Weekend in Jail - Maine Style

Today is Wednesday March Thirty First Two Thousand Ten. Among other things like the morning, I like my Wednesdays in sobriety. Can't really tell you why except that its a good day to pause and reflect on how the week is going. I need to complete a certain amount of tasks weekly at work and Wednesday can tell me if I am going to have a tough next couple of days. Every other Wednesday I go back to Parker house and attend a meeting that is related to my subutex therapy. While many of the fellow attendees make me crazy its the guy that runs the place who I really enjoy interacting with. He was one of the professionals who has made an major impact on my sobriety. He treated me with dignity, respect, and tolerance when I first got sober and that was really important to me at the time. We are about the same age and he is a local so its always interesting to talk with him. He stuck his neck out for me just a couple of days into sobriety and he didn't have to do that. I am glad he did and I am walking proof that these recovery programs can work for longer than the couple of weeks that you attend them for. I have given cards to the staff a couple of times and even bought him and my doc some Starfucks gift cards around the holidays. I could tell that was probably one of the first times that a patient had given them such a thing.

Since there hasn't been any major trauma or romantic interest in my life I am going to continue with the theme of incarceration. I am going to write about my second time behind bars and then about what it is like to have a best friend in prison for an extended period of time. That will prove to me a fairly long piece of writing since I want to relate what it was like when he was busted, waiting for sentencing, traveling to the prison to drop him off, visiting him in prison, and what it was like after he was released. It was a very tough time in my life but all I did was think how fucking tough it must have been for the guy who was locked up. In comparison what I went thru was nothing too traumatic.

So after many near misses I was finally busted for drive while totally fucked up on Christmas 2007. I was in my dad's car and driving like a maniac so I could get back to Boston in time to see my heroin dealer. I was honking at people, flashing lights, passing on the right, the whole masshole deal. I was pulled over in Brunswick, ME and blew a 2.7 for the osciferrshs. They were not impressed and either was the judge as he said that someone with that high of a blood alcohol content at three in the afternoon clearly had a drinking problem. Thanks, dick I didn't ask for the editorial just what do I need to do for the state of Maine. Since this was my first DWI anywhere they said that I had to attend a weekend workshop with a bunch of other drunks in Freeport, Maine. I thought that while it was a waste of time that I could deal with it and it was far better than spending any amount of time in the klinky. I was scheduled to participate in this program some weekend in April so I made plans to take the bus, then a cab up to the school whose grounds I would be improving that weekend.

When I arrived at the school and presented my documents the officer in charge said that my name wasn't on his list and that we would get back to me. An hour or so later he then told me to turn around and assume the position. One I was cuffed and stuffed in the back of his truck he told me that I was supposed to have attended the program a month earlier and since I didn't show up for that a bench warrant had been issued for my arrest. He said that while I did have a paper the law was the law and I was going to jail till at least Monday. I had planned to be back at work on Monday so he let me use my cell phone to call my boss so that I could inform him of the change in plans. I purposely left a message on his desk phone voicemail and while this allowed me not to talk with him personally, it came to bite me in the ass later.

After I was photographed, finger printed, poked & prodded by a doc I was issued a bright orange jumpsuit complete with slip on sneakers and brought to a "pod". A pod is just a group of perhaps sixty criminals in double cells with entertainment, exercise gear, and places to sit and eat. Since they didn't know exactly when I would be released they placed me in a long term pod where the average inmate was serving a term of six months. I learned later that in Maine when you are sentenced to jail they will allow you to serve out your sentence in weekends so that you don't lose your job. Pretty cool of you ask me but its almost like being grounded by the Portland Sheriffs office for the weekend. I was placed in a cell by myself and locked in with my thoughts till it was time for breakfast.

