A Life in Writings: 2017-2019 - The Collected Writings of Jeff Hood

Every day, I write. Sometimes, I produce something worthy of publishing. Often, I don't. This book contains everything I came up with from 2017-2019. The armed white man waited in the darkness. Cars sped past the officer as if he wasn't there. Nobody could see him. I was sitting at the gas station and wondered what he was waiting on. Then, a car slowly travels by. When they came to a stop right in front of me, I figured out quickly what he was looking for. There was a young white girl driving and a young black girl in the passenger seat. He approached the car with his hand on his gun. Before he even asked for license and registration, he wanted to know what they were doing together. By this point, I already had my phone out the window. He didn't notice at first. He declared that this was all about a dim headlight. I knew what that shit was code for. He was growing more and more aggressive. So, I screamed out, "I'm filming!" I was full of shit. My battery was actually dead. Then, he turned his attention to me. "What are you doing?" I just kept holding my phone. Eventually, he gave them a ticket and burned a tire next to my car. When it was all over, I drove over to make sure the victims were ok. Immediately, they both declared, "You saved our lives!" There was no way I was going to take credit for that. I did tell them that there are forces much more powerful than armed white men. "Now, that's something to be thankful for."