Being Urinated on By A Claw Handed Man: Part I

Practical life tip: If you are ever trying to explain something ridiculous you did, just say you did it when you were younger; its always true and for some reason people think it means it happened long ago. For this 2-parter, I’ll dismount from my high horse of drug education and share a ridiculous story of my own. You know, from when I was younger.

First off, I am ridiculously bored by drug use stories, but apparently readers enjoy them, so I thought I might share one that exemplifies my own history of unhealthy relationships with drugs. This site is about developing healthy relationships with drugs but it is also important to understand unhealthy drug relationships. And its fun to write these. I hope you are entertained.

For this story, lets flash back 20+ years. I was a short-term, involuntary resident in the Miami-Dade County Jail. Two days prior to the jailhouse pee-party, I had been offered a complimentary police escort to my new fortified Miami domicile from a convenience store bathroom just off 95th street. Two young police officers stopped me and an acquaintance after we left the bathroom of this dirty establishment. Apparently, the owner of the convenience store was having issues with vagrants in the locking bathrooms using drugs; specifically, heroin and cocaine, via dirty needles. I only include that because someone always asks.

Now before we get to the next part, let me preface this by saying, I was eventually charged with possession of heroin and possession of drug paraphernalia; and I was 100% guilty. I did it, but also I can attest that police are not always truthful.

On the lovely Miami streets, the cops’ search yielded a single used dirty needle and a smoke detector, still in the box. Yes, despite being homeless for 8 months with a crippling addiction issue, and untreated mental health disorder, fire safety was, and always will be my highest priority. More accurately, I had shoplifted the smoke detector from Home Depot and planned to return it to a different location later that day. My profession at that time was liberating merchandise from one Home Depot and returning it to a different Home Depot for store credit. I would then sell that store credit gift card to contractors at a steep discount. Win-win. I had about 10 variations of this dumb scheme, with some being more profitable/dangerous than others (e.g. some of the gift cards were worthless, and I learned how to alter my ID#). This scheme worked well, until it didn’t.

Our police chauffeurs insisted we ride in the back of their cruiser where we could fully experience the warmth of the Miami summer without the burden of air conditioning. The AC of the police car was contained to the front of the cruiser by a plexiglass partition so we could experience life before modern convenience. There were small holes in the partition, but not enough to allow the cool air back into our hell-pit. The seats in the back of the cruiser were molded plastic with small cut outs where our cuffed hands could fit behind us. True luxury. With the Miami sun the seats were apparently made of fire. Luckily, I had brought the smoke detector.

During my younger days (see how I did that?), I was gifted with the ability to talk my way out of most situations. From my history of police and other authority encounters, I developed expertise at gaining sympathy or feigning enough empathy and good nature to be perceived as harmless and sent on my way. In the back of the cop car I was learning that my acquaintance did not share this gift. As I was using my southern accent and humility to garner sympathy, this asshole was antagonizing the cops by calling them “rookies” and laughing at them. In my future blog posts, I will discuss antisocial personality disorder, a disorder I know more about than I care to on many levels; and this would prove to be some of my earliest field research.

Then I said the words. Yep, those words. “Are we under arrest and if so why?” I had a lot of issues but I wasn’t an idiot. This was my last card. Our Hell-pit went silent and the air was thick from heat, confusion, and the stench of two unbathed homeless detainees. The silence was broken by my antisocial acquaintance laughing “Ahhhhh the rookies forgot to tell us we were under arrest!” He iced that cake with a lot of mocking profanity. It was true, the cops had never actually told us why we were being put into the car, where we were going, nor that we were under arrest! Miranda rights? Nope. Had I done it? Was I now a criminal mastermind who had outsmarted the cops!? The cops exchanged a couple of glances and were silent for part of our 10 minute ride. The only sounds were those of my antisocial companion who mocked the officers through spoken word and even broke into song.

We arrived to some place that was not jail so I was pretty certain that we were going to be released. We were at some sort of cop dispensary. There were police cruisers everywhere and police milling about getting into and out of cars. I assume we were at a police cruiser lot (if you know the name for these places please leave that in the comments!). We were handcuffed to one another and then handcuffed to a single chair in the Miami sun. Yep, one school-child sized chair and two sweaty people sharing it; one cheek on one cheek off.

Think this type of chair but in a lovely tan color.

The two officers sat in the cruiser talking and writing for about 20 minutes while we were outside the cruiser sun bathing. Back in our chariot one officer said, “you are being arrested for that bag of heroin we found”. Later, I would read the police report that said we had attempted to run and threw a bag of heroin into a puddle. Yes, I had used drugs, I had done it with the needle they found which also likely contained heroin and cocaine residue which should have made their creative endeavors unnecessary. Nothing else on the report was even remotely true. Where is Saul Goodman when you need him?

I wish I could dig up that police report. If any internet sleuths manage to please contact me. I can get you a smoke detector pretty cheap. And no, I never got my smoke detector back. Its fun to think about where that thing is now. Likely in some Miami home.

My next post will include the climax of our story: Getting booked, withdrawals, meeting the claw hand man, and being urinated on. Stay tuned.