Cellmates

In the James City County Sheriff Department’s parking lot, the midday air rippled and swirled like a see-through plastic streamer in a windstorm; dust and pollen frolicked and danced across the front entrance like cinders above a campfire.  

While inside the Jail, there were no windows, portholes, or skylights to let in the springtime warmth, so it was colder than…well…a dungeon.  And even though I’d never actually been inside a dungeon, I thought it was a clever analogy. 

The arresting officer, Don Jakes, was a thin, gangling man with pencil-thin legs, which came in handy when it came to chasing and catching criminals.  He had been a police officer since the army honorably discharged him some fifteen years earlier. 

He ordered me to park my bottom on the stainless steel bench in the hallway between the magistrate’s office and central booking, and since I was only wearing khaki shorts and a wife-beater tee shirt, the instant my bare skin met the ice-cold metal, my teeth made chattering sounds.  Those sounds were more annoying than a busload of teenage girls on their way to a Justin Beiber concert, and Officer Jakes told me so.  I asked if he would remove the handcuffs because they were cutting my wrists, and he said he would remove them just as soon as my grandmother learned how to sing Yankee Doodle Dandy in Chinese chained to a pole under fifty feet of water.  After I told him that my grandmother had passed away forty years earlier, he cackled much the same way one does after hearing a dim-witted pun for the umpteenth time. 

Since I was ninety-nine percent sure he wasn’t going to loosen the handcuffs, I used a euphemism to declare that I needed to use the restroom: I told him I desperately needed to take the Browns to the Super Bowl.  He told me he was sorry he had to s**t on my parade, but that I was in deep s**t, and s**t out of luck.  More agitated than a washing machine full of dirty laundry, I crumpled down on the bench and waited, to no avail, for the long arm of the law to reach in and grab me by the scruff of the neck and toss me into the wringer.  However, nobody paid me any attention for the next three hours, and I just loitered there in my air-conditioned cinderblock tomb the way a steer would dawdle inside a slaughterhouse…waiting for the sledgehammer to come crashing down.

      As luck would have it, the tip of my nose started to itch, and since Officer Jakes wouldn’t let me use the restroom, and definitely wasn’t going to unlock the cuffs to let me scratch my nose, the only thing I could do was periodically turn around and scratch my nose against the cinderblock wall.  At the same time, my teeth chattered so loud that the magistrate, who was in his office drinking coffee, tapping his toe to some song only he could hear, and reading a court document, asked my arresting officer to force me to SHUT UP.  Either that, he said, or to shut the door so he didn’t have to listen to my insignificant babble.  Officer Jakes kicked me in the left shin and gave me a look that would’ve made Osama bin Laden wet himself.

      “I can’t help it,” I put into plain words.  “I’m freezing my cojones off.”  Then I rubbed my sore left shin with my right calf. 

      At that instant, the door to the free world opened, and Officer Pete Miller, a towering and bulky thirty-year-old former street-thug-turned-cop, ushered Tyrone Higgins into the room.  Officer Miller found a location he liked at the center of the room and gestured for Tyrone to take a seat next to me, and then he glanced at Officer Jakes, grinned, and shook his head.  Officer Jakes shut the magistrate’s office door, and then walked over and gave him a bear hug.  To entertain myself, I eavesdropped on the official dialogue between the two esteemed police officers, and I am paraphrasing what they said to clean up the language.  

      “What the (freak) is up, Donny?”  Officer Miller asked.  “Long time no (freaking) see.”

      “Been working (freaking) narcotics mostly; I confiscated a (freaking) ounce of Northern Lights last week,” Jakes responded.  “I’m still (freaking) buzzed.  What the (freak) have you been up to, Pete?”

      “You know.  The same old (freaking) bull(manure).”  Miller told him.  “I’m living the (freaking) American Dream: a (freaking) job, a (freaking) wife, and two (freaking), snotty-(bottomed) kids.”

      “I thought you were (freaking) that red-headed clerk over at the courthouse,” Jakes speculated aloud, “The one with (freaking) (breasts) the size of bowling balls!”

      “Not anymore,” Miller informed him.  “The wife got wind of that and threatened to cut my (freaking) (testicles) off.”

      “I love a woman with a (freaking) sense of humor,” Jakes chuckled.  “Say, is that blond with the ever-spreading (bottom) working the desk today?  I’d like to (freak) the (manure) out of her!”

      “Nah,” Miller snorted.  “She’s off on Fridays.  That little (freak), Heller, is working; he’s about as (freaking) useless as (freaking) (breasts) on a transvestite.”

      I turned toward Tyrone, and asked, “Do cops always curse this much?”

      To which Tyrone remarked, “It’s the sugar from the donuts that does it!”

