(with apologies to Arlo Guthrie)

Names have been changed due to the Statute of Limitations.

And the only reason I’m singing you this song now is’ cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there’s only one thing you can do and that’s walk into the shrink wherever you are, just walk in say “Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice’s restaurant.”
—Arlo Guthrie, “Alice’s Restaurant,” 1966

8:00am, Wednesday morning, April 12, 2006

It was a usual, unexciting Wednesday morning. Woke up, had a cuppa and a cigarette, read a few pages from a biography of the Duke of Wellington I’m re-reading for the umpteenth time, showered, put on the cuffed pants, the white shirt, my favorite saffron tie, and headed off to work. Nothing special, nothing notable.

Until the bitch in the Ford Taurus, talking on her cellphone, looking west instead of east as she shot out into the traffic on Louetta, placed her immovable object directly in the path of my irresistible force—a 2002 Hyundai Excel, traveling at about 30 miles per hour.

I had just about enough time to think “WHAT THE…” before I slammed into her driver’s side door. The broadside fired by the HMS Hyundai was devilishly effective. I remember everything in slow motion, of course—I can still see her phone smacking into her driver’s side window, the graceful parabola her vehicle described into the middle lane to end up parked next to mine, facing the opposite direction, and the unfortunate stream of orange colored vomitus that spewed from her inattentive and somewhat pinched face to splash against her dashboard.

The cell phone never left her hand, nor did she cease her conversation during the entire escapade, save for the four inopportune seconds during which she voided her copious belly of all breakfasty comestibles.

I was wearing my seatbelt, being a conscientious and law-abiding citizen, and other than being fairly severely bruised and a bit shocked, I seemed to be unharmed. So, I got out of the car, checked out the damage to the front of my car—it was hare-lipped and the hood was a bit buckled, but otherwise fine—and then motioned to the Creature in the Taurus to see if she was in need of an ambulance. As she was still gabbing on the damned phone, she seemed to be fine. I then indicated that perhaps we should clear Louetta, lest the good Mayor Doctor White have us towed and fined for blocking traffic. I fired up the car, and drove into the nearby parking lot of the strip center at Louetta and Champion’s Forest, as did the Creature.

Upon parking, she emerged from her car, and the first words out of her mouth were, “YOU WERE GOING AWFULLY FAST.” I responded, “My dear lady—you ran out in front of me. This much we can agree upon, yes? My velocity, which was actually under the posted limit, is immaterial. You, madame, are at fault.” She hung her head, dialed another number, and began yapping away again.

I hauled out the Blackberry and dialed 911. Described the situation, that no one was visibly hurt, that both vehicles were still mobile, and that nothing nor no one was aflame. I know my vehicle registration is out of date, and I’ll have to pay a fine, but that’s not that big of a thing. I can’t very well peel out (in a Hyundai, no less) and go on the lam.

Nonetheless, within 10 minutes, the little strip center was descended upon by a pumper truck, two ambulances, three wreckers, and, finally, one of Harris County’s Finest, whom I will dub “Officer Snape.” Officer Snape is about 20 feet tall, has no lips, and speaks in monosyllables. He unfolded like a carpenter’s ruler from the cruiser, took licenses and insurance information from us both, then retired to his cruiser again. I emailed my team at work from the ‘Berry, the contents of which read “Subject: Hell. In accident. In later. No blood,” then struck up a conversation with one of the wrecker crews.

THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Snape’s still in his car, and the tow guys have already hooked to the Puker’s Taurus and are ready to go. I politely walk over to the cruiser and enquire as to what we two accidentalists should be doing.

“WHEN I WANT SOMETHING FROM EITHER OF YOU, I’LL ASK FOR IT” is the booming reply.

Riiiiiight. Message received, Severus. Back to the Excel, have another cigarette.

9:20am

Snape unfolds from the cruiser again. He calls us both over, and addressing, Puker, tells her she is at-fault and is being cited for “failure to yield the right of way.” I look at Puker. She looks at me. We both look at the caved-in side of her Taurus. I can’t vouch for what she was thinking, but what I was thinking was “That seems like such a vanilla citation for getting your ass reamed out and your car damn near totaled.”

She gets in the wrecker. It drives off. Snape gets back in the cruiser.

Blink.

I wait some more.

Finally, at 9:30am, Snape transforms out of the cruiser and walks over to me.

“Well, Mr. Mycroft—you were totally without fault in this accident.”

Silence. Finally, I agree. “Yes, officer, I think that is true.”

Snape ruffles papers on his clipboard. I stand respectfully at attention.

