Dumb Luck (15 page)

chapter
thirty

Chelsea came back in when she saw a couple of others jump into the hot tub. “Shall we?” she said.

“Not me,” I said. I'd been drinking but I wasn't that drunk. I wasn't about to go parading in my underwear in front of all my old classmates.

She looked a little disappointed but did not go in the tub on her own. Instead, she held onto my arm and whispered loudly into my ear. “This is the best party I've ever been to. I am so glad that you're my boyfriend.” She pressed up so tightly against me and that felt really good.

But was I really her boyfriend? The way she said it sounded not quite right. Like it was rehearsed. It didn't seem real. Taylor had set Chelsea up with me. It was great but was Taylor maybe running a bit too much of my life? Looking around at my apartment, with kids drinking and some dancing and some standing on my furniture, (why were they standing on my furniture?), it all suddenly didn't seem exactly right for me and my life.

Grant had gotten out of the hot tub and was dripping all over the floor as he walked first to grab a beer from the fridge and then to my bathroom where he put on my bathrobe. As he waltzed back into the living room, still dripping under the robe, he looked like he owned the place. I'd let it go. If I said one word to Grant, he'd flip. Then disaster would follow. Be cool, I told myself. Be cool and try to enjoy yourself. I was suddenly glad Kayla was not here to see this.

I switched from wine to beer so that I wouldn't get too drunk. It could be a long night. The first beer went down pretty smooth and it was followed by a second one. Someone had turned the music up way too loud and I turned it down a tad, hoping that no one would notice. Chelsea and Emma seemed to be having a very serious conversation—most likely it wasn't about child soldiers but nail polish—and I didn't want to intrude.

When I found Taylor, she was talking to my personal hero, Grant Freeman.

“Love the indoor pool, Brandon,” Grant said. He meant the hot tub. “Always wanted one. My stingy parents were always too damn cheap.” Grant's parents, I think, owned a bank or something like a bank. “Now, this is the life.”

Taylor was laughing as he spoke. She was clearly enjoying herself and sipping some more wine. There were expensive snacks set out on the counters and my former classmates were feasting, although there were a number of people here whose names I didn't know and who I didn't recognize. The room was stuffed with bodies. Taylor now seemed more interested in Grant than me, and Chelsea was still deep in discussion about whatever, so I figured it was my time to tour the room and introduce myself to some of the fine-looking young women I did not know.

I was awkward with the first one but, as soon as she understood who I was, everything changed. That made me more confident with the second and third. And then a girl named Stephanie, who I had never met before, said she'd been dying to meet me. She said she'd crashed the party after hearing about it through the grapevine. And she told me she wasn't a student really. She'd graduated high school and was now a model for a “very important agency.”

I then recognized her as one of my “fans” who had appeared via e-mail after I'd won the lottery. “I'm glad you came,” I said. I really was glad. At least at that moment.

She opened her purse. “Here's one of the pictures from my portfolio.”

I took the picture of her in a bathing suit, a very skimpy bathing suit. “My phone number is on the back.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said. No kidding. I used the word “Gee.” Just like a little kid.

“You have a great place.”

“It's nice but temporary. I'm moving into a house I bought in a couple of weeks. This is sort of a goodbye party to the condo.” I didn't tell her it was the house I grew up in.

“You don't mind that I crashed?”

“Not at all. It's great to meet you.”

“You're sweet,” she said. “I don't really know anybody else here. Would you hang out with me?”

“I'm not sure I really know most of these people either.” A quick look at Taylor and Chelsea again convinced me that neither had much interest in whether I was having a good time. And the truth was, aside from meeting the gorgeous young woman who was now talking to me, I wasn't really having that great of a time at my own party. I looked at Stephanie and she looked back at me like she'd just met the most important person in her life. That's when I blurted it out. “Do you want to take a break and go for a ride in my car?”

“Sure,” she said immediately.

Without an ounce of fanfare—or interest from the other partygoers who were really going at the party—we slipped out the door. Soon we were seated in the
BMW
and on the road.

“Where would you like to go?” I asked.

“Anywhere, as long as it's with you,” she said, slipping her hand into mine.

I found myself driving past my father's used car lot. Although it was closed, the sign was brightly lit and I saw my last name in those huge letters. Then I drove by my old house and on past where Kayla lived. I could see that there was a light on in her room.

Stephanie asked me some things about myself. She seemed intelligent and sensitive and a little deeper than Chelsea and less pushy than Taylor. I was thinking that there were possibilities here. Maybe it was time for me to choose my own girlfriend. “How old are you, Stephanie?” I asked.

“Twenty-three,” she said. “You're eighteen, right?”

“Yep.”

“Does it bother you? The age thing?”

“Nope.”

“I like younger guys,” she said, making me wonder how many there had been. But I felt like she really liked me. I felt different with her than I felt with Chelsea.

“I like being with you,” was all I could follow that with. I turned to look at her and I guess I must not have been careful enough with my driving because I let the car slip ever so slightly across the road and a driver coming the other way lay heavily on his horn.

“Oops,” I said. “I better stay focused. It's a new car. I'm still getting used to it.”

