Six
TINY
"Officer O'Reilly will grab your phone and purse for you. They'll be returned to you after you're processed at the precinct."
I sit quietly in the back of the patrol car with my legs crossed and my hands cuffed wondering what on earth I've done in a past life to deserve this night. While I get that there are way worse things that could happen to a person than being arrested for a traffic violation, for me this is way up on my list of "no way in hell" things that could ever happen to me.
I'm being arrested.
This is absolutely surreal.
I lean into the window and blow my warm breath on it. Watching little pools of condensation form. I'm not sure where we're going or even what direction we're driving in at this point. It's almost like I'm driving in a completely different city. In a completely different universe.
"Excuse me, when will I be able to make a call and let someone know what's going on?" I ask knowing that if my father gets home before me and sees that I'm not there and that I haven't called, he's going to flip.
Not because he's abnormally overprotective but because my father is a stickler for holding people accountable for doing what they say they're going to do. And we had a plan.
My father drove all day to Upstate New York to bring home an old family friend to stay with us for a while, and I'm supposed to be there to greet them upon arrival. Just the thought of meeting a convicted felon sends shivers up my spine.
Of course, I'm laughing at myself though, because isn't it ironic that my father is picking Stone up from his home of the last five years–White Pines Penitentiary, when I'm on my way to freakin' jail myself. That's going to be great dinner conversation. At least we'll have something in common.
"You can call him after you're processed."
Officer Robinson isn't being rude, but she isn't being very nice either. More like cold and indifferent. Everything can happenafter I'm processed. What do they make a commission off of how many people they process a day? Or maybe she's tired of my questions, but that makes both of us. God knows I'm already tired of asking them.
We arrive to a police station in a neighborhood that I'm not familiar with where I'm told to sit and wait on a hard, wooden chair that wobbles. I notice that they are questioning three other women in the same main room that I'm sitting in. All three are wearing far too much makeup and far too little clothes.
A man dressed in regular clothes approaches me, but I can tell that he's a cop. Something about his walk. His approach. He must be a detective or an officer who's off duty.
"What corner did they pick you up at?" he asks in an inquisitive tone of voice.
Oh, my lord, does he think I'm a prostitute?
"I don't work any kind of corner."
"Oh...sorry." And I swear he almost laughs.
After some time passes the same man who asked me about what corner I worked on removes the cuffs from my wrists and asks me to stand over with the other women, linking us all together with what I think is called a daisy chain.
"Is this really necessary?" I ask. Feeling like their treatment of me is totally overkill. This is how they chain hardened criminals together to transport them to and from prison. Not short, curvy, nurses who run red lights.
"It's standard procedure for transport."
"Where am I going? Where's Officer Robinson?"
"It was her job to make the arrest and bring you here. Now it's my turn."
"So, I'm not beingprocessedhere?"
This looks like a perfectly fine precinct to me. There are four desks and a small jail cell in the corner of the room that no one is in. Why can't I stay here?
"This is just a local station. You're going to central booking where you'll be processed and then see the judge."
One of the three women, who's dressed in a very tight, red, spandex dress and wearing badly glued false eyelashes interrupts us to ask the officer a question.
"Ricky, can we make a stop before we get there?"
It doesn't get past me that she called him by his first name. Clearly, she's been arrested before. Either that or this guy is her next door freakin' neighbor.
