Free at Last

So I’m being led down yet another hallway in the Boulder County Jail. What was I doing in jail? Now’s that’s a great question. For those just joining this little yarn, you can get caught up by starting back at my What Happened??? post. Okay, caught up now? Good. As I said, I was being led down yet another hallway in the Boulder County Jail…

I’d had my possessions (sheets, blankets and the plastic coffee cup of goodies) taken from me. I took this as a good sign. I figured I was finally (from what I have been able to piece together so far, some 18-20 hours after arriving…) either being allowed to pay my own bail or – more likely –Matt or Doug had bailed me out. Either way, all was good. I was taking my last guided tour of the day and would soon be free again! It’s funny how easily one can take freedom for granted – and I was only locked up for the better part of one day. I couldn’t image actually facing hard time … I guess I’m just not built for that lifestyle…

We finally arrived at this door. The guard opened it and instructed me to head on in to another door inside and close it behind me. This I did. It was a plain little room – reminded me of one of those dressing rooms they have in the department stores. There was a bench and a large pane of glass with a little slot at the bottom. I don’t know how long I just stood there waiting for someone to show up behind the pane before it occurred to me that nobody was coming … seemed like a few minutes; I finally realized that all my possessions (the ones that I had been missing throughout the day) where within reach behind the glass. I then decided to change out of my bright red jumpsuit and back into my actual street clothes.

I was also able to get my cell phone, belt, wallet and e-cig along with a copy of my arrest summons (first time I saw that) and list of items just mentioned that were sealed under this plastic shroud that I needed to rip into. I’m not quite sure what the need for the vacuum sealing of my items was – my guess is one more piece of bureaucracy that made sense to someone, somewhere at some time who had the authority to make it procedure… I suppose it kept the items more secure … but from who? The cops…? Seems kind of silly…

Or perhaps it wasn’t…? I quickly noticed that my wallet had its standard array of useless membership cards, business cards, my California (please make a note of that, I said “California”) driver’s license and my several credit cards (usually located in said wallet) were actually outside the wallet but sealed in the plastic next to it. The one thing that my wallet didn’t have was any money in it. Now granted, I had absolutely no recollection of the entire night before. Perhaps I spent all the money? I just thought this was rather interesting…

After changing clothes and grabbing my stuff, I walked back out the door I entered through. It led to the initial door I entered from the hallway that was now shut and locked. There was another room off to the left so I decided to head that way. What I found here was yet another large pane of glass (much like the one in the room I had just left). This one had a rather large officer of the law behind it that was asking me to sign my name and address on some sheet of paper. Whilst signing the sheet, I decided to ask this officer if he knew anything about my being there and the answer I got was a definite yes. He basically told me that he was working the night before and that I was the drunkest person he had ever seen. It just sounded to me like this guy was no fan of mine and I really couldn’t figure out why (don’t forget that I remembered nothing from the night before…).

After signing out, he gave me a check for two dollars. He explained that, after paying some fee (or fine or whatever it was) with the money I had in my wallet and the $100 (which ended up being a bit over $120 for some unknown reason) that my friend paid for the bail, I had exactly two dollars left. I’m not sure why this was given to me as a check but it was… I apparently had either $32 or $37 in my wallet and the fee that I paid for something was $30 (or $35, either way…) so rather than just give me the two dollar bills, they wrote me a check for two dollars. Bureaucracy again, I guess…

He then walked around and opened the door to the hallway. This hallway ended at a room with several people in it – one of these people was my buddy Matt. Thanks Matt! You came through!! It was then that I quickly called Doug on his cell. I told him thanks but Matt had already bailed me out and he didn’t need to make the trip. Funny thing was that he was inquiring as to where we were – he was at the Boulder Courthouse since that used to be where the jail was (Doug’s lived in that area quite a long time…). I told him I appreciated his effort but that he was now free to head home. The best part now was that I was now free to “head home” (or at least back to my hotel). I was a bit curious as to how the people at the Radisson were going to respond to my coming back at 9:30 the evening on the day I was supposed to have checked out. Heck, I was a bit concerned as to what might have happened there the night before – remember that the last memory I had was sitting at the Fusion – their bar…

So while Matt’s driving me back to Longmont, I decided to give Todd a call. I was very curious about what had happened the night before and thought that he might have some information. The conversation went something like this:

“Hi Todd, guess where I’ve been all day.”

“Jail.”

“How did you know that?”

“The police told me you were in jail last night when they picked me up.”

“So you were in jail as well?”

“No, the hospital. I wrecked my car.”

Turns out I wasn’t the only one who had bad results from our well planned night of drinking. The saddest part about all this is that I honestly believe that I will never know exactly what happened that night. How was Todd in any position to even be able to wreck his car? He was supposed to be staying in my room! Why was I taken to the Boulder ARC? I was drinking in my hotel’s bar – all I needed to do was stumble back to my room and I could sleep it off. What on Earth happened that made everything go awry??? I doubt I will ever know…

After returning to the Radisson, I had a rather interesting conversation with the people working the desk. After explaining that I couldn’t check-out on time because I had been in jail all day, the guy (and I still don’t know if he was joking or not) said that he shouldn’t be letting me stay there but that he would; however if he heard one peep from me, he was calling the cops. It was weird though; he wasn’t working the night before however he seemed to have knowledge of me being taken out of there by the police. This story would later be refuted by a different employee working the desk on the next day – he claimed, after I inquired, that he called people working that night and was told that nothing happened in the hotel. I still don’t know why I was taken to the ARC or from where … there are no police records on this…

Well, that’s basically my story. Apart from dropping a grand the next morning on a lawyer’s retainer allowing me to get back in court in record time (the next day) and successfully get all of the bond restrictions removed (which was a great thing – I made my flight back to LAX the next day), I guess that’s pretty much it. I decided to write this up with so much detail as a red flag to those out there who think it’ll never happen to them. I had the night flawlessly planned. I woke up the next day in jail.

bis später,

Coriolis