2000s was sexy. These cops felt all that sexual energy.
***
Months later, while watching the news at a friend’s house, I felt the oxygen leave my lungs. I saw his face on the screen.
Officer Fernando Cortez of the Miami Dade Police Department.
“Arrested” and “sexual misconduct” were plastered across the screen.
I was so fixated on his mug shot, I couldn’t focus on what the reporter was saying. I heard the words “coercion” and “sexual assault.”
“Holy shit! I know him. I know that guy,” I said to my friend.
She shot me a skeptical sideways glance.
I drove home wondering if I’d made up the whole thing. What were the odds that the cop who’d pulled us over that night, the one that wouldn’t let me leave until we agreed to party with him, the one that was flirting with me and touching my midriff in the middle of the street at four in the morning, was the same cop who’d just been arrested and charged with … with what exactly? Sexual misconduct. Coercion. Sexual assault. I’d barely heard the story, but those words were swimming in my mind. I stopped at a gas station on the way home and picked up a Miami Herald and a pack of Marlboro Light Menthols.
I got to my apartment and pulled out the shoebox buried in my closet. I dumped its contents onto my bed and searched for the little rectangular piece of paper.
And there it was. I picked it up and read the name.
I turned to the newspaper and read about how Fernando had been arrested by the department’s sexual crime bureau because of allegations that he’d stop young women driving at night and force them to have sex with him in exchange for not charging them with drunken driving or planting drugs in their car.
I reached for a cigarette. I thought I had dodged a bullet that night. I’d gotten away with my driving record unscathed. I was worried about an underage DUI, losing my driver’s license. I was worried my parents would kill me. But sitting there in my room, I realized I had dodged more than a bullet. I’d dodged a massive missile that would’ve left me shattered. I realized how powerless I’d been. What would have happened if the ride-along from the academy wasn’t there? How many of Fernando’s friends knew about his behavior? How many engaged in this gross abuse of power? What about his friend who pulled us over after Fernando let us go? He was still out there.
I took a long drag of my cigarette, thanked whomever or whatever was watching over us that night. I stashed the card, picked up the phone, dialed Sonya’s number in Trinidad, and exhaled.
*****
Mimi Veshi was born in Ethiopia and immigrated to the US as a refugee when she was seven years old. She lives in Chevy Chase, MD, with her husband, three daughters, and two cats. When she’s not working, she writes, teaches yoga, and plays the guitar badly.