Home PagePlease choose a link to continue browsing our website...
Browse other essays by the author
The Memory Righter (the newest completed written project)
What is the Rags To Riches Project?
The SteLuTec Foundation
The SteLuTec Foundation is a non profit organization that
helps parents while their children are hospitalized.
Click a title to read that story
Stories, Essays and non fiction by
Anthony Price
FNP, AAS, BA, MCSE, CCNA
The History of the Rosary 1970 to 1999
Pick up a T-Shirt...Help a cause...
IRS EIN notification (it means were real)...
Certification from Minnesota Secretary of State...
contact us...
Weekend in the Slammer
copyright 2004
Anthony Price
“Sit down,” I said, “you don’t get to make a mistake like that without a lecture.”
“Do I have to?” my son asked, knowing both the answer and the mood.
“You kids today,” I began, “just don’t understand. I guess maybe it’s a part of growing
up. But you have to learn from your mistakes. If you don’t, there’s no use in making them in the
first place. Life does not owe you anything. Not you. Not Winona Ryder. Not O.J. Simpson. Not
Christina Aguilera. Not anybody. You get from life what you put in. If you don’t work, it won’t
work. Do you get me?”
My son looked at me, lifting his eyes without raising his chin. He had been my son for
just over sixteen years, counting the womb, so I had come to understand this particular look. He
was not understanding me completely, but more important, he was uncomfortable and wanted this
lecture over.
“The best scenario,” I said, “is the one where you can learn from the mistakes of someone
else, especially me.”
“You made a mistake once?” he asked, more than a little bit sarcastically.
“Did I!” I said, reaching for a pile of loose papers kept on the top of the bookcase. This
was the pile that the housekeeper hates because of the “unkempt” look. After leafing through a
few pages, I stopped and pulled several sheets from the pile. “I wrote this down a few years ago
so I wouldn’t forget,” I said, handing the pages to my son. “You read, while I get us a beverage.”
I left him alone with those pages, and this is what they said:
A few words of advice: do not believe the hype. I did and the results were not pretty. It began shortly after high school when I had no money for college, so I went right to work accomplishing my goal of becoming a star. I wanted to be a star as long as I can remember.
It goes way back to the days of my youth – maybe six or seven years old. By this time in
my life I had already grown to love American Bandstand and watched it every Saturday morning.
Seeing those “big kids” gyrate to the music left me with a feeling of waiting and wonder. I waited
for the day when I could move like that and I wondered where this program came from? Where
was this magical dancing place? I remember going to bed every night while listening to Dean Martin
singing from the family’s eight-track tape machine. We did not listen to Dean Martin because he
was our favorite, he was our only artist on tape.
On Christmas, when I was nine, the biggest present under the Christmas tree had my name on it. Now, there were thirteen kids in our family, and having the biggest present under the tree with your name on it was sort of a big thing. But there it was.
It was carefully wrapped with colorful green and red paper with little pictures of the
Nativity Scene all over it. We would never find out the contents of all these beautiful packages
until late on Christmas Eve, or early on Christmas day, depending on how you looked at it. Our
family had to attend midnight Mass on Christmas Eve before opening any presents. The beautiful
package with my name on it sat quietly under the tree with all the other beautiful packages; not
caring how pretty I thought it was or how anxious I was to determine its contents.
Mass was especially long that Christmas Eve. “On this day is born, in the city of David,”
the priest spoke in a monotone that made me wonder if he was trying to put us to sleep or if that
was just added challenge. “A Savior is born, who is Christ the Lord.” I looked at my brother in
the pew behind me (our large family often took two pews in the church) who winked at me then
pretended to sleep with his folded hands resting against his slightly tilted head and his eyes closed.
