Scoping out the donut aisle at the 7-11 is always a rewarding experience. The glazed, the powdered, the jelly-stuffed—they sometimes put me in a mind to write about cops.

For instance: Things were looking up. all the incredible, magnificent ups and downs of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Gorgeous stunning spellfuckingbinding rays blooming from the sunset side of La Veda pass. I finally found not one but three AM stations among the muck of static. I rolled a couple smokes, ran over a family of skunks, shot out a few road signs, surfed between a couple of ball games and a Tex-Mex station. Then the cherries were rolling and the heavy duty mega-halogen hit the rear view and smashed into my eye-balls like particles in a supercollider. Fuck.

The cop is overpolite, a little twitch with a cannon on his hip. I give him my license; he begins the routine. Tail light out, so sorry. The insurance and registration take a little longer; I have to hunt around a minute. I’m remembering what the last Colorado cop told me: “Driving without insurance is a jailable offense in Colorado, sir.”

Officer Twitch is saying something: “Sir, are you in possession of, or carrying in your vehicle, any loaded weapons or ammunition, illegal drugs or drug paraphernalia, alcohol or other contraband?”

“No.”

“Blow in my face, please.” By my mild oath, he actually said this.

I blow.

“Could you please blow more directly, sir? Like this, please.” Twitch demonstrates, puckering up and blowing a thin stream into the dark night. Again, I blow. “How long have you been on the road, sir?”

“About four hours.”

“And where are you coming from tonight, sir?”

“Taos.”

“And what brings you to La Junta today, sir?”

“A wedding.”

“And how much sleep did you get last night, sir?”

“Excuse me?”

“How much sleep did you get last night, sir?”

“I don’t know. Seven hours.”

Twitchy heads back to his car. I’m smoking and the butt burns down to my fingers. I’m thinking, if I pitch this thing out the window, he’ll deal me a thousand dollar fine for littering. My ashtray was ripped off a few month back. I crush it out on the side of the car door.

Twitch returns with my documentation. “Here’s all your paperwork, sir. I’m going to give you an oral warning tonight, sir. Your driver’s side tail-light…” He drones for a moment and then:

“With your permission, sir, I would like to have a look at the inside of your vehicle.”

First thought: I’m clean.

“You mean with my permission.”

“Yes, sir. I have a form you can sign giving me permission to search your vehicle.” Which, as I’m stepping out of the car, he produces.

“Well,” I tell Officer Twitch, “if the choice really is mine, then I decline. I want to get where I’m going, and for you to search my car is a waste of time for both of us.”

He considers this a moment. “Well. In that case, sir, I will have to radio in to my supervisor and explore other options. If you’ll wait in the car please.”

I can’t believe my ears. “Wait a minute,” I say. “You’re telling me that if I don’t waive my fourth amendment right, you’re going to look for a way to circumvent it?” I jerk my pen from my shirt pocket, forgetting for a moment about Twitchy’s sidearm. “Then I might as well sign.”

I don’t even read it. All I see is a phrase near the bottom, in bold print, the words WITHOUT COERCION. Bullshit. I throw my trunk open for inspection; the light works fine.

“There. That white powder is laundry detergent. There’s more on the floor in the back seat.”

“What’s this?” Twitchy asks.

“It’s a paper puncher. It’s for binding books.” I inventory everything he looks at. He lifts up the carpet and peers underneath. Then he rips up the foam liner that’s been undisturbed since this car came off the line twenty years ago.

“Step back from the vehicle, please, between the two cars.” He opened each door and rummaged through the things in the back seat—books, clothes, recycling—eliminating what little rhyme or reason there had been. He’s digging around ion the holes in the seats, flashing his light under the dashboard, pawing around in the glovebox, wreaking a sort of dispassionate havoc on my belongings.

After a half hour of this, I found my keys (which I’d left on the driver’s side floor) under a pile of miscellaneous refuse on the passenger seat. I took off, and because I was steamed, I may have left a few issues unresolved, so maybe I can attempt to clarify those here.

Twitch, you did not identify or attempt to identify yourself to me by name or number at any time, but you were driving a patrol car with plate number CSP-731. I believe you took one look at my hair and beard and decided that I fit some sort of profile that you had been trained to identify at some point during the academy. You assumed on sight that I would be in possession of something contraband, that I posed some sort of threat to you and your way of life. Because that’s the line they sold you in the donut factory. They convinced you and a lot of other people that the way you look has everything to do with who you are, and that one look is enough to determine a man’s value. And because you believe this, you fear those who are different from you. And because you fear, you are willing to put aside their, my, our rights as guaranteed in the Constitution.

The reason you didn’t find anything in my car is that what you were looking for wasn’t there. But I was smuggling something past you that night: an awareness of my own freedom. Until the day you can pull me over and confiscate my soul, you won’t be able to deprive me of that.

And one more thing: whatever you were looking for could be in any given car at any given time, day or night, or in my pocket, or in the mail. It could be anywhere. There are thousands of cars on each stretch of road, and thousands of stretches on thousand of roads. Are you willing to search them all? I believe you’re at least willing to try, and when you do, you will have lost. Because you believe that burning a flag or smoking a little pot is worse than subverting the intent of the Constitution. You might even say that this is the lesser of two evils. But it’s not. You commit treason every time you disregard the rights of another American. It’s a betrayal of the foundations of your country.

I’m not talking totalitarianism here. Totalitarianism happens when the power-pigs overcome the will of the people once and for all. I don’t see that happening here yet. We know damn well that we have a lot of freedoms and we think we know what they are. And believe me, Twitch, anybody who attempts to deprive me of mine will be in for a very long and ugly fight.