June 17, 2007

• Behind Bars: A Cautionary Tale

  

  The past couple of weeks I’ve been inundated everywhere I look with “stories” about Paris Hilton, a “semi-celebrity” about whom I don’t care one whit, and wouldn’t have been “following” her recent brushes with the law except for the fact that according to the news media, this is a big big story, and it just won’t go away. I could say I care about the sentence, but I don’t, or am upset about something or another, but I’m not. Modern media is full of infotainment, and Paris’ story passes for what people seem to be interested in, since a lot of people, fueled by the press, are celebrity obsessed. Her plight brought just one thing to mind for me, and that is I went through similar circumstances when I was in my twenties. I drove without a license, was caught, and was sentenced to jail time by a judge. If my story is any indication, even though it happened in 1980, Paris was stuck with a rather harsh sentence. And that’s the first and last time you’ll ever read the name Paris Hilton in this blog. Following is my tale of incarceration.

   One: The Car Knew the Way Home.

  Mike liked to think he knew the Chavez Ravine by heart, that each turn of the road, each view over the rise, every patch of smooth pavement and every pothole and imperfection,  was so familiar that in essence, as he frequently joked to friends, especially when about to disembark from a party, that his car “knew the way home”. He didn’t even have to pay attention. Driving for ten years around Los Angeles gave the place a warm sense of familiarity.  When he was drunk, which was usually any time after work, and almost always at times like this, speeding home on the dark freeway after a Thursday night concert at the Hollywood Bowl, this sense that the car inherently knew how to get back to the South Bay, nearly 20 miles away, was a comforting one, even though it was, of course, as false as any sense of sobriety Mike might be trying to conjure into existence.

  As the 69 “Flukeswagen” hit the crest of the hill, in the left lane, Mike paid no mind to the lighted “Chinatown” destination sign under which he passed. He neglected to move over a lane to the right, and before his cognizance appeared to awake, he was at the end of the offramp, and racing along the glistening black tarmac of the Chinatown district, going much too fast. He wondered where the freeway had gone, and then had a brief momentary intrusive sober thought, realizing he had taken the offramp, and he maneuvered as best as his blighted vision and groggy reflexes could do, finally finding himself without much trouble back on the open highway. The car knew the way. He didn’t have anything about which to worry.

  The concert had been fantastic, and good music had a penchant for making him seemingly invincible. He had met Tom, his best friend from Whitter, at the Bowl. They had both consumed a fair amount of beer; Mike’s 5’6″ 155 pound frame could never catch up to Tom, who weighed in at slightly over 300 pounds and stood almost a half a foot over six feet. The evening’s entertainment consisted of some of the greatest living blues artists doing what they did best, including Big Mama Thornton and Albert King. Tom and Mike always attended Cal State Long Beach’s summer Blues Festival, and had seen some great acts perform, including several who had been on stage tonight, but this is the first time they had seen so many of the greats onstage at the same concert. Mike was playing an ancient Muddy Waters 8 track in the stereo as he flew down the Harbor Freeway, which now rose omnisciently above South Central Los Angeles. He’d just passed U.S.C., where he had spent four years of college half a decade earlier. Home was about twenty minutes away, and a warm bed was waiting. The car knew the way. But the siren pierced the beats of the blues tune on the stereo with shrilling exactness. The car heard it too.The car knew it had to stop now.

  Sober thoughts began to seive through Mike’s addled brain like quick shots of Jack Daniels chasing a pitcher of beer. He was driving drunk, with an alcohol blood level he knew was far over the limit, and as if to add insult to injury, was driving on a license revocation. One sober recollection from about five months ago wiggled into his consciousness. He had received a notice from the DMV to attend a “hearing” at which a no nonsense clerk had perfunctorily announced that because of a “history” of drunk driving arrests (he’d had three, or perhaps it was four) it was decided that he couldn’t drive in the State of California anymore. Mike had treated this news with good humor, thanked the clerk for his indignant news, and had ignored the letter which came in the mail a couple of weeks later telling him to send the license back to the DMV. He’d continued to drive, and continued to drink. In his mid twenties, and always thinking he was smarter than everyone, including those in public service, Mike figured he’d just better not get any tickets, and by being a more careful driver, he’d weather this latest inconvenience. Heck, when he was drunk, driving home from one of the ubiquitous South Bay parties, he really didn’t have to worry anyway. The car knew the way home anyway.