Unfortunately, not much more than three minutes later, I saw the lights of a police cruiser flashing behind me and heard the siren. I pulled over immediately and started to panic.

I looked at Stephanie and saw fear in her face.

“Shit,” I said out loud.

A flashlight was in my face and a knuckle was knocking on my window. I rolled it down.

“License and registration?”

I dutifully handed them over. I was staying very cool. I was sure this would all be over very quickly and it would all be okay.

“This is a learner's permit,” the cop said. I still hadn't had a look at his face. “She a licensed driver?”

I had not said a word about being a new driver to Stephanie. I looked at her. “Sorry. Could you show him your license?”

Stephanie gave me a baffled look. “I don't have a driver's license,” she said.

I froze. I don't know if she was lying or if she really didn't have a license.

The cop said to me, “Can you step out of the car?”

I took a deep breath and got out.

I could see now that he was a clean-cut, muscular man of about thirty. “Have you had anything to drink tonight?”

“No,” I lied.

“You're just learning to drive, right?”

“Yes. I have the learner's permit.”

“But you passed the written test?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember the part about drinking and driving?”

“Of course.”

“Do you always slur your words or only when you're drinking?” he asked with an ominous tone in his voice. I truly didn't think I was slurring my words. But it was sinking in that he could obviously tell that I'd been drinking.

I'd never ever been in trouble with the law. And I had this feeling that if I ever got in the slightest trouble, I'd be polite and apologize and the policeman would be kind. He'd give me a little lecture and I'd promise never to do whatever again. And that would be the end of that. “I had one beer,” I said, thinking this would make everything okay.

“Turn around, please.”

I turned around and suddenly felt hard metal clamping down tightly on my wrists. “You'll have to come with me.”

With that, he pushed me toward his police car and sat me down in the caged back seat. There was police chatter on the radio. And static. I remember lots of static. He closed the doors and then I saw him talking to Stephanie who had stepped out of my car. She had a cell phone up to her ear. I was hoping she would look at me or come over or offer some kind of explanation or assistance that would get me out of this predicament. But she didn't. She looked completely in the other direction and talked on her cell phone and then to the police officer, who was asking her questions.

And then I watched as he took my keys from the car, walked back toward me, and sat back down in the front. “Isn't this all a bit unnecessary?” I asked.

“It's the way we do things these days. I pulled you over because there was a complaint from another driver. They phoned in the description of the car. You were the only
BMW
on the road going this way. Car's in your name, too. Thought it would belong to Daddy.”

“I bought it myself.”

“Nice,” he said.

That's when a cab stopped and I watched Stephanie get in. She never looked back at me once. The arresting officer must have felt obliged to explain why she was let go or maybe he wanted to rub salt into my wounds. “She said she'd just met you. I asked if she wanted to accompany you to the station until this was settled. She said no. She was free to go. You comfortable back there?”

I felt like crying but held it together. I said nothing.

Pretty soon a tow truck arrived and the cop handed him the keys to my car. After that, he drove me to the police station. It was going to be one hell of a long and difficult night.

chapter
thirtyone

The handcuffs were tight and they dug into my wrists. All I kept thinking was:
This can't be happening to me!
But it
was
happening to me. It's possible that it wasn't until that moment, handcuffed, sitting in the caged back seat of a police car, that I realized just how much the alcohol had affected me. I'd been drinking wine and beer ever since Taylor had first arrived. Going for a drive was a supremely bad idea.

But right then, at that minute, there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I had gotten myself into this mess. And Stephanie had simply bailed on me. Who could blame her?

At the police station, I was led into a very brightly lit room. “We'd like to give you a blood alcohol test using a breath analysis machine. You care to call a lawyer?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said, “I think so.”

“Go ahead,” said, handing me a desk phone.

“I don't know who to call,” I said.

“Want me to dial Legal Aid for you?”

“Yes,” I said.

He dialed a number from memory and held out the phone.

When a woman answered on the other end and introduced herself, I told her my name and explained my predicament. Then I asked the question, “Can I refuse to take the test?”

“You can,” she said matter-of-factly, “but the punishment will be the equivalent of your being found guilty of driving while under the influence.”

I was not ready at that point to even ask what the punishment would be. “So the best option is just to take the test and hope for the best?”

“Probably,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said. And hung up the phone. “I have to pee real bad,” I told the cop who arrested me.

“Sure,” he said. “Follow me.”

I followed him to a small bathroom and went to close the door behind me but he put out his foot to stop me. “Sorry. But I can't let you be in there alone. I need to stand here with the door open.”

I think it was then that I truly believed I had wandered out of reality and into some really cheesy bad cop reality show. But I had to pee, so there I was standing in front of a toilet with a cop watching me pee. How weird was that?

Afterwards, I was led into another brightly lit room and
introduced to another police officer and his Breathalyzer machine.

“I'm Stephen Coombs,” he said rather casually, “and I'm going to test your blood-alcohol content. Ever done this before?”

“No,” I said, the full weight of the moment starting to catch up with me.

He held out a tube. “Well, you blow a good lungful of air into this tube and then I'll get a reading on this machine.”

I hesitated to take the tube.

