Learning My Lesson in Detox

 By John Ramos  

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal....”    

                           —The Declaration of Independence

I was enjoying my Saturday. I watched the Really Independent Film Festival at the NorShor Theater and had a couple of beers. When the films were done I stayed to listen to the band Pua Fua, whom I had not heard before. They were pretty good. I had a few more beers and conversed with a few people. After last call I put on my hat and jacket and headed out the back door and down the alley toward home.

Behind the Expert Tire service center a man was lying on the ground, bathed in the headlights of a car idling nearby. A private security guard was standing in the shadows behind the headlights. "What's wrong with him?" I asked the guard.

"I don't know. I called the cops."

I nudged the man on the ground with my foot. "Hey," I said. "The cops are coming. If you want to take off, you better go now."

"What?" he said. At that moment, three or four squad cars came flying down the alley with their lights flashing. Doors slammed, officers jumped out. A fire engine screeched up, lights whirling. The man on the ground looked confused. I put my hand on his head.

"What's his story?" a cop asked the security guard, looking at me.

"I don't know. He just came down the alley."

"You can take off now," the cop told me.

"I'll wait to see if he's all right," I said.

The cop, a young guy, stared at me. "You have a choice. You can walk away or we can put you in detox."

Well! My goodness! When given a choice like that...

Outside the St. Luke's Detoxification Center ("Open 24 Hours"), I sat in the back of a squad car while the cops radioed in my driver's license information. After a short wait, the dispatcher called back to report "no hits": my record was clean. The cops uncuffed me and led me inside. The older of the two, who was named Petrovich, handed the nurse a detoxification pick-up report, which stated that I exhibited a "mild alcohol odor" and slurred speech, and that I was "obviously drunk." They stood behind me, cop-like, as I signed papers committing myself to the center (if I didn't sign, the cops would sign for me, and things, I was assured, would be worse).

The door buzzed to let me in. I said that I hoped they were proud of themselves. I didn't hear how they responded, but they said something. Cops are seldom at a loss for words when they're taking someone down a peg or two.

In a narrow admitting room, I stood behind a partition and took off my clothes. A nurse gave me some blue pajama bottoms and a blue-and-white-striped pajama top. She asked me questions about my health and had me blow into a Breathalyzer. I blew a 0.09. Legally drunk is 0.10. I pointed out that since the word "detoxification" implied that a person needed something to detoxify from, I should be allowed to go home and drink some more to get my blood-alcohol content up to a level that meant something. She said that she was sorry, but she was just doing her job.

Next she gave me a physical examination. The results indicated that I had no trauma, no breathing problems, no cough, no chest pain, no nausea or vomiting, and no tremors or shakes. My pulse was "regular," my gait "steady," my vision and coordination "intact," my level of comprehension "alert," and my strength and reflexes "symmetrical." I was "alert and oriented." Overall, my degree of intoxification was "slight," and I was deemed to be "capable of self-care."

Here I was, perfectly fine, in detox.

I was permitted to wander around as I pleased, and for several hours I did so—up and down the single long hallway, in and out of the smoking room, up to the nurse's station. I avoided the rancid bathroom as much as possible. As lockups go, the place wasn't bad. I had a bed with clean sheets and a pillow. A central dining area with round tables and battered folding chairs had a snack machine, a Coke machine, and a television with one channel. Free ice water and decaffeinated coffee were available. A telephone was available to make free local calls, and a surprisingly large library of videos was on hand for my viewing pleasure.

My fellow detoxicants, sleeping two to a room, were snoring in their beds. I was tired, but I couldn't sleep. I kept pacing. New admittees trickled in—two furious teenagers, a calm Indian. A girl wandered out of her room and threw up a clear liquid in the hall. A nurse came out of the office ("Oh, for gross.") and mopped it up. She told me that I had to get six hours of sleep before I could be released—pacing and not sleeping were signs of withdrawal. I said that pacing and not sleeping were signs of incarceration, and announced that I was going on a sleep-deprivation strike. The nurse wrote this down on her clipboard.

I spent a lot of time up at the nurse's station making a nuisance of myself. I asked why I couldn't wear my own clothes (Answer: "You might throw up on them.". I asked why they had taken away my credit cards ("For your own safety."). I asked if they minded the cops using their facility as a dumping ground for anyone who crossed them ("Try to get some sleep."). I asked when I was getting out of there ("You'll have to talk to the day shift about that."). I asked for aspirin ("Here you are."). I asked if they personally thought that I was in need of detoxification ("We're changing shifts. Go down the hall."). I asked when I was getting out of there ("It's a process. Go down the hall."). I asked when I was getting out of there ("Go down the hall or we'll have to set limits—you're agitating the unit!"). I asked if I could mop the hallway for them ("JOHN, GO DOWN THE HALL!"). I said that if they were worried about me agitating the unit, they should just send me home ("You're being VERY SELFISH!"). I said that of course I was selfish—my self was locked up in detox, and my self wanted to go home. Then I went down the hall.

As the sun rose over the parking decks, two pretty nurses (Kim and Ann, for the record) brought around a breakfast cart bearing cereal and milk and oranges. Messy-haired detoxicants ambled into the hallway. "Morning." "Morning." "Man, I hope I get out today." "Got a cigarette?" Some of them had been here for three or four days.

