The Curious Case of Christopher Comtois: Prologue

NOTE:  This chapter will open the story.  It is the prologue and should be ahead of chapter I.

PROLOGUE

Illinois

     “What the fuck are we supposed to do now?”

     I was saying this to my friend Rob, who was standing next to me on the shoulder of Interstate 80, somewhere in Southern Illinois.  It was between two and three o’clock in the morning and as dark as a night could be.  There were no headlights coming from either direction and clouds obscured any moonlight that was trying to get through.  Scattered around us along the side of the road were multiple suitcases, duffel bags, clothes, a few boxes and a super heavy 36 inch analog television.  Just ninety minutes ago all of these items had been tightly packed into my 1996 Jetta.  Some had been in the back seat and some in the trunk.  I couldn’t have fit anything else into the car even if was paid to do so.  Rob had to put his own gym bag full of clothes on the floor in front of his seat.   It had taken me over two hours to squeeze everything in that I’d need for an entire summer working at a kid’s camp in Maine.  Just moments ago the area was buzzing with the congestion and noise of at least a dozen police cars, a squad of overeager officers, unintelligible radio chatter and a helicopter that hovered above with a spotlight that turned the middle of the night into noon.  But now it was just Rob and me, standing on the side of the highway.  In the dark. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I said.  “How do they expect us to re-pack the car

with no light out here?               

     “Um, what?” Rob said.  It was a typical response. 

     “Unbelievable.  Simply unbelievable.”  I was officially and totally dumbfounded.

     It was unbelievable.  I had left Denver around eleven a.m. and drove all day to get to Rob’s house in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  Although he wasn’t working at the camp with me, it seemed like a good idea for him road trip to New York and Boston and then fly back home while I made the final stretch to Maine alone.  He didn’t have anything better to do, anyway.  Like me, he was a teacher and his summer vacation had just started. 

     Rob and I met when we both worked at a summer camp in Minnesota.  We had been friends for almost exactly ten years.  We lived together for a few years in Kansas City and he actually stayed with me at my parent’s house for a stretch of time.  We were notoriously poor in our 20s and in our camp counseling heyday.  We had taken many, many road trips together and it made sense that he’d go with me on this one since I’d be driving right by his house.  I had just picked him and we couldn’t have been on the road for even an hour when I noticed the police lights that had turned on behind me. 

     The natural thought when you think you’re being pulled over is to try to figure out why.  I wasn’t speeding because I knew that I had to be extra cautious when I left the state of Colorado.  My new friend, Detective Harrison Franklin, had told me that very day that with a felony arrest on my record, the police could be more likely to give me a hard time if I ever got pulled over.  I needed to lock my cruise control just below the highway limit and just let it be.  I met Harrison at a gas station parking lot on my way out of town so that he could give me back my stuff that had been taken from my room during a police search a few months prior.  The real reason he wanted to see me was to give me my mug shot photo that he and his partner had doctored up as a joke.  Actually, it was funny.  They took the mugshot photo from my arrest and inserted random, comical facts into the bio.  He was very proud of his work and had put my other seized belongings into a grocery shopping bag.   It included an old letter from a friend, a football jersey and a black stocking cap, all of which were inside individual ziplock bags and marked with various letters and numbers.  These items were all sitting on the side of the road, too. 

     “You have to be fucking kidding me?” I said, again.  I just stood with my hands on my hips and looked around into the darkness.  It was a little colder than I thought it should be in early June.  Neither of us had moved in at least five minutes as we tried to process what had just taken place.  When we were pulled over, the first thing the officer asked me was whether or not he could search the car. 

“Was I speeding?” I asked. 

“Sir, do you mind if I search inside your vehicle?” he said. 

Since I had nothing to hide, I said OK.  That was my first mistake.  This triggered a slew of activity as several more police cars arrived on the scene while Rob and I were asked to stand near the rear of my car while we were both searched.  It wasn’t the fourth time that year that I had to spread my legs and be patted down.  I asked why they wanted to search the car and was told that the area in which we were travelling was a known drug trafficking corridor on I-80.  The officer had noticed that we had turned on our dome light as we drove past him, which, apparently, is a highly suspicious move in Southern Illinois after midnight. 

     “Officer, we don’t have any drugs and we don’t have anything to hide,” I said to

      the man who had pulled us over.

     “Then everything will be just fine,” he said as another police vehicle slowed to a

      stop in front of my Jetta.  It was marked “K9 Unit.” 