Finally the magic moment had arrived! It was nearly 2:00 AM when my mother gave the
OK to sit around the tree and open gifts. I tore into the paper on one end when my mother
reminded me, “We have to save the paper. There are poor people in this world.” I never knew
what she could have been talking about, since we were the poorest people that I knew. I gently
removed the ribbon, so that it could be saved for next year, and dutifully handed it to her, then tore
off the paper as if my life depended on it; and surely it did, for I was certain to die if I did not
learn the contents of that package right that instant. There was paper everywhere. You may
remember, I was not the only package-opener at that moment: there were thirteen children tearing
into presents.
I paused for just a moment – worried that this could be a large collection of socks, or
maybe three flannel shirts, for such gifts were common – before lifting the final flap of cardboard
that held this life-changing, mood-altering gift.
In the early 1970’s, music was everywhere, but the portability of it was not so great.
Today, my house has a portable “boom-box” radio in nearly every room, and two in the garage.
But here I was, looking at the most beautiful portable-stereo-eight-track-tape-playing-AM-FM-stereo-
50-watt-portable-music box I had ever seen.
Dean Martin, move over. I had just graduated into the Guess Who, The Beatles, Steelers
Wheel, Led Zeppelin, the Monkeys and a host of other rock and rollers, all of whom were now available
at my discretion via “FM-Stereo.” It was wine to a wino; crack to a crack-head; a ten high wave to a
surfer. It was the beginning of an end.
I would separate those stereo speakers and sleep with one on either side of my pillow. I
carried that box with me everywhere I went. It took about thirty seconds (or three years, I cannot
remember which) before I was laughing along with the nightly disk jockeys, imaging that Michael J.
“Coo Kin” Kaiser was playing a song that I was singing. I remember thinking that if “Earth, Wind,
and Fire” and “Blood, Sweat, and Tears” were cool names for your band, then what would be my
band’s name? “Bleeding, Sweating, and Crying in the Rain?” No, that is too long.
I started writing songs lyrics by the mid seventies; particularly because a good poem would
always attract the attention of the girls. I remember the first one began like this:
It seems whenever we’re together,
I feel like bad weather;
And yet when we’re apart,
You break my heart.
Corny, I know, but somehow the girls loved it. Maybe it was the last lines, which were:
When you ask for me again
You’ll find I won’t be there;
I want a love to call my own,
Not one I have to share.
It did not take long for request to come in. By the time I was a junior in high school, I had a different girl asking me to write a personal poem just for her at least once a month. They were all the
same, “I love you, you don’t love me,” but always the girl was impressed.
She would never go out on a date with me, but she was impressed.
Music and song lyrics had become my life. The idea that I would be a huge star was so
firmly implanted in my small-town head that I was truly surprised to wake up on my twentieth birthday
and realize I was not world-famous. I was, however, making money in music and as such a professional,
I was sure there were some laws that just did not apply to me. High school was behind me and I was
playing music for a living. Well, I was a disk jockey.
On some Thursday night in the spring two years after high school, I was doing the deejay thing
at a bar. There must have been a thousand people in that bar which was only large enough for about
eight hundred, which made the inside temperature soar to a sweaty ninety degrees and steamy hot.
This was in contrast to the outside temperature, which was closer to thirty degrees (Fahrenheit).
“Team drink!” I said on the mike. The crowd screamed, then drank. If I had a dollar right
now, I would bet that I said that same thing, twice an hour – every hour - that entire night.
“How long have you been doing this?” Randy asked me. Randy was the local morning radio
host on the area’s most popular radio station and he was impressed with my crowd control.
“About a year and a half,” I said.
“You’re a natural. Listen to that crowd! You’re the hottest club DJ in the area!”
I was sure when I left that night – alone as always – that it did not matter that I had been
drinking. The sign on the side of my van would tell all the police that I was a professional and that
they could just leave me alone. Shoot, they may stop me and ask for an autograph, since my famous
name was printed on the side of the van.
The police decided not to leave me alone that night. I was arrested for D.U.I., driving under
the influence.
I knew I was above this. I was not really guilty. I was a star. Everyone knows the star gets
to walk away. That was the hype. But I did not walk away. And I lost my privilege to drive a motor
vehicle in the state of Minnesota.