  The siren roared like a hungry tiger about ready to pounce. It rang like a thousand clapping bells. It seared the night air, and Muddy couldn’t drown it out or placate it. The siren caused Mike to slow the car, and exit at Manchester Avenue, where the offramp ended by a barren vacant lot. He pulled to a stop, and watched, dreamlike, as the black and white Highway Patrol car eased into the space behind him. His motor dieseled a bit after he twisted the key, and with the siren noise terminated by the patrolmen in the car behind him, an eerie silence permated the atmosphere. A silence bidding hello to the dark demons of Mike’s careless attitudes.

  “Hello, officer”, Mike gave the standard greeting, as he lifted his eyes to see the smooth face of a young woman behind the familiar brown uniform of the California Highway Patrol standing next to his car. “You were speeding, and weaving all over the road”, she announced. “How much have you been drinking?” She hadn’t asked for the false license yet, but Mike knew that was the next item on the interrogation.

  “Not much”, he lied, “I had a few beers at the Blues Concert at the Bowl. I’m on my way back home.” (No you’re not” one of the sober thoughts proclaimed staunchly)

  “You were weaving quite a bit”, the female officer, who looked younger than MIke himself, rejoinded. “I’m going to give you a field sobriety test. May I see your driver’s license?” Here it comes, Mike braced for the worst, but diligently removed his expired driver’s license from it’s plastic sleeve in his wallet, and surrendered it to the officer, as his heart sank knowing he’d never see that particular legal document again. The patrol woman’s partner took the license back to the patrol car, as she proceeded to direct Mike through the steps of the sobiety test, which he failed miserably, as he knew he would, and so did she.

  “Officer, I’m on my way home. I wasn’t weaving that much. I really haven’t had that much to drink. Just about four beers.” (Mike and Tom had joked about the 32 ounce beers offered at the Hollywood Bowl just a few scant hours earlier. The thought pricked him with an ironic dagger.)

  “No, you’re going to be on your way to Parker Center,” she replied. “You’ve had too much to drink, and you failed the sobriety test. Do you want a breathalyzer, a urine or a blood test when we get to the station?”

  “Oh, uh, breathalyzer, I guess.” Mike tonelessly answered. “You look like a nice gal. Can’t you let me go. I’m going straight home. You can believe me.”

  The female officer had blonde hair, possibly long and luxurious, piled up in a bun and pinned. She motioned Mike to turn around, and she affixed hand cuffs on him when he put his hands behind his back. He could feel her womanliness as she cuffed him. At least this wasn’t too unpleasant.

  Suddenly, the male half of the law enforcing duo emerged from the patrol car with a big grin on his face. “This license has been revoked” he told his fellow officer. “You’ve got him for speeding, drunk driving, and driving with a revoked license. This is a sweet arrest to pop your cherry!”

  The female officer smiled, somewhat sheepishly. She was a rookie making her first arrest, and it was an eventful one for the department. A notorious drunk, driving on a revoked license, had been apprehended. Mike all of a sudden felt completely sober, and not at all pleased with the situation in which he found himself.  As the black and white sedan turned to go back under the freeway and onto the onramp going back into L.A. from the other side, Mike watched his Flukeswagen disapper in the distance. One of those sober thoughts told him he’d be lucky if the car wasn’t stripped of everything valuable when he went to pick it up tomorrow. That is, if these nice officers would be letting him return to pick it up tomorow.

  On the way to the station, Mike appealed to the humanity of the two officers. “You’re kinda cute”, he told his captor. “I’m not a bad guy. I’m sure you have real criminals you could be arresting”. As the trip wore on, before getting off the freeway in downtown Los Angeles, Mike had appealed so much that he started to get on the officers’ nerves, and was told to be quiet using somewhat harsher language. No amount of begging or pleading would change the course of events. The slammer waited.