      Rob and I could hear a group of officers talking near us and one went to the K9 car that had just arrived.  He and another cop opened the back door of the car and a German Sheppard trotted out from the backseat.  I leaned over to Rob and whispered something about Rin Tin Tin, which made us both laugh.  One of the officers put a leash on the dog and a couple of other guys opened all four of the doors of my car and the trunk.  I already thought that there were way too many people on the scene and that it was bordering on the absurd.  The officer holding the dog pulled him near the passenger door and pointed into the front seat area.  While he pointed, he kept excitedly saying things like, “Go get it!” and “Good dog!  Good dog!”  This was surely the highlight of his week.  The dog was anxious and sniffing everywhere as he hopped into the passenger seat and moved his face and nose back and forth like he was hungry and someone had hidden Kibbles and Bits in the car.  The eager officer kept pointing and directing the dog as it sniffed the dash board and seats.  I could hear the paws of the dog scratching the dashboard over and over.  I just stood and watched in amazement.  I had experienced some real shit fairly recently, but somehow this was taking the cake.  My car was being searched by a dog in the middle of the night with a battalion of police while I stood on the side of the road and watched.  After a few minutes, the dog holder pulled on the leash and backed away from the car.  He knelt down and petted the dog vigorously while he took a dog biscuit from his front pocket and dropped it on the ground.  It was immediately gobbled up. After a few biscuits were eaten, he squatted down and put one slightly in his mouth and let the dog take it from there.  It was like watching Shamu take the fish from the mouth of the woman on the pool deck.  The officer was really, really into it, and for a moment I wondered what the rest of his sad life was like.

     “Good dog.  Good dog,” he said over and over. I assumed he was divorced.

     While he was still kneeling down and enjoying the dog licking his face too much, he motioned towards the group of officers standing near us and both Rob and I could distinctly hear him say, “We have a positive hit.”  I didn’t take that as a positive for us.

     From that point forward, the real fiasco ensued.  If we were at a seven on the fiasco scale before the “positive hit,” we rocketed to an eleven after.  Rob and I were immediately separated and put into the back seat of separate police cars.  We were not handcuffed, but were told that we were being detained while the entirety of the contents of the car was searched.  The officer who pulled us over put me into the back seat of his car, which was parked directly behind mine. 

“We got you now, buddy,” he said while he assisted me into the back seat and shut the door. 

     I pretty much had an unobscured view of everything that was going on around my car.  I figured that no less than fifteen or so cops were standing around in different groups.  It was fairly amazing, really.  Looting and riots could be occurring in whatever the nearest town was since every available officer was now on the scene of the two guys in the Jetta who had driven with their dome light on.  As I watched, I realized that nothing was happening.  I couldn’t see the dog and there wasn’t much movement, just groups of cops talking.   Just when I thought that it couldn’t get any worse, it got worse.  The sound was unmistakable and kept getting louder and louder.  A helicopter was very, very close to us and suddenly the entire area was turned into daytime.  I immediately knew that they were all just waiting until the chopper arrived with the spotlight so they could see better.  A fucking chopper with a spotlight.  I had now seen it all.  I sat back into my seat and noticed that my mouth was actually wide open agape in amazement.  It would have been a perfect close-up if this were a movie.

     The helicopter was super loud and I couldn’t figure out how low to the ground it was.  It had to be sitting directly above us, but since I didn’t notice a massive wind swirling, I assumed that it was probably higher up than I imagined.  I was impressed, however, at how bright the area had become.  The spotlight was no joke. 

     Within a minute, the dog and his divorced handler reappeared and a few other officers began taking bags out of my car and bringing them over to the dog.  They would bring over a bag, set it down, open it up and then start filtering through the clothes and contents while the dog sniffed through it all.  I didn’t have any drugs and I know that Rob didn’t have any drugs and neither of us did drugs, so I didn’t have anything to worry about.  But given what I had gone through in March, I was extremely nervous.  Franklin’s warning about getting pulled over was coming to life and who knew how far these idiots would go to make sure that they were right to call in this massive enterprise in the middle of the night.  I began to feel very nervous and tensed up a little every time they brought a new bag or box to the dog and was relieved each time it passed the test and was discarded elsewhere on the shoulder.  It was not lost on me that it had taken me a painstaking two hours to pack the car and it didn’t appear that anyone was in a hurry to put the stuff back where they found it. 

     Bag after bag was brought over, sniffed through, and tossed off to the side.  They even got out my TV and had the dog sniff around it.  Shit, there could have been a million dollars worth of  smack hidden in that thing for all I knew.  It would have explained why it was so fucking heavy.  It took two guys to carry the thing over and one stumbled a little.  I would have traded the loss of the TV to watch them drop the thing and break it.  But it, too, passed the dog test. 

     Just as one of the officers opened my trunk, my stomach dropped and I nearly got sick right in the back of the car.  I had totally forgotten that I had agreed to carry two of my buddy Billy’s duffel bags of clothes for him.  Fuck.  FUCK!  Billy was a friend of ours who would also be working in Maine with me, but he wouldn’t be coming out for another week.  I had just been in California with him the past weekend when I ran my first marathon.  I hadn’t checked any bags on my flight out and Billy asked if I could take his two back to Colorado with me and bring them to Maine.  My exact words to him, not even 48 hours prior, were, “I will, but DO NOT put any drugs in my bag.  I don’t want to fly with any of your drugs.”  He promised that the bags were clean.  Now, I wasn’t so sure. 