Now I had gigs – lots of gigs – but never enough money to hire a driver. And besides this law
did not apply to me. I work for a living. I am a star. That was the hype.
I went on to be ticketed four times in the next two years for driving without a license in the
state of Minnesota. Some star treatment. By the time I was five years out of high school, I had more
traffic tickets than most people see in a lifetime. I had only been legal to drive for two of those five
years and I would not see a legal driver’s license for three more years.
I did what anyone would do. I joined the navy. The World’s Largest Nuclear Navy was my employer and my home for the next four years.
I straightened up my act. I cut my hair. I learned to play the guitar. And I vowed to never
get into that kind of trouble again. I was awarded a driver’s license in the state of Texas, which was
my home until 1991 – ten years out of high school.
Maybe I had the stereo in my car playing just a little too loud that day. Maybe the local law enforcement had not had a date in some time. Maybe it was supposed to happen. With Texas plates
on the car and a Texas driver’s license in my pocket, I was pulled over in Small Town, Minnesota,
by a very Minnesota police officer. I found out I was still breaking the law by driving a car in
Minnesota.
Because I was still not working, having been only recently discharged from the World’s Largest Nuclear Navy, the judge required me to apply for ten jobs a week until I had one, and 20 hours of community service work. My story gets interesting when I tried to fulfill the latter requirement nine
months later.
By early summer 1992, I had been working more than full time for a local radio station, I
had spent 15 hours volunteering with local high school students, volunteered 20 hours with Mower
County Crisis Nursery (a part of the Victim’s Crisis Center), single handedly raised $300.00 for the
March of Dimes, and I was a “Big Brother” for two young, fatherless boys in the area twice a week. Unfortunately, there was no paper trail that made it back to the judge.
In June of that year, I was sure I had fulfilled my end of the bargain. After months of trying
to contact someone I finally found Jerry Peterson, whose job is organizing and reporting community
service work for the county. Jerry did not seem very excited to hear from me, but he asked if I could
come in at 9:00 the next morning to discuss my case with Judge Christian.
I arrived the next morning at 9:20, only to learn that Judge Christian had left moments earlier
for a long weekend vacation.
Someone, I do not know who, went to find Jerry Peterson for me and invited me to sit in the
hall and wait. I no sooner had my butt planted on the bench in the hall, when two uniformed police
officers approached me. Upon their arrival, I was promptly arrested. I found myself in jail.
It was June 4, 1992. It is not often that you can think about a specific day more than ten
years ago and instantly remind yourself of the cold, lonely emotions you could never share, because
you are alone. And being alone when it is not your choice is a scary place to be. For me, it was cold.
Not just the cold you feel in your personal emptiness, but the physical cold that can only be removed
by the friendliness afforded by close friends surrounding a warm summer evening campfire, roasted marshmallows, your favorite beverage and an acoustic guitar. The cold is a special cold in jail. The
warmth to remove it needs to be extra special, too.
From that Thursday morning until whenever the judge returns to hear my case, my entire life is a floor of lovely brown brick, which rises up eighteen inches along one wall to serve as my bed.
My bed is six feet long and twenty inches wide. And to be sure I do not fall out of this wonderful brick bed, there are ½ inch steel rods protruding vertically four inches out of the brick to act as a railing. My “safety railing” surrounds the bed, even on the edge that joins the wall. And what a wonderful shade of pale yellow the walls are! The walls would all be the same if not for the four inch by four inch window in the wall opposite my bed that houses the camera that constantly watches me.
When I have waited as long as I think I can, without any contact from anyone else, not even to receive food, I wet some toilet paper, which is only available in four-inch square sheets, the texture very similar to that of aluminum foil, and I paste this paper on the glass, which protects the camera. I know they are watching me, and it takes about ninety seconds for a jailer to come in, give me a very nasty look, and remove the paper. I ask if I can see the sheriff, have some food, some saline solution, or paper and pen. He does not answer me.
