october 18-19th, 2002
ok so this is my 1st and 2nd 10-18 page papers for my rhet 204 class. they're a bit lengthy, but if you have the chance, read them
There was a time, years ago, when I could say that I had never been in trouble with the law. It actually came up from time to time in friendly conversation. Ok, it was exactly once, and the conversation wasn’t that friendly, but I remember it more vividly that any other memory . . .
I hurriedly drove down a road in my hometown- the posted limit was 45, but I was late to get to the library to return some DVDs and was pushing 50 if that. It was a nice day and I heard cops didn’t give tickets on beautiful days but I guess it wasn’t too nice to spend the past 10 hours inside watching crappy movies like Jeepers Creepers II, The Core, and Cabin Fever. The strange thing was that the roads were empty. It was a perfect day and no one was out enjoying it. I felt I had the right to use the empty roads to be sure I got to the library on time and avoided late fees. I glanced in the rearview mirror about a block from the library and see a police car trying to get me to pull over. Once the policeman was at my car the conversation was the basic script for bit.
“License and registration please”
“Sure officer,” I said handing over both. I was prepared.
“Mr. James Medlin?”
“That’s me”
“You ever been in trouble with the law?”
“Never ever.”
“Really?” he asked with disbelief. Lowering his glasses that were so reflective the lenses looked like mirrors.
“Yes really,” I repeated.
“Because you can tell me, and nothing bad will happen.” He looked me straight in the eyes looking for cues of dishonesty.
“I’ve never been in trouble with the law,” I said, wondering where he was going with this.
“If it turns out you’re lying to me, you could be in some serious trouble sir.”
“Yes, I understand that, but I’m not lying. I’ve never been in trouble with the law.”
“This is your last chance to confess” he asked before returning to his car. He returned shortly thereafter.
“Looks like your story checks out.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Well, I’m going to let you off with just a warning this time.”
I couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t a bad person or anything. There was nothing I had ever done to make someone think I would break a law, but one day that would all change.
The sky was a patchwork quilt of dark clouds and faint stars, and nobody knew of any parties. My friend, Seth and I wanted to go out to party on campus for the night, but the weather put a damper on everyone’s plans. There’s a mood disorder called seasonal affective disorder that people get in the winter when the days get shorter and the sun is less visible. People actually get depressed because of the weather and time of year. The night of my excitement occurred on a night when everyone on campus seemed to have a miniature diagnosis of seasonal affective disorder. It was still autumn, but the weather was awful. Rain fell the entire day and the buildings of the university were covered with water from what seemed like a perpetual shower.
Having nowhere to go for the night, or people who wanted to go anywhere, I walked around my dorm looking for some fun. I ran into people and everyone gave me the usual excuses. “I would go out, but I have homework.” “I went out drinking last night, I’m still too hungover.” “I’m just gonna spend a night in and watch a movie.” During my walk around the dorm I found a friend of mine, Kate, eating a burger from a local fast food restaurant. I had a new goal for the evening: I was going to get a hamburger.
I desperately tried to think of a way to get a burger without having to walk the six blocks to the nearest burger king. Then I had it! I was a genius. People love interesting trades for food right? I happened to have in my possession a brand new, completely full fire extinguisher.
Before we get any farther into this, there are a few things you should know. There was an abandoned fraternity house a block from my dorm. One night, when no one could think of anything better to do, pried off the plywood boards covering the windows and did some exploring. This house was the better than any furniture I had ever been to. The most wonderful thing about the house though, was that it was free- every piece couch, chair, coffee table, abnormal psychology textbook, world atlas signed from 1917 or other fun necessities! During one of my “shopping trips” with the guys from my dorm, I noticed a fire extinguisher. Did I need a fire extinguisher? Probably not. Could anything good come as a result of using the fire extinguisher? Doubtful. But, would it make for a rockin’ time and a great story to tell my friends. I snagged the fire extinguisher along with a mini fridge (that later was found to be broken), and a storage trunk. The fire extinguisher was just in case of a rainy day.
That rainy day had finally arrived.
“Be right back!” I told Kate as I ran from the lounge into the stairwell. The best thing about living on the first floor of a dorm is that there’s only a half a flight of stairs to my floor. The fire extinguisher sat on my desk as a great conversation piece, and I had always wanted to see one in action. That night would be the night. I grabbed the fire equipment and I ran down the mini flight of stairs with the extinguisher in hand to present it to trade.
“Ya know what I would want even more than a burger? A fire extinguisher. Never used. Great quality. I think it seems like a fair trade for the rest of your burger. Eh eh?”
“What the hell am I going to use THAT for?” Kate fired back. The fire extinguisher did, however, spark interest with other people in the main lounge.
“Whoa man, where’d you get that?” asked a probable freshman looking for fun.
“The abandoned frat house.”
“Is there any more stuff there?”
“Yeah there is, you wanna check it out?”
“Hellz yah I do!”
Plans for the evening finally developed. We were going to go to the abandoned frathouse. Seth and I led a group of 8 people to the fraternity house. We were veterans, aware of the house’s secrets. We knew there was a coffin in the basement, and that we needed flashlights and sweatshirts to make up for the lack of electricity. Before we left, we suggested they wear shoes that could withstand the water that accumulated in the house, and take whatever they could. The way we saw it, when the house lost its charter years back and moved out, they took everything they thought was valuable. So, in my eyes, since the house was to be torn down anyways, we weren’t really stealing. We headed in though a broken window and started searching with our flashlights. In the darkness, the light from the powerful flashlights shone like the sun after getting your pupils dilated. We heard some voices from another room in the house and decided to stay put and turn off our only source of light. The footsteps grew louder, and more ominous. Anyone could have been coming. Was it law officials approaching? Or maybe just some kids up to no good like us.
“I’m going to scare them!” Seth announced like it was the best idea in the world.
“Maybe you don’t want to do that,” I tried to convince him. “You don’t know who else is in here or what they’ll do.”
“Here they come. Get ready!”
The unmistakable sound of a door opening was heard and immediately following, Seth screamed in his best scary voice “BOO!”
You know how in martial arts movies, when someone punches someone there’s that sound their hand makes as it moves through the air? Foley artists create that sound by quickly swinging bamboo branches, and it gives a sound of action in films. Well, that’s the sound that we heard after Seth screamed. Just enough time had passed between the scream and the swinging sound to account for reaction time of the person who was frightened. After the sound that could have been anything moving quickly through the damp mildewy air, a thud and a slight were heard coming from Seth’s direction. I turned on my light in to see a wooden board moving from Seth’s chest.
“Well he scared me, what was I supposed to do???” the random college student defended himself.
“You ok Seth?”
“Yeah, I’ll be ok”
We introduced ourselves to the other group of about 6 people and roamed the house as one giant company. Seth and I being the more experienced of the lot, lead the rest around the house, pointing out places of interest. On the 2nd floor there was a closet filled with filing cabinets of class notes and old exams. The 3rd floor was home to a coke machine and a giant orange “ROAD CLOSED AHEAD” sign that now adorns my apartment. The attic was home to a gathering of spiders and didn’t entice many visitors. The house was full of secrets- secrets and questions. Why did the house lose its charter? Who would leave behind and awesome mattress? When would it begin to house pledges again? How much would it cost to buy it? Seth and I were most concerned with the last question. Some of the doors had been kicked down (well you never know what’s in a locked room do you?). Even though the house was in awful shape- porcelain toilets broken, mirrors shattered, missing internet cables, a few couches short of a comfortable common area, we thought about buying it and getting some people together to live there. The most interesting and perhaps most valuable item in the house was a brand new lawnmower. It was in the entryway of the house. There were stairs leading up from there to a room with a battered pool table. Taking the stairs down, one would find a room that used to be a kitchen, but at the moment was a room all forms of nourishment abandoned. Though pots and pans hung from the ceiling, it was hard to imagine people using them to cook. Rummaging thru the house reminded me of an archaeologist. Whatever fraternity used to live there had been inactive for some time, and now we were walking through, trying to learn from them and benefit from the artifacts they left behind.