     Billy and I met and became friends at the same camp where Rob and I met.  There was a large group of us camp friends spread out around the world.  Within our group, there were the beer drinkers and the pot smokers.  Rob and I were in the beer drinking group and Billy was in the other.  Everyone drank, but the pot smoker group smoked a lot of pot.  A lot.  I had done it on occasion, but generally stuck to alcohol.  I knew that Billy would be bringing a substantial amount of marijuana to camp, and I didn’t want to carry it on the plane.  Even if I hadn’t gone through my jail saga in March, I still wouldn’t have wanted to travel with it.  I trusted Billy, but I was now sweating and more or less terrified of the two red Nike bags sitting in my trunk. 

     Bag after bag came out of the trunk and finally the first of Billy’s.  I was trying to figure out what I was going to do when they found the drugs.  Of course I would deny that it was mine, but I would certainly go to jail that night.  My summer would be over before it started and I would be very, very screwed.  I kept telling myself that I trusted Billy and that the bags were clean, but why had the dog smelled drugs in the first place?  Either it was a mistake, the cops were lying or Billy put pot in his bag.  I would know the answer very soon since bag number one was being opened in front of the dog.  He sniffed and sniffed and the officer rummaged through the clothes and then tossed it aside.  One down.  My body was still tense.

     The next bag wasn’t Billy’s and I didn’t even pay attention since I knew that my bags were okay.  In fact, irony would have it that Billy’s second bag was the final bag pulled from the trunk and the last bag to be searched.  The entirety of my summer belongings were scattered along I-80, mostly open and all illuminated by a hovering helicopter.  Every officer in Southern Illinois had gathered to watch the entertainment, and for me, it was all coming down to a red Nike bag.  A bag in which I didn’t know the contents and one that I had explicitly asked the owner not to put drugs into.  The windows inside the police car where I was sitting began to fog up a little with my rising body temperature.  I was gripping the seat and my jaw was beginning to get sore from me clinching it so hard.  It was slow motion watching that dog sniff through the bag.  I was certain that the officer squatting down helping the dog sift through the contents would gleefully hold up a huge bag of drugs to a massive roar of excitement that would drown out the chopper.  Cops would be high fiving and hugging.  I would be on the front page of the Shitville, Illinois Daily the next day.  It wouldn’t be the first or tenth time I made a paper that year.

     When you’re watching your favorite team play a nail-biter game and it’s intense and back and forth and the ending very much is in doubt, your body gets tense, your heart races and it is stressful.   But when your team holds on to win, you immediately feel a sense of relief and your body relaxes.  This is exactly how I felt when Billy’s bag was tossed aside and the search complete.  It was a nail-biter with an ending very much in doubt, but, in the end, my team pulled it out and held on for the win. 

     Just like after a high school fight in the cafeteria is broken up, most of the police officers who had shown up to watch the show started to slowly disappear.  Groups of guys finished their conversations and headed to their cars.  One by one, the cars switched off their swirling red and blue lights and headed down either side of the highway.  The dog and his “owner” were one of the first to go.  There were maybe five cops still on sight when my guy came back and opened the door to the back seat. 

“You can get out.  I know you guys are hiding something, but we couldn’t find it,” he said.

“Honestly, we don’t.  But if someone had smoked a bunch of pot in the car in the past, would the dog have smelled it?”  I had totally forgotten that I just bought the car in January from our friend Chris, who was one of the leaders of the pot smoking camp group.  He had smoked a lot of pot in that car.  I was shocked that this fact had escaped me.

“I don’t know, maybe.  Why, did you smoke a bunch of pot in there?”

“Nope, but the guy I bought it from did.”

          He gave me my license back and Rob was now standing next to me. Suddenly, the spotlight went out and we could tell that the helicopter was flying away.  All of the other police had already left and it was shocking at how dark it really was.  The chopper spotlight was on us for at least thirty minutes, so now the dark was even darker.  The guy who first pulled us over and started this entire shit show was getting back into his car.  After all of that he wasn’t even going to have the decency to say “goodbye” or “have a nice night” or “drive safe” or, God forbid, “sorry.”  He opened his door and was just about to get inside when I yelled over to him,

“So, we’re on our own to pick all this up?”  I knew we were, but I was just curious as to what he’d say.

“We take it out, you put it back.  Have a safe drive.”  