There is a window six inches by six inches near the top of the steel door. By standing on my toes, I can glance out the window, but I do not see anything. I listen carefully at the door, only to realize the other people here have roommates, TV’s and radios. (My cell has none of these.)
The steel, yellow ceiling has an air conditioning vent that never stops, making the bricks in my 6 ½ feet by 9 ½ feet room even colder. I came in dressed for a warm summer day. The temperature in this cell could not be higher than 65 degrees Fahrenheit. I hear the clanking of keys and the loud echo of the lock opening up. The door opens, and a pencil and a yellow legal pad of paper are dropped on the floor. The echo of the door closing lasts nearly a full minute in my perfectly square cell. Now I can record my time.
The cold tries to hide the smell. It is faint, but constant. I can smell the paint that was used to decorate this yellow cube. I can smell the steel, as if it were slightly oiled and hot, even though the room is so cold. I can detect the slight odor of bad eggs when I run the water in the sink. Efficiently, the sink is actually attached to the toilet. I can see why they build it this way; it is a remarkable space saver. There is no hot water for washing. There is no cold water either, not that you could get me to drink anything that comes from a faucet attached to a toilet.
As a new sales manager for a small company, I really had not seen much in the way of salary yet, but I had learned how to add up the future. I had learned that if a customer buys, then buys once a month for the next ten years, the profit over those ten years is called “marginal net worth.” If I lost a customer, I lost the marginal net worth. And I taught this to my sales team.
If the marginal net worth of two customers is $10,000.00, and those were the only two lost while I spend my weekend in the slammer, and the original drunk driving ticket was $600.00, insurance after the ticket doubled for the next three years (adding $75.00 per month to the expenses), then the fines and tickets for driving without a license are added (four tickets, $330.00 each), surcharges and court costs, not to mention attorney’s fees, my “heated from the spotlight” attitude cost me $14,680.00. And that says nothing of the total of 32 days incarcerated.
I miss a scheduled camping trip with my own son, and I am not allowed to call him or his mother to let them know I will be a few days late. I miss five appointments with clients, and one sales meeting (and I’m the sales manager!). Because Judge Christian ordered me incarcerated and is now on vacation, I get to stay for the weekend. (That adds up to five showers and fifteen meals, for those of you running a tab.) It seems to me that the money it costs to incarcerate me would more than pay for the fines that have been imposed. While curled up in a ball to stay warm, I think of the absurdity of it all.
My hours here are filled with wondering how much longer until the loud clanking of keys announces the next meal coming my way. And I wonder what that meal will be? Breakfast is served as Cheerios or Corn Flakes, dry, with a plastic spoon too big to fit in my mouth. There is an eight-ounce carton of skim milk, served warm, to pour over the cereal. There are two pieces of dry toast, from white bread, and coffee. It is good to have coffee when you are in jail, since there is so much to do, and you want stay awake and alert for the entire event. The bowl and the cup are made of the same unbreakable plastic and they are the same drab brown color. The tray on which this incredible dining experience is presented is stainless steel, and weighs about four pounds. There are no “weaklings” in jail.
There are no “late-sleepers” in jail either. You have truly only a few things to anticipate, and those things are all these meals – and the first one is served at 6 AM. When breakfast is complete, you have the coffee inside you, keeping your heart pounding, while you try to relax on that thing that represents a bed, waiting for your next meal. You are not allowed to know what time it is, but if you nicely ask the jailer what time it is when he presents a meal, he may say “noon” when he hands you the heavy tray with dry white bread surrounding the single slice of bologna, which has slipped into the puddle of applesauce. And, of course, it would not be a meal without that great coffee.
Coffee could best be described as the highlight of the day, even though it resembles tea in color, and lukewarm water in flavor. It does carry a little caffeine kick, which is nice in the evening, so that you can rest easy while you prepare for breakfast.
