Okay...

Wednesday afternoon around 3, i was taking some friends to the airport. we took two cars as they had a lot of luggage. we drop them off, and say our goodbyes, do a round of hugs, and i get back in my car.

we take off, and almost immediatly after pulling on to the road out of the airport, i get pulled over for ahving an expired registration.

they cops come up to my car, and i know i am going to be arrested, cause i have unpaid tickets, one of which was from the last time i get pulled over for having an expired registration.

they ask me to step out of my car, and set me on the side of the road.

"can i ask you something, cause i am gonna kick myelf later for passing up the oppurtunity later if i don't ask" i ask the three officers.

"sure" one says.

"do ya'll watch 'Reno 911' on Comedy Central?" I ask.

they laugh... hard.

they do watch it.

"so it's not offensive to policepersons?" i add.

"NO! IT"S HILARIOUS!" the richard gere look-a-like says.

"he's from Reno!" the female officer adds, pointing to the third one, whose head is shaved.

they take me to the holding area, and are very cool with me on the way, chatting with me. as soon as we get to their holding area at the airport, they take the cuffs off me, and bring me water.

they take me downtown, and are even more friendly on the way there, telling me how long they have been working as partners, about their marriages (not to one another) and what not.

We get to the downtown entry, and they stop in front of a huge green metal wall. the are is a loud grinding sound, and the huge green wall starts to fold open slowly.

"welcome to oz" the richard gere look-a-like one says.

my eyes shoot open in shock.

he sees my reaction, and they laugh.

"no, no! the land of oz, cause it's green... nto the hbo show" he says while laughing.

i laugh.

i suspect they have used this joke before.

they take me and sign me in, and i go to the nurse;s station for a brief check-up, as i have to disclose my hiv-positive status to them.

"how long?" richard gere asks.

"what is today?" i ask him.

"october first" he replies.

i think for a second and realize i am a little more than two weeks from my first anniversary.

"a year in 16 days."

he looks like he wants to cry.

the nurse comes in, and the officer tells them "mr. bergman has been very cooperative and he is very nice. please treat him well" Richard Gere tells her.

she smiles at me and starts hooking me up to machines.

"borgman" i correct him.

"don't make a liar out me" he says with a grin.

we all laugh.

the nurse asks me lots of medical questions about my condition and other medical questions.

after that is done, the officers who arrested mesay goodbye and the female tells me that i should start taking my meds again, that a cure is closer than i think.

richard gere tells me to take better care of myself, that this is obviously not where i should be.

i smile, and they take me to the waiting area, which is like a bus station.

there are two TVs, and three aisles of big blue chairs. when placed next to each other, they almost have a couch effect.

they point out the bathrooms, under each of the TVs and leave. I immediatly move to the phon, and call my mother, who calls work to inform them the reason that i have not returned from lunch is not because i am dead, just temporarily incarcerated.

i settle in and lock my eyes to the TV, scared i am going to be raped and killd by inmates at any moment.

but the group gathered there is actually quite affable. they are joking and hanging out. my fears of having my teeth knocked out so i can be skull fucked by prisoners are quikly alieved when i see that there is a gutterpunk kid wearing a skirt, who is not only alive and well, but the favorite amongst the group. he is making jokes and the captive crowd is eating them up.

i start talking to people around me, and discover two things: it is a relaxed group, and the best introductory question ever is "so, what are you in for?"

after a while, my name is claled, and i am handcuffed to a man who speaks no english. he asks me a question, and i am sure it is the spanish equivilant of "so what are you in for", but i have no idea how to say "murder" in spanish, so i just smile at him.

we go to the small courtroom, painted a very nausiatingly cheery blue, so as to make up for the lack of windows and overhead halogen lighting.

the judge tells me i have 597 dollars in unpaid tickets.

i plead no contest, and he asks how much i can pay a month. we arrange a payment sytem, and he says i am to go.

we go back to the bus stop like waiting room, and i spend some more time with my new friends,. and watch "it's all relative" on the TV. It is a crap show about a young couple, who decide to marry. his parents are heterosexual rightwing bar owners, hers are upper class gay men. WACKY! I decide as i read the closed captioning for the hearing impared that i need to hunt down and kill the writers of this turd of a show once i am free.

they call my name, and i go up to the counter, happy to be going home.

"uh..." the officer behind the desk tells me. "you have another warrent we found."

"for what?" i ask, amazed that the warrent computer seems to work in shifts.

"theft by check" he says. "the jusdge has set your bail at 2,500"

I had no idea i was such an al capone.

i call a bail company. they want a co-signer, and i can't work up the nerve to ask my mother for money.

i go watch more crap on ABC.

After a spectacularly stupid hour of "Karen Sisco", i add the writers of that show to my hit list.

an officer appears with a remote and changes the male side TV to ESPN. Just when i thought it could not get any worse...

I sit on the male side, but crane my head to watch the female side TV which is showing some "20/20" type show.

around midnight, they call my name and many others including my non-english speakign handcuff buddy and the raverboy in the skirt.

they give us these weird pinkish orange colored rubber sandals that are one size fits all, but not made for anyone with less than a size 13 foot.

they hand me a uniform, kind of cute in black and white stripes, folded in my arms. we check in our clothes, and money, etc.

i put on my uniform. the shirt they have given me has short short sleeves, and is form fitting, stopping just below my belly button. the pants are way baggy, and way too long. i start to fold the cuffs up into an interesting fold, but think better of it.

i stand up, and feel like i am wearing the jail equivilant of those outfits the girls in TLC wore in the "waterfalls" video. i almost start dancing, but think beter of it.

just as they are about to take us all upstairs (gutterpunk boy looks rather annoyed at having gone from his skirt to pants), one of the officers grabs me, and says i have a visitor.

i get in the visiting booth, and see a very unfamiliar woman smiling at me. she looks like she has been roused from sleep.