The Curious Case of Christopher Comtois (Part XIX)

Candlelight

     In the passing of 90 seconds, I had gone from very real thoughts of spending the better part of my life behind bars to planning my homecoming at a bar within walking distance.  In those same 90 seconds I also went from very real thoughts that Kira would be waiting for me as my wife when I got out of prison to realizing that it was all a mirage and that my true self knew that I had to end it with her.  Again.  Although I was still a prisoner and had just a minute or two to get back to my cell before dinner, with the flick of a switch, I could once again see my path ahead and Kira was not going to be on it with me.  It wasn’t planned and it wasn’t conscience, but Kira represented the support that I needed to endure the trauma that I faced for twelve days.  She hadn’t wanted it to end the first time and she was more than willing to allow me back in as my new world unfolded.  As I walked back to my cell, armed with freedom in my pocket, I felt extremely conflicted about what had occurred during my time under the watch of the Colorado authorities.  Was I simply an asshole who used Kira as a crutch during my extreme time of need or did I truly mean everything that I said during our hours spent on the phone together?  I decided that I honestly didn’t care.  Dealing with Kira would have to wait.  I was going home and would deal with it later.  Chris was sitting on his bed and I shifted gears as I entered my cell for what I hoped would be the last time. 

“I’m getting out tonight,” I said to him.  Surgery couldn’t remove the smile from my face.

     “What?  How do you know?” he said.

     “My lawyer called my Mom a few minutes ago and told her that I was getting out

      tonight.  I have no idea why or when, but I’m getting out.”         

     “That’s awesome. Have a beer for me.”  I would.  But probably not for him. 

     I wanted to call everyone (minus Kira).  I wanted to know when I’d be home.  I couldn’t sit down and just paced the room waiting to go to dinner.  Chris was reading a book and didn’t say much, as usual.  We didn’t have much of a relationship and I figured that he was probably happier that he would get his cell back to himself again, but he was a decent kid and I could tell that he was legitimately happy for me.  For some strange reason I couldn’t wait to tell my basketball buddies.  They would be happy, too. 

     Time slowed, just as it had every day of my life in jail, but this time it wasn’t crawling by antagonizing me with each second while I waited for news or a visitor or daylight.  It slowed down just like it does when you’re counting the minutes until the end of class on the last day of school combined with the anticipation of Christmas morning when you’re ten years old and you’re lying in bed in the middle of the night.  I didn’t know when it would happen, but going home couldn’t come fast enough.  I thought of how I had done what I thought that I couldn’t do, which was nothing.  I made it twelve days basically doing nothing, which, for me, is the worst punishment imaginable.  My parents knew this early on in my life.  Spanking or taking tangible things away was not a deterrent for me and bad behavior.  It was taking time and activity from me.  When I was grounded and forced to stay home, I was limited in what I could do.  No television, no phone and no fun.  Minutes and hours that crept by until the eventual end of my “sentence.”   The threat of idle time always got my attention when presented as a consequence.  I need constant stimulus and jail took that away.  The added extreme emotional toll was far worse, but the simple removal of things to do was something that I never thought I could manage.  But I did. 

     The door to our cell finally opened and it was time for dinner.  I ended up standing behind a guy who I had spoken with a few times and he asked me how things were going.  “I’m going home tonight,” I gleefully told him.  I wasn’t sure if I had ever given him the full rundown of why I was in jail, but it didn’t matter.  “Go get laid,” he said.  For most prisoners, I learned during my stay, sex was the first thing that most wanted to do upon release.  I just laughed and told him that I’d give it my best shot, knowing that there would be no line of women eagerly awaiting my homecoming.  At least I’d have the option, though. I really just wanted to get a beer and sleep in my own bed.  I had had enough of my toboggan.

     I loaded my plate with more food than I had since my arrival and took my saved seat with my crew. 

     “Boys, I’m getting out tonight!”

     “No shit!?  That’s great!  Congratulations!” they all kind of said at the same time.   

     As I sat back and reveled in the glory of going home, I couldn’t help but think about the journey that led me to the end.  I had met so many people that I would have never, ever met in my “real” life.  Franklin, Cube, Pepe’, John, Dave, the basketball boys and all of the other random inmates, officers and officials that I interacted with during my stay.  Now that the cloud of fear was lifted, I once again very much wanted to document what I was seeing and going through.  I wished that I had a camera and could take some photos with my “new friends.”  I wanted to show my actual friends where I had been and who I had met.  I wished that I could go back to the City Jail and get a shot of my cell and the clock tower.  The experience had been so surreal, so out of the norm, that I knew that it would be very difficult to fully explain what it had been like.  I didn’t know anyone who had been in “real” jail and now I would be the flag bearer for everyone I knew to give them a little glimpse of what life “inside” was like. 

     During the meal, I told all the guys at the table that I’d mention them in the paper if my story made it to the media. I wasn’t oblivious to the fact that my story may be something that would be in the media.  I was a teacher in jail for crimes against a minor and now I would be a teacher who spent time in jail for crimes against a child that he didn’t commit.  Very early on during my stay, in the midst of another very long night alone, I worried that my story had already been on the news.  “Local Teacher Jailed” would be the tagline above the news anchor along with my mug shot, which most likely looked an awful lot like a guilty man with scraggly hair.  I know that if I was watching the news and saw my story, with my picture, I would immediately think, “That guy’s fucking guilty.”  None of my friends or Dave had mentioned that it had been in the paper or on TV, so I felt lucky in that respect.  But now, since I was going to be exonerated, I figured that perhaps it would be newsworthy. 

