As far as I’m concerned, every experience makes for a good story if you tell it right. At this moment, I’m going to attempt to tell the story of why I, Coey Cain, have been missing for a week and a half without so much as a “see ya later, folks.” This is unlikely to be a short blog post, and that’s okay, because I’m highly amusing.

Names will be changed and possibly omitted because I’m anti-lawsuit… if you know what I mean. However, I still own the story.

Let me start by saying, for the past year and a half, I’ve been a “good girl”… ish. I stay at home 99.99999% of the time, only leaving the house one-point-five times a month for supplies and to get a quick social kick. It doesn’t make me unhappy to be a recluse, I rather enjoy it because I have the gift of “I’m Not Interested In You.”

My adventure started on a Friday night, roughly a week and a half ago…

I have a tendency to break the rules from time to time. And if I was totally honest, I would admit that I have a tendency to break the rules, like, usually. People are always hounding me that I shouldn’t do this and I shouldn’t do that, but it’s always fun shit they’re trying to stop me from doing. “Coey, you can’t take vodka through airport security!” or “Coey! Don’t do that with super glue!”

Two years ago on the Fourth of July, me and some friends decided to get together and make a day of it. Some time in the early afternoon, we walked into a bar and had a drink in a small southern town in the midwest. Make mine a double. Know what I mean? It’s a holiday and I like to get-down. Drinks drank, we were on our way, on foot, in the moist, blistering heat of midday in order to meet the second group of friends. We stopped at a little store to buy bottled water before we got to the car. Our intention was to leave the small town and seek out festivities elsewhere, in a more eventful location where you couldn’t hear banjos playing ominously in the background. While my friends went inside to purchase water to quench our thirst on the journey, I remained outside as I had a fresh buzz tickling my senses and I’m a die-hard smoker. Cigarette in hand, I sat down on the concrete edging of a cute little flower bed and pulled out my phone to text more people. Let’s get this party started. You with me so far? Right… so, by the time my friends purchased four bottles of water and other goodies, I was being guided into the back of a patrol car with my hands cuffed behind my back. That’s right, you guessed it… Public Intox.

I know what you’re thinking… there’s a huge chunk of this story that’s missing. No, I’m afraid not. As I sat in my tattooed glory, legs crossed, minding my own business and texting on my phone, a cop car came to a screeching halt right in front of me. Both officers got out of the car and addressed me strictly with, “Ma’am, you cannot sleep here!”

(Please take a pause and realize the complete absurdity of this.)

I laughed. “I’m not sleeping. I’m sitting here smoking a cigarette and texting on my phone, which is perfectly acceptable, even in this backwards town.”

“Have you been drinking?!” Demanded officer number one.

“As a matter of fact, I just had a drink with my friends.” And at that moment, I had the right to remain silent. I was under arrest.

And put some money on my books!

I told you that story in order to tell you this story…
I have a very short memory. I mean, it’s embarrassing. I’m not a good listener and I tend to forget, if I even heard you to begin with. It should come as no surprise that in order to get out of jail for this bullshit charge, I had agreed to their ridiculous, uncalled-for, extremely aggressive terms which included, but was not limited to, some drug and alcohol program. Even as I told the judge I would do it, I already knew in a week’s time I would be out of this Podunk state, nestled safely in my liberal home of Reno, Nevada, where shit makes sense and you can have a drink and smoke a cigarette anywhere you damn-well please. (And pick up a prostitute while you’re at it.) So, as I nodded my head at the judge saying, “Sure, sure. I’ll skip to my lou while I comply,” I’m laughing on the inside and thinking, You’re gonna have to catch me first.

Well, two years later, I’m back in this Podunk state and I simply forgot about my prior transgressions. Honest mistake, I forget shit all the time. I’m at the end of the first social outing I’ve been on in several months, with a person I just met-no less, and police are standing there telling me I’ve got a warrant. Shit just got real. The fuck you mean I got a warrant? As they explain, my memory is coming back very slowly…

Now, I’m not stressed. I’ve been to jail a few times and, sure, it sucks. No one wants to go there. It’s like being locked in a third-world country the size of a walk-in closet where you can’t smoke cigarettes or… leave. But it ain’t my first rodeo and I already know I’ll be out of there in a few hours, a day tops, fiending for a cigarette and a cup of coffee. All in all, I’m in good spirits about the whole deal. Once, I was in and out of jail in an hour and a half, ya dig? The cops cuff me in front, so I already know I’m going to have an easy go of it. No brutality here. Awesome. Hell, I didn’t even get the pat-down. They didn’t read me my rights, we just got in the car together and drove off singing Kumbaya. No big deal.

