This is not for you collector

When I was a sophomore in college in New Orleans, my friend and I got picked up by the Orleans Parish police. I asked my friend Rob to try to recollect what happened, and I did the same. Here are our two different versions.

(FYI: my nickname was Kitty and our other friend’s nickname was Squeezil.)

Rob:

We had just taken Squeezil home from our madhouse smoke session and smoked a couple bowls there. As always I had paraphernalia and a few roaches in the car. Leaving Squeezil”s house I stopped at the stop sign at the end of her street. (I’m sure I stopped{but maybe not}). I made a right and we went a couple blocks in the Marley mobile. Blue Lights. Shit. Then the coppers got on the loud speaker and told us to put our hands out of the window and open the doors from the outside, walk slowly to the car facing them and put our hands on their hood. Odd I thought. Guess we looked dangerous. They patted us down and searched the car. Bingo. Pipes and roaches. Cuffs. Back of the cruiser. It’s hard to remember all this because it’s happened several times for me. This was the first. Riding to the pokey….still laughing and joking. We get to processing. I realize that I’m wearing bright orange and yellow shoes, red polar bear pajama pants, and a threadbare Jimi Hendrix shirt, but I’m not a stoner or anything. I wonder what my reception will be like. Kind of an adventure. Picture time. Smiled for the camera. Waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting. Lobby sucks. Kitty says “I think my weeds wearing off man” in perfect Jim Brewer. We have a laugh…..for a minute (because it was). Separated. Uh oh. Now I really wonder whats going to happen. Orange(or perhaps green) jumpsuits for all. Late night, so directly into general population. Remember it’s a prison not a jail. Weirdo Louisianians with their parishes and what not. Overcrowded. Two bunks and my mat on the floor. Do not remember a single thing about my cell mates. First come first serve and all that. Bars shut and lock (no other time I was locked up were there actual bars) Slept like a baby bear. Morning and food. Pass. Saw some young toughs sharing a smoke. Asked if I could bum one. “No, Cracker”. I really wanted a cigarette. Lunch red beans and rice, toast. Traded toast. Played chess all afternoon. Resident jail master crushed me over and over. Bail posted. Thank you Tulane. Glad they budget bail into tuition, At least the first time. With the exception of the no smoking rule all in all pretty easy. Picked up by Julio the street kid I met over the summer. Came back home and baked (not a cake) and ate some of the Jailbird cake. Smoked a lot of cigarettes. I do not remember when Kitty got home, but I’m pretty sure it was after me. I was basically unaffected. Kitty was shaken. Eventually I think we all went and rescued the Marley Mobile. I think some cds were missing. Who knows,…..very foggy.

Me:

The lights spun into our car, and I tried to light a cigarette and get Robert to puff harder to cover the smell. Pointless, I was dragged out of the car with little less than a glance and next thing I knew I was bent over the white hood. I glanced over at Robert and we laughed. Fuck. The man booking us was funny. He said, “Weed? That ain’t no crime!” I couldn’t stop laughing when they took the mugshot, even when the angry woman told me not to smile. I have loose joints and fingerprints would have been easier the old school way with ink, mine kept coming up on the screen as “Quality: Poor”. Robert was wearing pajama bottoms with polar bears on them, they illicit-ed a laugh from the people at the station, but Robert’s face was covered in shame. I was wearing his shower shoes, held together with duct tape. It was cold and my fleece was worn thin and my pants were just held up by a drawstring.
Time to split us, Rob walked away with a group of men, one of whom had the red wrist band for homicide. We thankfully had orange ones, and the pudgy white girl who was in the office crying loudly apart from us was wearing yellow; she had a misdemeanor for flashing her tits. A woman banged hard on the glass and yelled at the guards who told her to shut up. She was drunk and we all thought she was annoying. Daybreak in the van to OPP, not the song, Orleans Parish Prison, we were all chained together and bent forward because of  the ceiling. We could hear the driver get out of the van to have breakfast and when he got back we heard him laughing and talking to his friends. Things were really bright, and I wasn’t ready for the day.

Processing I was paired with a crack-head, who silently went along with everything. She knew the motions. If I got to do it again, I would be a bigger asshole. What you don’t realize from TV is that being polite doesn’t really do anything. My wrists had bruises and my answers were not listened to. By the time it was time to sign the line at release, I quickly signed that they had treated me fairly. I didn’t get an orange jumpsuit, rather blue pants and a sweater that had been washed so many times at 100 degrees, that there wasn’t even an illusion of softness. They had sprayed OPP on with a stencil. I was so thin at the time. The cells were slices of pie circling the center guard booth, around 30 women to a room. They keep the prison really cold, to keep germs from spreading, so the women had gathered the mattresses together on the floor. I just sat at the picnic table at the middle of the room, glanced at the three toilets and stared into space. Rose took pity on me and set my bed up, gave me a cigarette and so so so carefully let myself go to sleep. I woke up and was given another cigarette. The ladies asked me what happened and did their best to scare me. I had gotten picked up on  a Sunday and Monday was a holiday, so forget about being released before Tuesday. I didn’t eat and I wouldn’t have either if I had stayed that long.

 It took just as long to get out as in. After they told me I was released there were hours and hours, more pink holding cells and another van ride with a girl who was getting out after a 6 month stay. She asked me if I had lotion, and I looked at her like she was crazy. She told me things that had happeded that made me happy I hadn’t stayed till Tuesday. Robert had gotten along just fine, they had played chess and smoked the shit out of some cigarettes. I guess women are kind of horrible to each other. I walked out, almost past my friends who picked me up and walked straight to the car. I was so hungry and so cold, I got in the bath and they made chicken I didn’t want to eat, because I didn’t think it had been cooked through. We smoked and celebrated. I found out later the car that had picked me up had been stolen.

But lots of people get arrested in college right? Weed?! Who cares?! The officer didn’t even think it was that big a deal. I kept about how this was really interesting, a sociology experiment, I mean I was in criminal sociology right? This totally just confirms my feelings about drug laws. And then I would think… it doesn’t get worse than this. It literally doesn’t get worse than this. This is so fucking wrong and sick and horrible and depressing and just these people are having their lives ruined for a gram of crack, because they can’t get bailed out and they will lose their job, and they can’t pick up their kids and they are exposed to this bullshit and violence again and again and again.

I spent 3 months with drug counseling, drug tests, and 12 AA meetings, which in New Orleans were both very entertaining and truly horrible. A real life soap opera complete with someone who “shared” through a voice-box device.

I understand a parents desire to shield their children from this kind of experience, because they don’t want them to have to see how horrible things are, but that is perversely kind of perpetrating ignorance. I don’t think the world would be worse off if everyone got thrown in once, but there is no way to regulate experience.