Text from Colin:What’s your email address? I have some amusing memes I can send to you, if you like! I have a folder of them on my iPad :D:D
The thingthey don’t show in TV shows is that in addition to it being super nerve-wracking, getting arrested involves a whole lot of admin. There was a queue. Usually I love a queue. But this was the worst queue I had ever encountered. Really shit queue mates. The woman in front of me said she would perform some erotic poetry for ten dollars and then called me a ‘sumbitch’ when I declined the offer. The man behind me wanted to sell me meth and didn’t mind if I paid him or not. He just wanted a buddy to do the meth with. And the man behindthatman just kept yelling that he had to get home immediately because his baby iguanas neededfeeding.
After booking me in, taking my prints, mugshot and all of my personal belongings – including, much to my humiliation – the joint that Phyllis gifted me earlier, I was taken to a holding cell. That’s where I amrightnow.
In a jail cell. A freakingjail cell. I don’t even know what’s going to happen next! Do I get a lawyer? Are they going to make me wear an orange jumpsuit? Will the British Embassy be informed? I think I’m in shock. It all feels like a crazy scary trippy dream. This time last week my biggest worry, after Birdie, was the fact that Alex and Donna were making me move into the box room. And now… I am in jail! Sitting next to a woman who tells me her name is Mandy Banana and that I should not look her directly in the eyes because she will ‘fuck abitchup’.
OhJeeeeebus.
I sit huddled on the cold bench of the holding cell – one of those real American movie ones with actual bars – and I shake. My hands, my legs, my bum, my chin, my ears, probably. All of it is trembling. Because at each stage of the booking-in process I’ve tried to explain why I’m here and what I’m trying to do for Birdie. I don’t want to play the ‘my friend is dying’ card, but I do it. And no one seems to care. All they care about is the fact that I am ‘The Menace of Manhattan’ and that I called New Yorkstoopid.
Okay, so I have done some pretty menacing things over the past few days. But I didn’t mean to. It was all accidental. I didn’treallyhave any choice! And this is New York! A massive, bonkers city. There are worse criminals than me! Since I’ve been here I’ve seen a person not pick up their dog’s turd. I’ve seen multiple people having road rage. I’ve even seen a man throw a frosted cronut at a sightseeing tour bus. What about those people?Thoseare the realmenaces.
But the NYPD don’t care when I inform them of this. I don’t think it helps that my voice is very high-pitched and my face is as red as a cherry. They just tell me to be quiet and wait. Wait for what? Idon’tknow.
I do as I’m told and end up sitting in the holding cell for two entire uncomfortable hours before it occurs to me that I’m allowed to make a phone call! That’s the thing isn’t it? Onephonecall!
I stand up from the bench, avoiding eye contact with Mandy Banana, and wobble over to the front of the cell, putting my hands aroundthebars.
‘What now, English?’ the officer at the desk asks without even looking up. He’s been calling me English since I got here. He thinks it’s funny or insulting or something. Little does he know that I quite like it. I’ve always wanted a nickname. In primary school I tried to get everyone to call me Olli, but it never took. I tried again in secondary school, urging people to call me Liv, but that never caught on either. I tried to get both Joans to call me ‘Speedy Brewster’ because I’m the fastest filleter on the team. But sadly it never happened. Since being in New York I’ve aquired two whole nicknames. The Menace of Manhattan and English. I definitely prefer thelatter.
‘I need to ask you something,’ I say to theofficer.
He sighs. ‘What do you want, English? Why can’t you wait patiently for your assigned legal counsel like Mandy Banana over there, huh? I just want an easy day. That’s allIwant.’
‘I get a phone call,right?’
The officer looks up. He seems weary, his blue eyes tired beneath his grey eyebrows. He has a kind face,though.
‘You didn’t make yourcallyet?’
‘Nope. I get a call,don’tI?’
‘Yes. Yes,youdo.’
Yes!Aha!
The officer unlocks the cell, attaches a handcuff to my wrist, which he then clips to his own wrist, and leads me over to his desk, pointing at a cream-coloured desktelephone.
‘I need my mobile,’ I say. ‘It has all my numbersinit!’
‘You don’t know any of your numbers by heart?’ he says indisbelief.
‘Of course not! Humans stopped remembering phone numbers with the invention of thesmartphone.’
With another laboured sigh, the officer takes the phone and dials a number. ‘Joyce? It’s Officer Leeland. Can you bring Olive Brewster’s smartphone please…? No, she doesn’t remember her numbers by heart… I know.Thanks.’
Within a minute or so, a pretty, chubby woman arrives in the office with my phone. I reach out to grab itfromher.
‘Not so fast!’ Officer Leeland says, taking the mobile before I can. ‘You can tell me the name of the person whose number you want and I willfindit.’
‘I can’t give you my passcode! I have private things onthere!’
‘Ohyeah?’
‘Not, like, sexy stuff. Just… lists and reminders and notes and links to videos of dogs and cats being friends. Sometimesturtles.’
‘I won’t look at anything. But I’m afraid you can’t have yourphoneback.’