We left the house more deserted than ever. We found items of value- a coffee table, a chair, some class notes, and other assorted junk objects, but we all remembered the lawnmower in the house. That could bring in some money to whoever sold it. One of the guys from my dorm gave his thinking as to why the lawnmower remained in the house. He wondered if it was at all possible the lawnmower was impossible to remove from the house. I assured him that it was possible to get the lawnmower outside of the house, and when he continued to deny the probability of the event, I said I could do it. Using my knowledge of the house, I knew there was a way to get the lawnmower out of the entryway- it was right by the front door. Wanting to get all I could from the unknowing person, I demanded a prize if I was able to leave with the lawnmower. Still wanting a burger I asked that he purchase a burger for me if I was able to get the lawnmower out of the house. He agreed and accepted the conditions. I went back to the house fueled with greed and the anticipation of not only a burger, but the money that would result from me selling the lawnmower. A minute later I was leaving the house by means of the front door, awkwardly pushing a lawnmower down the stairs.
I could almost taste the burger as I walked to the guy to show him that I had escaped with the lawnmower. As I approached everyone else, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a police car driving by. I darted to my dorm to avoid arrest and was successful. I briefly considered ditching the lawnmower forever, but I quickly decided that the best idea was to keep it in my dorm room so I could sell it later to a fraternity. Running, I pushed the lawnmower back to my dorm. It had wheels and was surprisingly easy to push. The street was smooth and provided less friction than the grass I was used to pushing lawnmowers over. Maybe it was the run from the assumed police, or the illegality of the entire frat house, but I was high on energy and I wasn’t quite ready to come down. I needed to find something fun to do and soon. I got back to my dorm and went through the main doors, fortunately no resident advisors (RAs) were in the main lounge. People pay extra attention to you if you have a lawnmower. I grabbed the lawn mower with two hands and even though it was heavy, I was able to carry it up the stairs to my floor with little difficulty. There was a group of kids following me to my room while I carried it and once we got to my floor, I pushed it and hopped on for a little lawnmower surfing. I don’t know what the appeal was- I’m sure each of them had seen a lawnmower before, but maybe there was something about seeing one out of it’s “natural habitat” of a garage or shed. There’s something about seeing something out of place that makes people want to take notice and be sure they remember it. Like seeing a pizza delivered in class, or a man on a unicycle ride down the quad. There’s something in novelty that people appreciate and I was doing them a service by feeding their huger for the unusual. Back in my room I was tired from all the pushing and lifting, but someone in the group that followed me spotted the fire extinguisher that was back on my desk and said, “Hey, why don’t we use that?”
This was exactly what I was saving the fire extinguisher for- a night that needed more excitement. I jumped at the opportunity to do something that sounded fun. Even in my energized state, I realized it wasn’t a good idea to discharge the extinguisher inside the building, so I went outside to have some fun. The leaves of the trees were still wet of rain and I blasted a stream of grey/white powder at everything in sight. Trees, leaves, grass, the street, phones for calling residents from outside the dorm. The extinguisher, as far as I was concerned, was the most fun object created. As exciting as it was, the quickly dispersing clouds started to get old, and I decided that I had better call it a night before all the wrongs of the evening caught up with me. I walked back into the four-story building I called home. As I approached my room, I realized that my roommate, Emory, missed all of the excitement. Not being one to keep all good things to myself and imagining how easy it would be to share the fun with the entire hall, I discharged the extinguisher into the middle of my residence hall corridor. There’s something I failed to take into account before I wisely decided to discharge the extinguisher into the hallway- there was nowhere for the discharges substance to go. Outside, it wasn’t a big deal. I sprayed it and in a minute, there was no evidence of what had been done. Inside, on the other hand, the entire hallway was filled with a dusty matter. I needed to continue my streak of consequence-free behavior and that meant that I had to lay low for a while. Soon the authorities would start to ask questions and I couldn’t be found to be at fault. I started to walk down the hallway to the stairwell, but I saw 2 figures approaching. I thought to myself that they were surely some authority figure out to find whoever filled the hallway with what was starting to settle and look like snow. I ran back into my room.
“Emory, you can’t tell on me, please!”
“I’m not gonna lie for you.”
“Fine, have a good night.”
“Good luck.”
And with that I opened the window, lifted the screen and tossed the fire extinguisher from the window. Then I jumped out the window. The fall was only 8 feet or so and I had done it before. The question then became, “where can I hide to avoid all of this?” I nonchalantly entered the dorm again hoping I wouldn’t run into an RA. The coast was clear. I went up the stairs yet again, this time running and went to a friend’s room on the 3rd floor. I desperately hoped I wouldn’t get in trouble for my actions and I hid there worrying what the consequences would be if I was caught. After an eternity I got tired of hiding. I called my roommate Emory to see what was happening in our room.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“So what’s goin on in the room?”
“Uh, James, the RAs are here, they want to talk to you”
“What’d you tell them?”
“Nothing, they just- they wanna know where the lawnmower came from”
I pressed the button on the phone (that everyone seems to have in his or her dorm) that hangs up. Of course, the lawnmower. How could I have forgotten? There was a red, huge thing with an engine sitting in the middle of my room. There was nothing I could have done to make this better. If I didn’t go down to face the music, Emory was sure to tell the RAs the entire thing. I got myself into this mess and I was going to suffer the consequences. Write me up, make me go to a class on ethics, I didn’t care. I get downstairs and the conversation I had with one of the RAs is not a conversation you want to have at 3am.
“Hey James, you know anything about this lawnmower?”
“Well yeah I got it”
“From where?”
“The abandoned frat house.”
“Oh so you stole it?”
“Well, uh, I was gonna to return it,” I lied.
“It doesn’t matter if you were going to return it or not”
“Ah”
“And the fire extinguisher, do you know anything about that?”
“Oh yeah, that was me too, I did that too,” I said, deciding it would be easier to come out with the truth rather than to lie.
“Well James, I commend your honesty, but we’re going to have to call the police now.”
“Oh ok,” I said, finally realized the severity of the night’s activities
* * *
to be continued?
I sat in my room with my roommate and our neighbor Jared. The police were on their way and there was nothing I could do to avoid it. I could only hope for the best. Hopefully they’d let me go with just a warning. Hopefully they’d realize I’m not a bad person and they’d think it was nice to want to show my roommate the exciting side of fire safety. My room was full of stolen property, a rug laid on the floor. An enormous street sign leaned against the wall. A leather chair was next to my desk. I had broken laws before by stealing from the fraternity, but never did I expect that my choices would catch up to me.
“That was pretty stupid,” Emory said
“Yep, probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Why did you think it would be a good idea to set off the fire extinguisher?”
“I thought it’d be fun.” I really couldn’t think of a good reason to do it, and it just happened.
“That really was quite a bad idea,” Jared chimed in.
