After some very difficult soul searching, I’ve decided I need to come clean: I did not in fact consummate my relationship with B. (and what’s so wrong with the word consummate anyway?). In fact, I was no where near B. last night. I just said that to cover up a much worse experience, which I didn’t want to tell about. I didn’t want to even think about it, but it’s not the kind of experience I can just sweep under the rug. Though believe me, I’ve tried.

I’ll be the first to admit that not everything I’ve posted here has necessarily put me in the best possible light. But I figure it’s sort of like cheap therapy, since I assume that therapists cost more than internet connections. Anyway, today’s the first day that I’m hesitant to tell you about something that happened to me, because it’s so humiliating. I’m getting shaky even just remembering it, much less writing about it. But I think I need to, for me more than anything, because I need to start facing up to things.

So…deep breath. Last night I got busted. Not busted like telling someone you had a doctor’s appointment and then having them run into you at the mall. I mean busted like by cops and put in handcuffs and taken to the police station. Busted like one of those pathetic tards on that show Cops that I absolutely can’t stand to watch but practically have to, it’s so awful. There’s one thing for which I’ll always be eternally grateful: at least I wasn’t in my underwear at the time. Which I say now, but oh my god, it was horrible.

First off, even though shoplifting has gotten harder over the years, what with those stupid cameras in the black bubbles and theft prevention systems at the doorways and stuff, you’d be surprised how easy it is to get around all that. So says the guy who just spent the night in lock-up. Never having had any trouble for all those years, I guess I got cocky. I mean, of course I know that stores have security people. I’m not an idiot. Okay, I take it back. I am an idiot. I still can’t figure out who nabbed me, because I’m pretty sure I had all the cameras scoped out, and there wasn’t anyone I could see on my aisle. All I was after was some stupid fucking pens, too. I like the expensive kind, with the ink that flows nicely and writes even when the paper gets oily, because I have oily skin. Have you priced decent pens? It’s an outrage.

Anyway, as I left the store, some doofus security guy with a buzz cut came after me and told me to please come back into the store. My answer? “No thanks, I really gotta get home.” I think that’s what I said. I know for sure I said, “No thanks.” No thanks? He took out his little store security badge and flashed it all badass, and in his other hand, he had the ripped open pen packaging that I’d left in the Rubbermaid section. “I’m not asking, sir. I need you to come with me.”

For one split second, I honestly considered trying to make a run for it. I mean, Brad or Nathan or Scooter or whatever his name was wasn’t all that big, and at that point, he was solo (two bigger guys showed up about 30 seconds later). But then I saw that on his belt he had a taser. I nearly shit my pants. I caved like a cheap card table.

Man I wish I’d gone for it! Don’t you have times like that, when you wished you had been bold, even to the point of stupidity? I’ve always dreamed of being that kind of guy who’s just a crazy motherfucker, who’ll do anything, just because it seems like a good idea at the time. Because we all love people like that. How great would this blog entry be if I could have told you that I made a run for it, and was running all Crazy Legs Comanche across the parking lot, while Nate accidentally tasered some old lady? Even if I didn’t get away, it would be a great story. As it was, I just went quietly with Nazi Nate so I wouldn’t get tasered.

The two bigger guys showed up right away, like I said, as Nate was escorting me back to the store. They took me up a stairway near the front of the store and through a door with an Employees Only sign, and then back into a little empty room with a table. Are there enough shoplifting busts at a place like that that they actually have a shoplifting interrogation room built right into the floor plan? It seemed that way. One of the big guys stayed with me and told me that the police had been called, and would be arriving shortly. He put the opened pen package on the table between us, like it was supposed to make me sweat or something, and then asked, “Do you have something you’d like to explain?” “No,” I said. “We know you took these pens,” he said. It went on like this for a few minutes, until the cop came. She asked me to stand up and lift up my arms, and then she patted me down and found the pens in an inside pocket of my jacket.

The cop said, “Would you like to explain this?”

“There’s nothing to explain,” I said. “Those are mine.”

She made a really exaggerated scoffing sound. “Unfortunately, for you, we have a witness who can testify that you took those out of this package. So don’t make this any harder on yourself than you need to. If you cooperate now, it’ll go better for you,” she said. Or something like that.

But hey, I’ve watched enough Law & Order to know that it never goes better for you if you confess, so I just said I wanted to speak to my attorney. Haha. What a laugh. As if I have an attorney. But it seemed like the right thing to say. “Have it your way,” said the cop. That’s when she took the handcuffs off her belt and started reading me my rights.

