Sometimes writers take liberties with their stories. In the biz, it's called embellishment. Interesting things happen, but with a twist or a tweak, all of a sudden you've got a home run. The following has none of that. This is 100 percent true.
I've been spending late nights in North Hollywood hanging out at recording studio owned by a long-time friend. He and his band have no real schedule and neither do I, which has made for some fun.
Last night I was getting ready to leave around 2:30. Guitarist was in the middle of laying down some tracks (industry talk) when the five of us heard a car alarm. Knowing we were the only people in this industrial wasteland, it became obvious that it was one of ours. Instinctively, we ran to the front door to see what was going down.
I was third in line. We leap-frogged a Fender amp and ran down the hallway. Engineer popped open the door and looked left. So did I. Guitar player and Engineer look right and so did I. That's when we saw a mid-30s Mexican dude with a shaved head and a glazed look on his face no more than five feet away. Naturally, we were all scared, but once he took a step towards us with what appeared to be a six-inch screwdriver in his right hand, you bet your sweet asses we bolted back inside the studio. Engineer was the smallest of the bunch but had the biggest balls. He made sure to lock the door behind him even with the culprit a few foot or two away.
Door locked, we all panicked, not knowing what to do. We started a frentic search for something to defend ourselves. Someone handed me a hammer while everyone else picked up whatever they could find. Once we were armed, we went to the roof, afraid he might break in.
It dawned on us that we'd now backed ourselves into a corner. If this guy followed us, there was no place to go. Luckily, he bailed.
While atop the roof, we saw what appeared to be his lookout car in a parking lot across the street. Again, people don't hang out in these parts after dark and it was odd that a vehicle would be stationed directly at the studio with its lights on. Guitarist saw the car and pointed it out. Then the ride took off, which pretty much validated our assumption.
Engineer handed me a phone because he called the cops. I was nervous, shaking and couldn't speak. I was half-listening to the phone and half-listening to the other guys as we whispered to each other. The cop on the phone told me I had to start paying attention to him or he couldn't help. It wasn't that I didn't want to listen, I just couldn't due to all the shit going on around me.
We didn't know this until later, but in all our rooftop mess, Friend got in his car and tried to follow the lookout. The four of us hunched over and walked across the roof, afraid that someone might see us or worse, shoot us.
We got back into the studio and noticed Friend missing. None of us were going back outside, so we waited a few minutes until he knocked on the door. We opened the door and saw a cop car waiting for us.
So here's my theory...Thief knew the cars belonged to the people making noise. Maybe he'd been staking out the spot for a while. He figured the sound (that can be heard from a block away) would drown out his thievery. What he didn't account for was my alarm and Guitarist stopping right when said alarm went off. The reason he was close to the studio door was because he was leaving the scene after getting spooked by the alarm. We just so happened to run into him as he was bailing.
I walked up to the cop driving the car and he told me to get Friend away from him. "He's hammered," he told me. Friend was not hammered. Friend has never been hammered. Soon I discovered that we'd been given a pig, not a cop.
Pig was condescending and didn't want to fingerprint my car. He asked me if I wanted to. I asked if I should and he had no answer. Then I said something like, "Look, I know you'll never catch this guy, so is this worth my time?" He told me about if the guy has priors blah blah blah and basically made up my mind for me. He gave me the number to the downtown LA fingerprinting department because he didn't want to do any more work. I know attempted robbery isn't much to the cops, but it sure as hell is to me when it's my fucking car someone's trying to steal.
Another cop car showed and those guys talked to the band while I dealt with Pig and his 22-year-old looking partner (who was not a pig). Three cops, one Pig. Not bad.
They took some pictures, asked for a description and that was about it. Pig asked if I had a parking garage to leave my car in that night. "Nope," I said.
Before they left, Pig pulled me aside and asked about Friend, saying Friend was intoxicated and any other cop would have arrested him for driving under the influence when Friend took off after the would-be thief. I tried explaining once again that Friend was on nothing, that we were five scared guys whose shaky personalities were attributed to the events of that particular evening, not any booze or drugs. He didn't believe me, but I swear it's the truth.
Pig left and I swept out some glass from my seat. Driving from North Hollywood to Long Beach at 3:30 a.m. with no window really fucking sucks, especially when you can't lean back because there are shards of glass along the seat. I sped home, assuming that if a cop pulled me over, I'd have a pretty good reason for doing so. I had the paperwork to prove it.
I got home around 4 and pulled into my driveway, worried that my car was now just asking to be stolen. I woke up my girlfriend who had to be at work at 6, so it wasn't that bad for her) and told her what happened. She went back to sleep for a while and I stayed up calling my insurance and looking for 24-hour glass repair. Kiddies, the ads in the Yellow Pages might say there are 24-hour glass repair, but I can assure you there are not.
Girlfriend got up around 5, which gave me a chance to try to get some sleep. I had a massive headache and a strange blend of insane sleepiness mixed with copious amounts of adrenaline. Every sound from the alley behind my bedroom window scared me. The cats ran through the house, I got freaked out.
I finally started to fall asleep around 9 a.m. when the same neighbors who were yelling "I love women, nigga!" about two months ago got into an even larger fight. They are two houses down and were so loud they got me out of bed with the windows closed. With nothing else to do, I went outside to check on my car and noticed a cop in front of their house.
The phone rang as I walked back inside. It was my insurance telling me they were sending a repairman sometime later today. All I said was, "Call me before they get here. I'm going to sleep."
