Sympathy for the Jailbait (w/poll)

Virtually everybody in the virtual world has been enjoying a vast collective orgasm of schadenfreude at Paris Hilton's tearful court appearance and subsequent return to the County Jail. I know it's hard to have sympathy for someone like Paris, a twit whose twat makes so many public appearances that it has its own hairdresser. I think she should serve out her time in a jail cell, not in her living room. But I do have sympathy in the most visceral way for anyone who spent even one day in any kind of involuntary confinement by the state--I've been in jail--have you?

Yes, I've been in jail--twice, as a matter of fact. No, I am not a convicted felon. Nor was I arrested during a protest agitating for a noble cause. Traffic violations were my downfall. The first time I was arrested for reckless driving. I was twenty years old. An undiagnosed Manic Depressive, I often self medicated myself by driving very fast. There's nothing like a shot of adrenlin that comes from putting yourself in a situation in which the wrong twitch could kill you. I don't have those kind of reflexes anymore, and besides, I'm on meds, so the world is a safer place. In this particular case, I was doing 110 miles an hour when I went through an intersection of two major avenues, past three cops pulled up in the parking lot of the corner gas station. I knew I couldn't outrun the police radio, so I pulled over as soon as was feasible at that speed, and surrendered, with my hands up. I got to wear handcuffs.

I spent the night in the drunk tank of the old city jail, at the time a completely unmodernized facility dating from the 1930s. I never drank when I drove like that, so I was the only sober person in the cage--and the drunk tank was a literal cage, steel bars on all sides with walking space between the bars and the walls, hard smooth benches probably made of concrete of some sort, and an exposed, dirty toilet like a throne at the back. I had plenty of company, all in various stages of intoxication, but all were reasonably kind to the first timer, considering the circumstance.

That remains, nevertheless, one of the most memorably unpleasant nights of my life. As well it should be. I had to call my dad--much scarier than getting arrested in the first place--and he came downtown to the jail and put down several hundred dollars in cash (The sheriff doesn't take checks.) to bail my sorry ass out of the slammer. The ride home was far worse than the ride downtown in the back of the police car. When I had my court appearance, my dad's lawyer got three or four charges reduced to one, for that I paid a fine of 50 dollars, plus points against my driver's license, and I was very, very grateful that I didn't get what I deserved.

The second time I was arrested on a bench warrant for a speeding ticket I got while riding a friend's motorcycle which I had honestly completely forgotten about. I was in my late twenties. I spent one day and one night in another city's jail, and two days and one night in the county jail. I won't go into great detail on this one, but the kicker is that had I pled guilty on the speeding ticket, at my turn in front of the traffic judge during the afternoon cattle call, he would have ordered me released, and I would have spent even one night in jail. But, I didn't know that, I didn't remember the ticket, pled not guilty, and thus was held until bail was posted.

This jail was more modern, so there weren't any bars like there are in the tv shows, just sliding doors a couple of inches thick, with little peek-a-boo squares of glass imbedded with wire mesh. That night at the city jail I had the singing, raving, and wailing of some Hispanic gentlemen in the cell to the right to entertain me, when I tired of reading the King James Bible thoughtfully provided by the Gideons.

I spent a good deal of time in holding cells. In one I had for company a rather distracted young man wearing nothing but a hospital gown, the kind that ties at the back, and sporting various bruises. For the ride from the city jail to the county jail, I was cuffed right hand to right hand to another man. The bus was just like in the movies. The holding tank at the county jail was SRO, and that was the stop on the intenerary that I like least. The body cavity search wasn't much fun, for me, anyway. Clothes, wallet, and whatnot were stored away, and I got to wear the pajamas and sneakers--just like on tv.

I could go on, but I won't. I was very, very, very grateful when a friend (bless her heart) had mercy on me, and posted my bail. The speeding ticket was dismissed because the traffic cop didn't show up for the court date. But you'll never know what it's like to breath free air until you've been locked up in a cage under the thumb of the Man, even for a few days. So have a dab, a smidgen, a microdot of sympathy for the jailbait.