“Mr. Mycroft, do you remember a citation for Failure To Wear A Seat Restraint in November, 2001?” (I swear I could hear the capital letters when he spoke.)

“No sir, I do not remember that. I had only moved to Texas in late October, and…”

“Quiet, boy.”

I blink again.

“Mr. Mycroft, do you remember a Failure To Maintain Financial Responsibility citation in January of 2002?” [Editor’s note: This means I didn’t have my insurance card in the car—not, mind you, that you don’t have insurance, but that you don’t have the card. This never made good sense to me.]

“No sir, I do not remember that either.”

“Well, sir, Harris County does, and today, you are going to jail.”

I stare at Snape blankly. “Jail? For a seat-belt citation?”

“For that, and the two Failure to Appear citations when you didn’t take care of these important incidents. Now, empty your pockets and give me all belongings, your nametag from your job I see on your belt, and your cellphone.”

“Officer, can I make one phone call and let folks at work know wha…”

“NOW, BOY.”

Christ, I think. All this shit over a traffic ticket. All I have to do is pay the damned fine and this will all be taken care of. Okay, yeah, I should have taken care of the tickets in 2002, but give me a damned break—I had just moved to Texas, everything was an organizational mess, and IT’S A SEAT BELT TICKET. I opt not to mention to the officer that since this is about money, can I just go to the station and pay the ticket, as I am sure, given what I’ve seen of Snape, he’d think I was trying to bribe him or something. So I keep my yap shut and wait.

Snape puts all my stuff in a baggie, and then, the first inklings that this may be worse than I thought.

“Put your hands behind your back, wrists together.”

(Okay, waaaaait just a goddamned minute now. I’m being handcuffed for two non-moving violations?)

“Officer, is that really necessary? It’s not like I’m going to bolt on you—I’m an overweight 41 year old geek wearing suede oxfords; hardly suitable for going on the lam.”

“SHUT UP AND TURN AROUND.”

Wow.

Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at the police station, and the first was he could have given us a medal for being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn’t very likely, and we didn’t expect it, and the other thing was he could have bawled us out and told us never to be see driving garbage around the vicinity again, which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officer’s station there was a third possibility that we hadn’t even counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said “Obie, I don’t think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on.” He said, “Shut up, kid. Get in the back of the patrol car.”
—Ibid.

I am forthwith haaaandcuffed, and tossed like a sack o’ taters into the back of the cruiser. For those of you who have not been in such a situation before, here is a rough estimate of the leg room in the back of a Harris County SheriffMobile (actual size):

Front seat | Legs go here | Back seat

Yep, that’s about it. I’m 6’4” tall, weight 270 pounds, and am, to put it mildly, built for comfort, not for speed. Snape has put the ‘cuffs on as tight as they can be applied, and within 45 seconds I’ve lost all feeling in my hands. This time, I opt not to bring this up to Snape, or Obie, of whoever the hell he is. After I’m securely locked in the back seat, Snape goes to my car and proceeds to rifle though it—front seat, glovebox, backseat, trunk. He finds an empty prescription bottle that had once held a month’s supply of Benicar, my blood pressure medication. He holds it triumphantly over his head and comes back to the car, snatching open the door and waving the bottle under my face.

“What other controlled substances do you have in that car, boy?” he bawls at me.

“Excedrin, Dayquil, and calamine lotion” I glare back.

Snape eloquently replies “Hurrrmph”

He marches around to the driver’s side and plonks down in the driver’s seat, and proceeds to finish up his reports. Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes go by. It as at this point that my body suddenly awakes and notices it’s been IN A CAR ACCIDENT. I have big bruises on my chest and arms, and I suppose my legs, too, but since I’m handcuffed, I don’t suppose I’ll be checking soon. Mainly, a huge ache suffuses my body as if to say, “Hi! I’m muscle cramps! Mind if I just settle into all those muscles in your arms, back, and side for about three hours? You know, the ones strained really badly ‘cause of the whole handcuff thing? Greeaaaat! I knew you wouldn’t mind!” Plus, my sinuses are clogged up, and the sonofabitch took my fucking Afrin.

10:10am

Ten more minutes, and we’re headed to Cypresswood Station. We arrive, I squish out of the back seat and am told to walk up the hill to the Station, because Snape has to park his cruiser. So, handcuffed, I trudge up the grassy knoll, unescorted, towards the door, where another deputy awaits wearing a big white cowboy hat. He waves at me. I nod back.

