Jail

Initially I was not going to comment on this situation, at all. But thanks to the my ex-husband and the gossip train that run rampant in our small town, I feel the need to address my current situation in a public forum. Not so much because I give a crap, but because my children are involved and they are the only people that matter to me.

The facts:
On Tuesday night, my boyfriend Dan and I were having a discussion. A heated discussion. A very personal, serious discussion. About which is nobody’s business. But needless to say, tempers were high. We were supposed to be alone, but my daughter, Samantha, came over to hang out, as she does almost every evening. I told her she had to leave and go to her dads. She said she would, after she grabbed some things. Great. See you later. Kiss, hug. Dan and I continued to talk. I had been drinking wine. I had been drinking too much wine. We started to wrestle playfully. Then he pissed me off and I began to act unbecoming of a lady. It became a bit of a shoving match and his response was to try and contain me. I over reacted, and decided to phone the police. Sort of a “shot across the bow”, “I’ll show you who’s in charge” kind of thing. The problem was, Sam was still here. She came downstairs after the confrontation to see me crying and very upset. I was practically hysterical, and she was, obviously, upset. I told her to go to her dad’s. Afterwards she told me that she was upset for about 30 seconds and then realized I was over reacting and now had the situation under control.

The police arrived. Nice fellows. We chatted it up. Dan told his side, I told mine. Then the tables turned. Because we both reported laying hands on one another, we were both going to be arrested. Um, WHAT?. That’s right, I called in reinforcements to help calm the situation and instead, we both got arrested. I spent
20hrs in jail, the D.A. did not file charges and the case was dismissed, on both sides. So basically it was a 20hr, horrible, time out.

The Lessons:
Where to begin? Let’s see. First, you can deal with almost anything before calling the police. What happened between Dan and I was something that not only could have been avoided, but could have been handled by the two of us. I will never call the police again for anything short of an intruder. Whatever crap he and I were dealing with paled in comparison to the 20hrs that followed.

Second, make sure the children are out of the house before having a heated argument with another person. I feel like heal. She should have never seen me that upset. I can’t even put it into words. When I realized she was still here, my heart sank. I’m sure that DHS will now become involved, as well they should. If this had happened at Chris’s house I would expect the same. That doesn’t make me feel any better, but everyone needs to know that this is a safe and healthy house for my children. One mistake does not a pattern make.

The Lighter Side: As anyone who knows me, there isn’t a situation that I can’t make light of. So I’m going to take a break from the shame and regret that many feel I should be wallowing in and give you a glimpse into the my experience in the clink. It was horrible, yet amazing at the same time.

The officers handcuffed me and put me into the police car. The handcuffs were not comfortable, and as soon as they put them on, everything above the neck started to itch. I soon realized my flexibility was better than I thought and was able to remedy the situation with my knees. From the time the cuffs went on, until about 20 minutes in the cell, including during my mug shot, I couldn’t stop laughing. Not because it was fun, or even funny, but just out of the shock that it was really happening.

They put me in a cell called the fish bowl. This is a small room with 10 chairs, a payphone, TV, toilet and 7-14 other woman at any particular time. The chairs were rock hard, bolted together and had arms. This made it impossible to get comfortable. The payphone could only be used with the card they give you, which is supposed to come with a free minute pre-loaded. They didn’t give me my card for 7 hours and there was no time on it. Not that I could remember a single phone number of any person except my ex-husbands work phone, which he would not be able to accept charges for my call, because it’s a work phone. Fine. The toilet was semi-private. This, I had no problem with. I’m a mom. I never get to go to the bathroom alone. At least this one was set back around a corner, so there’s that. The jail was over crowded. They didn’t have the room to give any new arrivals a bed, so we were all stuck in that little cell for almost the entire time. Women were sleeping on the concrete floor. I tried this, but the floor was freezing cold and all I had on was a thin t-shirt and jeans. No bra, no socks. No sweatshirt. I was fraking cold the whole time. The TV was basically background noise for everyone’s misery. I saw the news so many times, that at one point, a fellow inmate and I turned off the TV and reported the news to everyone in the cell, rather than listen to that bloody thing for another minute. There were very strict rules regarding your behavior in the fish bowl. No stepping beyond the red line was the most popular, and this was stated clearly on a notice on the door. However, there seemed to be several rules that were not posted, but apparently we were to know inherently. A sort of tribal knowledge, passed down from inmate to inmate. For example, no looking out the window at the processing area. This would cause a great disturbance amongst the correctional officers, which would lead them to open the door and shout chastising phrases at you, similar to what you would do to a child who has just lit a match in a fireworks factory. Early on, I violated a sacred rule and was told that they would “move me around the corner” where apparently it was “much less comfortable”. These unstated rules and their consequences seemed to dominate the majority of our interaction with the officers.

Early on during my stay, it dawned on me. I had never been read my rights. I also had no idea the charges being brought against me. I decided to, politely, grab the attention of one of the guards to see if we could take care of this situation. A young Kristy McNichol look alike with a pony tail, came to the door. I explained to her that situation, where upon she said “TOO BAD!” and slammed the door. The room became filled with the sounds of “OOOHHHH NOOOO SHE DIDN”T”, “WHAT DID SHE SAY?” and other similar statements. Not to be made to look weak in front of my incarcerated sisters, I became rather loud and started throwing around works like “Constitution” “violating my rights” and “could someone just please get me a blanket?”. The door opened and Kristy and her fellow guard, a shorter version of an older Mini Pearl, came at me. I turned to the girls in the cell and said “Oh, look who’s on her power trip for the night.” And away I was taken away – around the corner.