“You’re right.” Even though I wasn’t the best idea, Emory and Jared could have been more supportive. There was nothing I wanted to do more than leave that room, but there was nowhere I could go. The police would come to the room to find me and even though the door was closed, I was sure the RAs were outside to be sure I didn’t flee. I had never been to jail other than on a field trip and I wondered what it would be like. Even though I wanted the night to be exciting, I hadn’t planed on this.
Someone knocked on the door.
“Medlin, James Medlin,” a female voice asked.
“Come in,” I responded.
“What’s wrong with you?” Emory asked, “look at all the stolen stuff you have in here!”
It was just a night loaded with mistakes. I walked to the door and opened it to find a female police officer and my heart sank. This was really happening. I was going to gain a blemish on my otherwise perfect record.
“You did this?” she asked.
“I did, Officer Robbins,” I responded reading her badge.
“Well, there’s a lot of things I let slide,” she started to say.
I hoped it would end with, “and I’m going to let you off with just a warning,” or something similar.
“But misuse of fire equipment is not one of them,” she finished. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to take you to jail.”
“ok,” I said, there was nothing else to say.
I turned around as she asked me to cross my hands behind my back. I felt the cold stainless steel handcuffs form bracelets on my wrists. As we walked to the police car, it took three RAs to carry the lawnmower downstairs. As strong as I felt looking at them struggle to bring the machine to the ground level, there was no way I could break free from the handcuffs. They joked with each other, “When I woke up this morning the last thing I thought I’d be doing is carrying a lawnmower through the dorm.” Uproarious laughter followed. I failed to see the humor in the statement.
With Officer Robbins’ assistance I entered the University Police car and sat in the back seat. I noticed a couple things out of the ordinary about the car. There were no seatbelts in the back seat, and the seats were made from a mold and they were solid plastic. The officer explained that people who are arrested sometimes vomit or do other things that lead to bodily fluids to be on the seats, and the plastic seats are easiest to clean. On the drive to the county jail, I made small talk with the officer to pass the time. From that talk I learned more than I could have ever imagined. There is a police station on 1st and University, but that’s not used to jail people anymore. There was a jail on main, but we were going to a satellite jail off campus. She was a student at Eastern and was scheduled to finish her police training the next day. The lawnmower was being taken to storage and would be sold at auction at a later date. The fire extinguisher, on the other hand would be kept safe and used as evidence in the trial. The fraternity house wasn’t going to be used again in the near future and it would sell for a very low price. The best thing was that the lawnmower didn’t technically belong to anyone and that the theft charge would be dropped completely. The situation looked hopeful. Maybe I would get off without terrible charges being brought against me.
We arrived at jail at 4am and the entire booking process was pretty long and boring. I wanted more excitement, and I would soon get my wish. First, I entered a room where I was searched, a pin from the fire extinguisher was found in my pants pocket. A worker at the jail commented that just having the pin was a felony offense itself. “Felony?” I thought. This wasn’t good. There were good things that came from having a spotless criminal record that I just started to think about. I would have to fill out job applications differently now. The jobs I could get after graduation would be limited. My parents would not be happy. I thought to myself that I should have just went to the burger king and bought a burger myself instead of scheming and trying to get one for free. I took off my shoes and socks, and removed the soles from my shoes to show I didn’t have any weapons. I unlaced my shoes and gave them the laces because they could be used as weapons too. The two people in the room took a record of my possessions from my pockets. They sealed my keys, cell phone, school ID, and money in a clear plastic bag that was to be returned to me upon my release. Officer Robbins led me through several metal doors to the main room of the jail. I sat in front of a camera with a plain bluish gray backdrop providing background.
“Ok, time to have your picture taken for the records.”
I gave an enormous smile and looked at the camera.
“You seem like you’re happy to be here. That was a huge smile.”
“I smile in every picture I explained.”
While a worker at the jail lead to the male holding cell I looked in the female holding cell and saw a woman with purple hair screaming a song I had come to appreciate during my years at the university. “Sex and beeeeeeeeee-yer. Sex and beeee-yer and the two things we hold dear...” The woman seemed to be a college student and was acting provocatively with a cement bench in the cell. “If that’s how the women act,” I thought to myself, “I’m in for an interesting time in the male cell.”
I entered the cell and the jail worker told me that he would come get me for my phone call after he processed my paperwork. In the cell were 5 men of varying ages and circumstances for their arrival. I never thought it happened in real life but one guy looked at me and asked, “So, what are you in for?”
“I set off a fire extinguisher and stole a lawnmower, but the lawnmower doesn’t count. You?”
“The cops are out to get me,” he said, and the other people in the cell rolled their eyes or gave some sign that they had heard his story too many times already. “I was at a bar,” he continued, “talking to bitches and enjoying myself. The cops, they get jealous cause I get all the ladies. There were women all over me. And the cops made up some bullshit claim that I wasn’t allowed to be in a bar. But that’s fucked up cause I wasn’t even drinking hardly. The tried to take my drink and I didn’t let ‘em. I bought that drink with my own money, I had as much a right to be in the bar as anyone. They’re out to get me though, they hate to see me enjoy myself so they arrested me.”
“Uh huh, well those cops are no good,” I agreed not wanting to make any enemies.
“You hopped up on coke?” one guy asked.
“No I don’t use drugs,” I said.
“Me neither,” another man chimed in, “but I think my wife is on something. I was sitting at home and my wife drove through my garage door. She’s crazy. I had been spending late nights at work, and she gets the idea that I was cheating on her. I see her speed towards my house and I call the cops. Once they get to my house they tell me that I have to keep my distance from my wife and they were taking her to jail. I just wanted to hug her before she left and to tell her that no matter what happens I’ll always love her and I’d never cheat on her. I walked over to hug her and the police arrest me for violating their orders. That’s unfair.”
“If you think that’s unfair,” said a man in his early 30’s, “listen to this: I was on a train from Chicago to Carbondale to visit my brother, and some guy tries to pick a fight with me cause he didn’t like me looking out of ‘his’ window. I start to leave and he throws a punch at me. I dodged his punch, but really didn’t want to fight him so I pushed him away. He fell on the floor of the train and I got kicked off for starting a fight. It was about 2 when I was dropped off at the train station here. And I was just gonna sleep while I waited for another train to Carbondale to come around. An officer wakes me up from my sleep and arrests me for trespassing. That sucked”
“That seems a little unfair. So, hey, does anyone know when we’ll get out of here?” I asked.
“Well, the arraignment is at 10am, so right after that you’ll probably get out. Your story didn’t seem too bad, so they should let you out today.”
“Thanks.” I had no idea what an arraignment was but I didn’t want to look stupid, so I just assumed I’d find out later.
“James, time for your phone call.”
I walked back to the main office through the opened cell door into the main office of the jail. I stood by a phone and read a sign that read, “We must provide phones, but are not required to let inmates use the phones. If you exhibit negative behaviors you will be denied to opportunity to make a phone call. If you are given the right to make a phone call, you are only supplied one phone call that is not to exceed 5 minutes in length”
I didn’t know who to call. I didn’t want to call my parents just then and explain to them my circumstances. I had planned to go to Wisconsin the next day with Emory and some friends to see a high school band competition. I suddenly decided who I was going to call.
“Hello?”
“James? Is that you? What happened?”
“They took me to jail”
“Hey there’s a ton of dust, and it reeks outside of our room. Shit man, when are you gettin out”
“At 10. But could you pack some stuff for Wisconsin and bring it to the jail before you pick me up?”
“Sure what do you need?”
I listed a number or items for Emory to pack for me, and he was to bring the items at 10am and then the awesome Wisconsin vacation was to begin. I returned to the holding cell and tried to get some sleep on the cold cement floor. I was just nodding off when one of my cellmates started screaming loudly.
