Paul's Philosophies

what does one think about when you are curled up in a ball on a bed trying to start a fire and the world around you is cold?

My mother’s house seemed to become a mad house. A normal house with lots of of emotional adenaline. I got into my car with a few dollars and drove my way to some quiet Tim Hortens time. I pulled off the memorial bridge about 1045PM and pulled throught e drivethrough asking for my usual Large with just cream coffee. The girl with the glasses worked tonight. Have a good night I told her as I left and sat in the parking lot for a few moments. Nothing but the night sky and the noises of the occasional cars slipping by. About 1130 after chuggin half of the coffee I dedcided to head back to my mothers house on Pierce Street. As I stood at the light I noticed a few rain drops and it was getting misty outside. As I pulled onto Memorial Bridge I noticed a tall husky guy about 6 foot with a hoodie on.

I pulled over in front of him. “Do you want a ride?” I asked as I rolled down the passengers window.

“I am just going to 7-Eleven to meet my girlfriend” he shouted.

“I’ll bring you. Its on my way” I told the man as he entered the vehicle.

I took a swig of my coffee and grabbed my last ciagrette throwing the empty pack in the back seat. “you can have the rest of mine man. My girlfriend will buy me some when I get there. “

I pull into 7-Eleven on Maine Street about 1145 and walk in. He guy meets his girfriend outside and decided to purchase something drink as he is trying on some glasses on the rack in front of me. I go up the counter as he leaves with his girfried and friend and order a pack of marlboro 100’s and leave to go to my mothers house. She gets suspicious when I leave in the middle of evening, so I figure its probably wise to get some now then go home and go back out. I turned onto Park Street and stop next the old court building and then stopping at the library.