  Two: Mug Shot and a Place for the Night.

  When the rookie female and her partner arrived through the automatic doors into the lobby of Parker Center, where Mike was to be booked for his crimes against society, shepherding him ahead of them like a wounded and beaten animal, a small group of officers, both Highway Patrolmen and city cops, cheered, acknowledging the arrest the rookie cop had made. Mike heard the phrase repeated from the crowd, “You popped your cherry.” He felt glad he could provide this moment of levity for the officers of Los Angeles. He took the breathalyzer, which almost registered off the scale, and was booked into the holding cell for overnight drunks, sharing with a number of disparate looking men, some hardened criminal types, but most wearing their night fever clothing, showing a bit of wrinkles after a few hours in stir.

  Mike had to spend the night in the cell, where he positioned himself on a portion of bench away from the center of the holding cell. He kept his mouth shut, and tried to catch a few winks of sleep, but that wasn’t going to happen. He’s spent his share of nights in holding cells in at least three other police stations. Although he would never admit to having problems with either the law or with alcohol, Mike had always believed in the theory of paying for your mistakes. If he was in a car wreck which was his fault, he paid for the damages. If he was arrested for drunk driving, he paid the fine, and moved on. He felt that the DMV having removed his driving privilege was petty, and hadn’t before now thought of it was serious. He refused to believe the DMV was able to override the courts, which had always given him a fine to pay, maybe a night in the can, and then he was free to party another night, and hope that his car knew the way home when he got too snockered or actually blacked out, which was happening with more regularity lately.

  It was Friday, and since the arrest took place nearing midnight on Thursday night, the sun started to peak in through the bars of the holding cell pretty quickly after Mike’s initiial incarceration. In the light of the morning, most the faces of the collected inmates looked regretful and tired. A few were lucky, being able to exit the large cell when their names were called by one of the officers. Mike wasn’t so lucky. Nobody even knew he was in here. Tom had returned home from the concert independently. Mike had different days off each week from work, and he was off on Friday, which is why he was able to attend the concert Thursday night anyway. He spent Friday morning queuing up for a seat on one of those black and white prison busses seen plying the freeways of the Los Angeles area so frequently. The bus took him and over a dozen other unfortunate souls to the Courthouse, where his case was to be tried.

  Mike was assigned a public defender, and he proceeded to tell the lawyer that it was a mistake he was going through this. He was only driving home from a concert when the Highway Partrol car came out of nowhere with it’s incessant siren. He should be home watching a videodisc and enjoying a beer or two. This was a mistake, I tell you. The lawyer, who dealt with dozens of these cases a day, acted disinterestedly as he outlined the few choices available, and Mike decided to plead guilty in order to be given an amount of money to pay so he could forget about this travesty of justice. When his time in court came, the judge listened to the arresting officers, and then to Mike’s arbitrary lawyer, and sentenced him without thought to three weekends in jail, after having set a bail amount, meaning that black and white bus would be piloting Mike directly to County Jail after the trial, unless he could come up with the $600.00 it would take a bail bondsman to cover the expense.

  “Judge, Your honor”, Mike disbelievingly stated, when he asked if the prisoner had anything he wished to say. “What is the fine? I can’t spend any time in jail. I work in retail. (As if this mattered to the system) I have a day off today, but I can’t call in and tell them I’m in jail. What’s the fine? I’ll pay it, whatever it costs, and then I can get out of here.”

  “The bail amount is the fine. You are sentenced to spend time in jail. It is because of cavalier attitudes like yours that I won’t set only a fine. You make it sound as if this is not a hardship on you, and you need to learn a lesson.”

  “Believe me, your honor. I’ve learned my lesson.”

  “You will learn a much more distinct lesson by spending jail time.” And with that, Mike’s trial ended, and he was taken back inside the bus, which motored certainly and irrevocably toward County Jail. Mike couldn’t help but think that he’d soon be becoming the sex slave of some large black gangster. He was realizing as the day wore on, that he had cashed out his luck after numerous other drunk driving arrests. Now the system was getting serious, and the judge had given him time instead of just a fine, saying it was too easy for people like Mike to simply pay a fine, and that wasn’t punishment at all. Having his butt fucked in prison was going to be the price he would have to pay for being so “cavalier”. “Your mouth and your attitude are going to get you into trouble someday,” his mother had been fond of repeating endlessly. It looked like she’d been right.

