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Here's an alternative transportation story my friend just sent me by email. She teaching for one term away from home, and doesn't know anyone in the city yet except her students. I've changed the names to X and Y.
tuesday, one my students, X, whacks his head real hard in the darkroom - cuts it pretty bad.
thursday the cops interrupt my class during our break and chase down X at his locker. a custodian had seen him on his skateboard in the hall before class and reported it.
after class i convince X and Y (my t.a.) to have dinner or a drink with me. reluctantly out of feeling sympathy for me, X joins Y and i for thai food.
we depart, myself on bike, X on skateboard going the same direction home.
i run a stopsign on my bicycle. (it wasn't lit well) and the campus cops chase us down. X is on the wrong side of the road on a skateboard going the wrong way. they say something like "skateboarder!" he says "i know, i'm on my way home!"
they don't like his attitude and corner him with backup. they separate us for an hour on the street. X has 5 outstanding warrants for traffic violations.
* he drove a taxi for the past two years (graveyard shift) to pay for tuition since his parents disowned him for dropping out of med school and enrolling in the art program.
they write X a couple more tickets for...skateboarding, wrong side of the road,... i don't get a ticket for running the stopsign...just a lecture. they won't let us talk or see each other. i've let them know that he's my student. they want to protect me from him.
they tell me i have to take all of his things, and offer me a ride home. they realized they were wrong so they only let me take his groceries (that he bought with an emergency loan at the health food store). i ride my bicycle back to school to figure out how to get things home, decide to bail him out.
from 1:30am to 4am i went through the process of bailing him out. i wait until 5am for his release but have an airport shuttle scheduled to arrive at 6am with a half hour bike ride yet ahead of me. X calls (on skateboard) riding home after being let out at 5:30am. thanks me, tells me they said they would have let him out anyway without the bail that i paid ($1035) and put on a payment schedule with a judge. (i'm sure he would have skipped out on this). he also has to see the dean of the university - i hope they don't kick him out for something so stupid.
X says he was going to take the tickets to court and fight them for lower amounts (doubt he would have done this - he was in too deep). the officers were giving him triple citations which are obviously too expensive for any skateboarder to pay. i knew that X had been moving apartments and had changed his mailbox to a p.o. box, intentionally never carrying his license in case he was stopped. it worked earlier in the day.
what a mess. now i have to figure out how to straighten this out with him. he has no money though just applied for a college loan. we'll see if he gets one. he's 25 so he's not naive. he's wicked smart - too a smartass at times! but i felt at the moment that it was what i should do. in retrospect i realise that i was in a vulnerable position since the cops wouldn't let me talk to him and i was leaving for the weekend. i didn't want to find out he would be in jail when i returned and i knew that he would not contact his parents. i didn't want him to go through that.