Maybe The Cops Would Have Stopped Beating Me If I'd Have Stayed Down
It's not that I hold it against them – the policemen were only doing their jobs – but were repeated blows to the back of the head really necessary to render me immobile after I'd been fighting back and resisting arrest for nearly ten minutes before I could be subdued?
Couldn't you just die? Instead of having a friend or two put a few dollars to bail me out on a meaningless public intoxication charge, I have to spend this night in a real jail cell with dried blood caked on my hair and in my ears. I'm not sure what exactly happened, but I do remember trying to bite the five peace officers in the leg after they had to hit me in the back of the knee with their Billy clubs to get me down in the first place.
Seriously, this is not how I usually am. I don't know what came over me – could have been the double latte I had before I went over to Mike's, the handle of Jack Daniels I finished on the way there, or the eight ball Mike and I split. Whatever it was, it made me a little loopy!
Whoop dee doo, Mr. Cop! Come on, have a sense of humor, will you? A little public intox never hurt anyone! If that table I had been dancing on during "Can You Hear Me Knockin" hadn't given out and sent me sprawling into the bartender and most of the waitresses, none of this would have happened. Do you think I can sue the manufacturers of the table? Those things should be made to support the weight of a grown man jumping up and down on it to the beat of a Stones classic, because when they're not things like this happen.
Still, all that followed could have been avoided if I had just stayed on the ground after the first cop ran me down, threw me into the dumpster, and pinned me to the asphalt. I mean, I've seen TV, and some cops just take out their aggression on whoever it is they can find already laying down, so I figured I'd better try get back up and run off again. The turning point was probably when I went for the first cop's eyes – that wasn't the best part of his day, I can imagine, and what followed wasn't exactly my favorite memory either: mace to the eyes and a lot of blows to the neck and shoulders with a blunt object. Dang, that hurt!
My parents always told me, "If it doesn't work the first time, try again." All my life, I've learned to never give up, and I'll be darned to heck if I'm going to start now, and that's what I'm going to tell the Circuit Judge when asks me to explain the bite marks on Officer Kresge's lower thigh. It's not that I'm not aware of the penalty that assaulting an officer carries, but what do they want me to do? Just forget about my life-long motto and submit to their handcuffs and the reading of my rights? Just think about where we'd all be if that's what Winston Churchill did when the Nazis bombed London or if James Bond had acted the same way when Dr. No took diabolical control over Cape Canaveral. Doesn't paint a very rosy picture, does it?
Oh poo! Even as I stand by my principles I just can't get the idea out of my head that if I hadn't made such a desperate and coke-driven struggle to avoid arrest I might be sleeping in my own bed instead of this cold jail cell with ten other guys who have all just simultaneously wet themselves. This is no way to spend an evening, let me tell you. I guess that I'll take this lesson with me and try to remember that when I'm being cuffed, pinned, maced or otherwise restrained that it's not a good idea to grab the nearest rock and go after the cop closest to me with murderous intent. Just a thought.
Darn it, I hope that Mike remembered to get my credit card from the bar. It was probably his yeyo that made me such a basket case in the first place, and the least he could do is to keep me from having to go back there tomorrow and ask for it back. That is assuming that I can come up with the $1,000 dollars I need for bail by the time the bar closes tomorrow. Tomorrow's a Sunday, so I don't know how that's going to work, but at least I have a steady job and can afford that kind of fee and decent legal representation. I hope I can hide this from my boss, and if he asks me why I'm wearing a hat and sunglasses I'll just tell him that I'm celebrating Halloween late and am dressed up like one of the Blues Brothers! See? Good can come out of any bad situation!
Well, I'm going to try and get some sleep. Maybe if I find a few square feet of cement that hasn't been peed on by the other convicts, I can curl up into the fetal position and get some practice at the position I'll take the next time I'm being forcibly detained by law enforcement. Yawn! Goodnight moon!