“Hold it,” I said, is that absolutely necessary?”

“I’m afraid it is, without a signed confession,” she said, and then she cuffed me. Let me tell you, handcuffs aren’t just for show. They hurt, especially when the cop kind of yanks on your arms to get them on you. The worst part of it was when she took me back downstairs and I suddenly realized in a more visceral way that I was about to be paraded in front of every damn customer out of the store in cuffs. Who knew who was in that store? B. could be in that store, for all I knew. I knew for a fact that she shopped there sometimes. What did I do? I started fucking crying.

That’s right. I cried like a stupid little kid. It kind of caught me by surprise. The horrible thing is that sometimes when you cry, it stings like a motherfucker, which makes you cry even worse, and makes snot literally flow out of your nose. So off I went, Peter Perp, bodily fluids streaming down my face, paraded as an object lesson in front of all those customers. There have been a lot of awful moments in my life, but this walk of shame ranks way up there.

Once we got to the cop car, the cop pushed me down inside and I banged my head on the doorway. The backseats of cop cars are no picnic either. They don’t really leave any room for your knees, especially when you’re sitting awkwardly with your hands behind your back. And I’m not a very tall guy either. And then the siren woops woops and the lights are flashing and away you go, with everyone nearby giving that sad “what a shame” head shake in your direction.

The cop looked in the rear-view mirror and noticed I was crying.

“Oh, sweetie, just let it out,” she said. “Don’t be afraid. Just let it awwwwll out.”

I cried even harder, even though I knew she was probably mocking me. Once we got to the police station, the tears had pretty much stopped flowing, but my nose was still running. Then, they take you inside and bore you to death. Every last part of the tedious process, searching and fingerprinting and photos and filling out forms, took forever. I swear they must do that on purpose. Finally, after what seemed like it must be hours, some obviously bored detective took me to a little room and asked me, sort of like the first cop had done, to confess my crime, because it would go a lot easier on me. He gave me a form to write out my confession. I refused to cooperate. This guy didn’t even bother trying. “Whatever you say, Sport,” he said. He actually called me “Sport.” “We got a witness, so it doesn’t really matter what you say,” he said all smugly. Then he gave me information about bail and told me I could make my phone call.

I was stumped. Up until that point, I hadn’t really given any of this much thought. The whole attorney thing was a big lie, of course, so there was no attorney to call. Just who could I call? I wasn’t about to give my sister the satisfaction, and I just don’t know all that many people well enough to call them up and ask them to come down and post $400 in bail. I thought about calling Richard, but he hadn’t even been very nice the last time I talked to him. I wasn’t about to call B. I asked the detective, who was filling out paper work, if he had any suggestions.

“You’re asking me?” he said.

“Yeah, I’m asking you.”

“You don’t have a brother or something?”

“No,” I lied.

“I don’t know. Bail bonds, I guess, though they don’t usually do little stuff like this. But try it if you want.”

He gave me a card, a really terrible looking business card with a tacky logo that was a ripoff of the Bond 007 theme. Finally, I just decided what the hell, where do I have to be anyway? I’m unemployed. I mean, it would be one thing if I had to be at a job in the morning. So I didn’t call anyone, and by this time it was like 2:00 in the morning anyway, so they just put me back in that little cell.

Now, it’s not like I expect your sympathy, because I have a pretty good idea of what you think of me. You’ve been pretty up front in some of your rude comments about how you think my life is a train wreck. In truth, maybe my life is a train wreck, and maybe I deserve your contempt. Maybe I even want your contempt, in some weird, twisted way. Maybe that’s the real reason I keep this blog. I dunno. But that jail cell was horrible. Not just because it was small and cold, or because of the flickering cold neon light that made you feel like you’re in the Matrix, or because the thin little mattresses on the bunk beds are hard and lumpy. The thing that got to me the most was having to use that little metal toilet that just stuck out of the wall, without anything vaguely like privacy. It’s a horrible feeling to have to sit on that cold toilet and take a dump, in plain sight of anyone who might happen to walk by, even if no one did happen to walk by. I won’t even discuss the sandpaper consistency toilet paper.

This morning they took me to court for arraignment, which is a story in itself, but I’m way too tired to try to tell it now. Maybe later.

I don’t know what I’m going to tell B.