“For Access To Restroom – Call Kent Station Security” is the signage that greets you at the only public restroom at the Kent Station restaurant and shopping emporium. Truth-to-tell, Kent Station is little more than a place for people with money to blow to “hang out,” and venders with pretentious monikers and over-priced comestibles. What is so odd about it is that the surrounding residential area is the home of mainly those in the lower register of the economic hierarchy, and certainly not its targeted clientele. Certainly the residents a stone’s throw to the north are not likely candidates: This where the King County Regional Justice Center—and all-in-one facility where you can walk into a courtroom, and after “justice” takes its course, all you have to do is take a stroll for few minutes to find yourself in your new home—the adult and juvenile detention center—for a few weeks, or months, or years. I’m only surmising, of course; I’m just assuming that the brick fortress topped with barbed wire sitting next to the courthouse and adjacent to the senior citizens community center is a prison. Across the street to the west of the fortress is the ShoWare Center, where the Seattle Thunderbird hockey team calls home, and hosts various other events, like the annual “progressive” forum featuring left-wing radio and television personalities—which also adds a touch of oddity, because Kent is a bastion of white Republican flight (although it is uneasily entering the 20th Century)..
But back to the opening “statement.” I’m not certain why people must be treated like children in this way, although there are people who do sometimes act like children, especially after dark. Perhaps kids use the facilities to smoke pot; maybe they break the mirrors, as I observed on one occasion. Still I find it unnecessary; after all, it isn’t like security guards are too busy to check-up on the goings-on. Patrons shouldn’t be inconvenienced because these professional loafers don’t want to rouse themselves from a semi-comatose state by adding another stop on their itinerary. It goes without mentioning that these people are also intensely paranoid. You want to talk racial profiling? These guys wrote the book. Unless you are scruffy-faced and dressed in the latest Olsen Twins’ hobo attire, the sight of white folks tend to register low on the worry meter, even if they are the ones smoking pot and breaking mirrors in the restroom. However, black and Latino folks—especially if they are alone—cause the worry meter to go off the charts.
Now there is a point to all of this, and here it is. One day about five summers ago on a particularly humid day I was perspiring fiercely and needed to put some water on my face and other places. I was waiting for a bus, but decided I could delay departure and headed out to the only public restroom in the area. I was in the above-mentioned restroom for no more than a minute when a security guard walked inside. As I washed my face he was strolling in a very deliberate manner, inspecting every inch of the place, with that laughable air of intimidation these phonies like to put on. I figured he was trying to give me a “hint,” but I ignored him, at least at first. When it became clear that he wasn’t going to leave until I did, I asked him “What’s wrong? You got a hair-up, Adolf?”
There are two types of security guards—those who are not looking for trouble, and those jackboots who are. This guy was in the latter category. He didn’t say “There’s no problem, I’m just checking the place out.” This guard said “You have to leave the premises now.” And he didn’t mean just the restroom, but Kent Station. What had I done to excite his worry meter? I was just washing my face—a public restroom. Although I doubt it was in his instruction manual, I suspected that he had this Pavlovian instinct about certain “groups” and their natural-born criminality. Maybe he didn’t like short people with their dirty little minds and grubby little fingers. Anyways, I left the restroom, and the guard followed me. Except that I had no intention of leaving the Station. Instead of walking “out,” I walked “in,” and sat on a bench near some an optical center where I had been fitted with a pair of glasses a few years earlier. I knew this was going to madden the guard, but I hadn’t done anything to deserve this treatment, and I fully intended to exercise my right to go anywhere I wished without leave of someone’s personal “issues.” The guard demanded that I leave, and I told him I didn’t have to go anywhere. He told me he was going to call the police; I told him to go right ahead, I’m still not going anywhere. Naturally, as with all bullies, this act of defiance disordered his mind, and he called 911 for assistance in extricating himself from himself. While we waited he took my picture with his camera phone for future reference; I just sat there and chuckled at him, which infuriated him even more.
When the police arrived, me and the guard exchanged our versions of events (which, point of fact, differed only perspective). I told them that I had done nothing wrong, and I was exercising my right of civil disobedience, as dictated by such leading lights of American political philosophy as Thomas Paine and Henry David Thoreau; I also threw in a couple of other Thomases, Becket and More, for good measure. I don’t think they had any idea of what I was talking about. This stand was on principle. The guard could only counter by saying that he saw me in the restroom and told me to leave the premises, without ever offering a rationale that made sense other than personal prejudice. I could tell the police were annoyed that they had to deal with a nonsense situation, but I knew how this going to turn out; the cops were not going to take my side against this guard and make him look more the fool than he already was. Having made my point, I followed their command and left the premises.
Before I left, I was told that I was not allowed to set foot on the premises for one full year. I found this unjust and the next day I filed a complaint about the matter with the Kent police department; the next day I received a response, stating that there was nothing in their records about the one-year ban, and they didn’t know what I was referring to. I suspected that police knew they were dealing with a security guard with psychological issues, and had merely humored him. But I stayed off the premises for about six months, when I decided I needed a new pair glasses. I don’t actually needed eye glasses, but whenever I things start getting fuzzy at night, I think my eyesight is going. I made an appointment to that aforementioned optical center, and a half-hour before my appointment I found myself back again in Kent Station. And I’ll be damned if that same security guard didn’t spy me right off. While I was walking up to the optical center, he came up to me and told me to leave “now.” I told him I had business here, and he ought to bugger-off. After he departed, I walked into my place of appointment and sat down in the waiting room. A few minutes later a Kent cop walked in and told me to come outside. Once outside, I saw the guard showing another cop a facsimile of that picture he took of me before, pasted on a file card explaining why he had banned me from the premises. I was actually surprised when one of the cops found the rationale for his actions dubious and made the guard squirm attempting to explain himself. After confirming I had an appointment, I was allowed to go; later, while I was having an eye examination, I heard one of the officers sharing a laugh with the receptionist. After I was done with my business, I expressed some discomfort about returning, but was told that if the guard gave me any more trouble, to call them and they would take care of any further “issues” the guard might have.
I suppose the “moral” of this story is that locking up the privy is about the only “power” that those unsuited to its application are suited for.
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