Guilty as Charged

I wish I had some cool bruise. Instead I just have what looks like a shadowy rash near my right cheekbone. And an asymmetrical smile. 

I heard recently that you can’t write (well) about fresh wounds. You can only write about scars. So I didn’t want to write anything other than esoteric poetry about the incident that happened in Philly. That, and I don’t fully understand what happened.

But, truthfully? All memories are fickle. And since this one already started out so hazy, I am pretty sure it’s not going to get any clearer with time.

Perhaps the scariest part about writing blog posts is that they are supposed to be true. At least when I work on my fictional trilogy I can say every character is an amalgamation of multiple people, every scene was created in my head – despite all being inspired by reality.

But to stand by my words, denote them as real? That’s freaking scary. I don’t want to mislead. So I will start by saying that my account is true for me. And that’s all. Take it. Or leave it.

I have always had issues with authority. Just ask any of my teachers (and my mom). So perhaps things wouldn’t have snowballed if I didn’t have fire burning in my eyes, suspicion coursing through my veins, when the cops questioned me.

I was wandering through a restricted section of an Amtrak train station when they found me. I was dressed in heeled boots, hoop earrings, tight jeans, and false confidence. Confidence is my best defense mechanism, especially when I am feeling anything but. 

At that moment, I was feeling anything but [confident]. I’d recently come from New York City, where the night life lasts till sunrise. I expected Philly to be similar. Hell, my friends and I even ended the night fairly early, around 10:30 pm. Even in Boston the night would be considered young. But I wanted to be responsible. I also wanted to give my other friends a chance to connect one-on-one. When we reached a fork in direction, I convinced them I knew how to get to my hotel from there. I didn’t. My directional abilities in the light of day, in a familiar city are subpar at best. 

My blind optimism (and my very cold hands), kept me from looking up directions on my phone. When I didn’t pass my hotel, I used the same tactic I’ve channeled since I was five. Keep walking. It didn’t work for me then (my parents once feared I’d drowned at Myrtle beach because I’d scampered so far away), and it definitely didn’t work for me on this night. But tell that to my past self. The one walking in almost zero degree weather in a city she was completely unaccustomed to. There was no time to stop. I had to keep trekking. I willed a solution to happen. Though I had none in mind.

This is how I ended up in a train station 40 minutes walking distance from where my friends and I split up. Even though my hotel had literally been 10 minutes away, at most. 

I could’ve ordered an Uber, but every time I looked at the cars whizzing past me on the road, it scared me to no end. Where would they even pull over? So I tried to board a train instead. 

I knew a random train wouldn’t necessarily lead me to my hotel, but I wanted warmth, and some form of security. A train could offer me that, at least temporarily. I was sure it beat staying on the streets.

It probably should have been a bad sign to me that there were very few people in the station other than homeless people and workers. But, being numbingly cold as I was, and a bit tipsy, it was the only solution I could think of. It just had to work. One way or another, I was getting on a train. Any train. 

When I finally saw one coming I couldn’t have been more excited. I hurriedly crossed the tracks so that I could be on the right side when it chugged its way over. Lucky for me, it was going at a snail's pace. 

Unlucky for me, it was not in service. I realized this as soon as I saw it filled with bright vested workers rather than pedestrians. But I was so disappointed it was all I could do but gaze wistfully at it like a sad puppy, whilst pacing up and down alongside.

When cops found me, I was relieved. I knew I needed assistance. This was one of the rare times even I could admit that. They told me I was in a restricted section, but I explained it wasn’t intentional-I was completely lost, just a visitor. I was not the slightest bit worried this would come back to bite me. I was just glad to get some help. 

My definition of help differed from their definition of help. It should have been a red flag to me that they all seemed rather eager to have found me. What started out as two Amtrak cops quickly turned into a crowd of them.  They circled me like hawks, excitement growing in their bored beady little eyes. 

Hey-I did say this is my version of events. I’m not on the stand. In fact, I think hawks is putting it nicely. I am fairly certain they viewed me the way vultures view road kill. I was not one of the many homeless people slumped against the wall. There was something odd about me being there, at that time, in that place. I was fresh. Freshly naive.

The first two cops who found me shooed the other guys away. I was their prize. I mean damsel. 

They started off by asking me a million questions. How did I get here? Where was I trying to go?

 It was a simple predicament, I explained. I knew where I needed to go, I had a hotel room. I just needed help getting to it. 

They warned me that Philadelphia streets are not safe at night. 

Of that I was aware. Hence why I was trying to board a train to nowhere. 

When they seemed willing to assist me in getting the help I wanted, to assist me in getting an Uber, I let my guard down. I began to answer their questions honestly, vulnerably.

I’d had a couple drinks. I’d come from the U Bar. No, I didn’t fully understand how I got here. My friends were gone. 

Hold up. U Bar? A place 40 minutes walk away? That’s known for people getting roofied? No clear memory for how I got here? Suddenly, the rules had changed. No they would not be taking me to get an Uber. They were taking me into custody. Only, they didn’t exactly tell me that. 

Instead, they told me they needed to take me elsewhere. To protect me. I didn’t buy it for one second. 

This is when I wanted to run. And believe me, I thought about it. I crunched some quick calculations in my head. I am fast. I am not bound to them. It works in the movies. 

But this was not the movies. I had no power against them. These were not random blokes trying to attack me on the street. These were cops. If I ran, I could get in even more trouble. My scrappiness would not help me here. So, I bit my tongue, and my desire to flee.

I followed them, albeit unhappily.