Once I’m in the station, the handcuffs are removed, and I’m placed on a big metal bench where I’m then handcuffed—one hand this time—to a big metal ring. I wait. And wait. Snape comes in, being congratulated for getting five tickets done at once (my four and the Princess of Barf’s one). “That’ll look good when you run for Sheriff next year!” they say. I will be voting next year as well. Scratch one vote for Snape, that’s for damn sure. He rifles through all my stuff and puts it in another plastic baggie.

He looked at me and said, “Kid, we don’t like your kind, and we’re gonna send you fingerprints off to Washington.”
—Ibid.

I’m taken eventually to this little room where there’s this REALLY cool machine that takes fingerprints. The deputy in charge of it notices me curiously examining the sensors and screens. “Neat thing” he says. “Hell, yeah—the technology for this kind of accurate 1200×1200 dpi bio-scanning is not cheap” I reply. He asks what I do for a living. I tell him. We fall into a discussion on the pros and cons of biotechnology, until Snape storms into the back room and wants to know what is taking so fucking long. Back to the steel bench. I wonder idly why I wasn’t read my Miranda rights or of Snape had authority to search my car.

Some amount of minutes later (linear time is already beginning to lose cohesion) I’m escorted to the area where the Cypresswood station has four cells, just like in Mayberry RFD. I am told to remove my belt, shoes, and socks. “And don’t put your damn socks in your shoes, either!” [Ed. Note: This will be a recurring theme—the shoes and socks thing] I do so, then am taken back to the cell area and told to stand with my right shoulder against the wall. [Ed. Note: This, too.] Six disoriented folks are led out of the cells—three who look more like me, with starched shirts and penny-loafers—and three who have grass in their hair and smell of week-old scallops. And one drunk Hispanic woman. I’m handcuffed to one of the starched-shirt guys, and the others are paired up accordingly. Then, we’re led out to what I would call a “paddy wagon,” although I’m sure it has some Very Official Name like “Four Wheeled County Prisoner Transport Vehicle” or some such. It’s basically a panel-van with a steel separator down the middle and benches on the outside wall. Four to a side, we slide in, and the double doors in the back are closed.

We’re goin’ downtown.

11:45am

Obie said he was going to put us in the cell. Said, “Kid, I’m going to put you in the cell, I want your wallet and your belt.” And I said, “Obie, I can understand you wanting my wallet so I don’t have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you want my belt for?” And he said, “Kid, we don’t want any hangings.” I said, “Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for littering?” Obie said he was making sure, and friends Obie was, cause he took out the toilet seat so I couldn’t hit myself over the head and drown, and he took out the toilet paper so I couldn’t bend the bars roll out the - roll the toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape.
—Ibid.

We arrive at the county jail about 11:45am. We’re all dragged in and told to put our right shoulder against the wall [Ed. Note: see, I told you] and shut the fuck up. About 3 minutes later, a hideous retching and gagging noise explodes in the next room. Fifteen seconds after that, a semi-nude black man having a seizure is rolled out strapped to a gurney. The seizure-guy is howing about the tigers and bears. They roll him out. Nobody says anything. I look at the yuppie guy I’m handcuffed to. He looks at me. We sigh.

Yep, I’m in the big-time now.

After about an hour, we all go through a ritual known as “Processing in.” (Note all the cool prison-lingo I’ve already acquired) We’re all in a different concrete room now, right shoulders against the wall, waiting for our surnames to be called. There are three “processing in” officers, all female. Two are very healthy, fleshy women—women large enough to have tides—and the third is a frizzy-headed harridan who has just asked the guy in front of me, “Look, now, you’re an illegal Mexican alien—how could you be so goddamned stupid as to commit a crime when you’re already illegal? Comprende ‘deportation,’ amigo?”

My turn comes. She’s actually quite informative and decent—recommends that I just “sit tight” and go through the process and I’ll be in front of the magistrate and out by 4pm. I resolve to do so, as soon as I call Elanor to let he know where I am and to call my office and let them know I’m “busy” after the accident.

After the processing in, we’re taken to—and I know this will surprise you, Gentle Reader—another fucking concrete room. Where I wait another two hours. However, this solid concrete room has two phones. I wait until one is free and scrunch up to it. [Ed. note: A word about phones in de jail. No handset, boys and girls. Mounted about four feet off the floor, they consist of an earpiece and a mouthpiece affixed to the front of the phone next to the keypad. To use it, you have to kneel next to it or bend halfway over for the duration of the call. Also: When you call someone from the jail phone, you have to do so collect. I knew that. However, when someone answers, they get THIS verbiage before you can even accept the call: “This is a call from an inmate at the Harris County Jail. Many scams can result from accepting calls from an inmate….” and it drones on for about 90 seconds before the person even gets a choice as to whether they will accept the call.] I hastily dial Elanor’s number, one of the few I have memorized, and the ONLY person that could really help at this time. I dial, wait feverishly, then get a recorded message that cellphones are not permitted to accept collect calls.