"someone posted your bail" she says with a tired smile.

"who?" i ask.

"i have been instructed not to say."

i fill out paperwork, which we pass trough the very small opening in the plexiglass. i am a bit dissapointed that we don't have to talk on phones to hear one another, as you always see those in movies about jail.

after i fill out all the paperwork, she passes me a business card, which has handwriting on the back.

"get out of jail free" the card reads in handwritten ink. "go be free... eat drink and be merry"

at the bottom of the note there is a heart followed by three X's.

Rose, Claire, and Sidney. Rose is a good friend of mine who drove the other car to the airport. she got home and called work to make sure i got back okay, found out i had never come back and did some detective work, til she found out what had happened.

claire, her mother is an aging jewish intellectual hippie who grows all her own herbs, including the weed i smoke with her. Sidney is her second husband, now 82, who is a retired russian literature professor who i bug to tell me stories about his days as a friend of Sylvia Plath and her husband. (he is mentioned in her memoirs, which he refused to autograph for me)

by the time i walk out of the jail, it is two something in the morning, and my roomate who i am supposed to call to pick me up is passed out on the couch, his deafened ear towards the phone.

so i walk home. austin is very pretty in the early early morning. i stop on the way at a 24 hour mexican bakery and eat 2 bean and egg burritos while watching an infomercial on telemundo.

---

today i go to see the lawyer rose, claire, and sidney have hired for me.

he asks me lots of questions, i answer. he asks how much the bad check was.

"i have no idea" i say. they officers at the warrent computer had no idea. my lawyer, "spelled Stein, but pronounced Steen" calls the bad check division. he asks how much the amount due is.

i can hear the woman on the phone say "89.92"

we laugh... hard.

the minimum amount you can file here for is 50 dollars. the check was for 59.92.

"why did the judge set my bail at 2,500 dollars for a check less than a hundred?" i ask Stein/Steen.

"texas has very deep pockets." he responds.

i decide i hate texas.

"go pay the check, and i will get it dismissed. you probably won't even have to take the 'fiscal responsibility' class that is defensive driving type bullshit" he informs me.

i go home.

i am free.

the moral of the story is...
you may think i am a drama queen, but travis county, texas is a much bigger drama queen than i EVER will be.

Wow! That was long!

damn thats long
[This message was edited Fri Oct 3 19:40:09 PDT 2003 by justkelley]

so many funny things in there


you are great

sorry it's so long, but...well... i am a writer...we are lonmg winded

thinking about taking it and making a monologue piece out of it for my one man show in march
[This message was edited Fri Oct 3 19:47:57 PDT 2003 by cborgman]

this should be a teevee movie of some sort...but not on abc!!!

wow, that's butch!

Great reading, boy.

Except "start taking meds again". . .. . .you aren't taking your meds? Take your meds, muppetfucker!

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

:fallofF:

chris, you're amazing!!

tackam said:

yea, i stopped taking them... hit a dark patch the last half of my first year. was all okay with it the first several months and then got kinda depressed.

thankfully, i hae recovered, thanks to the fun times at the org as a crutch, and some very special orgers, a few of whom either by the strength of their love life, or the possibility of one with them convinced me that i want to live.

i am gonna go back to the doctor soon.

cborgman said:

cborgman said:

Glad you're feeling better, honey. Take care of yourself, please.

And stay out of jail.

Breakin' the law Breakin' the law!
You gangsta bitch you!

question about the check.


i've written only 3 checks that the bank wouldn't cover (because they'd already covered 2, and i'd written them all at the same time, then i travelled out of town longer than i expected).

at two places, they just held the checks a few days after they bounced, and then ran them back through.

one place, though, was a real dick about it. they charged me for bouncing the check, then charged me for directly wiring the money out of my account when they called and wanted me to pay it (instead of just running it through again, like the other 2 places did).


QUESTION:

did you know you owed on that check? if not, why didn't you get some sort of notification, or some collection service crawling up your ass about it?

AaronMaximus said:

well, i did manage to refrain from trying to restage the "he had it coming" number from "chicago"

cborgman said:

Oh, that would have been tha bomb diggity. You should have. You totally should have. They didn't beat up the kid in the skirt, you would have been safe.

AaronMaximus said:

i forgot all about it. had a couple of them and thought i had them all taken care of, but stopped using checks. missed one.

i have moved a few times since i wrote that check, so i got no notification because of that

tackam said:

exactly

Chico319 said:

you should see the tattoos i got while i was in there...
"thug life" across my stomach
a tear in the corner of my left eye,
a small cross in the corner of my right hand
and "ian" in a heart on the top of my left arm

cborgman said:

Glad everything turned out in the long run. Seems like you have some really great friends that care a lot about you. Even though what you wrote was long...had to keep readin' it! Was very entertaining.

My first question...

So what does Chris Meloni look like naked in person!?!?

This moves me to drop you an orgnote, Chris. Be on the lookout.

Such a convoluted excuse for not calling me on Wednesday.

Glad you're ok!

I smell a cover story for the ORG.WEEKLY SPECIAL EDITION!!

long, but worth it. You rule Mr.Borgman!

Take care yo'self.

I was glued to my screen reading your story Chris. WoW! I am speechless! a great story, real interesting, sad, funny, riveting. You have a great talent, use it more!


Much Love

I think you are a quite a writer cborgman, that was a great reading

plus I am glad everything ended up well

Very entertaining cborgman ... thanks for writing it.

You got me a bit scared, though, in a couple of places ...

cborgman said:

Looks like just a few hours in jail have turned you into a potential "serial killer"