     “Make sure they spell my name right,” one of the guys at my table said.  They

     all seemed excited that I might actually get them in the paper for something

     other than the local crime feed.

     Word seemed to travel fast around the room that I was getting out.  Multiple guys stopped by my table to give me their good words as they took their trays up after the meal.  It was all very, very surreal.  I was just a guy from the other side of the tracks and had somehow fit in.  While we talked during dinner, my mind was racing elsewhere.  I went through the entire journey in my head and just shook my head that it had really happened.  It was the exact opposite of when I’d be talking to someone and my mind was elsewhere with worry and fear.  I was full of joy and hope.  My laughter was real and I was finally able to take everything in that was around me without an ounce of trepidation. 

     Dinner finally ended and I went back to my cell for what I hoped was the final time.  By the time evening recreation began I figured that I’d be already be out, or at least on my way.  I didn’t sit down once and actually sort of packed up like I would on the last day of a vacation, which was dumb since I didn’t have anything to pack.  My arrest report, which had become ragged and crinkled from multiple, multiple readings, my bible, which I wasn’t sure if I could take home or not and some scribbled ramblings that I had tried unsuccessfully to write.  My mind wouldn’t let me concentrate enough to actually write anything intelligible, which I felt was unfortunate.  I wanted to document my thoughts and feelings as I was going through it, but the extremity prevented any focus or direction. 

     Chris sat silent on his bed and wasn’t paying attention to my nervous pacing and clock watching.  I had never felt the energy and adrenaline that had been rushing though my body since the first words from my mom about my release.  I still couldn’t conceptualize the ending, but I knew it was near.  Or at least I hoped.  I was stopped in my tracks as the thought of not getting out that night hit my brain.  What if they are going to wait till the morning?  What if there was a setback?  The powerless void reemerged and I felt sick.  I couldn’t take the rug being pulled out.  Not tonight.  Once I let myself believe that it was over, there was no going back.  One more night after thinking I was done could possibly be the final push over the ledge.  Luckily I didn’t have much time to dwell on the alternate possibilities when the loud and familiar electronic opening of the doors signaled the beginning of evening recreation.  I didn’t have a destination, but I shot out of the room as soon as our door opened.  I just needed to move around.  I needed to go on to the next stage of my life.  I needed freedom. 

     I didn’t talk to anyone, really.  I normally didn’t really talk to many people when I was out of my cell.  Yes, I had made some connections with some guys and had avoided whatever evils that can come with incarceration, but at the end of the day, I just wanted to be left alone.  I had spent hours and hours pacing laps on the outskirts of the recreation room.  It was my “track” and I went right back to my counter clockwise loop when I left my cell.  I watched the card players deal their games, the chess and checkers guys deep in thought at their tables, the “new Christians” gather for their nightly bible study session and the others, alone in their thoughts and motionless in their chairs.  A few guys were on the phone and I was taking the final photos in my mind.  Each day and night was exactly the same as the one previous.  Same guys, same spots, same games, same conversations and I almost felt privileged that I got to see it all and live it for a while.  It was my own movie.  It was the strangest feeling that I had ever had.  Why on earth wouldn’t I feel anything but contempt and anger for being put in this hellish situation?   Now that it appeared that I was at the end of the line, I took it all in and kept checking the clock.  It seemed like a long, long time ago that I was the clock tower manager and appointed time keeper.  Time had almost ceased to move and every time I looked up at one of the clocks I would swear that the second hand was moving backwards. 

     On one of my laps I stopped at the control desk.  The officer who was seated behind the desk always seemed annoyed when anyone would ask him a question.  It didn’t matter who was asking or what they were asking about, he always acted as if it the biggest pain in the ass in the history of pains in the asses to give the answer.  Most of the time he was reading the paper or doing a crossword puzzle and most guys knew that it generally not worth the hassle of asking him for anything, however large or small the request was.  He was an overweight, balding white guy with a horrific mustache.  I had created life stories to go with most of the guards and police and his wasn’t pretty.  He had been relegated to County Jail late night guard duty and was counting the days until his retirement, which took a lot of math since he was years away from the end.  He disliked his wife and would often go to a bar on the way home and stay just long enough to avoid seeing her when he got home.  He had always wanted to be a cop simply to get the power over others.  Tonight, though, I didn’t care.  I wanted some more info and he was the only person who might have answers.  I made a pit stop during one of my laps around the room.

          “Sir, do you have any information about any prisoners being released

tonight?”

     I asked him as nicely as I could.  No movement. He was reading a People Magazine.

