now seemed, we both agreed, like a much safer place than it had before.
9.
I WAKE UP IN A PANIC, disoriented, unsure where I am. I’ve been startled by a noise, but I don’t know what I heard.
For a moment, I sit paralyzed by the vague yet urgent sensation that I’m in immediate physical danger. When my chest begins to ache, I realize that I’m holding my breath.
On exhale, the fog in my head begins to dissipate. Little by little, my pulse recedes, and as my surroundings slowly bleed into focus, I become aware of the hard iron bunk frame behind my knees. I’m awake. I recognize, my sense of irony apparently intact, that in terms of immediate physical danger I really couldn’t be safer.
My cell looks just the way I remember it. Actually, that’s not true. A deposit has been made. This must have been what woke me up: the sound of the hinged plate covering the foodslot in the door pushing open, dropping closed again. I see a gray plastic tray waiting for me on the shelf.
I feel like I’ve slept on a sidewalk. There’s a hot stitch in my neck, a deadened nerve in my hip, muscles knotted in the middle of my back. My bladder is bursting, but I also smell food. Aiming my stream into the steel bowl of the toilet feels a little bit like taking a whiz at the breakfast table. I haven’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday, and even over the rising smell of warm frothy urine, the smell of breakfast makes my stomach growl.
Breakfast turns out to be a fried egg sandwich that comes in a grease- spotted take- out sack from Petrow’s, a ‘ 30s- style train car diner across the square from the courthouse.
Something about this amuses me, even lifts my spirits. What are they eating for breakfast at the big county facility north of town? Briefly I imagine sweaty guards dragging tin cups along jail cell bars. I imagine bleary- eyed men in denim shirts shuffling into a chow line at dawn. It doesn’t matter that I’m picturing something straight out of
Cool Hand Luke;
the point is, they must not even have a kitchen here. This isn’t where they keep the real prisoners. I’m only at the temporary jail.
I can’t remember a fried egg sandwich ever tasting as good as this one. In the bottom of the sack there’s a hash brown potato patty shaped like a football. It’s cold by the time I get to it, and a little on the stale side. I could eat four more just like it.
Next to the sack is a lidded paper cup filled with lukewarm orange juice, still foamy on top. After using the toilet I’m inclined to leave the juice where it sits. I could use a cup of black coffee instead, or a gallon bucketful.
But things are looking up.
It’s morning. A brand- new day. I’ve got a regular pit bull for a lawyer, and he’s on his way now to get me out of here. Pretty soon I’ll be able to see Sara. We’re going to fix this.
• • •
Because the city jail and the courthouse are connected, travel to my arraignment involves a semiconvoluted indoor walk through a gradual shift in surrounding décor. A uniformed guard leads me along a gritty tile corridor, up a concrete stairwell, through a steel door, down a polished marble corridor, up a wrought iron stairwell, and through another door made of dark old wood, retrofitted with a modern security card reader.
Because the courthouse is a historic building that presides over a historic town square, I’m mildly surprised by the remodeled, carpeted, vaguely corporate look of the courtroom. Be cause it’s Saturday—which means, as Douglas Bennett already informed me, that felonies and misdemeanors are heard in the same session—I’m the only person in the room with handcuffs and an armed escort.
I count perhaps a dozen people scattered around the general seating area, which consists of several rows of auditorium-style chairs separated from the front of the courtroom by a waist- high partition. On my entrance, all eyes turn toward me. It’s equally easy to imagine that I’m
9.
I WAKE UP IN A PANIC, disoriented, unsure where I am. I’ve been startled by a noise, but I don’t know what I heard.
For a moment, I sit paralyzed by the vague yet urgent sensation that I’m in immediate physical danger. When my chest begins to ache, I realize that I’m holding my breath.
On exhale, the fog in my head begins to dissipate. Little by little, my pulse recedes, and as my surroundings slowly bleed into focus, I become aware of the hard iron bunk frame behind my knees. I’m awake. I recognize, my sense of irony apparently intact, that in terms of immediate physical danger I really couldn’t be safer.
My cell looks just the way I remember it. Actually, that’s not true. A deposit has been made. This must have been what woke me up: the sound of the hinged plate covering the foodslot in the door pushing open, dropping closed again. I see a gray plastic tray waiting for me on the shelf.
I feel like I’ve slept on a sidewalk. There’s a hot stitch in my neck, a deadened nerve in my hip, muscles knotted in the middle of my back. My bladder is bursting, but I also smell food. Aiming my stream into the steel bowl of the toilet feels a little bit like taking a whiz at the breakfast table. I haven’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday, and even over the rising smell of warm frothy urine, the smell of breakfast makes my stomach growl.
Breakfast turns out to be a fried egg sandwich that comes in a grease- spotted take- out sack from Petrow’s, a ‘ 30s- style train car diner across the square from the courthouse.
Something about this amuses me, even lifts my spirits. What are they eating for breakfast at the big county facility north of town? Briefly I imagine sweaty guards dragging tin cups along jail cell bars. I imagine bleary- eyed men in denim shirts shuffling into a chow line at dawn. It doesn’t matter that I’m picturing something straight out of
Cool Hand Luke;
the point is, they must not even have a kitchen here. This isn’t where they keep the real prisoners. I’m only at the temporary jail.
I can’t remember a fried egg sandwich ever tasting as good as this one. In the bottom of the sack there’s a hash brown potato patty shaped like a football. It’s cold by the time I get to it, and a little on the stale side. I could eat four more just like it.
Next to the sack is a lidded paper cup filled with lukewarm orange juice, still foamy on top. After using the toilet I’m inclined to leave the juice where it sits. I could use a cup of black coffee instead, or a gallon bucketful.
But things are looking up.
It’s morning. A brand- new day. I’ve got a regular pit bull for a lawyer, and he’s on his way now to get me out of here. Pretty soon I’ll be able to see Sara. We’re going to fix this.
• • •
Because the city jail and the courthouse are connected, travel to my arraignment involves a semiconvoluted indoor walk through a gradual shift in surrounding décor. A uniformed guard leads me along a gritty tile corridor, up a concrete stairwell, through a steel door, down a polished marble corridor, up a wrought iron stairwell, and through another door made of dark old wood, retrofitted with a modern security card reader.
Because the courthouse is a historic building that presides over a historic town square, I’m mildly surprised by the remodeled, carpeted, vaguely corporate look of the courtroom. Be cause it’s Saturday—which means, as Douglas Bennett already informed me, that felonies and misdemeanors are heard in the same session—I’m the only person in the room with handcuffs and an armed escort.
I count perhaps a dozen people scattered around the general seating area, which consists of several rows of auditorium-style chairs separated from the front of the courtroom by a waist- high partition. On my entrance, all eyes turn toward me. It’s equally easy to imagine that I’m
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