“It's easy,” he said sarcastically. “But if you burp, we have to wait fifteen minutes before we test you. Otherwise it throws off the reading.”

As if on cue, I had to burp.

“Okay. We have to wait. Want to tell me anything about yourself?”

“Not really,” I said.

“How much did you have to drink?”

“One, maybe two beers.”

“That's what they all say.”

I looked down at the floor. After a little while, I burped a second time. Coombs checked his watch. The policeman who arrested me hovered nearby. It looked like he was writing out a report. After some time passed, I burped a third time. “Sorry,” I said. “I didn't do it on purpose.”

Coombs looked at the other cop and they both rolled their eyes.

So I made a point of not burping anymore.

Finally, Coombs handed me the mouthpiece again. I blew into it. He wrote down a reading.

Not long after, he took a second reading.

Looking at a printed read-out he said, “You're well over the limit. Blood alcohol content of 0.05.”

After that, the first cop took over again. He handed me some paperwork. “As of now, you no longer have a beginner's driver's license. And it's gonna be a long time before you can even apply for one again. You'll find out all about that later.” He handed me a legal-size yellow form. “This paper here states you were driving under the influence of alcohol. You've been charged. And you are to appear in court on the date stated there. Do you understand?” He asked that last question like I was a little kid. A bad little kid.

I nodded yes.

Another phone was handed to me. “Call someone to
pick you up.”

I must have looked at the phone like I'd never seen one before. My mind was a muddle. I was scared. I was confused. And the beer and wine had me feeling both buzzed and very, very tired. I tried to think rationally.

I should have called my parents.

But I didn't.

And I couldn't call Taylor or Chelsea on their cell phones. If either one of them or anyone else from the party showed up, that would just make things worse. The cops would end up busting my party. The one that was probably still going on at my place without me there.

I thought about calling Kayla.

And I should have. Even if it meant her coming here with her parents. I should have done that.

But I didn't.

“Let me call a cab, okay?” I asked.

“Sorry,” the arresting cop said. “I can't let you do that.” Then he looked frustrated and ran a hand through his short cropped hair. “Look, we've wasted enough time on you already.” And, with that, he shocked the hell out of me by putting the cuffs back on me. “Come on,” he said.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You'll find out.”

We went down two flights of stairs, me stumbling once and almost falling, except he was hanging onto my elbow.

A uniformed woman in another brightly lit room asked me for everything from my pockets.

“Belt?” she said. “We need your belt.”

I took it off and handed it to her.

“Watch?”

I gave it to her.

“Wallet?”

I handed it over.

“Shoe laces?”

“You've got to be kidding.” I said

“Not kidding.”

I took the laces out of my running shoes and handed them to her. She asked me to sign a document. I signed it without reading it. Panic was settling into my head but everything around me was fuzzy.

Next, I was led through the jail. My first image was of a young man, maybe twenty-five years old, standing at the front of a cell, completely naked, holding onto the bars. Some men were in group cells and looked up at me as I walked by. Some were obviously drunk and shouted at the cop who led me.

It was the real thing. A jail.
I walked past the shouting men, some kicking at the
bars. It was like some terrible nightmare. I kept wanting
to say, “There must be some mistake.” But there was
no mistake. This was reality. This was my life. I
had got myself into this. I had screwed up really
bad. All I wanted was to be out of there.

As I stumbled forward, I began to wish I could turn the clock backwards. I wished I was still a kid, living at home, still going to school. Yeah, waking up in the morning from a bad dream and getting myself ready to go to school.

Fortunately
for me, I was led to my own private cell.
Four feet by eight feet. I walked inside. The door
closed with a heavy metallic clang. And I was locked
in. No one had said anything but I knew I
was there for the night. Possibly more. I was in jail. Holy Christ.

Then the cop was gone. I had two concrete walls on either side of me. If I sat sideways on my bed, I could brace my feet against the far wall, it was that narrow. The floor was concrete and one caged light bulb hung from the ceiling. There was no one in the cell across from me. I felt isolated and alone.

I sat down on the hard stainless steel shelf that was to be my bed. Beside it was a seatless stainless steel toilet attached to a sink. But when I tried to turn the water on at the faucet, nothing came out. I was very thirsty. But it looked like the only water to drink here was from the toilet. And that wasn't going to happen.

I lay down on the steel bunk and tried to calm myself as the panic began to set in. I felt nauseous and almost threw up a couple of times. But I didn't. My watch had been taken. I had no idea what time it was. And no idea how long I would be held here.

There were no police officers walking by to ask for water or to ask about the time.

I felt very, very alone.

And then another prisoner who I couldn't see in the next cell beside me began screaming something unintelligible. It was a horrible, unearthly scream. He began kicking hard and relentlessly on the cell door. Maybe he was crazy violent, maybe he was on drugs. I'd never heard anything like that before. I lay on my back now, closed my eyes, and tried to make everything go away.

It didn't.

Another prisoner from nearby screamed at the first screamer to shut up. An argument followed. A really angry, stupid, pointless name-calling argument between two men, with me invisibly sandwiched in my cell between them. I remained silent and squeezed my shut eyes tighter. I tried again to make it all go away.