The reason why so many people get fat in jail is two fold; one: eating is probably the most pleasurable and important part of your day and two: they don't exactly give you a high fiber/low calorie diet. Someone told me that there was a Wendy's factory nearby where they produced food for the chain and everything they couldn't use was sold to the jail. I don't remember much about the food there except that it was bland, cold, salty, and soggy. You are not supposed to enjoy your stay in the klink and the food was nothing to write home about. I remember sitting at the little table in my cell writing for lack of anything better to do till the library cart came by. I was surprised by the selection and quickly choose two Stephen King books that I had already read thinking "What the fuck, I'm in Maine and King makes me feel good when I am reading his writing." Every couple of pages I would write secret messages to whomever would read the book next, just stupid stuff but I hope it entertains the next reader.

I met a variety of characters while in jail and due to its location african americans were rare rather than in numbers. Due to this there wasn't any racial separation, everyone interacted with each other pleasantly but I found the white guys very racist once a black guys back was turned. I think that racism is based in fear and I am pretty sure these while convicts were just afraid of the black guys. People fear what they don't understand and it was easier for them to be racist rather than accepting. There was this one guy from Philadelphia who was called, surprisingly, "Philly" who was in the klink for crask possession. He had been busted at the train station with what he called a few bags which I later found out to be a few pounds of crack. Someone had ratted on him and I shudder to think what the effect of a couple pounds of crack would have on the city of Portland, ME. For those who don't know, crack is normally measured in grams and there are twenty eight grams in an ounce and sixteen ounces in a pound. No, I didn't have to look that up, deal drugs for long enough and that shit is burned in your memory. I met this old heroin addict from the Ukraine who was very interesting and had me beat with a 2.8 BAC when he was busted. There was another long hair there and after speaking with him for a few we found that we had mutual friends from Dead tour. I met a guy who forged checks for a living, I didn't think people floated paper anymore in this digital age. Maybe thats why he was caught but someone mentioned that this guy had made upwards of a hundred thousand dollars on his last scam that was never recovered. A disturbing amount of guys were there for domestic violence and it was hard to talk to someone who beats his woman.

I had a bunch of time to think when I was locked up but none of it was about sobriety. Sure, I was there because of my drinking if you think about it but due to a paperwork screw up I was actually in jail. I pestered the COs all weekend about my case and one guy promised to look into it for me but nothing could happen till Monday afternoon after the morning court session. True enough I was released on Monday afternoon and the first thing I did was go to a Chinese restaurant and eat a bunch of spare ribs and drank a couple of zombies. After that I bought a twelve pack of bud and jumped on the bus back to Boston. I split the twelvie with a cute but porky girl in the back of the bus and regaled her with stories of my weekend in jail. She wasn't the brightest bulb on the planet and I declined when she asked me for my number. Thinking back that was probably a rude thing to do but I was half in the bag and all I had on my mind was to get a couple bags of heroin and forget the weekend even happened.

I mentioned earlier that I had notified my boss of the change in plans by leaving a message on his desk voicemail. Well the pinhead neglected to check his messages so an all points bulletin went out in regards to my whereabouts. I cow worker even stopped by my house to see if I was ok, which is touching. He finally checked his messages and called the search off and I didn't find out about any of this till I arrived home later that evening. I had left my cell phone at home knowing that I coudln't have it in this program I was going to attend. What I want to know is if you are looking for someone because they didn't show up for work wouldn't you check all of your possible voicemails before issuing a "Where the fuck is he ?" search ? Just proves to me again how out of touch with reality my boss is and it amazes me that he was able to not only get a girlfriend, but marry and have kids with the woman.

Did I learn anything about that weekend ? Yes, always call the sheriff's office before you interact with them, jail food does indeed suck, paper hanging is still alive and well, white people are still afraid of black people, and I will do whatever it is I can not to get another DUI/DWI again. I believed so much in that last point that I stopped driving altogether and took my car off the road. Since I was drunk all the time anyway, why risk getting caught for that I have to spend lots of money getting out of it and have the possibility of jail. One of the things I told myself when I began my recovery was that I wouldn't get my license back till I had a year of sobriety. I need to complete a maine drunk driving education course and pay a ton of money but I plan to do that by the end of the summer.