Angel on my Shoulder post 3

The section I read this week in Angel on my Shoulder, Natalie Cole gets herself into trouble. First she is asked by a detective to report check forgers in the Springfield area. She describes, “…he was very decent to me. That’s because it wasn’t me he wanted. He was after the check forgers and the various drug dealers I had come to know” (119). Cole was in an ethical dilemma. She could tell on her friends, or she could lie to the detective. It doesn’t say what she did in the book, but based on the fact that she wasn’t arrested, she probably told the detective what he wanted to hear. I think this is a good choice because I feel that one should tell the police the truth, or the police can’t do their job properly. Later, Natalie Cole is arrested for using drugs during one of her performances in Canada, but she didn’t go to jail. Instead she was put on probation, and she couldn’t leave Canada. In order to make sure that she didn’t leave, she had to visit a particular jail and sign in. Her producers, Marvin and Chuck, were in Chicago, wondering when she was coming back. Cole writes, “…but I couldn’t bring myself to tell them [Marvin and Chuck] the truth” (134). In this situation, I don’t believe this was the right thing to do. I would have told Marvin and Chuck why I was stuck in Canada, and hopefully they would still want to produce my album. This decision led to her divorce with Marvin years later.