Come to think of it

'Sorry, it's just that there has been a lot of theft
lately.'
    'Jesus Christ,' I thought and said. Is this his
attempt to appease the situation? Is this his attempt
to make me feel better?
    'Do you have any identification Sir?'
    If my face were a sheet of paper, after this
question the first sentence written on it would have
been: I am so fucking fucked off you piece of shit.
'I'm sorry Sir, it's just part of-'
    'Shush,' I interrupted, reaching into my car for
my wallet. I fished out my driver's licence and

handed it over. 'Please, just don't talk to me
anymore.' This "please" was in no way meant to be
polite. I made sure I maintained eye contact as I
watched the officer step away and speak into his
radio. This was another thing I was good at; eye
contact. Whenever I was dealing with a client, or
talking to women. Hmmm, women. My lapse of
concentration suddenly made me feel twenty
percent better. The thought of women always
cheered me up. The sight of the fat and patronising
officers returning to me quickly erased the twenty
percent.
    'Thank you Sir, have a good evening.'
    It took a lot of strength and maturity for me to
not slap the patronising officer as I took back my
licence. The fat officer smiled at me. In my head I
smashed his face in. I watched them enter their
patrol car and I'm sure they broke the speed limit as
they disappeared out of the forecourt into the dark
street.
    As I stood there, trying to convince myself that
I didn't feel at least slightly humiliated, the
middle-aged white lady exited the petrol shop. She
entered her annoying looking green Nissan Micra
as she gave me the filthiest of looks. I replied by
giving her my 'have you got a problem?' look,
which was basically an animated frown. It was
successful and she sped off, surely also breaking
the speed limit.
    I took a deep breath and briefly looked up to the

sky. Looking back down, I could make out my
distorted reflection in the door of my shiny, black
baby. My wonderful BMW convertible, with cream
leather interior. I planned to jump in and vroom off
into the warm night. A night so warm, that I had
the roof down. I suddenly didn't feel so bad, in fact,
the twenty percent returned. On taking one last
look around the empty forecourt, I caught the eye
of the Asian guy who worked in the shop. He
peered out through the window as he stood behind
the counter. I had known this man's face without
knowing his name for a couple of years. Over this
period I had observed that the Asian man's accent
(was it Indian?) had faded. I also noticed how
despite this, customers would over pronounce their
sentences, and how they would speak very slowly
to him, as if the Asian man didn't understand what
they were saying. As if he were stupid. I always sort
of cringed and felt a little sorry for him when this
happened.
    The Asian man looked straight at me, he had a
look of ... surely not, I thought. The Asian man
appeared to feel sorry for me. How dare he? In
annoyance, I jumped into my BMW. As Idisappeared
out of the forecourt, so did my twenty percent.
    As I travelled through the night, I thought about
how my time had just been wasted. I recalled the
officers attempting to strip me of my dignity. I

thought about how their behaviour was racially
motivated. There was no way that I could be
convinced that the bullshit questions they asked me,
stored in their bullshit computers were not
activated by the colour of my skin. All I had done
was have the audacity to be black and buy a nice car
and fill it up with petrol. How dare I?
    I put my foot down and thought about how
much I loved driving. I loved feeling the cool
breeze softly gliding across my chocolate skin. As
a child I had always dreamed about cruising
through London in a sexy convertible sports car. I
would picture myself speeding through the night
while the city was asleep. I collected toy cars as a
youngster and had many fantasies about weaving
in and out of traffic like I was on a mission. Like I
was James Bond. I always thought that James Bond
should be black. Despite this, I didn't have too
much to complain about. Here I was, flying
through the dual carriageway in my convertible.
Oh how the breeze felt good after a long day at
work. The air and the sound of other cars whizzing
past kept me awake.
    I reflected on how I had completed the sales of
two of my developments today. It was a great day
at the office, I thought. Come to think of it, it had
been a good year so far. So why, I wondered, did I
feel anxious lately? What was bothering me? Why,
no matter how fast I drove, did that irritating cloud
seem to follow me everywhere?