No problem, I think—must just be Sprint.

Next, I try guys in my department at work. I call Roderick. And Padre. And Kerouac, Moriarty and Pickett. And a few other friends. Hmmm. All the numbers I seem to have memorized are cell numbers. I have Elanor’s home number, but she’s at work. Won’t be home until five this afternoon.

Oh, dear.

2:00pm

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W’s where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean ‘n’ ugly ‘n’ nasty ‘n’ horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, “Kid, whad’ya get?”
—Ibid.

By this time it has deeply sunk in that (a) I am incarcerated in a damned county jail, (b) no one knows where I am, and (c) I cannot contact anyone. Not. Good.

Best part: There’s not a damned thing you can do about it. It’s positively Dosteyevskian. I’ve been “disappeared.” No one tells you where you are, what time it is (clocks are rare, and hidden when they do exist so they’re hard to see), where you are in the entire process, what’s going on, what comes next. Utter isolation from reality—but not from the 50 some-odd specimens who happen to be in your particular concrete room.

I made the passing acquaintance of a deli owner [picked up for the same reason as me], a construction worker [expired registration], a civil engineer [speeding ticket] and five or six other guys who just had traffic tickets they had forgotten or neglected to pay. On the other hand, I also met The Prrfect Rapper [between jobs, in for a drug charge], The Smart Guy [also between jobs; habitually racks up $1500 of tickets, then spends 10 days behind bars to get rid of ‘em], Freddums [deadly intent], and a furniture salesman [class B felon] with whom I had an interesting discussion regarding the poetry of Robert Frost.

Four in the afternoon is apparently feeding time at the zoo. An office opened the holding tank door, walked in with two trustys (prisoners who perform the more menial tasks at the jail), and proceeded to hurl a plastic bag at everyone with the following contents:

(2) pieces of white bread

(2) pieces of brown bologna

(1) packet of mustard

(1) Little Debbie oatmeal crème pie, which tasted vaguely like trout

I tried the oatmeal crème, but then gave the rest of my “meal” to Freddums, who is always hungry, poor fellow. I figured the knowledge he imparted to me that I can dissolve my crystal meth in water, soak my socks in it, let them dry, then wear them anywhere I wish and soak them later to retrieve the meth had to be worth at least a bologna sandwich.

4:15pm, 4:00pm, 4:30pm? Can’t really tell anymore.

The Great Security Door of Kiev opens, and a deputy bellows “LISTEN UP! COME WITH ME IF YOUR NAME IS CALLED.” I naively believe that it’s court time. My name is called, I follow the deputy…to a room filled with little half-sized garmet bags. We’re all ordered to strip “butt-nekkid” and place our street clothes in the little bag. If you have white underwear and/or white socks, you can keep them. I suppose white jockeys are less threatening or subversive. I, however, am wearing brown silk-blend socks and light-blue boxers with pictures of doggies on them. Alas. Into they bag they go.

We’re then issued our stylish and colorful prisonwear: orange “uniforms” which remind me of what a sinister, color-blind nurse from hell would wear. Just in case someone tries to MAKE A BREAK FOR IT, the words “Harris County Jail” and emblazoned down the right leg, along with the same corporate logo on the back of the shirt with your size. Mine read “Harris County Jail, 2XL.” We also get orange sandals. The come in two sizes, big and little. I get “big,” although my right sandal has been repaired with the assistance of a plastic baggie tying the upper to the sole. The Harris County Jail must spend millions on plastic baggies; they use ‘em for everything.

5:45pm?

Another concrete room. I now engage in what I still believe to be a well-deserved quarter-hour period of feeling sorry for myself, swearing softly yet inventively, and generally just cursing the darkness rather than lighting a candle. By 6pm, I’ve gotten back in line to use the pseudo-phone. About 6:30pm, I manage to get Elanor on the phone. Call goes something like this (remember, there’s a 90 second “announcement” before we even get to talk.)

E: (wailing) YOU’RE IN JAIL?

M: Be very quiet, get a pen, sit down, and write: My Chase bank login is xxxxxx, my password is xxxxx. Log in, move $1300 to our shared account AND GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE. RIGHT GODDAMNED NOW. Please.

E: (snaps immediately back to normal problem-solving self) Right—got it. I’ll handle it.