“I gotta shit! You bastards hear me? I GOTTA SHIT!!!!!”
The guy who thought the cops were out to get him at the bar earlier stood up from the cement bench and continued screaming expletives. He made his way to the door and started banging on the hard metal. One of the male employees at the jail heard him and came to the door.
“Ok, what do you want me to do about that?” he asked.
“Well, I gotta wipe.”
“Ahhh ok.” He left.
He returned shortly with a roll of toilet paper. I was wondering how easy it would be to sleep when one of my cellmates was utilizing the toilet. The man who demanded toilet paper went straight back to his bench, laid down and used the roll of toilet paper as a pillow. I saw something wrong with the situation and felt the need to intervene.
“Uh excuse me . . .”
“What??”
“Well, I’m not sure how long you plan on sleeping, but some of us may need to use the bathroom.”
“And . . .?”
“Well, the toilet paper would be useful. I mean, you don’t have to give it up completely, Just tear off enough for some of us to use if necessary. And you can still use some for a pillow.”
“Why don’t you just wake me up if you need to shit?”
“That’s not a bad idea, but I know if I’m sleeping and someone wakes me up, I can be a little cranky. I think it would be a better idea if you give us some now so that you wont be bothered by one of us when you wake up. Would that be cool?”
“Fuck you.”
Trying my best to persuade him to share his pillow and failing, I decided I should get to sleep to prepare for my arraignment- whatever that was.
* * *
“Rise and shine, time for breakfast!” I laid comfortably- my eyes still closed with the smell of coffee and scrambled eggs in the air. Was it all a dream? Was I safe in my bed criminal record still perfect? I slowly opened my eyes to see a stainless steel toilet and attached sink in the middle of the cell. A man brought us each breakfast on plastic trays that were the same material they used to make booster seats. The breakfast was by far the best part of the jail experience- besides the free portrait. The tray was full of food. There were scrambled eggs, hash browns, a donut, hot coffee, milk, orange juice, and little paper packages of salt and pepper. It was the best part of the day so far- which wasn’t saying much. After a delicious breakfast, I felt ready to take on anything. At 10am, just as scheduled the guests of the jail for the night were walked to a room with a giant television. We were told that the judge was going to talk to us and that we should refer to her as “your honor”. The judge came on the television and called each of us individually to the tv to talk to her via satellite.
“James Michael Medlin?”
“Yes, your honor.”
“Two charges are being brought against you. The first is criminal misuse of fire equipment, which is a class 4 misdemeanor. Criminal damage to state property, which is a class B felony, is the second charge. Your bail will be held at $10,000. Because you have no prior arrests and have never failed to attend court, I have no reason to believe you will not attend your court date-you will be released on your own recognizance. Your court date is Thursday October 24th at 2:30 pm. Following the arraignment, you are free to leave this jail.”
“Thank you your honor.”
I walked out of the jail and didn’t see Emory or his car. I used my phone to call him.
“Emory, where are you”
“Sorry, man I totally slept through my alarm”
“Well, did you pack the bag?”
“No, I can be there in an hour to pick you up.”
“That’s ok,” I said, disappointed. “I’ll find my own way back.”
Fortunately there was a bus back to campus from jail. I made it back with enough time to pack and head to Wisconsin for the day. The trip to Wisconsin was a mini example of what the next week would be like. I slept all day and felt like I threw my life away. A felony? That would be a hard one to explain to the parents, and good luck finding a job. The next days until my court date were nothing but sleep and lack of motivation in all of my classes. If I wouldn’t be able to get a good job why even try at school? I went to student legal services, but they don’t represent people who are charged with felony crimes. My court date, I was told, was just a preliminary hearing and the real trial wouldn’t happen for months. The day I went to court it was damp, cold and cloudy- it reminded me of the night of my arrest. I went to the police station on the corner of 1st and University. When I went in to find the courtroom, I was informed that court was in the neighboring town. Only having 15 minutes to get there, I began to panic. I called my friend John and frantically asked him to drive me to court. He was busy. I started running in the direction of court and noticed a policeman in a patrol car.
“Excuse me”
“Yes?”
“Could you drive me to court?”
“We’re not allowed to do that. But there’s a bus right there that will take you.” He pointed to a bus across the street.”
“Thanks.”
I boarded the bus and was taken directly to the courthouse plaza. I ran in and found my courtroom. Name after name was called and mine was not. I started to wonder if I was in the right room. The judge was the same judge that was at the arraignment and she gave the accused real court dates and appointed them state lawyers. Soon there were only a few people left in the room. She called all if us up to the stand together.
“You all seem like upstanding citizens and have no prior criminal records. I would hate for a criminal label to follow you for the rest of your lives. There is a program called the Adult Diversion Program, for people who because of some lapse of judgment commit crimes. You can choose to apply to this program and, if accepted, you will be asked to complete a minimum of twenty and a maximum of fifty hours of community service. Upon completion of this community service, the charges will be dropped from your record and the details of your arrest will be removed from your files. It will be as if it never happened.” She gave each of us cards that named the person to contact to schedule an interview for the Adult Diversion Program.
I rode the bus back to my dorm optimistic that things would work out and I could keep my flawless record. Then I realized- I never collected on my burger. I could finally get the burger I wanted enough to steal for! I arrived at my dorm and went to the room of the guy who promised to buy me a burger if I was able to remove the lawnmower from the house.
“Hey.”
“Oh hey, what’s goin on?”
“Not a whole lot, just got back from court.”
“Oh how’d that go?”
“It was alright, nothing super exciting. But the reason I came- well I don’t expect you to buy me a burger but I was wonderin if I could get five bucks or so to get one?”
“oh, I don’t have any change,” he said. I started to worry that I would never get my burger.
“But,” he continued, “I feel really bad you went to jail.” He took out his wallet and pulled out a twenty dollar bill. He handed it to me and said, “Don’t spend it all in one place.”
Epilogue
I made it into the Adult Diversion Program and had to pay a fee of fifteen dollars to clean the hallway of my dorm. And because I paid the fee promptly they gave me the minimum 20 hours of community service. I could do the community service for any non-for-profit organization on campus or anywhere and I just had to finish by the end of 2nd semester. I decided to do my community service somewhere cool. A friend of mine told me about a sexual health awareness fair that would start its first year at our school. The fair was done before at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and was called SEX OUT LOUD. I joined the Feminist Majority, a group on campus, to volunteer in SEX OUT LOUD and it was the easiest and most fun twenty hours I’ve ever spent volunteering- in fact I definitely would have done it even if it wasn’t mandated by the state. I’m still involved in the Feminist Majority and I’m in other activist groups now too. I see Officer Robbins everywhere on campus and I always say hi. It may be weird for the people she’s arresting or pulling over to see me come up to her and make small talk, but it’s good to have friends in positions of power I think. I had to go to a peer judicial hearing and I faced no university sanctions other than having to attend a workshop on ethics. If it had been a dorm fire extinguisher, I would have been kicked out of the university and possibly every university in the state. At the workshop there were tons of cool people with interesting stories of their arrests. One guy was caught stealing a grill from Fat Don’s. Another young man passed out in someone’s back yard and dug a hole in the grass. One more was caught trying to steal five hundred dollars worth of books from a major campus bookstore. I wouldn’t say any of us were bad people, we just got caught doing stupid things. My criminal record is still technically clean and for a small processing fee of ninety-five dollars and a six month wait I can get a copy of my mugshots and other documents regarding my arrest. What would be an easy way to make ninety-five bucks? I bet I could sell a lawnmower for that.