Maybe it is ironic, or maybe God has a sense of humor and this is a slow week. This wonderful weekend of accommodations would not have been made possible if I had no interest to volunteer my time to the community. I want to give something to the young people that may help in the long run. Seems to me that community service would have that affect. After all, that’s what community service is, right? Doing something for the community? I have always believed that donations without regard or thanks are the best kind. It is the stuff given by someone who is begging for attention that we need to worry about.
I am not saying I do not deserve a punishment. I only wonder if I would be more comfortable if I could sleep without my daily-wear contact lenses in my eyes. And I wonder if I would be here at all if I were not poor.
I made a traffic mistake and wanted to repay my debt to this community by giving something to this community. Is this really suitable punishment?
It is June 5, 1992, now. In my first 20 hours, I’ve learned a few things about being in this jail. Probably most important is that people in here do not have much respect. “Can you turn down the air conditioning?” I asked during the brief moment when food was delivered.
“There’s nothing we can do,” the jailer said, without hesitation. I immediately start to wonder if that means the governor has the thermostat or maybe it is in the hands of God.
So I asked why I get this special room when others here get radios, TV’s, and roommates. “State law,” he said; again, the response came fast and cold. I wonder which law it is that says I get no media exposure while others do? Is it the same law that says it is illegal to walk from Minnesota into Wisconsin with a chicken* on your head?
I wish I had some clean clothes. Sweats would be nice. Anything that would help me warm up. The cold seeps into your pores, and is so hard to keep out.
I have been given a pad of paper and a pen. I wonder if it is to record my last will, or write a letter to my family, letting them know that I have not been kidnapped or murdered or anything else. I will not write such a letter; even if there was someone I would like to send it to, but instead I will write about this place. I enjoy writing, but the mood is not the correct mood to be creative. There is a song in my head and it has been there about a week, but the mood of the song in my head is a bit different from the mood I find inside these walls.
I ask to talk to the sheriff, but they think that is not a good idea. At least the sheriff never shows up. I mean, if I’m going to be in here, can anyone provide me a little information about how long I have to stay here?
My pillow is provided with the bedding given to me when I arrived. It is almost a full inch thick at its most thick part, and the feathers, or whatever makes up the inside of this thing, are held tightly by some of the thickest plastic skin I have ever experienced. There must be a shortage of money here in the county, because there are no pillowcases. My bunk is covered by a mattress, which was issued with the pillow. It is the same thickness as a thermal sleeping bag, but there are no zippers. I was given a large pillowcase to cover the mattress, but it is very thin. The blanket that keeps me warm is one hundred percent wool, which makes my skin itch. Fortunately, I can only cover myself from the knees to my chest. Only by curling my body into a tight ball can I be totally covered.
I went out of my way to finish this business, and because I did, I am now held in the county jail’s solitary confinement cell, waiting for a judge to catch a fish.
Lord, I’m so cold.
. . . . . . . . . .
There was a long pause before either of us spoke. I wanted to be sure he got it. The radio playing from the next room started playing the second song since our silence began, and I thought the silence had lasted long enough.
“Well?” I said.
“Is this true?”
“Except the part about handing my mother the ribbon from the Christmas present, yes.”
“Who’s Dean Martin?” the boy asked.
“That’s not the message.”
“How long did you stay in jail?”
“I was released the following Monday morning, and finally on June 8, 1992, my debt to society that was created in 1982 was paid in full. This debt could have been a $25.00 taxi ride, but I had to learn something.”
“So, you’re saying, somebody could find out I did this today ten years from now?” the boy started to get it.
“Some people have mistakes follow them longer than that,” I said. The look in his eyes told me he finally understood. He got it quicker than I did.
“What if I forget?” he asked.
“That’s why you have me,” I said.
*According to http://www.dumblaws.com/laws/united-states/minnesota, it is illegal for persons to cross state lines with a duck atop your head, and illegal for a citizen to enter Wisconsin with a chicken on his head.
Please visit us often...
We are trying to update and make changes weekly...
This website is built and maintained by Friendly 'Puters, LLC, Eagan, MN 55121
Last Update 10.07.2008
Click here to inquire about your website.