(Unbeknownst to me, she had been trying to find my ass ALL DAY LONG and was already near hysteria when the call finally went through. The fact that she could go “click” and have bail posted by 9pm is nothing short of amazing. Also unbeknowst to me was the fact that Kerouac from work had, by his evil talents, discovered my social security number and such and he, Roderick and Padre were avidly tracking my progress through the County Penal System via the Harris court website. I can just image it: refresh….refresh….refresh…Oooh, he got a bologna sammich!….refresh….refresh….Ooooh, he’s in a different concrete room….refresh….refresh….)

Feeling somewhat better now that somebody, anybody knows where I am, I slide down the wall and fall into a shallow and restless sleep.

X:00pm

I awake…later. It’s always the same time when you be a convict, you see. Fluorescent lights, all the rooms look the same. Dozing off is generally a bad idea. I am greeting by an almost visible migraine, and my sinuses are so bad I’m mouth-breathing half the time. Within the next three hours I’m moved in and out of various concrete rooms, without any reason that I can see. I consider bringing up to a guard that I have four degrees, hold a doctorate and am generally a nice guy, but it’s the same guard who knows I have light-blue boxers with pictures of doggies on them. I keep quiet. I do get transported to the Medical Evaluation Room, where I have an X-Ray taken of my chest and my blood pressure taken. It’s high (surprise!) and I get a paper bracelet that says “Medical.” For the remainder of my stay, I wear this paper bracelet, although it doesn’t really change anything; it’s not like I get my Benicar or anything. I do feel better that I have a bracelet now, though—all the other cool convicts have lots of ‘em. Only later do I discover that the really nice plastic bracelets indicate you’ve been transferred from other jails. One guy has four. Kewl.

9:30pm

I know it’s 9:30 because the scrawny deputy that screamed at us all to “wake the fuck up” said it was. I apparently go before the judge at 10:15pm with most of the little group I got paddy-wagoned with earlier. So I’ll give them money, and they’ll leave me alone now, right? Right?

I’m thirsty, but I can’t bear to drink from the water fountain. See, in the Harris County Jail, you’ve got your basic aluminum toilet, and the water fountain is on top of the water reservoir for the shitter. So to drink, you have to lean over the toilet bowl and drink from the litte water squirter thing on the toilet reservoir. Same water. I tried it once, about three hours ago, but the water is chewy.

10:15pm

Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn’t nothing he could do about it, and the judge wasn’t going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. And we was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow.
—Ibid.

My little troupe of convicts all marched into the courtroom at precisely 10:15pm. But nobody told me it was a Star Trek courtroom. Sure, it looked mostly like a courtroom—except where the judge would be, there was a 52” plasma television. A few minutes after we came in, we got to watch a video. Yep. A “how to plead” video. I could recount it chapter and verse, but the meaning was clear: If you want to get out tonight, plead guilty or no contest, which is the equivalent of “I agree that you say I am guilty.” GOT IT.

My turn. I walk up to the little red box you have to stand in, the judge recounts my heinous offenses, I please no content. Fine, she says. Your $800 of fines are reduced to $120—go with the deputies. You’re done and can leave. Well, “leave” is an awfully big word.

10:45pm

I won’t go into much more detail here. Suffice it to say that it is now a quarter to 11pm, and all that really happens from here on out is reclaiming my clothes, reclaiming my stuff, and walking outside.

Except the “walking outside” part doesn’t happen until 4:45am.

5:00am

I walk outside, and put my tie back on. Ahhh, human again.

Let’s recount what’s been learned here.

• When you get a traffic ticket, PAY THE FUCKER. I finally remembered when I got the seatbelt ticket in the voluminous time I had to reflect. I was driving home from work in November 2001, and I-45 was a parking lot. The traffic was not moving. I removed my belt to reach into the backseat to get my cellphone, and neglected to put it back on. The lane to my left was moving slowly, and a sheriff’s deputy pulled up next to me, saw I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt, and motioned me off the freeway. Fifteen minutes later, when I managed to make the far right lane and get off the road, I got my ticket. I was ticketed for not wearing my seatbelt in a stationary vehicle.
• Memorize a few home phone numbers, just in case.
• Snape is a Republican. Vote Democrat.
• Why is it that I have to be hurled into a cop car, hog-tied, handcuffed to a bench, but can get out of jail with just a promise to pay the fine?

Of course, after all this, and the accident—remember the accident? That’s how all this started—I can hardly stand up straight. I go home, send an email in to work, take a half a bottle of Advil, my blood pressure meds, and sleep. I’ll get the car in the shop on Friday and deal with everything then. Bottom line: No one at my office is allowed to tell me they’ve had a bad day unless there is bloodshed involved.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 17th, 2006 at 12:17 am and is filed under Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.