My Brush With the Law

I was in my early 50s. I had had a couple of drinks. I spent the night in jail.

It was a sweet little town in southern Alabama, the place where I had grown up. I had returned after living in other places for 20 years. I knew my way around this town like the back of my hand, but I had not noticed that stop sign in the quiet night. It hadn’t been there when I was growing up. There was no traffic at that hour except for the police car just behind me.

He turned his flashing light on and began to follow me, but I didn’t notice. Until he pulled me over.

I was put through the usual DUI paces—a breathalyzer, the stand-on-one-foot-and-touch-your-nose exercise, and probably something else, I don’t recall. I told him I just lived a few blocks away and wanted to get home to bed. He told me I was going to jail.

I went with him to the town jail. Somebody took a mug shot of me; they gave me another breath test, and I was escorted to my lodgings for the night. I was told I could make a phone call but I had nobody I wanted to bring into this fiasco.

The jail was comprised of just a few cells, but they were all teeming with male reprobates yelling profanity at a level I was unaware existed until that time. I was ushered into a cell where I could hear the angry cries of the men who felt they had been unfairly imprisoned, yelling obscenities from both sides. There was a pause in the melee of cuss words.

Somebody yelled, “Hey! New girl!”

I chose not to engage with this anonymous fellow jailbird. However, for some perverse reason I felt a twinge of pride that I was, at age 53, the new girl in town again.

My room had a small cot and a toilet at the side. I would be obliged to use both—with great caution. There was a little wash basin with a roll of paper towels, almost empty. There was nothing for it but to try to sleep among the conflicting smells and the stream of dialogue that would make David Mamet blush surrounding me.

I’m amazed I slept at all that night, but probably the couple of drinks I had at my friend’s house before I got in the car helped. I wasn’t what I call drunk, but a bit queasy and very much shaken by the events of the previous half-hour. My inner child told me we didn’t really belong there. I promised her I would stop drinking so it would never happen again.

When morning came I was taken to a little courtroom of some kind and faced a judge, robes, mahogany desk, and all the trimmings. He looked at me, looked at the papers he’d been given, and said, “You weren’t really drunk last night, were you?”

It turns out the breathalyzer registered a blood alcohol level of .08, which was the lowest level requiring incarceration in that state. I had taken two tests, remember, and I don’t know if my scores were both the same—but they were low enough that the judge knew as well as I did that was wasn’t knee-walking.

“No, Your Honor, I wasn’t drunk.”

He told me to drive carefully and not drink while driving. I got a lawyer and had my day in court. My driver’s license was suspended for 90 days.

I went to AA meetings every day, chauffeured by various members of the group. I learned a lot about those people around the table and about the 12-Steps, and about how to change everything about myself that had gotten me into this. I had a sponsor and “worked” the steps.

The good that came from my night in the hoosegow far outweighed the discomfort of that night.

Life is full of surprises. Comedy is tragedy plus time. What might have been a secret disgrace is now just another of life’s adventures that I’m happy to share with you.

What do you think? Was I really drunk? Should I have avoided the overnight experience at all costs? What would you have done? I’d love to know!

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