  The bus pulled slowly through the razor wire topped gates surrounding the County Jail, which loomed in the distance more like the Alcatraz or the San Quentin of the movies, rather than merely as the jailhouse for Los Angeles County. A few hours after being inside, and while going through the booking process, Mike was finally given his “one phone call.” He called his friend Tom, and asked him to come on down to the jail as soon as he could with $600.00 for the bail bondsman.

  “Where will I get $600.00?” Tom asked.

  “I don’t know, Tom, but you have to come up with the money. I’ve been incarcerated since last night. They’re about ready to disinfect me and give me an orange jumpsuit. You gotta help me, buddy.”

  “Don’t worry, Mike.”

  “I won’t. You just gotta do this for me.”

  Tom withdrew some money from his savings account and got in his pickup for the roughly 25 mile drive to the heart of Downtown Los Angeles. Mike suffered through the booking process, giving up his shoes for paper sandals, and found himself being pushed into line by a number of self important officers waving billy clubs and swaggering overtly. Moments would pass before the line in which Mike found himself would snake into the disinfecting room, where the steady stream of steamy disinfectant could be heard being aimed into the assholes of some of L.A.s less savory citizens during their check in process at the Jailhouse Hotel. 

  A stark P.A. speaker buzzed intermittently to life. “The following prisoners have had bail posted, and are excused.” The monotonous list of names included Mike’s, and he breathed a hasty sigh of relief. “Officer”, Mike addressed the nearest swaggering guard.

  “Shut up and get back in line”

  “Sir. They’ve called my name. This is a mistake. I’ve been bailed out of here. Could you….”

  “Shut the fuck up” the guard interjected.

  “Excuse me, sir, but….”

  “I said to shut up, trouble boy.” The officer didn’t seem to care if the P.A. system was announcing recent evacuees or playing march tunes. He definitely had a one track mind. He waved his billy club in MIke’s face, chuckling to himself. Mike was swearing under his breath, knowing that he didn’t belong here in the hellhole of the prison system, but remaining unconvincing in his efforts to signal to the brutes corralling the dregs of Los Angeles society into thier new digs. Finally, within scant moments before MIke was to give up the rest of his clothes and spread his cheeks, he was able to find a less brutish guard, who asked for his booking paperwork, acknowledged that his bail had been paid, and escorted him out of the snaking line of inmates, and out into the civilized world once again.

  Tom was waiting for him as MIke sauntered into the large waiting room. “Tommy, am I glad to see you. Let’s get the hell out of here….” After processing his paperwork, Mike was told his car had been impounded, and Tom drove him to the impound yard, where his Flukeswagen seemed to groan and sputter to life angrily. After the two young men drove to Mike’s apartment in the South Bay, untouched since Thursday night, Mike regaled Tom with his sad story, and within a few hours, having imbibed more than enough beer to insure he shouldn’t go driving again, he had forgotten the inconvenience of the past 24 hours, and waited for the next chapter in his incarceration to begin.

  Three: Weekend Jail

  Bail having been paid, Mike didn’t need to report for his prison sentence for a week and a half, and he was assigned to the Sheriff’s Jail in the foothills of East L.A., near the end of the Long Beach Freeway, across from the notorious Sybil Brand Women’s Prison. A friend from the South Bay, Joel, drove Mike to his weekend retreat, and left him outside the gates of the jail, which resembled a dormitory with razor wire and high fences. Along with about 15 to 20 other men, Mike checked in to hIs new home, armed with a copy of Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot”, the book he’d been reading, for company. His employer had been able to give MIke the requisite days off to coincide with his incarceration. Weekend Jail was filled with mostly blue and white collar types saddled with drunk driving and drug related arrests, so there were no large black men looking to get laid in the mix of inmates assigned to the large jail dorm. Dozens of bunk beds arranged throughout the dormitory gave the place more of the feel of an Army barracks than a prison. MIke had to shed his clothing, and give up everything except his book, and he was given an orange jumpsuit. He found a top bunk in the large room, and lay down, opening his book to it’s placemark.