There was a time, years ago, when I could say that I had never been in trouble with the law. It actually came up from time to time in friendly conversation. Ok, it was exactly once, and the conversation wasn’t that friendly, but I remember it more vividly that any other memory . . .
I hurriedly drove down a road in my hometown- the posted limit was 45, but I was late to get to the library to return some DVDs and was pushing 50 if that. It was a nice day and I heard cops didn’t give tickets on beautiful days but I guess it wasn’t too nice to spend the past 10 hours inside watching crappy movies like Jeepers Creepers II, The Core, and Cabin Fever. The strange thing was that the roads were empty. It was a perfect day and no one was out enjoying it. I felt I had the right to use the empty roads to be sure I got to the library on time and avoided late fees. I glanced in the rearview mirror about a block from the library and see a police car trying to get me to pull over. Once the policeman was at my car the conversation was the basic script for bit.
“License and registration please”
“Sure officer,” I said handing over both. I was prepared.
“Mr. James Medlin?”
“That’s me”
“You ever been in trouble with the law?”
“Never ever.”
“Really?” he asked with disbelief. Lowering his glasses that were so reflective the lenses looked like mirrors.
“Yes really,” I repeated.
“Because you can tell me, and nothing bad will happen.” He looked me straight in the eyes looking for cues of dishonesty.
“I’ve never been in trouble with the law,” I said, wondering where he was going with this.
“If it turns out you’re lying to me, you could be in some serious trouble sir.”
“Yes, I understand that, but I’m not lying. I’ve never been in trouble with the law.”
“This is your last chance to confess” he asked before returning to his car. He returned shortly thereafter.
“Looks like your story checks out.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Well, I’m going to let you off with just a warning this time.”
I couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t a bad person or anything. There was nothing I had ever done to make someone think I would break a law, but one day that would all change.
The sky was a patchwork quilt of dark clouds and faint stars, and nobody knew of any parties. My friend, Seth and I wanted to go out to party on campus for the night, but the weather put a damper on everyone’s plans. There’s a mood disorder called seasonal affective disorder that people get in the winter when the days get shorter and the sun is less visible. People actually get depressed because of the weather and time of year. The night of my excitement occurred on a night when everyone on campus seemed to have a miniature diagnosis of seasonal affective disorder. It was still autumn, but the weather was awful. Rain fell the entire day and the buildings of the university were covered with water from what seemed like a perpetual shower.
Having nowhere to go for the night, or people who wanted to go anywhere, I walked around my dorm looking for some fun. I ran into people and everyone gave me the usual excuses. “I would go out, but I have homework.” “I went out drinking last night, I’m still too hungover.” “I’m just gonna spend a night in and watch a movie.” During my walk around the dorm I found a friend of mine, Kate, eating a burger from a local fast food restaurant. I had a new goal for the evening: I was going to get a hamburger.
I desperately tried to think of a way to get a burger without having to walk the six blocks to the nearest burger king. Then I had it! I was a genius. People love interesting trades for food right? I happened to have in my possession a brand new, completely full fire extinguisher.
Before we get any farther into this, there are a few things you should know. There was an abandoned fraternity house a block from my dorm. One night, when no one could think of anything better to do, pried off the plywood boards covering the windows and did some exploring. This house was the better than any furniture I had ever been to. The most wonderful thing about the house though, was that it was free- every piece couch, chair, coffee table, abnormal psychology textbook, world atlas signed from 1917 or other fun necessities! During one of my “shopping trips” with the guys from my dorm, I noticed a fire extinguisher. Did I need a fire extinguisher? Probably not. Could anything good come as a result of using the fire extinguisher? Doubtful. But, would it make for a rockin’ time and a great story to tell my friends. I snagged the fire extinguisher along with a mini fridge (that later was found to be broken), and a storage trunk. The fire extinguisher was just in case of a rainy day.
That rainy day had finally arrived.
“Be right back!” I told Kate as I ran from the lounge into the stairwell. The best thing about living on the first floor of a dorm is that there’s only a half a flight of stairs to my floor. The fire extinguisher sat on my desk as a great conversation piece, and I had always wanted to see one in action. That night would be the night. I grabbed the fire equipment and I ran down the mini flight of stairs with the extinguisher in hand to present it to trade.
“Ya know what I would want even more than a burger? A fire extinguisher. Never used. Great quality. I think it seems like a fair trade for the rest of your burger. Eh eh?”
“What the hell am I going to use THAT for?” Kate fired back. The fire extinguisher did, however, spark interest with other people in the main lounge.
“Whoa man, where’d you get that?” asked a probable freshman looking for fun.
“The abandoned frat house.”
“Is there any more stuff there?”
“Yeah there is, you wanna check it out?”
“Hellz yah I do!”
Plans for the evening finally developed. We were going to go to the abandoned frathouse. Seth and I led a group of 8 people to the fraternity house. We were veterans, aware of the house’s secrets. We knew there was a coffin in the basement, and that we needed flashlights and sweatshirts to make up for the lack of electricity. Before we left, we suggested they wear shoes that could withstand the water that accumulated in the house, and take whatever they could. The way we saw it, when the house lost its charter years back and moved out, they took everything they thought was valuable. So, in my eyes, since the house was to be torn down anyways, we weren’t really stealing. We headed in though a broken window and started searching with our flashlights. In the darkness, the light from the powerful flashlights shone like the sun after getting your pupils dilated. We heard some voices from another room in the house and decided to stay put and turn off our only source of light. The footsteps grew louder, and more ominous. Anyone could have been coming. Was it law officials approaching? Or maybe just some kids up to no good like us.
“I’m going to scare them!” Seth announced like it was the best idea in the world.
“Maybe you don’t want to do that,” I tried to convince him. “You don’t know who else is in here or what they’ll do.”
“Here they come. Get ready!”
The unmistakable sound of a door opening was heard and immediately following, Seth screamed in his best scary voice “BOO!”
You know how in martial arts movies, when someone punches someone there’s that sound their hand makes as it moves through the air? Foley artists create that sound by quickly swinging bamboo branches, and it gives a sound of action in films. Well, that’s the sound that we heard after Seth screamed. Just enough time had passed between the scream and the swinging sound to account for reaction time of the person who was frightened. After the sound that could have been anything moving quickly through the damp mildewy air, a thud and a slight were heard coming from Seth’s direction. I turned on my light in to see a wooden board moving from Seth’s chest.
“Well he scared me, what was I supposed to do???” the random college student defended himself.
“You ok Seth?”
“Yeah, I’ll be ok”
We introduced ourselves to the other group of about 6 people and roamed the house as one giant company. Seth and I being the more experienced of the lot, lead the rest around the house, pointing out places of interest. On the 2nd floor there was a closet filled with filing cabinets of class notes and old exams. The 3rd floor was home to a coke machine and a giant orange “ROAD CLOSED AHEAD” sign that now adorns my apartment. The attic was home to a gathering of spiders and didn’t entice many visitors. The house was full of secrets- secrets and questions. Why did the house lose its charter? Who would leave behind and awesome mattress? When would it begin to house pledges again? How much would it cost to buy it? Seth and I were most concerned with the last question. Some of the doors had been kicked down (well you never know what’s in a locked room do you?). Even though the house was in awful shape- porcelain toilets broken, mirrors shattered, missing internet cables, a few couches short of a comfortable common area, we thought about buying it and getting some people together to live there. The most interesting and perhaps most valuable item in the house was a brand new lawnmower. It was in the entryway of the house. There were stairs leading up from there to a room with a battered pool table. Taking the stairs down, one would find a room that used to be a kitchen, but at the moment was a room all forms of nourishment abandoned. Though pots and pans hung from the ceiling, it was hard to imagine people using them to cook. Rummaging thru the house reminded me of an archaeologist. Whatever fraternity used to live there had been inactive for some time, and now we were walking through, trying to learn from them and benefit from the artifacts they left behind.