The car was idle, I could see it uptop Kennedy Park near the church.It was a cop car as I turned onto Pine Street. Another vehicle pulled in back of me while the officer pulled in behind two cars behind. At the stop sign the car in back of me went straight and I turned onto Birch Street and stopped at the stop sign. The lights went on and I pulled along-side the store my grandfather used to send me as a child. I could go into the store, Bernier's & Sons with a note to buy cigarettes and beer.
The officer got out with his blue lights parading through the open windows. On the third floor you could see shadows filling the open windows in the dark skies.
I pulled over next to the curb and turned the ignition off. I grabbed two pieces of Big Red and popped it into my mouth. As I started chewing the gum and taking a sit up my coffee I pulled from the red insurance plastic case my license, yellow registration paper and proof of insurance from Geico, holding it in my left hand as I took another slug of the coffee and placed it down.
The blond officer looked at me as he came over to my car.
“License, Registration and Proof of Insurance” he asked as his eyes moved to check the sticker on the fron to of my vehicle.
It doesn’t run out till August. You don’t think I see you but I do. I thought to myself as I handed the requested documents. “Have you been drinking tonight or smoking anything? “ he asked as I stared into his bright blue eyes. He stood about 5’10 weighing about 160lbs with dirty blond hair.
“Just my coffee and smoking cigarettes” I told him.
“Do you know why I stopped you?” his blue eyes pieced my dark brown eyes. “Your right back light is completely out.”
“I need you to step out of the vehicle and put your hands on the hood of your car” and he went back to his vehicle to run a 10-40. He arrived moments later and stood there. “Do you have anything in the car?” he asked again.
“No.” I replied. I recalled an incident about four months ago when the same officer pulled me over turning from Park Street into [the street next to Middle Street]. He pulled me over for the same excuse, yet when I got out of the veichle and looked at the back right and left lights, testing them and then trying the brake lights out with him there, funny thing; they worked just fine.
“My mistake” he said with those familiar blue eyes and drove off.
“You know you have bail conditions to allow us to search you vehicle right?” came his voice amidst my flashback.
“Yes.” I didn’t know why he would think I did not know.
He opened the door and pulled out a pack of Marlboro 100’s and went through the back seat with the car light on. “Are all these bags yours?”
“Yes, I just got back from a trip up north two weeks ago, nothing in them except papers dirty laundry and bug spray. “ I told him.
“I found a roach in the cigarette pack. I need you to come over my car and put your hands behind your back. “ He showed me the roach that was in the bottom of the cigarette pack. It was about a cigarettes width and about as long as five toothpicks if you lined them together.
“The roach isn’t mind officer. If you call 7-Eleven and Tim Horten’s they can tell you. I picked up this hitchhiker and he can be seen on the video at 7-Eleven. If we find him we can confirm the story. “
“I asked you and you lied to me. I need oyu to sign this summons for possession of an illegal drug, this is not saying your guilty” he gloated as he slide the cuffs around my wrists. “You’re arresting me for something that small?” I questioned him.
“Yes, I need you to step into the back seat of the car. I will roll up your windows.” As he closed the car door I could see him go back into my car parked ahead and roll up the windows. He back into the front and turned on the police car and turned off his lights.
As he turned down and turned onto Park Street he pulled up another cop car and gloated that he gloated he had one for possession of majuana. I could see someone in the other car next to me.
“I didn’t know the guy had left a roach behind. Obviously I would have gotten rid of it if I had known.” In all honesty, if I had a joint or remants in the car I would have injested it or threw it in my coffee.
We pull into the back of the Androscoggin County Jailhouse and wait in the parking lot. Theres is an older man outside smoking a ciarette and another man standing next to him as the cargo bay was open. Officer Brown tapped his steering wheel. He was anxious and did not want to wait. He was feeding off the adrenaline and wanted to go get another one. He pulled into the first door and after the first set of locked rooms he had me wait in a chair where he filled out some paperwork in a about two minutes. He kept yanking on the door handle. He wanted to run in and drop me off and go back out. After about 30 seconds the door clicked and he had me sit inside as another officer took over showing me where to sit. Beofore I could turn around, he was gone.
“Put your hands against the wall. Take off your sweater and put it into the bad to your left 0” a shorter officer said as he frisked my pockets moving out the empty gum wrappers throwing them into the plastic bag. “take off your shoes and stick them to the left” I untie by boots and tie them together in a loop. He brings me over to the ink splotter. Beside it is a container of cleaner. He tells me to relax as he does prints of my fingers, sliding the white paper through the metal holder.” Hands over here,” as he squirted some gritty handsoap on my hands, “ and the bathroom is there to wash your hands”. After wahsing my hands and wiping them on my pants because there was no paper towels in the bathroom I walked out and he escorted me into a holding cell.
After the glass door encased in metal shut it made one of those loud electronic clicks. The kind that says ‘door is electronically locked’. I sit there and look around and start to count the cement blocks. Patterns of three. I cement block with two cement blocks below it; starting from the floow there was 5 rows of this one to two pattern. I got goosebumps.
The air was chilly and my hair rose. I continued to count the cement white blocks that made up the room. I sat on a metal frame with a blue mattress about an inch thick. Its seams are worn and foam is coming out. A notice a cockroach run around the rim of the metal toilet. I sit there on the edge of the matress cold and my body started to shake from the coldness.
I look at the etchings on the thick panes of the door. Probally thick plastic with etching people had done before I was there, grafitti with sharp object perhaps.
“My ribs, their fucking broken.” A female voice screetched from behind me. I sat there with my legs tucked together knees touching and my feet flat on the mat and my back to the wall and listened.
“I can feel my ribs. He beat me up. I need to go to the hospital.” She stammered drunk and full of emotion.
“Everyone can feel their ribs,” the officer told her.”Your a fucking mess and started trouble that’s what you get. Lay down”
“I need to go to the hospital I can feel them coming through the skin” she yelled even louder.
“You’re a mess, lay back and sleep it off” the same officer said and went back to the desk.
For what seemed an hour I sat there and listened. That is all I could do. Then I layed there on the dirty gross mat being cold thinking what mess has come this night as I lay there with a few tears emitting from my eyes. So cold in fact my skin turned purplish in color. I held off on taking a piss after seeing the roach scurry around. I could no hold off any longer and mustered the energy to go the the metal sloan and take a piss, noticing that the toilet has been used recently and had not been flushed. I was grossed out even more. Not being read any rights yet, thrown in a dirty cell with a roach crossing my path and a dirty toilet. Could it not get any worse. I was only to find out moments later that this was the start to a three day trip to the Androscoggin County Jail.
-interview guy
I was told by a thin blond guy about the same height as me that I would be arrained Friday and would be able to see the judge. “Go in there and take off your clothes” he said as he handed me a 4 oz plastic cup with soap in it handing me a towel and a tan uniform. The top darker the bottom. I went behind the plastic drapping down from the ceiling and took off my clothes. “Put them on the other side of the plastic.” He order and I did. “Now dump the soap on your head.” I felt the cold soap drip on my shaved head and drip onto my naked body, stepping over the wet towel from a previous person. After a moment he took my clothes and closed the door. I figured out by pushing in the metal button that water would come out of the shower and got under washing myself with this cold soap. After drying I left my towel on the floor on top of the other one and walked into the adjacent room. I put on the size 8 shoes and walked out. “What size shoe?” the blond officer asked me.
“I think size nine” he passed the shoes over to me and I tried them on. A little to big. “Can I try size eight” I ask. He takes the old shoes and throws them in a bin and gets a size eight. They fit nicely. He motioned me to stay away from the drunk women still yelling about her ribs.
“Grab the crate” he tells me. “you want protective custody.”
“Not unless you think someone is going to kill me, I think I will be all set” I murmered back somewhat sarcastic. I grab the gray crate and go inside the elevator. As I venture to the second floor I look in the crate: two white sheets big enough for a cot maybe a twin mattress if you are just coevering the top, one knotted together, a dark blue woolen or knitted blacket with holes and coming undone at the edges, toothpaste, two bars of hand soap, a tan toothbrush, a small vial of liquid jail soap a black comb and a yellow policy handbook.
After getting off the elevator I run into the dark haired officer. “Wasn’t you here a few weeks ago?” he commented.
“No more like three months ago.” He was referring to the Sportsman’s Masquerade Party. This was the reason I had bail conditions in the first place.
“Follow me” he said. I followed him to a locked door with the letter “l” on it. “I’ll put u in l4” I walked into the room and noticed a bunkbed to the left and a single bed on the right. The top bunck was empty and did not have a mattress. I stood there in the lit room and looked lost.
“Here’s a matress” he said as he came back in and handed me a mattress in the same condition as the one from downstairs. I put the mattress on the metal frame. Moving quietly, now 3AM, I fixed the bed with one sheetm using the other sheet a s apillow and tried to warm up. I sat up on the mattress and read through the manual, moticing that if it was damaged you would be charged a ten dollar fee. After about thirty minutes of reading the policy book from front to back I put it aside and curled up trying to keep myself covered in the chilly room staring at the barren white cement block wall beaming the light from the ceiling. I eventually fell asleep with the lights on and encasing myself in a cacoon with the blacket and me in fetal position.