...so where was I? Oh, the best part (or maybe not).

I bit his hand, yes. I bit it very hard and it seemed to me the absolutely correct thing to do. We both grabbed for the keys with my teeth on his knuckles and his left hand reaching under his highly decorated left pocket to open the door and drag me out of the car. I managed to start the car and he managed once again, with one hand plus my teeth, to turn it off. Somehow he managed to get me out of the car and I started begging and begging, "No, no, you can't do this!" Then, "Please don't do this!" All the way back to his patrol car like that, pushing and shoving, trying to extricate the car keys from one another like kids fighting over a soccer ball and ready to tumble into the scrub oak at any minute. I'm not sure why some cops do the things they do but they wear uniforms while they do it and people in uniforms generally don't need reasons, they have authority. When you bite them in the knuckles however, they have the best reason of all and it is as if they almost can predict who will commit a felony and who will just sign that ticket and stuff it in a pocket book and move along and forget all those times the same cop leered in their window staring at their boobs with their shit eating grins just waiting for the right opportunity.

By the time we reached the patrol car, the struggle was not only in full swing but was turning a bit violent. He had my wrists together, they were hurting and was trying to lift them over my head using one hand while opening his door with the other. I was like a wet cat held by the tail. By then of course, my heel broke and I was half limping and half hopping. I can hardly imagine what it must have looked like had there been one soul there to serve as a witness but at Grace's Corners, the only witness a sign pointing in one direction to Double Adobe and in the other, to Tombstone, Arizona.

He managed to slide into the front seat of the patrol car and picked up his radio to call for assistance. I was still begging and really, even though I had my hands near his neck, it was all very friendly on my part. It was like a kid tugging on dad's pant leg asking for a fudgesicle on a hot day. It wasn't really what I'd call "resisting arrest, assault on a police officer and disturbing the peace". I was simply asking for him to reconsider....then suddenly his Brown Tie was in my grip. There it was and I pulled ever so slightly and then, there it was, in my hand and I held it there, not believing really what kind of trouble I was actually in. It was, horror of horrors, a CLIP ON. Just like that, one minute a law abiding teenager, albeit a speed demon, and the next, you've got The Man's Tie in your fist and nothing else. Nothing can save you then. There's proof. Fingerprints all over the little metal clips and his voice on the radio and all you can hear is "...backup. I need backup." Because you are a teenager you forget you've shared quarters with the District Attorney. You just don't realize those types of things when you are eighteen. There's lots you don't realize at eighteen actually. Like my daughter on the streets of Tripoli a couple days ago and I'm holding down the flank with my evil stares at the old leering men we passed by one after another. Some of them even warranting a "What you looking at, you old geezer?" And then they look away.

It was then that I just sort of gave up and submitted to what was apparently unavoidable. It happens all the time to folks like that. You do something stupid and then you are sitting in the FRONT SEAT of a patrol car with your nice legs crossed at the ankles and broken high heels, a few buttons missing from your pink shell sweater, your hair prettily disheveled and on your way to jail...all because you dumped rubbish on the highway in a 55 mph zone. You've no idea that one day you'll be a refugee on a highway heading north dodging bombs, telling the others you've picked up on the way out of town to keep their heads down; or that one day you'll reach the mightly Cedars and say, Oh My, so this is why I've come and where is that river Gilgamesh was talking about? It was worth the wait and the trip. It was definitely worth the trip.

The state trooper made some small talk and explained why I had to sit in the front seat with him, and in handcuffs, as opposed to the back seat where not only can one not escape because there aren't any door handles but one cannot reach a patrolman's tie either, nor his neck. I'm sure he knew how to tie a tie but it must be that that would require two hands and it is the one thing they simply don't teach them in police college. I'm relatively sure though they aren't advised to ride around with known felons, dangerous people, in the front seat of their patrol car after having told their supervising officer to skeedaddle and they'd meet for doughnuts or something later. In fact, he didn't have to explain a thing to his supervisor about the original crime but I was just too young, just too naive to know how much trouble he should have been in, the trouble both of them should have been in for sexual harrassment. I could have called old Dave Blunt, DA (name changed to protect the innocent wife of the Kung Fu freak). I could have called him with that one call but instead I called my brother Jack. That is what you do when you are eighteen and you have a brother named Jack. You call him. You'd call him all time if you could and you'd call the other two brothers as well to whoop someone's arse. That doesn't work though in the real world of police reports and orange jumpsuits. It doesn't work with psychotic cell mates either. For that you need a Francie. In fact, you need a childhood pal like Francie more than once. Sometimes you need them twice and I'll tell you why. You wonder where they are as you stare at the cedars from thabible. You wonder where they all are, the Francies, Bobbies and Marys.

So anyways... I went to jail. People go to jail all the time. It is a serious issue. It is especially serious when someone has just asked you to marry them and you know for sure that isn't going to work out at all. Who wants to marry a jailbird? Well, it seems, some people do. Some are suited to them quite well....

...is it time for a poem yet? I think so. Tomorrow is the 22 day of April 2006 and we've a long way to go...we need a rest stop it seems. Rest stops are always good...

Ode to My Monster

There you are you little Frankenstein,
I birthed you in marriage:
a village boy who read the garbage for news.
I was much better even when you cursed
all my living relatives and some of the dead.
We didn't know much then about creation did we?
You, my old glove. My masterpiece.
I, your beloved wife, your help-meet.
How I pray you'll live beyond me
so I don't have to cry when you go
but then I think, I couldn't do that to you either.
So the next best thing is to stage a duel.
That's it, we'll just trust our instincts.
Yesterday, I napped in front of your grandparents
while they fought. I was at peace.
The old man stoked his fire. Your grandmother cried.
They were waiting for each other to go.

Or maybe....it is this one that belongs here...maybe they both do. They are both very heavy things and like "they" always say: Everything's Connected.

Ode to Bill

There were so many of you:
Bills and Bobs and Marys.
Though now, you are dead asleep
in the White Mountains with the fish
and the Indians it's come to pass
that I remember you were the one
who never pulled my hair or called me fat.
In your final days before parting
from all the others - the lawmakers,
your father the judge who must be
quite old by now and older still,
I wonder, did you ever think of me?
Did you ever remember in your last moments,
your fine kind of kindness
to a red headed girl?
The long line of the law you came from?
Did you ever see the Louvre?