It was New Year's Eve day, 1983, when a Massachusetts cop broke my right front tooth by grabbing my heavy sweater at the neck from the other side of the bars of the cell I was in and yanking, slamming my face and mouth against the metal. I had been in there for all of an hour after my arrest for hitchhiking.

 I suppose I could leave it at that, huh? I mean, I think the requirements of the Open Call have been met.

 Nahhh.

I had begun my trip from Lexington, Mass. to Storrs, Conn. -- where my youngest brother, a student at UConn, was having a New Year's party -- in a vehicle, a pretty beat up VW Bug, and was making pretty good time, too, despite the blizzard, when my windshield wiper motor seized up. We persevered for a few miles, the Bug and I, with the driver's side window open and my head hanging out, peering forward. But near Sturbridge on Interstate 84, I gave up. It was getting dark. I couldn't see the highway, or the other cars. I pulled off the road, figuring I'd catch a ride from someone to the next exit, call my brother and have someone fetch me.

So imagine how happy I was to see a police car pull up almost right away. None of this "Where's a cop when you need one" stuff. I needed one, and there he was.

Unfortunately, he was there to arrest me for hitchhiking, though I was standing not far from my disabled vehicle. And I was told the fine was going to be some small number of dollars -- $15 or $25? -- but it might as well have been a million bucks, because I wasn't carrying cash and they weren't going to take a check. I was going to be in jail, I was told, until the judge came on Monday morning. This seemed a little unreasonable to me, on a late Saturday afternoon.

We got to the Sturbridge police barracks and I asked to make the phone call I knew I had coming to me. My brother's number was busy, of course. He lived with three other guys and there was a party going on a little later. This was before cell phones. The phone might never be not busy. So I was locked up. I don't remember if they took my belt and shoes. I might have been humming "Alice's Restaurant." I might have been a little snotty about the whole predicament.

Every five minutes or so, I would bang on the walls of my cell until someone came in, and I would ask to use the phone again. I really thought they should have just left me out in the office so I could keep dialing my brother so that he could come up and spring me, but they wouldn't do that.

Three times, four times, I was freed to make a phone call. Busy. Busy. Busy.

Busy.

The fifth time I banged on the walls, I was allowed to do so for some time -- perhaps two minutes? -- before the fellow who had arrested me sauntered in and came over to the cell bars. Close, very close. "Come here," he said. He was short, and I have wondered sometimes since if that had anything to do with his career choice, or what happened next.

I moved close.

He reached through the bars, grabbed my sweater up near the neck and yanked me toward him, slamming my face into metal. Almost immediately, I tasted blood and a small solid object.

"You're staying here. Get used to it," he said, and he let go of my sweater and left the room.

(I know, I led with this information. I plead guilty to trying to get your attention right off.)

The small solid object, of course, was my front right tooth. I was a little angry. More importantly, I was uncowed, and I commenced hollering and banging on the walls again. A few minutes went by and another officer came in, an older fellow.

"What's all the ruckus?" he asked.

"Your buddy in there broke my tooth," I answered, quietly.

"Ohhhh. That's not kosher," he said, and he let me out of my cell to wash the blood from my mouth. I held onto my tooth fragment. After that, I was led out of the cell and seated at a desk where there was a phone. My attacker wasn't in sight. I was encouraged to make as many calls as I wanted.

Eventually, my brother's line was free. I explained what had happened and a posse was dispatched to spring me. When they arrived, I was allowed to leave without posting bond, paying a fine or signing any pieces of paper. For all legal purposes, it was as though I had never been there.

The party, later, was fine ... and I had quite a story to tell, didn't I?

A few days later, a dentist glued my tooth back together, telling me that it probably wouldn't last that long. But his glue held until 2001 or so. Confronted with the half-tooth again, I was struck full force by a need for more substantial dental work. Ultimately, I ended up going to a dentist in Costa Rica and that led to my writing a book about medical tourism.

I do not now give the savage little Massachusetts trooper any credit for this whatsoever, though. Back then, I found an attorney and sued  for $50,000, which was actually a lot of money in 1983. The state of Massachusetts denied everything and, unfortunately for me, my attorney dropped dead of a heart attack just weeks before we were to go to trial. I could find no other lawyer to take the case on a contingency basis. The matter dropped.

I'd like to think that prick of a cop remembers the incident and its aftermath every New Year's Eve as well as I do. Maybe it cost him a promotion. Maybe it was one incident of many that led to his dismissal. Maybe he's an alcoholic, divorced security guard somewhere, this New Year's Eve.

A man can dream.