          “Sir, I got word that I am supposed to be released tonight.  Do you have

any information about when I might get out?” 

‘    

     As if I was asking borrow his Camaro, he very slowly and methodically closed up his magazine, set it on the desk and looked up at me.  He made it abundantly clear that reading about the Sexiest Man Alive in 2002 was far more important than whatever I was asking him, but while he looked up at me, his eyes glanced at my photo ID badge and he began to flip through a stack a papers near the phone on the desk. 

      “Justice.  Justice…that’s funny,” he said chuckling to himself while he continued to scan the papers.  I was in no mood to discuss the ironies of my last name as an incarcerated inmate, but I tried to smile like what he said was humorous and original, neither of which would be words used to describe him.  Ever. 

     “Who told you you were getting out tonight?” he asked.   I nearly blurted out the real answer, which was my mother, but instead told him that it was my lawyer.  No need to hear whatever ridiculous comment “my mother” would have brought forth. 

     “Well, looks like your lawyer was wrong.  I don’t see you on any release list.”

     Surprisingly, I wasn’t as immediately deflated as I probably should have been.  I could have very easily just walked away from the desk, ran to my bed and curled up into a ball.  I almost did, but I felt like Dave wouldn’t have told my mother that I was getting out unless there were things happening that would prompt my release.  The officer had already moved back into his seat and was re-opening his People when I said, “If someone isn’t on your list now, does that mean for sure that they aren’t getting out tonight?”  I knew that I was kicking the hornet’s nest and that my additional questions could really set him off. 

“Look, Justice, I don’t fucking know.  You’re not on the list now, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t be on the list later.  Maybe you haven’t noticed, but shit doesn’t happen very fast around here.  Now leave me the fuck alone.” 

      I had hope.  It was still fairly early in the evening and I thought that whatever paperwork that needed to be done hadn’t made it to D Block yet.  All I could do was keep doing my laps with some occasional pit stops to talk to a guy or two that I knew.  The TV had just been turned on and a small group had sat down to watch whatever was on.  After an hour or so of pacing, I decided to sit down at a table by myself.  I wasn’t having much conscience thought and was just kind of dazed.  My body and my mind were just about out of any energy resources.  Too much emotion and thought had been expended and I was out of gas.  So I just sat.  I didn’t even hear it the first time it came over the loud speaker.

     “Justice, 240.  Justice, 240.”

     I heard it the second time, but it didn’t register.  It was as if it was only in my head.  It was so simple, but so hard to understand.  I knew from others who had gotten released that 240 was code for getting out and to gather you stuff and report to the D Block exit door.  I had heard it probably once or twice day since I arrived, but hearing my name attached to it didn’t compute.  A sat motionless staring at the wall for a solid 15 seconds before I was snapped back to the world by a slap on my shoulder from one of my basketball buddies.

          “Yo, Dawg, ain’t that you?  You’re out!” he said with a big smile on face.  I slowly turned my head and saw a bunch of the other guys looking at me, clapping, smiling.  My knees buckled when I got up and I was so dazed and worn out that I didn’t know what to do.  What was I supposed to do?  For whatever reason, instead of an intense release of emotion, maybe dropping to my knees in a pool of tears or jumping up and down like I just won the World Series, I just stood there.  The world around me was swirling and guys were coming over to shake hands and give a quick goodbye.  A few different groups of guys had stood up and were clapping and whistling.  It was Brubaker, for real.   I was slowly making my way to my cell to grab nothing, really, but thought that I should at least say goodbye and good luck to Chris, but I was literally in a fog.  I understood what was happening, but I literally felt like I was watching it all from afar.  I had tried to imagine this moment in my head for countless unmanageable seconds, minutes, hours and days, and now that it was really happening, I was detached from it all.  I was watching a movie with someone else in it.  It was almost like my mind frozen and I was paralyzed or in a coma.  I was in a state of shock.  But from the back of the brain, from inside the fog, I did know one thing:  I was going home.  It ran like a recorded message.  I was going home. 

     I was going home.

     From this moment forward, time took a u-turn.  However slow the previous twelve days had been, the next few hours were the reverse.   I was on fast forward and I was in a room putting on my original clothes.  I nearly felt drunk and unable to focus.  I was shuttled into a holding cell or two while I was processed out and I honestly have no idea how long any of this took.  I had entered a state of consciousness that I had never experienced before.  From the moment that my name was called until I was standing with an officer explaining that I would need to exit through a gate outside the door in front of me, I was literally a spectator of my own life.  Suddenly, it seemed, I was standing outside alone, in the cold, in the dark, watching an electronic gate slowly slide open in front of me.  Watching the gate open was exactly how the Blues Brothers started.  Jake Blues, standing at the prison gate while it slowly opened, and Elwood, on the other side, waiting for him.  Even now, at a point in my life when my body was nearly ready to completely shut down from exhaustion, this movie reference wasn’t lost on me.  It was perfect, really.  I wanted someone else to see this happen with me, but it would have to wait and there would be plenty of time for stories.  While that gate made its way open, I was surprised that instead of being overjoyed and jubilant that instead I was in a state of total disbelief that the last 12 days had actually happened.  It wasn’t real.  I had just happened, I lived it, but it wasn’t real.  The gate stopped and I was out of my coma.  My mind and body connected again and time was back to normal.  I began to walk, and as suddenly as it started, it was over.  I was alone, in the dark and free.    