I’m standing at the booking desk ready to do this “Like A Boss” without a care in the world. The guy behind the desk asks me what I do for a living and I toss out “I’m an author” like a flock of doves, head held high. Roll out the red carpet, boys! You caught yourselves a quasi-celebrity! You can’t get me down, I’ll be out of here by tomorrow with a new story to tell!

It was at that moment they hit me with the news. “You have no bail.” No… Bail…

All of a sudden I feel like Kat Williams. “The fuck you mean I have no bail?”

They had to explain it to me three times that I wouldn’t be released no way, not any kind of way. Gears are turning in my head, creaking like a rusted-out hamster wheel. No bail? None at’all? I’m not panicking just yet. It’s a Sunday which means I’ll see a judge come morning and we’ll get this all straightened out.

NOPE. 

In Podunk Ass-Jack country, they play by different rules than the rest of the civilized world and they do things a little different. Court is in session only sometimes, when the ass-pillaging monkeys aren’t busy dueling banjos. In other words, my ass was in there for 3 fuckin’ days before I got to attend video-court in my striped onesie jammies for criminals. I sat in a tiny room inside the jail with three other bitches in front of a big tv screen with a grumpy-ass judge in it. It was similar to Skype and I could see myself in the little box in the corner of the screen, so while he was dealing with the first two hillbillies, I was checking my hair and shit. Right before it was my turn, he starts bitching about the “noise” in the background. Walkie-Talkies are going off, there’s a mini-riot taking place in another room as we haven’t left the jail and this judge is straight No-Nonsense, right? I’m candidly rolling my eyes at his show of dominance and the guard inside the little room is looking around as if to say, “It’s JAIL, judge. The fuck you think it’s like in here?”

So now that the judge is thoroughly irritated, it’s my turn to go. He’s asking me if I understand all these papers I signed. I can only assume it’s because the majority of the inmates I’d encountered thus far should be required, by law, to wear a safety helmet and a sign that reads “I don’t know how to count money.” Not to show my ass here, but I’m aggravated that I’ve been in jail since Sunday, it’s now Wednesday, and I couldn’t give a hot damn if I pissed the dude off even more–as a matter of fact, it was my goal. I’ve already been in for 3 or 4 days, which is equal to a month, and I know he’s going to let me go on “Time Served” so I’m cool. Just to be a smartass, I said, “I understand it, but I don’t get it.” He gives me a dirty look and says, “What don’t you get?” and it was at that point that I realized smarting off to the judge was a terrible idea and he had the ability to sentence me to life in prison, should he choose to do so. I switched gears and got wise real quick. If there was ever a time to eat shit and grin, this was it. I reeled in my sarcasm and proceeded like the educated turd I am. I still got sentenced to 10 fuckin’ days. Doesn’t sound like much to some people–and all those people were in my jail block.

Up until this point, I’d made a point of sleeping off whatever exhaustion I felt from the outside world. Going to jail is like a vacation without all the fun or pleasurable shit that makes it a vacation to begin with. They feed you three terrible meals a day and you’re free to sleep as much as you want as long as the constant yelling, screaming, shit-talk, banging, metal-door-slamming bullshit doesn’t bother you. I can sleep through almost anything, and for those first several days-did. However, now I’ve seen the judge and I’m all rested up, but I ain’t going nowhere fast. Fuck me.

Now I actually have to socialize with these back-hills lunatics with which I’m being forced to coexist. I find out immediately that they’re all druggies, thieves, and brawlers… and being an All-Female cast, their menstrual cycles have synced up together and guess what time of the month it is… I felt like making up a story about killing a man so I wouldn’t be viewed as the fresh-faced weakling whose only crime was not attending classes like a truant teenager.

You should know that everyone in jail is innocent. At least, that’s what they’d have you believe. Everyone you encounter will tell you what their charge is and proceed to explain why it’s bullshit and they didn’t do it. “I wasn’t even there!” Every time I’ve stepped foot in a jail, I’ve heard the same shit ad nauseum. Wrong place, wrong time. It wasn’t me, it was the person I was with. Guilt by association. The list goes on and on, excuses for everything… I feel you, I feel you. If you hadn’t been doing crack right then, you wouldn’t be here. Then again, you’re a crack whore–so, what do you do? Such is life…

One of the first women I encountered was a loud, very loud, and tempestuous heroin addict that I came to know as the toothless troll living under the television which guarded the remote control as though it was her royal sceptre. Thou shalt not pass! Or watch anything on television without my permission–is more like it. Not to be a naysayer, but she had her very own name tattooed on her wrist. I can only imagine it was so she could remember and/or identify herself while she was in a drugged-up-on-heroin stupor. Her mouth was running twenty-three hours a day, which is a whole lot of talking for someone who had nothing to say. Repeatedly, proudly, and enthusiastically, she told the story of how she threatened to never give her husband another blow-job if he didn’t bail her out. (Pardon me while I vomit.) To describe her to my best ability, she’s the reason why pools are chlorinated. I’m sure her lack of bail money had everything to do with her verbal diarrhea and altogether grossness. Her husband is probably sitting at home right now, tickled to death that it’s quiet and he can watch whatever he wants on television. No blow-job in the world is worth putting up with that hot-mess, even if it’s an ass-fingering combo. God Help Us, Everyone.