      Tyrone Higgins was a tall, slender, forty-year-old black man dressed in a sky blue tracksuit; he had gold rings on every finger, gold chains around his neck, and gold teeth.  He was very clean, and smelled like baby powder.

      “Say, man, do you have a cigarette?”  Tyrone pleaded with me.  “Won’t you hook a brother up with a smoke?”

      “I don’t smoke.”  I replied, “But even if I did, seeing that I’m handcuffed, and the fuzz confiscated all my possessions, I couldn’t help you if I wanted to.”

“Fuzz,” Tyrone smiled, showing off his gold grills.  “You white boys sure have a way with words!”

      “Please don’t call me white boy.  It’s demeaning,” I said nicely.  “Besides, I would never call you a black boy because I know you’d find it racist.”  I wasn’t smiling.  “The name is Justin, Justin Murphy…, or just plain old Murph.”

      “Damn,” Tyrone became solemn.  “You white boys have too many complexes, phobias, and psychosexual dysfunctions.  Y’all worry too much about political correctness, self-esteem, and other people’s feelings.  By the way, if you called me a black boy, I wouldn’t find it racial!  I’d just jack up your skinny honky a*s!”

      If my face had been a map of the United States, my grin would’ve been the size of Texas, and my laugh…well, it would’ve been as long and broad as the Mississippi River.  Tyrone’s eyes were ink black with specks of gold glitter in them.  His style said he was dangerously tough, but, in fact, he was a very pleasant person with a chip on his shoulder, the stereotypically wayward black man hiding his humanity behind a veneer of hostility, sarcasm, and mayhem.  And it wasn’t his fault: the white man had suppressed and depressed him from birth.  Thank God he wasn’t shy!

      “Do you have a name?”  I asked him, searching his face for a clue to his identity.

      “The name’s Tyrone Higgins, but don’t you dare call me that!  Don’t call me Ty, don’t call me Rone; don’t call me Higgins, and never call me Hig!”  Tyrone declared. 

      “Okay,” I responded, “Is there something I can call you, a nickname, or something.”

      “Hollywood,” he announced.  “My peeps call me Hollywood; that’s the name I go by.”

      “Hollywood,” I said it aloud, fighting back a smile.  “I like the sound of that.  Why do your…peeps…call you Hollywood?”

      “I suppose it’s because I ain’t been to college, but I have the knowledge,” he replied.  “I’m an actor, writer, director, and mind reader; what else would they call me?”

      “You’re a jack of all trades?”  I acted overwhelmed by his abilities.

      “I ain’t no jack of nothing,” he announced.  “But I might possibly be the Amazing Kreskin’s illegitimate son.”  I expressed my amusement through obnoxious snorting, and shook my head, which irritated Hollywood, and forced him to ask, “What are you laughing at, Murph?”

      “I get it,” I admitted.  “People call you Hollywood because you’re very entertaining.”

      “My peeps call me Hollywood out of respect for my pedigree,” he announced proudly.  “Lawrence Taylor, the football player, is my second cousin on my momma’s side, and O. J. Simpson is a third cousin on my daddy’s side.  I used to play football with both those pansies and kick both their asses.  You see, when I was two, my momma dropped me off at this Asian people’s house and they raised me until I was fourteen.  I became the stepbrother to Bruce Lee, and he taught me all that Kung Fu s**t, which is why my hands are registered as lethal weapons with the United States government.”

      “Geez, you’ve led an exciting life,” I exclaimed.  “But what does that have to do with the Amazing Kreskin?”

      “I’m getting to that part, Bro,” he continued.  “Bruce Lee introduced me to Jimi Hendrix, who taught me how to play the guitar with my tongue, and he gave me a red, white, and blue Fender Stratocaster as a present.  I traded that guitar to an overweight gypsy sword-swallower for a ticket to see the Amazing Kreskin at the Hampton Coliseum, where Kreskin told me that he was sure he was my daddy. And my daddy taught me how to read people’s minds, which is why I have the ability to read yours.”

      “You’re quite a character, Hollywood!”  I told him.

      “Damn right I am,” Hollywood retorted.  “They arrested me because they thought I stole some white boy’s car, but I knew that he stole it from a black man, and I was merely returning it to its rightful owner.  What are you in here for, Brother?”

      “I thought you said you could read my mind,” I reminded him.

      “I did, and I can, but I don’t work for nothing,” Hollywood declared.  “I got to eat and pay my bills.”

      “The truth is that I’m in jail because…uh…well…the truth is, I’m not quite sure why,” I announced.

      Hollywood shook his head and grinned.  “Don’t bullshit a bull-shitter!”  Hollywood laughed.  “The Po-Po is dumb…but they ain’t that dumb.”

      “I have bad taste in women,” I enlightened him.  “I’m being punished for choosing selfish and self-centered women, women who cheat and lie and fail to take care of their children, and their men.”

