Busted in Boulder

With the cash from Mrs. Thompson’s bedroom I immediately rented an inexpensive motel room in Boulder, Colorado. The cold would not be leading to my demise after all. However, my ego had driven me to the wrong means of accomplishing this; a shelter would have been the first place most people turned I imagine (unfortunately, I am not “most people”).

Three days from the date of my looting I was contacted by the police who were investigating the case. They wanted to talk to me as I suspected, and asked me to visit their offices. No problem.

When arriving at the station I was greeted by two detectives who led me toward an “interview” room. The stereotypical, over-used, you-must-be-a-fucking-fool interrogation ensued; it was Good Cop, Bad Cop. Yawn!

They mentioned finding my fingerprints on the sliding glass door and pretty much all over the house. Huge revelation there, given I had lived in the house for months. The next angle they tried was informing me that fingerprints could be dated and that my fingerprints were new enough to have been deposited after my eviction. Were these guys serious? I understood now why they worked the suburbs. It was hard to displace the smirk which fought to erase my otherwise composed countenance.

Despite the frailty of their evidence, I was taken in to custody and after a few hours transported to the Boulder County Jail. I was charged with second degree burglary and was able to visit the judge a couple of days later and receive a bond.

I can remember being behind the glass wall of the defendant section of the court room and a man being asked to stand as he was read his charges and bond. He had been arrested for possession of paraphernalia; a glass pipe. When the judge asked him if he had anything to say or would like to plead guilty, he responded with absolute seriousness, “But it was a small pipe, your honor.” Everyone chuckled, even the judge, though his furrowed brow seemed also to deepen in response to the guy’s plea.

Looking back, it was a rare bright moment in the next few months of my life in Colorado. Humor never eludes me, even in the most desperate of times. Jail I could make the best of, it was the guilt of my mother having to deal with all of this that stirred my feelings the most. I’d do my best to make sure she wouldn’t be having to deal with it.

When my charges were read, I plead not-guilty and was returned to my cell. The Boulder County Jail could best be described as the Waldorf Towers of county jails. You’ll be glad to know that tax-dollars are spent on renting movies on Fridays and Saturdays for the inmates to view on couches with bags of popcorn and a two-liter of Pepsi to share between three inmates. Why would anyone ever want to leave? There was even carpet in the cells and porcelain toilets. Well, I bonded out anyway. My mother had been contacted by Mrs. Thompson and they somehow arranged for this to be taken care of. When I stepped outside the jail, for the first time, Mrs. Thompson’s car stood waiting for me. I thought the detectives had been a joke. This surely was.

Tagged as: Autobiography, blog, crime, Prison, writing