“Around the corner” was their version of solitary. But the funny part is that it was a cell, all to yourself. It had long benches and private toilet. No TV, which I assume was the part that was to make it “less comfortable”. Fail. It was much more comfortable. Well, I still couldn’t sleep, it was cold and bright as the sun. The acoustics were insane. Everything you said, even quietly, resonated through the entire unit. I began to chant, as loud as possible “YOU NEVER READ ME MY RIGHTS! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO KEEP ME HERE!” Over and over, until I heard a voice at the end of the hall shout “I CAN HEAR YOU LAUREN! YOU TELL ‘EM!” It was, of course, Dan. We began to have a loud exchange. I was so regretful of calling the police, and filled with so much worry and confusion. I shouted to him “I’M SO SORRY! I WILL NEVER CALL THE COPS ON YOU AGAIN!!!” His response: “I TOLD YOU IT WAS A BAD IDEA!” Shortly after, he was relocated to a cell further down the hall.

I spent several hours there. It’s hard to say how long because there are no clocks in these cells. At around 3am, I was moved back into the fish bowl. All I could do was sit there, cold, tired and full of worry. Time pass so slowly that I thought it was moving backwards. I sat and listened to the other women telling their stories about how they had ended up in the fishbowl. I soon found out that I was the only one there that night who had never been to jail. Their stories left me feeling naive, and rather normal, but soon realized that my back talk to the guards and my momentary stint in “solitary” gave me some sort of street cred. My companions consisted of two 20 something heroin addicts, going through withdrawal; a compulsive shop lifter; a prostitute; a couple of women accused of assault and a federal prisoner accused of arms dealing and drug dealing. Plus a few others, I couldn’t keep up.

The worst part of my experience in there was that they tell you NOTHING. I didn’t find out what I was charged with until around 9am. I was told I would be in court at 1pm. At 1:30pm they told me that the DA was not going to press charges and I had to wait until the judge could review and sign the paperwork, which wouldn’t be until after 4pm, sometime. I was finally released around 6:30pm. They wouldn’t tell me anything about Dan; they wouldn’t tell me anything about my case. I was left to assume that it was all over with. When Dan was released, they never even told him that the charges were dropped, or that they were even releasing him. The whole experience was like that episode of Lavern and Shirley when they do that sleep deprivation study, but not as funny, and the worse episode of Orange is the New Black that you could ever imagine.

For the past week I’ve thought of little less than this experience. Not because it was traumatic, but because it was enlightening. I know that many of you have been arrested. Most during your 20’s for some kind of drunken mayhem. As a 45 year old mother of 2, one does not normally have this experience, at least not in my circles. And because if this, and thanks to my ex making it seem like the crime of the century, I feel the pressure to walk around with my head hanging low, shame filled and unworthy of having a smile on my face. And yet, I don’t.

Upon my release, I began to review the events of the evening. I couldn’t help but feel some sort of elation, as if I’d experience something truly profound. That is because it is exactly what happened. I spent almost an entire day locked up, feeling abandon by “the system.” When I review my case with a woman from the court, at 9am, I told her “we don’t plan on pressing charges. It was a big misunderstanding.” “Well unfortunately, once the police are involved..” “I have no rights.” “Exactly.”

O.K. then. I had no idea what was going on and my fate would be decided by a system that was denying me any say in the situation. I couldn’t even get a lousy blanket. And the food. My God, the food. All I could think of was the cafeteria at Springfield Elementary on the Simpsons. For lunch we had a sandwich, chips and potato salad. The Sandwich was either possum or cat. Not sure which. The chips were stale, like a salty wafer of cardboard and I don’t even want to address the potato salad. I should note: I will eat anything. Or so I would have said before my stay in the Lane County Jail. Before dinner, we all took a vote on what the meal would be, based on it’s attributes. We came up with: something soggy, something crunchy (that shouldn’t be crunchy), something boiled and something green. We were spot on.

I have always considered myself incredibly open minded and accepting of all types of people. This view was not necessarily tested in jail, but it was challenged, ever so slightly. As many of you know, I am a chatty person (my ex calls it “The Lauren Show”). I will tell you all about myself and try to engage almost anyone in telling their story. In my confined environment, filled with some of the most colorful people you will meet, I found myself a fly on the wall. Only occasionally cracking a joke, but mainly listening to the dramas that made my evening seem like a bedtime story, surely to make the most hyper of children fall right to sleep.

To most of them, jail was simply a way of life. They knew the sacred unspoken rules of the fish bowl. They knew the schedule of all the court hearings, meal times and medical exams. They knew there was no chance in hell that I was getting a blanket. They were all so interesting. And each one of them, if I had seen their mug shot online, along with their charges, I would have had jokes to make and judgments’ to hand out. That, I’m sad to admit, is the only shame I feel. These people are not less than I am. They are human beings who are dealing with life the best they know how. This is normal for them. Just because it’s not normal for me, doesn’t make me any better. Just different. I now posses a compassion that, quite frankly, I thought I already possessed. The camaraderie of these women was remarkable. Whenever one of us found out that charges were not being filed (a remarkable 80%), each congratulated the other. When I was finally released, there were applause and well wishes.

I will not go around proudly professing my time in jail. However, I will not walk in shame and regret. And as it was not my intention, or even my knowledge, that Sam was in the house, I still feel no shame. She saw no violence, as there was none to see. There was no blood, no bruises and no traumatizing events. Just a lot of yelling and crying. I will quote my daughter regarding the situation: “I don’t understand the problem. It’s not as much of a big deal as everyone is making it out to be. It’s just something that happened.”