The Wikiness

I am 20 years and eleven months old,  alone in an empty dorm the Thursday of Spring break. I have no girlfriend, nowhere to go, no interest in driving home (no home at all, just a room in mom’s condo), and no tolerance for extended periods of regular consciousness. 

I consider myself worldly and “with it,” but here I am, subsisting on cold cans of soup and saltines. I work half-heartedly on coursework, but when finished, I grow listless. Reading won’t scratch this itch. My brain pleads, “Save me from normal consciousness!” I have run out of marijuana, and my dealer is away for Spring break. 

Let’s see, what else could alter my senses and make life more interesting and less unpleasant?

I know, I’ll walk a few blocks down Main Street to the Cave Lounge and Liquor store, and see if the fine people there will let me buy a bottle of whiskey!  From an efficiency standpoint, you see, whiskey–as opposed to beer or wine– gets me the most mood alteration per dollar. How sensible I am ,

What’s that? I’m not yet 21 and don’t have a fake ID? That’s OK. If the cashier cards me, he’lll see how close I am and either let me make the purchase or return my license and say, “See you next month.” He might even smile.

But no. This afternoon, when I place the fifth of Jack Daniels on the counter before him, the young man asks for ID, which I willingly proffer, hoping for cooperation. He only looks at it a moment, turns to the phone on the wall, casually punches out a number, waits a moment, and says, “Hi, it’s Jack at Cave Liquors. We’ve got an illegal attempt to purchase. OK…. Thanks.”  

He turns back, still holding my license, and says to my befuddled face, “They’’ll be here in a few minutes… Who’s next?” 

I am shocked. This wasn’t the plan. I believed this town college boy playground. In three years, after all,  I’ve never been held responsible. But he has me in flagrente delicto, with my freedom, my ID, on the shelf there by the phone. 

Soon I am handcuffed and driven to the station, where the police search my pockets and remove my shoe laces before putting me in a holding cell of hard metal surfaces, a steel bed and metal toilet the only furniture. The fluorescent lights above stay brightly on.

I am held in lieu of $200 bail, which I do not have. I do have a phone call, and my friend Bill, who works as a chef in town, says he’ll be by when his restaurant closes. He won’t judge. 

I decide to make the most of my time in jail, supposing it may be my last. Since no one else is around, I live out a fantasy and sing Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” and the Allman Brothers’ “Statesboro Blues” to the echoing walls 

So yes, I have sung the blues in lock-up. 

What did I learn from it? Well, with decades of life experience, I now know that, from pure efficiency standpoint, practicing presence and staying open–as opposed to alcohol– will get me the most mood alteration per dollar. I am sensible now, you see.

But also what a privileged and lucky son-of-a-bitch I was, too, able to indulge my fantasies and enjoy the aesthetics of imprisonment. Were I any other criminal on any other day, I could easily have been gang raped or, at a minimum, discomfited. 

As it was, I was having my senses appreciably altered by an imposed sobriety and clarity of focus. There was nothing to do but stay in this cell, no escape from the mind inside the cell, and so I ended up singing.

As it was, the county of Mclean was content with the fine I paid a few weeks later, and the criminal record I accumulated must have been deemed insignificant by the state board of education, who do a thorough background check before licensing me to teach.

I guess the system that locks people up and fines them for bad behavior also worked in my case. I learned my lesson–never again did I attempt to illegally buy liquor.