We left the house more deserted than ever. We found items of value- a coffee table, a chair, some class notes, and other assorted junk objects, but we all remembered the lawnmower in the house. That could bring in some money to whoever sold it. One of the guys from my dorm gave his thinking as to why the lawnmower remained in the house. He wondered if it was at all possible the lawnmower was impossible to remove from the house. I assured him that it was possible to get the lawnmower outside of the house, and when he continued to deny the probability of the event, I said I could do it. Using my knowledge of the house, I knew there was a way to get the lawnmower out of the entryway- it was right by the front door. Wanting to get all I could from the unknowing person, I demanded a prize if I was able to leave with the lawnmower. Still wanting a burger I asked that he purchase a burger for me if I was able to get the lawnmower out of the house. He agreed and accepted the conditions. I went back to the house fueled with greed and the anticipation of not only a burger, but the money that would result from me selling the lawnmower. A minute later I was leaving the house by means of the front door, awkwardly pushing a lawnmower down the stairs.
I could almost taste the burger as I walked to the guy to show him that I had escaped with the lawnmower. As I approached everyone else, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a police car driving by. I darted to my dorm to avoid arrest and was successful. I briefly considered ditching the lawnmower forever, but I quickly decided that the best idea was to keep it in my dorm room so I could sell it later to a fraternity. Running, I pushed the lawnmower back to my dorm. It had wheels and was surprisingly easy to push. The street was smooth and provided less friction than the grass I was used to pushing lawnmowers over. Maybe it was the run from the assumed police, or the illegality of the entire frat house, but I was high on energy and I wasn’t quite ready to come down. I needed to find something fun to do and soon. I got back to my dorm and went through the main doors, fortunately no resident advisors (RAs) were in the main lounge. People pay extra attention to you if you have a lawnmower. I grabbed the lawn mower with two hands and even though it was heavy, I was able to carry it up the stairs to my floor with little difficulty. There was a group of kids following me to my room while I carried it and once we got to my floor, I pushed it and hopped on for a little lawnmower surfing. I don’t know what the appeal was- I’m sure each of them had seen a lawnmower before, but maybe there was something about seeing one out of it’s “natural habitat” of a garage or shed. There’s something about seeing something out of place that makes people want to take notice and be sure they remember it. Like seeing a pizza delivered in class, or a man on a unicycle ride down the quad. There’s something in novelty that people appreciate and I was doing them a service by feeding their huger for the unusual. Back in my room I was tired from all the pushing and lifting, but someone in the group that followed me spotted the fire extinguisher that was back on my desk and said, “Hey, why don’t we use that?”
This was exactly what I was saving the fire extinguisher for- a night that needed more excitement. I jumped at the opportunity to do something that sounded fun. Even in my energized state, I realized it wasn’t a good idea to discharge the extinguisher inside the building, so I went outside to have some fun. The leaves of the trees were still wet of rain and I blasted a stream of grey/white powder at everything in sight. Trees, leaves, grass, the street, phones for calling residents from outside the dorm. The extinguisher, as far as I was concerned, was the most fun object created. As exciting as it was, the quickly dispersing clouds started to get old, and I decided that I had better call it a night before all the wrongs of the evening caught up with me. I walked back into the four-story building I called home. As I approached my room, I realized that my roommate, Emory, missed all of the excitement. Not being one to keep all good things to myself and imagining how easy it would be to share the fun with the entire hall, I discharged the extinguisher into the middle of my residence hall corridor. There’s something I failed to take into account before I wisely decided to discharge the extinguisher into the hallway- there was nowhere for the discharges substance to go. Outside, it wasn’t a big deal. I sprayed it and in a minute, there was no evidence of what had been done. Inside, on the other hand, the entire hallway was filled with a dusty matter. I needed to continue my streak of consequence-free behavior and that meant that I had to lay low for a while. Soon the authorities would start to ask questions and I couldn’t be found to be at fault. I started to walk down the hallway to the stairwell, but I saw 2 figures approaching. I thought to myself that they were surely some authority figure out to find whoever filled the hallway with what was starting to settle and look like snow. I ran back into my room.
“Emory, you can’t tell on me, please!”
“I’m not gonna lie for you.”
“Fine, have a good night.”
“Good luck.”
And with that I opened the window, lifted the screen and tossed the fire extinguisher from the window. Then I jumped out the window. The fall was only 8 feet or so and I had done it before. The question then became, “where can I hide to avoid all of this?” I nonchalantly entered the dorm again hoping I wouldn’t run into an RA. The coast was clear. I went up the stairs yet again, this time running and went to a friend’s room on the 3rd floor. I desperately hoped I wouldn’t get in trouble for my actions and I hid there worrying what the consequences would be if I was caught. After an eternity I got tired of hiding. I called my roommate Emory to see what was happening in our room.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“So what’s goin on in the room?”
“Uh, James, the RAs are here, they want to talk to you”
“What’d you tell them?”
“Nothing, they just- they wanna know where the lawnmower came from”
I pressed the button on the phone (that everyone seems to have in his or her dorm) that hangs up. Of course, the lawnmower. How could I have forgotten? There was a red, huge thing with an engine sitting in the middle of my room. There was nothing I could have done to make this better. If I didn’t go down to face the music, Emory was sure to tell the RAs the entire thing. I got myself into this mess and I was going to suffer the consequences. Write me up, make me go to a class on ethics, I didn’t care. I get downstairs and the conversation I had with one of the RAs is not a conversation you want to have at 3am.
“Hey James, you know anything about this lawnmower?”
“Well yeah I got it”
“From where?”
“The abandoned frat house.”
“Oh so you stole it?”
“Well, uh, I was gonna to return it,” I lied.
“It doesn’t matter if you were going to return it or not”
“Ah”
“And the fire extinguisher, do you know anything about that?”
“Oh yeah, that was me too, I did that too,” I said, deciding it would be easier to come out with the truth rather than to lie.
“Well James, I commend your honesty, but we’re going to have to call the police now.”
“Oh ok,” I said, finally realized the severity of the night’s activities
* * *
to be continued?
I sat in my room with my roommate and our neighbor Jared. The police were on their way and there was nothing I could do to avoid it. I could only hope for the best. Hopefully they’d let me go with just a warning. Hopefully they’d realize I’m not a bad person and they’d think it was nice to want to show my roommate the exciting side of fire safety. My room was full of stolen property, a rug laid on the floor. An enormous street sign leaned against the wall. A leather chair was next to my desk. I had broken laws before by stealing from the fraternity, but never did I expect that my choices would catch up to me.
“That was pretty stupid,” Emory said
“Yep, probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Why did you think it would be a good idea to set off the fire extinguisher?”
“I thought it’d be fun.” I really couldn’t think of a good reason to do it, and it just happened.
“That really was quite a bad idea,” Jared chimed in.
“You’re right.” Even though I wasn’t the best idea, Emory and Jared could have been more supportive. There was nothing I wanted to do more than leave that room, but there was nowhere I could go. The police would come to the room to find me and even though the door was closed, I was sure the RAs were outside to be sure I didn’t flee. I had never been to jail other than on a field trip and I wondered what it would be like. Even though I wanted the night to be exciting, I hadn’t planed on this.
