Something That Happened.

One thing you gather when you spend more than half a week in jail is a renewed sense of perspective.

(Quick aside: I just Googled around for a good prison adage to apply here, but I wasn't able to find one relevant enough to insert in my post without it seeming forced. In fact, at the time of this posting, a search for "prison adage" returns only about 29 results. I find it somewhat remarkable that only 29 web documents contain the phrase...Perhaps more prisoners need to blog?)

Obviously, incarceration is not intended to be a fun experience; prisoners are, after all, being confined in order to punish them or, at the very least, curtail their unlawful behavior. But fun is a relative concept; what's floats one fellow's boat may instead choke another bloke's goat.

A nuclear blast: flood of light, scorched eyes, scritch-scratch on vinyl, a shout in the chaos, it's the jailer's commands, Everybody Up, scritch-scratch, scritch (Oh, the mattresses), people are moving (I think I'll just sleep in), a jostled leg, an inmate's voice It's breakfast, getupman followed by the jailer I said ev-err-ee-bah-dee up!!! Scritch-scratch-zlit, Line up single file, anyone's still on a mattress noh-bah-dee gets breakfast...

I'm in the top bunk, for a few seconds I look down unclear about my circumstance, the concrete below seems perilously distant. Noh-bah-dee gets breakfast. Nobody wants to be the one who screws it up for everyone else. Not here, not in Dangerland. I take an unsteady leap (Where are my shoes?), I stumble into the line (Am I cutting in front of someone?), my head is caving in, too much rum, I'm collapsing in dizziness and nausea, suspicious of my stomach. Urine on the floor soaks through my socks. (Where are my damn shoes?)

Later I find, some of the inmates seem to think this is all some kind of fun, an amusing diversion, a Festival of Humiliating Delights. A "vacation", one fellow described it. Others seemed (acted?) proud of their incarceration, the time they'd end up serving in Twin Towers. It's hard to tell who's real, who's bullshitting. Facing real time, what else you gonna do? Cry about it? Probably too dangerous for that in here. Act tough. Be tough. Or suffer, more than you can imagine. What's not to like about life in Hell? I want to cry but I'm too afraid.

Labels: commentary, incarceration, incident, observations, perspective, prison adage, something that happened, story, true stories, vacationing

I never would have expected I'd spend time in jail. Ever. Not me. Yet there I was, for four days and nights, through President Lincoln's holiday weekend.

It happened at a Chili's, of all places. Not some seedy dive, a backalley bar. It didn't happen in a strip joint, or in a Red Light District. It happened in a friggin' Chili's, which makes it all the more humiliating.

A weekend of hell. Then a full day in court, a release without explanation. When inquired, the officer showed me the red stamp on my paperwork: Rejected, all charges.

Labels: incarceration, incident, something that happened, story, true stories, vacationing

There was someone I met, a new friend, although I remember some kind of conflict started the relationship. It was closing time, late afternoon or something. Some shop, like a wicker basket shop or a wood shop or something. Can’t remember. I was in the parking lot. I was discussing something with this person. There was a sense of urgency. Then I was somewhere else. I felt the need to return to this new friend at some time soon. We had arranged to meet again soon -- perhaps we were on a mission or something. Maybe to exhange some information. The information or whatever had the utmost importance. Salvation of the world type of stuff.

Then old friends. Joe? Byro had a list of names, including my own, with comments written about them. Maybe they were things he remembered and enjoyed to remember about the person. Maybe they were ways the person had tried to help (in this great cause). In any case, it was too late for saving the world. The jig was up. Time was winding down. Other friends may have been there, but they disappeared. I sensed that they left abruptly in order to be where they wanted to be at the last moment. Perhaps with family, perhaps in some special place.

I followed Byro, or the person that had been Byro (you know how people morph into other people in dreams) -- but I really think it was still Byro, he was the last person with me -- toward an area nearby, or not too far away. There were buildings, a parklike-area, a lake and sandy beachfront area. The sun was still up, late afternoon-like. Byro walked to the edge of the lake. I knew time was almost up. I had promised to meet that person, and felt the pull to find him, but I knew there wasn’t enough time.

I walked, or looked, toward the parklike area. There were huge -- I mean, really really tall swings and I could see two people, appearing male and female, swinging in wide arcs in the sunlight. A picturesque moment, except the swings were really unusually tall, the arcs great sweeping arcs. They were still some way off, but close enough to hear me should I yell. I realized that one of them was my friend, who’s name came to me, “Chris!” I yelled, waving my arm. As he swung, he turned and recognized me, waving back. “Goodbye!” I yelled as a waved goodbye to him. I was happy that I was able to say goodbye to him. Then I turned and ran along the beach toward the lake. Time was nearly up. It was all ending.

Perhaps I said something, like “Well, that’s all we can do” or “That’s all she wrote”, as I noticed my friend and I jumped into the air at the edge of the sand, and while in the air I knew it would all end and I impossibly pulled myself back to land on the sand when I should have landed in the water. At that moment the world changed -- everything became duller, less bright, the colors of the world were muted, and my friend was gone, and I knew everyone was gone. Immediately I began to rise, against my will, and I was glad that I was still aware and that everything hadn’t disappeared even though everything was changed and everyone else had disappeared, perhaps to their own dimensions or death.

As I rose I tried to force myself down, without luck, and as I reached a height perhaps 10 or 20 stories up, I was scared and wondering where I was going and then shocked to see a girl down below, walking swiftly, and as I yelled down, trying to get her attention, I rose higher and higher and I was happy that someone was still there, that everyone wasn’t gone, and I kept rising and then woke up.

Labels: apocalypse, dreams, falling, fantasy, nocturnal, nonfiction, story