  The hours passed slowly, but not too badly. High points of the day were the two mealtimes, at noon and at 3 p.m. The food was bland and almost inedible. Standard issue prison food, in small portions. But the call to mealtime, the lining up and the marching to the dining hall, sitting and attempting to enjoy the meager meal, was a break in the otherwise boring ritual of the day. Mike wondered how real criminals suffered through this kind of ordeal, day after day, week after week. Year after year. He didn’t have to be “scared straight.” He was here serving his time, and the weekend, which ended Sunday afternoon at about 10 a.m., dragged on indefinitely.

  Joel came to retrieve him when his “time” was up, and drove him the next Friday night back up the hill to the now familiar dormlike prison. The second weekend was actually shorter than the first. The group of men which included Mike who checked in on Friday night were let loose Saturday afternoon. Mike called Joel for a ride, and Joel said he was coming by with a surprise visitor. As the sun began to set into the western sky, Joel arrived to pick Mike up in his Volkswagen Squareback, and sitting in the shotgun seat was the familiar large form of Tom, laughing incredulously. “Hope you had a great stay.” Tom proclaimed, extending his hand to MIke with an outstretched palm.

  “What have you got there?” Mike asked.

  “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” Tom countered. “Here’s another trip to go on now that you’re a jailbird.” In Tom’s palm were four tabs of acid, a hallucinogenic drug popular among Mike’s circle of friends. He gobbled the acid, gave Tom a handshake and offered his thank yous, and thanked Joel for being his jailbird taxi driver the past couple of weekends. The three were stuffed into Joel’s small station wagon, and began the trip home, and the acid trip concurrently. When they arrived at Mike’s pad, they began to party heartily, imbibing illegal drugs and flowing liquor. Within a couple of hours, it was as if Mike had never been incarcerated in the first place.

  MIke never regained his license. His “Flukeswagen” broke down, and he began to ride public transportation. By the end of the decade, he was riding a motorcycle without either a Class 3 or 4 driver’s license, and he didn’t even try to obtain legal means to drive until another decade had nearly passed, needing the legal document in order to drive the company truck when he obtained a new job in the early 90s. A quick driver’s test, a snapshot process resembling the one when he had his mug shot taken during his incarceration, and Mike was once again “legal”, and able to drive without fear on the streets of the city. He hadn’t beaten the system, but he had met it face to face and suffered his punishment. With time and the knowledge and wisdom that it brings with it, Mike gave up drinking and driving, and made a point not to break any laws, especially the ones that got him in trouble with the system. If he went to a party, he left before he was drunk, and he didn’t let the car try to find it’s way home ever again. His drinking was done at home, and as the years passed, he seemed to need and want less alcoholic thrills, and more of the sense of security that sobriety brings. When driving through the Chavez Ravine in subsequent years, a small tinge of panic would appear, quickly to be forgotten, along with the almost forgotten travesties and the cavalier attitude of youth.

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  BEHIND THE PROSE: I really don’t mind posting such a long story now that I only usually post two or three entries a week. As with all my entries, this will stay online, and it will be here for most of the early part of next week. Below this entry, I also posted my latest Mike’s Video Blog, Part 3 to the “Almost Homeless” story, which concludes the series. So perhaps I didn’t put up anything during the latter part of last week, but I feel productive today. This entry took the better part of Saturday to write, and I edited it and finished it this morning. It’s almost noon, and I’m still on the computer, but I do think the presentation is worth it. That photo of me is from the time period of the story, and was taken the night I got beat up. Which, by the way, is yet another story. Oh, and another thing. This is the third week in a row that I’ve changed the selection on the JukeBox This Week Feature. A photo of the album, with links to the artist’s official site is in the sidebar for each song played on WhenWordsCollide. I don’t know if anyone will remember Charlie Dore, but I’ve always liked this song, from 1979. Each song presented here is meticulously recorded into the computer from the vinyl record itself, and then mastered in Acid 3.0.  MFN ppf.

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