Someone knocked on the door.
“Medlin, James Medlin,” a female voice asked.
“Come in,” I responded.
“What’s wrong with you?” Emory asked, “look at all the stolen stuff you have in here!”
It was just a night loaded with mistakes. I walked to the door and opened it to find a female police officer and my heart sank. This was really happening. I was going to gain a blemish on my otherwise perfect record.
“You did this?” she asked.
“I did, Officer Robbins,” I responded reading her badge.
“Well, there’s a lot of things I let slide,” she started to say.
I hoped it would end with, “and I’m going to let you off with just a warning,” or something similar.
“But misuse of fire equipment is not one of them,” she finished. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to take you to jail.”
“ok,” I said, there was nothing else to say.
I turned around as she asked me to cross my hands behind my back. I felt the cold stainless steel handcuffs form bracelets on my wrists. As we walked to the police car, it took three RAs to carry the lawnmower downstairs. As strong as I felt looking at them struggle to bring the machine to the ground level, there was no way I could break free from the handcuffs. They joked with each other, “When I woke up this morning the last thing I thought I’d be doing is carrying a lawnmower through the dorm.” Uproarious laughter followed. I failed to see the humor in the statement.
With Officer Robbins’ assistance I entered the University Police car and sat in the back seat. I noticed a couple things out of the ordinary about the car. There were no seatbelts in the back seat, and the seats were made from a mold and they were solid plastic. The officer explained that people who are arrested sometimes vomit or do other things that lead to bodily fluids to be on the seats, and the plastic seats are easiest to clean. On the drive to the county jail, I made small talk with the officer to pass the time. From that talk I learned more than I could have ever imagined. There is a police station on 1st and University, but that’s not used to jail people anymore. There was a jail on main, but we were going to a satellite jail off campus. She was a student at Eastern and was scheduled to finish her police training the next day. The lawnmower was being taken to storage and would be sold at auction at a later date. The fire extinguisher, on the other hand would be kept safe and used as evidence in the trial. The fraternity house wasn’t going to be used again in the near future and it would sell for a very low price. The best thing was that the lawnmower didn’t technically belong to anyone and that the theft charge would be dropped completely. The situation looked hopeful. Maybe I would get off without terrible charges being brought against me.
We arrived at jail at 4am and the entire booking process was pretty long and boring. I wanted more excitement, and I would soon get my wish. First, I entered a room where I was searched, a pin from the fire extinguisher was found in my pants pocket. A worker at the jail commented that just having the pin was a felony offense itself. “Felony?” I thought. This wasn’t good. There were good things that came from having a spotless criminal record that I just started to think about. I would have to fill out job applications differently now. The jobs I could get after graduation would be limited. My parents would not be happy. I thought to myself that I should have just went to the burger king and bought a burger myself instead of scheming and trying to get one for free. I took off my shoes and socks, and removed the soles from my shoes to show I didn’t have any weapons. I unlaced my shoes and gave them the laces because they could be used as weapons too. The two people in the room took a record of my possessions from my pockets. They sealed my keys, cell phone, school ID, and money in a clear plastic bag that was to be returned to me upon my release. Officer Robbins led me through several metal doors to the main room of the jail. I sat in front of a camera with a plain bluish gray backdrop providing background.
“Ok, time to have your picture taken for the records.”
I gave an enormous smile and looked at the camera.
“You seem like you’re happy to be here. That was a huge smile.”
“I smile in every picture I explained.”
While a worker at the jail lead to the male holding cell I looked in the female holding cell and saw a woman with purple hair screaming a song I had come to appreciate during my years at the university. “Sex and beeeeeeeeee-yer. Sex and beeee-yer and the two things we hold dear...” The woman seemed to be a college student and was acting provocatively with a cement bench in the cell. “If that’s how the women act,” I thought to myself, “I’m in for an interesting time in the male cell.”
I entered the cell and the jail worker told me that he would come get me for my phone call after he processed my paperwork. In the cell were 5 men of varying ages and circumstances for their arrival. I never thought it happened in real life but one guy looked at me and asked, “So, what are you in for?”
“I set off a fire extinguisher and stole a lawnmower, but the lawnmower doesn’t count. You?”
“The cops are out to get me,” he said, and the other people in the cell rolled their eyes or gave some sign that they had heard his story too many times already. “I was at a bar,” he continued, “talking to bitches and enjoying myself. The cops, they get jealous cause I get all the ladies. There were women all over me. And the cops made up some bullshit claim that I wasn’t allowed to be in a bar. But that’s fucked up cause I wasn’t even drinking hardly. The tried to take my drink and I didn’t let ‘em. I bought that drink with my own money, I had as much a right to be in the bar as anyone. They’re out to get me though, they hate to see me enjoy myself so they arrested me.”
“Uh huh, well those cops are no good,” I agreed not wanting to make any enemies.
“You hopped up on coke?” one guy asked.
“No I don’t use drugs,” I said.
“Me neither,” another man chimed in, “but I think my wife is on something. I was sitting at home and my wife drove through my garage door. She’s crazy. I had been spending late nights at work, and she gets the idea that I was cheating on her. I see her speed towards my house and I call the cops. Once they get to my house they tell me that I have to keep my distance from my wife and they were taking her to jail. I just wanted to hug her before she left and to tell her that no matter what happens I’ll always love her and I’d never cheat on her. I walked over to hug her and the police arrest me for violating their orders. That’s unfair.”
“If you think that’s unfair,” said a man in his early 30’s, “listen to this: I was on a train from Chicago to Carbondale to visit my brother, and some guy tries to pick a fight with me cause he didn’t like me looking out of ‘his’ window. I start to leave and he throws a punch at me. I dodged his punch, but really didn’t want to fight him so I pushed him away. He fell on the floor of the train and I got kicked off for starting a fight. It was about 2 when I was dropped off at the train station here. And I was just gonna sleep while I waited for another train to Carbondale to come around. An officer wakes me up from my sleep and arrests me for trespassing. That sucked”
“That seems a little unfair. So, hey, does anyone know when we’ll get out of here?” I asked.
“Well, the arraignment is at 10am, so right after that you’ll probably get out. Your story didn’t seem too bad, so they should let you out today.”
“Thanks.” I had no idea what an arraignment was but I didn’t want to look stupid, so I just assumed I’d find out later.
“James, time for your phone call.”
I walked back to the main office through the opened cell door into the main office of the jail. I stood by a phone and read a sign that read, “We must provide phones, but are not required to let inmates use the phones. If you exhibit negative behaviors you will be denied to opportunity to make a phone call. If you are given the right to make a phone call, you are only supplied one phone call that is not to exceed 5 minutes in length”
I didn’t know who to call. I didn’t want to call my parents just then and explain to them my circumstances. I had planned to go to Wisconsin the next day with Emory and some friends to see a high school band competition. I suddenly decided who I was going to call.
“Hello?”
“James? Is that you? What happened?”
“They took me to jail”
“Hey there’s a ton of dust, and it reeks outside of our room. Shit man, when are you gettin out”
“At 10. But could you pack some stuff for Wisconsin and bring it to the jail before you pick me up?”
“Sure what do you need?”
I listed a number or items for Emory to pack for me, and he was to bring the items at 10am and then the awesome Wisconsin vacation was to begin. I returned to the holding cell and tried to get some sleep on the cold cement floor. I was just nodding off when one of my cellmates started screaming loudly.