Like I wrote earlier, maybe if they sensed gratitude from me they would have acted differently. Maybe if I’d acted as fragile as I felt, they would’ve regarded me with kindness, the way they’d want their kids or nieces/nephews to be treated. But fragility and gratitude were not what I exuded when I realized respite was no longer in sight.

Though I don’t know exactly what I looked like, I’m pretty sure my eyes were hardened slits of coal at this point. My face probably said it all, as did my actual words. I didn’t understand why they were taking me further into the train station. I had not been roofied. I had two drinks. I was lost in a strange city. That’s not a crime! But they’d already made up their minds, and I’m pretty sure my resistance only solidified them further. I was in their hands, and they no longer liked or believed me. 

We passed the other cops who’d gathered around me earlier. “My” cops exchanged a few words with them, reassuring that they had the “situation” under control. It did not take detective skills to ascertain that the situation was me.

The next part is the part I remember least. It was when they put me in chains. My hands, and my neck. My brain has wiped out the exact scene from my memory. Dissociation is my trauma response, and my biggest fear is being trapped. So yeah, there was no chance I would’ve remembered this moment no matter how it happened. But I do remember a concrete wall and something very scary happening in addition to getting chained up. Something I didn’t want to remember.

For better or for worse, the body remembers what the mind can’t. I texted someone the morning of, saying I got slammed into a wall. And though that memory only gets foggier with time, the bruises on my body and face aligned to prove something violent happened. Something that caused one side of my entire face and head, and parts of my body (all on the same side), to have black and blue marks.

I know I didn’t lash out. It was a poker game at that point for me. I was naive but I was not dumb. I knew I could not defy them physically if I wanted any chance of a decent outcome. In fact, I wanted them to hurt me. I wanted to outsmart them. So I provoked them with my eyes, and my words.

I am not trying to paint myself as a victim here. I remember purposefully trying to stretch my hands far apart from each other so that the cuffs would leave welts on my wrists. 

Guess I didn’t really need to bother with that. Apparently my personality alone was enough to taunt them to aggression.

But when they yanked me down the hallways like cattle, that was the moment I truly knew. 

These cops were actually dangerous. And only I could save myself. 

The next place they led me to was a cold dark room. More concrete walls. One bench. Apparently I wasn’t shackled enough. The female cop directed me to the bench and quickly chained up my feet. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was an interrogation room. 

Though I was radiating inner defiance, I was baffled by the level of chains they were forcing on someone who was physically compliant. On to someone whom they claimed they were helping.

My first tactic was to casually bring up the fact that I am a licensed mental health and addictions counselor in the state of Massachusetts (fact). I said I think I’d know if I had been roofied, having majored in this field in grad school. 

It was the female cop who immediately shut me down. “Then you out of all people should understand why we need to take this seriously,” she said, as she reached into my pockets, looking for contraband. 

All I had on me was my wallet and a phone. She told me I could call my parents if I wanted, which I almost did, till I remembered everything I say can and will be used against me. My parents, if they picked up, would be caught off guard. So I declined. 

My next tactic was to cry. It was a card I had not played when I got my DUI, that I realized in hindsight might have helped in the aftermath. At the very least, I knew it couldn’t make things worse. I was sitting down on the bench at the time but I asked if I could stand.

“Of course,” they said, all smiles. Not like they were taking all my other basic human rights away or anything. 

I couldn’t coax any tears looking at their grubby faces, so I faced the wall, leaned my forehead against it. And sobbed.

Once I got a few bemoaning cries out of my system (which were not hard to muster given the situation), it was time to play with their emotions. 

I started with the man. I fixed my dewy brown eyes on his wide blue ones, beseeching him to understand things from my perspective. To feel for me. I’d like to think he did, but I was pretty sure it was the female cop who was calling the shots. So I turned to her.

 It was a lost cause. She knew exactly what I was doing, and she was not having it. Pretty sure my “tactics” just made her angrier. 

Now that I knew I wasn’t earning their empathy, it was time to play hard ball. I thought about all the crime shows I’d watched; I thought about the obvious words cops are always supposed to tell anyone that they detain. 

“What are my rights?” I asked, my voice sharp as slate. 

I got no verbal response, only a menacing glare from the woman. 

But wait, I thought. Something is off. If they won’t even tell me my rights, then they are probably not following the rules. I decided then and there that I may just have an ace in my hand after all. They thought I was dumb, and drunk. They thought they had all the power. But they could get in trouble too. And perhaps, if they believed I had the capabilities to expose their mistakes, they wouldn’t want to stick me with too bad a crime, in fear that I’d retaliate. 

I just had to play it smart. I estimated that they would’ve already given me a breathalyzer if they truly believed I was as drunk as they were writing me up to be, to prove their case. So I said, in all confidence, “I had two drinks a while ago, with food. I am sober now. I’d like to take a breathalyzer, to prove it.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t want that,” the woman said. “If you were roofied, it could look really bad for you.”

If she really meant that, she was kinder than I gave her credit for. But at the time, I doubted it. A roofie shouldn’t affect a breathalyzer result. If I was not mistaken, she was scared. Scared to be proven wrong. 

So, I kept going. I wasn’t planning on taking anything to court. I just wanted to spare myself from an incriminating record and from exorbitant fees. But they didn’t need to know that. 

I’d recently watched an episode of a law show with my parents, which showed major tiffs between lawyers and cops. I knew cops wouldn’t be scared of me, but they didn’t know who my parents were. “My parents are both lawyers,” I said. “And they will be very invested in this situation.” 

Now, the cops looked worried. It was a lie, but hey, it was close enough to the truth. I knew my parents would be very invested in the situation. (Spoiler: they were). 

It was time to play my final card. “What are your full names?” I asked. 

I left the station with a $50 violation, trembling legs, and clear conscience.