     My breath was visible and it was chilly.  I stared out to nowhere as the gate behind me slowly grinded closed.  My hands were jammed in my pockets for warmth and I was happy, again, for my choice to bring along my USA hockey fleece.  I realized that I stunk.  I was very aware of my old, unwashed clothes that I had lived in for nearly eight full days and I couldn’t piece together when I had last showered.  I really did smell bad.  I must have stood there for five minutes with my mind jumping from thought to random thought.  I snapped out of it for a moment and looked around to realize that I was on the far side of the building and in a parking lot.  A few cars were scattered around and in the distance I could see a highway which I assumed was either I-70 or I-25.  I couldn’t remember what had happened on the bus ride to County, but I knew that we hit a stretch of road that had to be one of those two highways.  Since it was dark, I couldn’t orientate myself with the mountains and I couldn’t see downtown.  I began to walk around from the side of the building and tried to figure out where I had entered back on Friday.  I was horribly confused as to what I was supposed to do next.  I’m out!  But what now? 

     I had to call Kermit to let him know that I was out and ask him to come pick me up.  I had tried to picture this moment for an endless eternity and now that it was happening in real time, I couldn’t believe how blasé I felt about it.  It was like I needed to call him to get a ride home from the airport.  I had been incarcerated for twelve days after being charged with five felonies associated with the molestation of a teenage cheerleader.  I didn’t know why I had gotten out, but I assumed that the DNA test had come back negative.  I felt like Dave and Franklin and Kermit and Aimee and everyone else who knew where I was would be waiting on the other side of the gate with a cake, a cold beer, balloons, streamers and a marching band.  Maybe with TV reporters and blinding camera lights asking me how it felt to be free again, how angry I was at the police department, whether or not I was planning on suing anyone or when I planned on telling Jerry to fuck off.   But I stood alone, watching my breath dissipate into the darkness, trying to figure out where I’d find a phone.  I walked around the building a little more and saw a short sidewalk leading to a glass-door entrance to the building.  I could see through the windows that it was a public waiting room for families and friends.  There were maybe three people inside and I could see a row of phones, very similar to one on D Block.  I looked up at the sky and let out an audible laugh.  I’d have to fucking go back in to call Kermit. 

     Back inside.  That’s funny.

     I walked up and pulled the door on the right open.  As I entered the room, I could see the people I saw through the window.  It appeared they were all together, probably a friend, a wife and a teenage daughter waiting for a prisoner to be released.  They were all sitting down in the individual padded seats next to the pop machine.  The room had the feel of a bus station:  vending machines, wooden benches, plastic padded chairs, a bank of phones, maroon tile on the floor and a control booth that was shielded by bullet proof glass.  Very Greyhound-esque.  I went over to the phones and realized that I’d have to once again call collect since I didn’t have any change.  I thought for a split second that I’d ask one of those other folks for a quarter, but decided that one more collect call wouldn’t hurt. 

     I dialed the phone number the same way I’d been dialing phone numbers for two weeks, adding a zero in front rather than a one.  I waited for the time to record my name but was surprised that an actual operator answered and asked my name.  I could hear the phone begin to ring and almost immediately Kermit said, “Hello?”  I had become conditioned to waiting for the recorded announcement about my whereabouts and the conversation being recorded, etc., and naturally tuned out  during that process since it really did take about 90 seconds to get connected after the person on the other end had answered.  I drifted off for just a second when I heard Kermit saying, “Hello?  HELLO?”  There wasn’t any recording!  I was on my own.  This was the first real indication that I wasn’t in jail anymore, even if I was technically calling FROM jail.

     “Wood, I’m out,” I said calmly.

     “Out, out?  As in out?” he asked.

     “Out.”

     “Where are you now?”

     “Jail.”

     “I thought you said you were out?”  He was easy to confuse. 

     “No, I’m still at the County Jail, but I’m out.  I’m in a public waiting room or     

      something.  Can you come pick me up?  Wait, what time is it?” 

      I realized that I had almost no concept of the time.  It could have just as easily

      been three in the morning or ten at night. I had no idea.

     “It’s 9:30.  Where are you?” 

     “I have no idea.  I was blindfolded when they brought me here.”  It was closer to

      the truth than he thought. 