      “Now, ain’t that some bullshit,” Hollywood shot back.  “They lock up black folks for beating up they b***h for sleeping with they cousin, and killing they drug dealer for selling them baby powder and saying its coke.”

      “So, you don’t believe me?”  I asked him.  “You think I’m making it up.”

      “Hell, no, I don’t believe you” he screamed.  “White folks go to jail for committing sophisticated crimes: absconding bank funds, writing bad checks, and laundering money.  They don’t go to jail because they can’t pick the right b***h.  Where is the ‘ho now?”

      “In California, living in a million-dollar home, and driving an expensive car.”  I told him.

      “And I take it that the house and car are yours?” he asked.

      “They were,” I informed him.  “She lives with another man, and doesn’t have time for her kids.”

      “Well, Brother Murph,” Hollywood reprimanded me, “The way I see it, you deserve to be in jail.  Because a man doesn’t let a woman treat him and his kids like that.”

      “It’s not like that, Hollywood,” I made it clear to him.  “I wanted an independent, free-thinking woman, a pretty woman with a brain who believed in romance and dedication…”

      “Murph,” Hollywood interrupted me.  “What you wanted was a ‘ho with a brain.”

      “That’s not what I said,” I educated him.  “I said I wanted…”

      “A pretty woman to be free and devoted and romantic,” he interrupted me, again.  “I heard you the first time.  Nevertheless, you see, for a pretty woman to be free means she holds the key to her chastity, and she’ll unlock that box to any Tom, Dick, or Harry willing to pay for it.  To ask a pretty woman to be devoted means you want her self-esteem to be bloated and she’ll prolife rate to the man with the biggest wad in his wallet.  That leaves us with romance, which to a pretty woman means to finance her assets with the desires of life; which means, you wanted a w***e for a wife, but you didn‘t have the means to pay for her .”

      “You certainly have a way with words.”  I commended him.

      “When I was a kid, I wrote a song that I gave to my brother, Jimmy Soul: if you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife; so for my personal point of view, get an ugly girl to marry you.”

      After I stopped laughing, I told him that I remembered that song, and then I asked, “What’s your wife like, Hollywood?”

      “She’s like one of those ugly Japanese geisha girls; waiting on me hand and foot, and treating me like I’m the king of the world,” he said with a smile.

      “Oh,” I replied snidely, “That means you’re not married.”

      “Never have been and never plan to be,” he replied.

      Our conversation was interrupted when Office Jakes told me to stand up and turn around; he unlocked the handcuffs, and I rubbed the pain out of the dark red circles around my wrists.  He led me into the magistrate’s office and gestured for me to sit in the empty chair near the bulletproof glass at the front of the room. 

      Magistrate Michael Heller, a balding man of forty-five dressed in a gray suit sat on the opposite side of the bulletproof glass staring down at my arrest papers.  I stared at the bald spot on the top of Magistrate Heller’s head for about thirty seconds�"it reminded me of the sandlot we played baseball on when I was a kid�"and the only way I knew he was alive, was by the fact that he cleared his throat every couple of seconds.  Finally, he raised his head, and looking directly through me, as if I were a piece of glass, he decreed, “Since you absconded, Mr. Murphy, I’m going to have to set the bail at five thousand dollars.”

      “There’s that word again,” I said, shaking my head.

      “Bail?”  The Magistrate flared his nostrils as if he smelled something foul.

      I feigned a smile, replying, “No…abscond!”

      “I’m sorry,” he said sardonically, “would you like me to explain what it means?”

      “No,” I answered.  “I know what it means, but I was hoping you could use it in a sentence.”

      “Do you find your situation amusing?” the Magistrate appeared annoyed.

      “Oh.  No, Sir,” I admitted genuinely.  “You see, my friend, Hollywood, said that we white folks go to jail for committing sophisticated crimes, like absconding bank funds, and I was wondering if you used that word--abscond--because I’m white, or because it sounds more intelligent than…say…you ran off or left suddenly without telling anyone.”

      “Do you have five thousand dollars, Mr. Murphy?” the Magistrate changed the subject.

      “No, Sir.  I don’t even have fifty cents; I’m broke and I have nothing but my two kids waiting for me.”  I said earnestly.  “I’d just like to be released on my own recognizance, and get back to them.”

      “I’m afraid that isn’t possible,” he countered, “and since Monday is a holiday, it looks like you won’t be arraigned until Tuesday…five days from now.  Then the judge will set a hearing for you about five days after that, so…it looks as if you‘ll be behind bars for the next ten days.”

      “Oh, come on, Your Majesty,” I pleaded with him.  “What about my kids?  What happens to my kids?”

      “That’s Social Services’ problem,” he smiled, pushing a button under his desk to notify Officer Jakes that he was through with me.

