Jailbird

It was a bit before midnight the night before Xmas Eve in 1975. I was just home from a party at my sister’s house, where my mother was staying, still in my long party dress with an apron over it because I was preparing the meal for Xmas Eve, when they would all be coming to my house for and afternoon meal.  I’d just opened the fridge to put the cranberries in to jell when there was a LOUD pounding on the door.  Startled, I called out, “Who is it?”  I couldn’t imagine, but they sounded in a good bit of distress.

“Police, Ma’am. Open up!”  Of course I thought it must be a joke.

“Okay, really, who is it? Buffy?”  Sure it must be friends make a drop-by after they left the bar, I used the first name that came to mind of someone who might think it was funny to rouse me out of bed on what now, by the clock, was already Xmas Eve.”

“Open up. We have a warrant for your arrest!!!”  This didn’t sound like the voice of any friend of mine.  I opened the drapes and peered out, and sure enough, there was a police car parked in the street in front of my apartment, its lights shining brightly and its cherry top rotating and sending a circle of red through the neighborhood.  I could see the drapes of apartments on the floors above opening as well in our L shaped apartment complex.  I opened the door, and there were two uniformed policemen, handcuffs extended, ready to haul me off to jail… for what?

It was my second  year of teaching English in Cheyenne, Wyoming. So far as I knew, I was free of any felonies short of perhaps driving home after a few drinks at the Corner Bar with my fellow teachers, but if guilty of that, I had never been caught. What in the world could be happening?

What was I being arrested for?

“Outstanding speeding ticket, Ma’am.”  They allowed me to get my coat, one of them following me into the bedroom as I collected it, then they directed me out to the car. As we approached the police car, one opened the back door and the other one demanded that I put my hands behind my back to be cuffed.

“You’re going to handcuff me? You must be kidding me!  I have an outstanding speeding ticket that I forgot to pay because the day I was supposed to pay it, I accompanied the high school pom pom girls to Casper for a cross country meet as their sponsor!!! You are going to not only drag me in on Xmas Eve, but you’re going to handcuff me?

They exchanged looks, and I think I detected a bit of embarrassment on their part. The handcuffs were put away and I sat in the screened back seat with my hands, at least, free.

When we arrived at the jail, I was booked and told I could make one phone call.  I called my principal, thinking after all the reason I had neglected to pay my fine was in the pursuit of school business.  “Jim, can you come bail me out of jail? I’ve been arrested.”  He laughed.  “Judy, go to bed. It’s too late for one of your jokes. We’ll see you tomorrow!”  And he hung up!!!! Could I make another call? No, I was limited to one. Again, I made my plea. I was a local schoolteacher. Not paying the speeding ticket was an oversight. I was chaperoning at a school activity! Probably half of the police officers on the force had gone to my school!  Finally, they granted me one more phone call.  I called my sister, and because my mother by habit carried a lot of cash, luckily they had the bail money on hand.

As I awaited my savior, “Where should we put her?” One of the arresting officers  asked.

“Put her in the drunk tank. She’s no better than any of the rest of them!” the desk sergeant directed.

And so it was that I joined all of the rest of the undesirables in the county jail.  As I passed down the corridor to the drunk tank, I passed the cell of a local man being held for murder and a number of other detainees who looked a bit surprised at seeing a local schoolteacher in a floor length party dress being hauled off to the drunk tank. I later discovered that the judge of traffic court, disgusted at all the unpaid fines, had directed that every person with an outstanding fine to pay should be rounded up as a lesson in what happened to those neglectful of their civic duty to pay their debt to society!!!!

My sister arrived in about 1/2 hour with my bail money and gave me a ride home, chuckling all the way. The next day when my family arrived at my house, when I opened my Xmas stocking, there was a plastic set of handcuffs in its very bottom. Evidently my enterprising brother-in-law had somehow located a set in some venue open on Xmas Eve. My mother’s gift to me that year was to pay my bail money.It was, all in all, one of my most memorable Christmases.  True story.