“I gotta shit! You bastards hear me? I GOTTA SHIT!!!!!”
The guy who thought the cops were out to get him at the bar earlier stood up from the cement bench and continued screaming expletives. He made his way to the door and started banging on the hard metal. One of the male employees at the jail heard him and came to the door.
“Ok, what do you want me to do about that?” he asked.
“Well, I gotta wipe.”
“Ahhh ok.” He left.
He returned shortly with a roll of toilet paper. I was wondering how easy it would be to sleep when one of my cellmates was utilizing the toilet. The man who demanded toilet paper went straight back to his bench, laid down and used the roll of toilet paper as a pillow. I saw something wrong with the situation and felt the need to intervene.
“Uh excuse me . . .”
“What??”
“Well, I’m not sure how long you plan on sleeping, but some of us may need to use the bathroom.”
“And . . .?”
“Well, the toilet paper would be useful. I mean, you don’t have to give it up completely, Just tear off enough for some of us to use if necessary. And you can still use some for a pillow.”
“Why don’t you just wake me up if you need to shit?”
“That’s not a bad idea, but I know if I’m sleeping and someone wakes me up, I can be a little cranky. I think it would be a better idea if you give us some now so that you wont be bothered by one of us when you wake up. Would that be cool?”
“Fuck you.”
Trying my best to persuade him to share his pillow and failing, I decided I should get to sleep to prepare for my arraignment- whatever that was.
* * *
“Rise and shine, time for breakfast!” I laid comfortably- my eyes still closed with the smell of coffee and scrambled eggs in the air. Was it all a dream? Was I safe in my bed criminal record still perfect? I slowly opened my eyes to see a stainless steel toilet and attached sink in the middle of the cell. A man brought us each breakfast on plastic trays that were the same material they used to make booster seats. The breakfast was by far the best part of the jail experience- besides the free portrait. The tray was full of food. There were scrambled eggs, hash browns, a donut, hot coffee, milk, orange juice, and little paper packages of salt and pepper. It was the best part of the day so far- which wasn’t saying much. After a delicious breakfast, I felt ready to take on anything. At 10am, just as scheduled the guests of the jail for the night were walked to a room with a giant television. We were told that the judge was going to talk to us and that we should refer to her as “your honor”. The judge came on the television and called each of us individually to the tv to talk to her via satellite.
“James Michael Medlin?”
“Yes, your honor.”
“Two charges are being brought against you. The first is criminal misuse of fire equipment, which is a class 4 misdemeanor. Criminal damage to state property, which is a class B felony, is the second charge. Your bail will be held at $10,000. Because you have no prior arrests and have never failed to attend court, I have no reason to believe you will not attend your court date-you will be released on your own recognizance. Your court date is Thursday October 24th at 2:30 pm. Following the arraignment, you are free to leave this jail.”
“Thank you your honor.”
I walked out of the jail and didn’t see Emory or his car. I used my phone to call him.
“Emory, where are you”
“Sorry, man I totally slept through my alarm”
“Well, did you pack the bag?”
“No, I can be there in an hour to pick you up.”
“That’s ok,” I said, disappointed. “I’ll find my own way back.”
Fortunately there was a bus back to campus from jail. I made it back with enough time to pack and head to Wisconsin for the day. The trip to Wisconsin was a mini example of what the next week would be like. I slept all day and felt like I threw my life away. A felony? That would be a hard one to explain to the parents, and good luck finding a job. The next days until my court date were nothing but sleep and lack of motivation in all of my classes. If I wouldn’t be able to get a good job why even try at school? I went to student legal services, but they don’t represent people who are charged with felony crimes. My court date, I was told, was just a preliminary hearing and the real trial wouldn’t happen for months. The day I went to court it was damp, cold and cloudy- it reminded me of the night of my arrest. I went to the police station on the corner of 1st and University. When I went in to find the courtroom, I was informed that court was in the neighboring town. Only having 15 minutes to get there, I began to panic. I called my friend John and frantically asked him to drive me to court. He was busy. I started running in the direction of court and noticed a policeman in a patrol car.
“Excuse me”
“Yes?”
“Could you drive me to court?”
“We’re not allowed to do that. But there’s a bus right there that will take you.” He pointed to a bus across the street.”
“Thanks.”
I boarded the bus and was taken directly to the courthouse plaza. I ran in and found my courtroom. Name after name was called and mine was not. I started to wonder if I was in the right room. The judge was the same judge that was at the arraignment and she gave the accused real court dates and appointed them state lawyers. Soon there were only a few people left in the room. She called all if us up to the stand together.
“You all seem like upstanding citizens and have no prior criminal records. I would hate for a criminal label to follow you for the rest of your lives. There is a program called the Adult Diversion Program, for people who because of some lapse of judgment commit crimes. You can choose to apply to this program and, if accepted, you will be asked to complete a minimum of twenty and a maximum of fifty hours of community service. Upon completion of this community service, the charges will be dropped from your record and the details of your arrest will be removed from your files. It will be as if it never happened.” She gave each of us cards that named the person to contact to schedule an interview for the Adult Diversion Program.
I rode the bus back to my dorm optimistic that things would work out and I could keep my flawless record. Then I realized- I never collected on my burger. I could finally get the burger I wanted enough to steal for! I arrived at my dorm and went to the room of the guy who promised to buy me a burger if I was able to remove the lawnmower from the house.
“Hey.”
“Oh hey, what’s goin on?”
“Not a whole lot, just got back from court.”
“Oh how’d that go?”
“It was alright, nothing super exciting. But the reason I came- well I don’t expect you to buy me a burger but I was wonderin if I could get five bucks or so to get one?”
“oh, I don’t have any change,” he said. I started to worry that I would never get my burger.
“But,” he continued, “I feel really bad you went to jail.” He took out his wallet and pulled out a twenty dollar bill. He handed it to me and said, “Don’t spend it all in one place.”
Epilogue
I made it into the Adult Diversion Program and had to pay a fee of fifteen dollars to clean the hallway of my dorm. And because I paid the fee promptly they gave me the minimum 20 hours of community service. I could do the community service for any non-for-profit organization on campus or anywhere and I just had to finish by the end of 2nd semester. I decided to do my community service somewhere cool. A friend of mine told me about a sexual health awareness fair that would start its first year at our school. The fair was done before at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and was called SEX OUT LOUD. I joined the Feminist Majority, a group on campus, to volunteer in SEX OUT LOUD and it was the easiest and most fun twenty hours I’ve ever spent volunteering- in fact I definitely would have done it even if it wasn’t mandated by the state. I’m still involved in the Feminist Majority and I’m in other activist groups now too. I see Officer Robbins everywhere on campus and I always say hi. It may be weird for the people she’s arresting or pulling over to see me come up to her and make small talk, but it’s good to have friends in positions of power I think. I had to go to a peer judicial hearing and I faced no university sanctions other than having to attend a workshop on ethics. If it had been a dorm fire extinguisher, I would have been kicked out of the university and possibly every university in the state. At the workshop there were tons of cool people with interesting stories of their arrests. One guy was caught stealing a grill from Fat Don’s. Another young man passed out in someone’s back yard and dug a hole in the grass. One more was caught trying to steal five hundred dollars worth of books from a major campus bookstore. I wouldn’t say any of us were bad people, we just got caught doing stupid things. My criminal record is still technically clean and for a small processing fee of ninety-five dollars and a six month wait I can get a copy of my mugshots and other documents regarding my arrest. What would be an easy way to make ninety-five bucks? I bet I could sell a lawnmower for that.