     I really didn’t know where I was.  I told Kermit to hold on and went over to the officer behind the glass to find out the location of the County Jail.  Apparently People magazine was extremely popular at the County Jail since the officer sitting at the desk was reading the same one as the dickhead back in D block.  When I asked him where we were, he went through the same bullshit as the other guy with the pained facial expressions, the exaggerated closing of the magazine and the asking me to repeat my question.  There was obviously no premium put on customer service at the Country Jail.  He did finally give me the address and I didn’t recognize it, but there was zero chance that I was going to ask for further information from him.  I said the address four times in my head while I walked back over to the phone, where the receiver was dangling from the metal cord. 

“10500 Smith Road in Denver,” I told Kermit.  I figured he would know where it was since he’d been out in Denver since 1996.

“Where the fuck is that?” he asked. 

“No idea.  I think it’s off of 25 or 70.”

“OK, I’ll look it up on a map and be there as soon as I can.” 

My immediate thought was that I doubted he owned a map. 

     I told him about the location of the waiting area at the building and hung up the phone.  As I turned around to go find a seat, the inmate who the others were waiting for had just arrived in the room.  There was hugging and kissing and visible happiness happening.  It went on for several minutes.  I found a bench to sit down on and realized that I was very, very tired.  But I was also wired.  A final remaining dose of adrenaline had injected itself into my veins while I was on the phone with Kermit and I was excited to begin the beginning.  I sat fidgety with my knee bouncing up and down and did what I had just nearly perfected, which was waiting.  I waited for over an hour.   Was he lost?  Was the County Jail really over an hour from downtown?  I didn’t think I was on the bus for that long.  I knew he didn’t have a map. 

     Ninety minutes after I hung up the phone, two hours since I had rejoined society and five hours since I had left D Block, I saw Kermit’s green Ford Explorer pull into the parking lot.  I slowly stood up, walked out the door to the passenger side and opened the door.  I leaned over, shook Kermit’s hand and sat down in the sea.  It was a seat that I had been in countless hours on many long road trips over the years.  We had been to Vegas in that truck, to Chicago, to camp and all over Colorado.  This road trip would be my favorite. 

     “Welcome back,” he said.  “How was it?”

     “Good.  Good,” 

     It was so simple, but it meant so much.  It was normal.  We had been good friends before this began, but through this had bonded even more.  He had visited me in jail twice and, along with Aimee, he’d always have memories that none of my other friends would have.  There was never a question or hesitation from him about whether or not I was guilty.   Neither of us were ever the kind of guys to openly talk about our feelings or offer a hug.  Our affection was shown through handshakes and harassment.   We had shared a lot in nearly a decade and now we would always be able to talk about the time I went to jail. 

     “I thought you might need these.” 

     He leaned his right arm back behind the front seats and came back up holding a bottle of Coors Light and can of Copenhagen. 

     “I’m sorry that I didn’t get you anything,” I said.  He laughed. 

     “Wait, what’s the date?” I really had no idea.  I couldn’t think. 

     “It’s March 12.”  It was nearly midnight.

     “Well, let’s go celebrate your birthday!” I said as I cracked up the beer and began

     to open the can of Copenhagen.  I hadn’t dipped since the day before I was

     arrested and hadn’t really thought about until the moment he showed me the

     can. 

     I realized that Kermit’s birthday was in ten minutes, when it would officially be March 13.  There was a lot ahead of me.  I had to deal with my employment situation.  I needed to call my mom and eventually I’d have to drive back to Missouri to see her.  I wanted to reach out to my friends who had supported me while I was inside and I wanted to tell the others who had no idea it was happening.  I needed to figure out how I was going to pay rent and my bills.  I wanted to know why I got out and what was next.  I wanted to tell the story of the first basketball game and Pepe’ and John and the bus ride and Cube and all of the other crazy shit that suddenly seemed like it happened in a dream.  I wanted to talk to Franklin and thank him and let me buy me the beer he promised me.   At some point I would have to start to think about a job.  Fuck, I’m going to have to call Kira.  I had nearly forgotten.  There would be plenty of time for that stuff, though.  Tomorrow.  Later.  I had no plan in front of me and, besides, Kermit was turning 31 in a few minutes.  It was a Tuesday night and he had to teach in the morning, but I figured he’d be up for going out before we went home. 

     “Let’s go to the Candlelight,” I said as we exited the parking lot onto a frontage

     road. 

     We rode silent for a few minutes.  I had made it out unscathed, so to speak, but I was weak and felt beat up.  I had hardly slept in a week and a half and I figured that I probably lost nearly ten pounds.  My brain was scattered, but as we turned onto the onramp for I-70, I suddenly remembered why I was supposed to be mad at Kermit.  I looked at him with an angry look on my face and started shaking my head in disgust.

     "What?"  he said while speeding up to get on the highway.  
     "50 goals while I'm locked up?  Really?  Bullshit."
     Kermit just laughed, but he knew it was bullshit.  We would be able to debate it at the Candlelight.