Busted
If the situation is so dire, why are many of the new mandates set to go into effect in mid January? Why not immediately?
Nothing else in today’s news piqued my interest, so here’s an excerpt from There and Back, a non-fiction piece that will be included in Curious Sicilian. It is one of several incidents that occurred when I hitchhiked from my college town to L.A., summer of 1971. I kept a journal, which served as a guideline. I rewrote all the parts. This one is a quick read:
In the wee hours of Day Three I was arrested for hitchhiking near Fort Collins, Colorado. According to the officer, I faced a year in jail or $1000 fine. I said I was unable to pay the $25 bond, a lie, as there was $30 at the bottom of my duffle bag, which was all I was carrying and which prompted several people to say: “Travelin’ light.” I wondered if it had been searched.
I was put in a holding cell, where I promptly caught up on sleep. I was served breakfast on a metal plate. I ate with an oversize spoon designed as a defense against potential suicide. I may have been a mess emotionally, but I was not even remotely suicidal.
Soon I was given the opportunity to shower, shave and wash my clothes. Then it was off to the main prison, or maybe jail is a more accurate term, as it wasn’t very big. My cellmate, a big guy, was in for narcotics possession. When the cells were opened a Latino looked at me and said: “Porque?” I told him, then said: “Y tu?” “Rape,” he replied. I stuck a cork in my emotions, leery of showing any weakness. Fortunately, at that point I’d been weightlifting for years, so I at least didn’t look weak. And many found my looks intimidating.
The inmates did a lot of pacing and smoking. At one point one read from an erotic novel. A few guys boosted themselves up to a small window and yelled to women in the parking lot below. One guy said he’d been there three years, seven months and two days.
In the afternoon a guard escorted me to a courtroom. The judge’s name was Smoke. I hoped it wasn’t a bad omen. Three cases were addressed before mine. First: assault, attempted rape, sale of narcotics–delayed until further notice. Next: attempted murder–defendant ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment. Third: possession of narcotics–case to be reviewed at a later date.
I recalled Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant Massacree, the Group W Bench, the “mother rapers and father stabbers.” State of Colorado vs. Victor Fortezza: soliciting a ride on an expressway and disobeying an officer of the law.”
I pleaded my case with a lie, saying I was trying to make a friend’s wedding in California, whereupon the stenographer, amused, paused and looked at the judge. He shut me up and ordered me to pay the six bucks court fee, exactly what a corrections officer had said would happen. Two meals, room and board, and an experience I’d never forget for a paltry sum.
Here’s shot of Fort Collins from Google Images:
The absence of wind enabled the floating book shop to operate along its usual stretch, cut short by a half hour after shadow overtook the area. My thanks to Nadine, who bought The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
by Sherman Alexie, and to Meryl, who purchased Blood and Guts: A Short History of Medicine by Roy Porter. The latter, 67, is retiring in two months from her job in the psych department in Coney Island Hospital. After doing such work for so long, it’s a miracle she doesn’t need treatment herself.
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