After breakfast, I returned to the nurse's station, where the nurse in charge told me that she had spoken to her supervisor, and her supervisor had determined that I was not yet ready to be released. Maybe tomorrow. The situation was so wrong that I didn't know what to do. "I WASN'T EVEN DRUNK!" I shouted. "THE COPS USE THIS PLACE AS A TOOL! THEY THROW PEOPLE IN HERE AND FORGET ABOUT THEM, WITHOUT ANY PROOF OR EVIDENCE OR HEARING OR ANYTHING! AND NOW I HAVE TO STAY HERE FOR ANOTHER FUCKING DAY? THAT'S BULLSHIT! OPEN THIS DOOR!"

For some reason, my logic didn't work. The nurse refused to say another word. She stomped off down the hall with her clipboard. One guy told me confidentially that if I bothered the nurses too much, they'd put me in the rubber room. "The longer you bang on the walls, the longer they keep you in there." The rubber room was across from the nurse's station. It was small, square, and windowless, with a thin mattress on the floor and a plastic urine jug in the corner. The walls were regular walls, without padding. I was disappointed.

Nurses are the opposite of cops. I kept wanting to talk to them. I followed Kim and Ann around as they stripped beds, telling them my side of the story. I was a suave, smooth-talking, case-arguing dude. They laughed. I caught myself enjoying myself. On the other side of the security-screened windows, the street had a quiet Sunday morning look. The sun hurt my eyes. My sleep strike wasn't going very well. I was tired. I left the ladies alone and went to bed.

The day went by. I dozed and woke and wandered. Lunch was chicken and cauliflower and three-bean salad. Dinner was macaroni and cheese. I read the Sunday paper and called people on the telephone and said, "Hey, guess where I am." I called my job and told them that I wouldn't be in. Movies played steadily at maximum volume; screaming and gunfire filled the air.

Eventually, the nurses gave me my clothes back in a plastic bag. Along with my clothes, I found a present from the cops: a ticket for misdemeanor obstruction and a court summons for May thirtieth. I showed the ticket around. "They didn't have the guts to give it to you to your face, huh?" commented the guy who had told me about the rubber room.

Four cops dragged in a fighter. "You don't know who you're messing with, motherfuckers!" he shouted, thrashing around. They maced him. He screamed. The cops left. A short time later the fighter was pacing the ward with a bloody face, muttering, "You can take the nigger out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of the nigger." One of the cops had been black. The fighter was Indian. He asked me for a cigarette.

I went to bed around midnight. At 4:30 to sleep. In the morning I filled out paperwork. I answered questions about my financial resources, sexual preferences, and past suicide attempts. An assessor read my answers and interviewed me. She asked if I had any intention or plan to hurt anyone when I got out. I said, "Only metaphorically." I asked her if she minded the cops using the detox facility as a dumping ground for anyone who bothered them." She said, "It happens all the time."

She determined that I was fit, sober, and capable of functioning in the outside world. At the nurse's station they gave me my credit cards, driver's license, and keys. I requested copies of my records, and was given them. Then, thirty-two hours after starting my walk home, I headed out the door to finish it.

The Verdict

Did I learn my lesson? Well, I learned something. I learned that "obstruction" can be anything the cops want it to be. During our brief encounter in the alley, I did not behave aggressively. I did not curse or threaten anyone. I did not raise my voice. I did not make any sudden moves. Given all that I did not do, it seems clear that my obstruction was defined more by my attitude than by my actions. I "obstructed" the cops by standing my ground and not scurrying off like a terrified rat the instant they barked an order. I "obstructed" them by speaking up for myself. I "obstructed" them by showing independence.

A citizen's independence can be quite threatening to a cop, especially late at night. At night, when the property-owners of the community are asleep, the town becomes a cop's town, and definitions change. Running becomes a mark of guilt, speaking up becomes talking back, and independence is seen as defiance. I broke the rules. I spoke to the cops, on their own turf, as if I were their equal. Thus, quite obviously—from their perspective—I needed to be taught a lesson. Lesson-teaching is easy if there's a detox unit in town. A citizen who has had anything to drink, even one beer, can be thrown into detox. The cops can write "mild alcohol odor" on their paper, say that the citizen is "obviously drunk," and in he goes. I doubt that the cops see this as an abuse of power. They probably believe what they write. Who else but a drunk person, after all, would dare speak to them as an equal?

As the cops well know, a visit to detox carries consequences beyond the visit itself. Detox is a progressive affair. The next time I return, for any reason, I will be required to stay for 72 hours. Can I afford to miss three days of work? Can I afford more tickets? Can I afford the $183 per night that detoxicants are charged for their stay? More to the point, can I endure being locked up again? The cops know me now. Maybe the next time we meet they won't be so patient. Maybe they'll put me in jail. If I thought that detox was bad, what will I think of jail?

I don't want to be vindictive. Every story, I realize, has many sides. I sit here now, a free man once more, contemplating thirty-two hours of incarceration and the nature of the society that made that incarceration possible, and I wonder how best to sum up this article in a way that takes into account both my perspective and the perspective of law enforcement, in a way that is fair and even-handed, and avoids unnecessary trouble. For the cops, as we all know, are the protectors of the community, the defenders of law and order, the watchdogs of justice, and the cops, in the course of their duties, see many ugly things, and the cops may, perhaps, because they are so busy, be excused a bit of overzealous behavior from time to time...I sit here, sipping a beer, thinking of these issues, and watching the world outside my window go about its business, and after a time I decide that nothing I could say would sum up my feelings quite so succinctly as something that an acquaintance of mine once said, and I quote:

You don't know who you're messing with, motherfuckers.

___________
Published in the Northland Reader, 5/11/2000.