Next comes the troll’s faithful liege, whose voice filled in every gap of silence when the almighty Troll Empress of the Television was drawing breath into her lungs so she could spew another fifteen solid minutes of verbal noise pollution at a time. This is the one who came up to me at one point and said, “I can tell you’re really smart by the way you talk. You just sound smart.” I had no idea how to respond to that statement. I assume because my vocabulary extends beyond profanities, she can only gather with her feeble mind that I may know a thing or two. I don’t think anything I said was fathomed by any of them, as they had an overall look of confusion plastered on their faces anytime I opened my mouth, but by their overall perplexion had decided my words must mean something, they just didn’t know what, and therefore I was smart. (My brain hurts from telling you about it.) I have to admire their ability to communicate in utter gibberish, frankly.

I hate to end my descriptions here, but I’m sure I’m being put on the Meth-Head Crack-Whore Heroin-Junkie Shit-List as we speak and I’m next in line to be shanked or someshit.

As soon as I walked in, they immediately wanted to know what my drug of choice was. Now, I admit freely, to God and everybody, I’ve never done drugs a day in my life. I’ve never tried crack, crank, cocaine, heroin or meth… or any of it. Nothing. I’ve never so much as been around it. Call me naive, but I had no idea the drug problem in this world had gotten so bad that it’s automatically assumed you do them. I’m a self-confessed wild-child, but I simply never had an interest. I can pull off insane stunts as sober as a priest, thank-you-very-much.

As I tried to mind my own business and keep to myself, all their periods were finished syncing up and I discovered I was locked in a big concrete room with six menstruating women with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. Profanities are flying at the speed of light as though the curse words, in and of themselves, were a new and special language and there was no sanctuary from it. Their little criminal egos were in full swing as they told one story after another (and often the same story over and over) of how badass they were in the outside world. “Laying bitches out and droppin’ triflin’ hoes,” and whatnot. Each one refused to be outdone by the other and this parade of retardation and subnormality continued every day as though they were taunting me to completely lose my shit and catch a real charge. I kept reminding myself that if I held it together, I would be out of there and free to smoke my cigarettes and watch whatever I wanted to… quietly… in peace… at home… where no one was pounding “Fuck You, Whore” in Morse Code on the walls to communicate their disdain of a person in another jail block… or “Toilet Talking”… Real quick, I’m going to explain Toilet Talking, for anyone who is unaware, as it’s rather fascinating in its crudeness. The toilets are metal which echoes well and the pipes lead directly up to the men’s cells. With the help of an empty toilet paper roll, they could amplify their voices and it resembled the mentally handicapped version of talking through cans on a string. (I fondly refer to it as a Pottie-Talkie, as it’s similar to a Walkie-Talkie. ::snort:: Get it?) And bitches be takin’ their Toilet Talkin’ serious. I’m not sure if they acquire boyfriends this way, but when I think of something steamy in the toilet, I never imagined in a million years it could be something other than a turd… but I digress.

If I could just keep my temper in check, I would no longer have to eat savorless food that was laced with something called “Soft Peter” which, apparently, is put into everyone’s food and prevents the male inmates from getting erections. (facepalm)

You can’t make this shit up…

That being said, believe it or not, these half-wits were Offence Sentence Guru’s. By that I mean, from the moment you stepped into the block, they immediately wanted to know what you were in for and produced an astonishingly accurate prediction of what you would be sentenced with by the judge. And I mean, ridiculously and amazingly accurate. These drugged-out ghetto whores know their shit! They’re the fortune tellers for criminal offences and you can find them in any jail cell anywhere. You simply had to tell them what your charges were, which judge you’d be seeing and, lickity-split, these hookers would break it down for you. The moment I walked in, they predicted I’d get 10 days and, by God, I sure fuckin’ did! It was a pleasure to watch them work.

There’s a whole ‘nother system taking place inside jail cells. It’s a whole new world. It’s a place where you can communicate by banging on walls like a primate and talking through toilets! Notes are passed through the laundry like the Pony Express and you can use batteries to light a coffee cigarette! Macgyver, eat your heart out!

Challenge Accepted.

Anyway, to sum it all up, now I have some court fines to pay… so buy my book so I don’t have to go back to this shithole.