“You could’ve just taken the bike,” said the cop, Officer Griswold, a man whose mustache had more authority than he did.
Because in that moment, Peg Dahl realized she didn’t want to escape Buffalo. She wanted to own the parts of it that everyone else was too tired to fight for. The abandoned warehouses on the East Side. The loophole in the city’s towing ordinance. The old men who still settled bets with envelopes of cash and a handshake that meant nothing and everything.
“Your Honor,” Peg began, “the motorcycle in question was purchased with funds stolen from my mother’s nursing home fund. I have bank statements, a sworn affidavit from a psychic who saw the whole thing, and a photograph of the defendant wearing a T-shirt that says ‘I ❤️ Fraud.’ The shirt is arguably the strongest evidence.” buffaloed 2019
Griswold shook his head. “You got buffaloed, kid.”
In the end, she got sixty days. Double the offer. As the bailiff led her away, Peg looked over her shoulder at the courtroom—the flaking ceiling tiles, the flickering fluorescent light, the portrait of some forgotten mayor with a face like a disappointed potato. “You could’ve just taken the bike,” said the
“Spring in Buffalo is just winter lying,” Peg said. “No deal.”
“He owed me six hundred bucks,” Peg said. “I also took his grill. Lump charcoal included. That’s not mischief. That’s interest.” The abandoned warehouses on the East Side
“No,” Peg said, tucking a bill behind her ear like a flower. “I’m just from Buffalo. We’re born holding an ace and a grudge. Everything else is just the weather.”
