About a year ago last November, my friend and I were stranded in the middle of Poway, Calif. Earlier that afternoon, our parents had dropped us off at the library in the middle of town so we could work on a group project for school. Finishing early, we found ourselves without entertainment or transportation, so we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon wandering around the city. Eventually, we reached an empty elementary school, abandoned for Thanksgiving break.
A few months earlier I—like Dwight, Michael and Andy, from The Office— had discovered the joys of parkour, and as I gazed upon the deserted school grounds, visions of backflips, wall runs and dive rolls filled my head. The silent buildings beckoned to me, and their promise of freerunning fun drew me forward like a siren’s call. A few minutes (and two chain-link fences) later, I reached the school’s assembly hall and immediately began to scale the columns supporting a patio that ran around the building’s perimeter. After heaving myself onto the patio cover, I leapt to the nearest rooftop, and scrambled up the assembly hall’s sloping ceiling. Upon reaching the summit, I perched for a while to enjoy the view, and slid back down towards my waiting friend. We strolled out the other side of the complex to find a police officer striding toward us, wearing a pair of iron-grey sunglasses and a matching frown.
“Hey! Were either of you on the roof just now?”
“Yes sir, I was.”
“What about you?” asked the officer, gesturing toward my friend.
“No sir, he didn’t go on the roof. It was just me.”
After a bit more terse conversation, the officer brought us over to a gleaming black squad car, where another policeman, probably his partner, stood waiting for us. As I drew closer to this middle-aged officer, I couldn’t help but notice the dull black Taser strapped in an all-too-accessible location on his right hip.
“You were the one on the roof?”
“Yes sir.”
“What were you doing up there?”
“Well, I know it might look like I was doing graffiti or something like that, but I was actually just practicing parkour.”
“Sure you were. John, why don’t you go check out the grounds? I’ll stay here.”
The first officer strode off in the direction we had come from.
“Parkour, huh? That’s where those guys run up buildings and do backflips, right?”
“Yes sir.”
“Can you do any of that stuff?”
“Well, yeah,” I replied, a little confused. “I mean, I can’t do any gainers or anything, but I can do a back handspring.”
“Yeah? Why don’t you do that right now?” suggested my captor, gesturing towards an empty patch of grass behind us.
My heart racing, I stepped up to the edge of the lawn, took a deep breath and flung my weight back over my hands. A handspring is a simple trick, but I suppose it confirmed that my story had some validity. Amusement flickered over the officer’s face, and then vanished.
“Not bad,” he muttered, as his partner emerged from behind the school fence.
“Frank, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary—“
“It’s OK John. I think these two are alright.”
Our conversation didn’t last much longer. The officers warned us to stay off school property in the future. They informed us that we would be held liable if we had damaged anything, and took our telephone numbers. They never called.
As the months slip by, I often think of our little misadventure, and replay my conversation with Frank, the middle-aged police officer. I remember how tired he seemed, I remember his expression after my impromptu performance and I remember the comment my friend made as we walked away from the school that afternoon.
“Dude, if you were my brother, we would be in the back of that squad car right now.”
Since then, I’ve seen many people try to get out of many different kinds of trouble. I know these situations present a constant temptation to lie, or at least to bend the facts. However, I’ve concluded that when it comes to navigating sticky situations, no amount of verbal gymnastics can equal the truth.