      Officer Jakes opened the door and entered the room, inquiring, “Going, or staying?”

      “Mr. Murphy is going to be our guest for the next ten days, Officer,” the Magistrate proclaimed smugly.  “Take him to booking, and make sure he gets set up in one of our lavish suites.”

      “Geez,” I proclaimed, “now I understand why you said he was as useless as (freaking) (breasts) on a dyke.”

      Officer Jakes told me to shut the (freak) up; he yanked me out of the chair and shoved me out of the room.  He corrected me by saying, “Transvestite…not dyke!” 

      As Jakes shoved me down the hall, Officer Miller shoved Hollywood into Magistrate Heller’s office, but before going in, he turned toward me and whispered, “I’ll see you in a few minutes, Murph.”  Then he shouted, “This is what happens when you eat too many donuts: your blood sugar goes up and you become hostile.”

      Jakes handed me over to Sergeant Bain, a powerfully built man with a thin mustache, who fingerprinted, and photographed me�"or at least he tried.  The stupid fingerprinting machine stopped working, and when I recommended he pull the plug and let the machine reset, he glared at me.  Ultimately, after about two minutes of striking the machine and cussing like a truck driver, Sergeant Bain asked a female officer named Shore if she could lend a hand, and she came in and did exactly what I suggested: yanked the plug out of the wall socket, and reset the damned thing.  I guess it was okay for cops to have anger problems and beat on things.

      “It’ll work fine now,” Officer Shore declared, licking her glossy red lips.  She looked like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model packed into grey slacks and a navy blue blouse; she was the kind of cop who could reduce even the most law-abiding person into a hardened felon. 

      I liked Officer Shore, and I would have felt better staying in the intake area talking to her; but, instead, Sergeant Bain led me to a shower and told me to get undressed.  I was so embarrassed and dejected, but I did what he told me to do.  Once stripped, Sergeant Bain told me he needed to check me for drugs, to bend over and spread my cheeks; but as I turned my backend toward his face, Bain hollered, “Not toward me!  Turn around, bend over, spread your cheeks, and cough!”  How was I supposed to know?  The closest I had been to jail was seven years of parochial school.

      They gave me an orange jumpsuit with JCCCP on the back, and a pair of orange sandals with the same letters, only smaller, on the bottom.        

      Then they gave me one of those questionnaires to fill out that asked if my mother was a drinker and/or took drugs, and if my dad was mentally and/or physically abusive, and if I ever had thoughts about committing suicide, and a whole bunch of other crap that would explain why it is I’ve been so damned miserable.  I never considered any of that stuff to be the cause of my malaise, but, then again, if I wanted to get out of jail, I had to convince them that medication and counseling could help with my rehabilitation, them being the jail’s intake psychologists.  Nevertheless, I was not going to play their little mind game and throw my parents under the bus.  My father, God rest his soul, was far from perfect, but I wouldn’t have called him abusive, and my mother�"she’s eighty-six and as sharp as a tack�"never drank or used drugs any more than any other woman who grew up during The Great Depression.  As far as suicide was concerned…well…the thought of dying had crossed my mind a few times, but I never acted upon those thoughts; nor would I ever.  Still, I thought it might get me out of jail if I claimed to be depressed, so I told the intake officer that I was going to kill myself.  He informed me that, if I truly felt that way, he would force me to strip naked and lie on a freezing, concrete floor inside a bare, eight by eight foot, padded room for my entire ten-day sentence.  I changed my tune, and decided to tell the officer why I was so damned miserable.  I told him that I had been under a lot of stress, and things hadn’t gone all that well for me over the years, and that was the chief reason why I had been so angry and out of sorts, and why I found it necessary to slap my out-of-control son in the face.  The only thing that kept me going, kept my spirits up, was the fact that my daughter, Emily, was waiting for me to get out.  Both of my kids were in a homeless shelter.  It was not too far from the jail, but since I had not seen them in a few days, it felt like they were a million miles away.  Emily wrote me letters every day, but the goddamn social worker delivered them to me once a week.  Emily enjoyed writing letters; she took after me when it came to that, which really pissed off her drug-addicted mother.  She wrote to me about the shelter, and how much she despised it, and how they made her get undressed and searched her for drugs, and how her brother, Luke, cursed out  the social worker and sprinted ten blocks before he was caught and brought back to the place kicking and swearing.  I had changed my mind about social workers; I didn’t like them anymore and neither did  my kids, so don’t even try to tell us that they are there to help kids and families, because they’re not.  The intake officer said he empathized with me because he had an ill-behaved teenage son of his own, but he recommended that I just do my time, and pray to God for direction.  I nodded in agreement, and sat there waiting for them to transfer me to a permanent cell.