By Coral Ceiley
Coral Ceiley is a California resident who was generous enough to share her story with us about living at a grow op, being arrested, and experiencing homelessness. The previous installments of her story can be found on our website.
The woman cop is holding my handcuffed hands as we walk to the patrol car. She says, with a New Zealand accent, “Ms. Ceiley I just want you to know that it’s nine in the morning and already you smell like a brewery.”
“Huh, I haven’t been drinking,” I answer, “Maybe it’s from last night,” I add, trying to be polite.
“Well, I didn’t really notice that,” the good-looking officer responds
“Oh, apparently my partner likes it,” she says. Oh, my God, are these two married? I wonder.
While I sit uncomfortably in the car, the two laugh it up outside and carefully inspect my purse for contraband. Ha, I’m clean, well kind of, I could have used a shower.
We get to the receiving area, basically still in the underground parking area where the cops pull in. At this time my handcuffs are hooked to a metal bar behind the bench, so I can’t escape. The good-looking officer is trying to ascertain what my warrants are for. One is for not completing the requirements for my DUI conviction he explains, but he doesn’t understand the other one and needs to make a phone call. I’m a little nervous. He tells me to relax; I’ll probably be out in a few hours. I hope so, but it’s a Friday.
He gets off the phone and doesn’t have good news. The second charge is for failing to complete the mandatory forty-eight-hour incarceration, stemming from the same case. He says he’s never seen them make this a second charge and admits I’ll probably be staying until Monday when I can see a judge. So, it looks like I’m facing a minimum of three nights in jail.
In the meantime, another cop comes in. He leaves his perp in the parking area because he’s got vomit and urine all over him. This officer is so pissed off. He says this is the second time he’s picked this guy up drunk. But today he was passed out on the steps of an elementary school; he had pissed himself and was covered in puke. The cop is totally disgusted. At one point Officer Pissed says, “Okay this guy’s born in ’72 that makes him forty-four, right?”
Officer Good-Looking mumbles, “I don’t know. I was never very good at math.”
While I’m wondering how many officers it takes to calculate the age of a perp, I’m led away by a woman to be searched and booked. I say goodbye to Officer Good-Looking, who’s been a swell guy although he keeps my passport and my bus pass.
I’m placed in a cell with a couple of women. There are no clean sleeping mats or blankets, so I don’t hesitate to use the ones that have been abandoned on the floor although this is extremely unsanitary and gross. The jail is always cold, and the only place to sit is on the floor. It is not as clean as the last time I was there with Grace. A young girl named Emily explains that a woman last night was throwing her food everywhere. That explains it.
Emily has been there all night. She is scheduled to see the judge today and is very grouchy. She’s only nineteen and has a heroin addiction. Another woman who rants and raves on the phone a lot. Reaches into her bra and says to me, “These people are idiots! Look!” She pulls out individual bags of crack from one side of her bra and a debit card from the other. “They are so fucking stupid!” she adds.
I am impressed. I say, “Damn, girl, that takes balls!” She likes me and isn’t going to fuck with me. She turns out to be the only person I’ve ever seen who can sleep sitting up, not leaning against a wall or anything – just sitting up in the middle of the floor with her eyes half open. I think maybe she’s done a lot of time. She gets bailed out, and that leaves just Emily and me. Lunch comes, and it’s delicious. I curl up in a corner with my dirty blanket and go to sleep.
I wake up to a correctional officer at the door telling me it’s time to do my booking and fingerprinting. So I follow her and listen to her directions. At the time, there’s a dude in a cell who keeps repeating over and over to the jail staff: “You’re all going down! You’re murderers! You’re gonna get yours!” in the evilest sounding voice I have ever heard.
I say to the woman, “Is that really a person doing that?” because it sounds so much like a voice out of a Saw III.
She replies, “That’s really a person,” and smiles, telling the insane man, “Here I am. Better come get me.” But he never misses a beat, just keeps repeating the same phrases. I would have lost my mind if I worked there. Now I see why people get beaten half to death in jail cells.
After booking, the woman C.O. places me in a tiny interview closet across from the cell where I had been sleeping. It is about three foot square with an opening for signing papers on the wall facing the office of the jail staff. I can watch them working but am quickly bored. There is no place to sit or lay down. After about an hour, a nice man, the head C.O., asks me if I have a chair, to which I reply, “No.”
He turns his head and yells, “Would someone please get her a chair?” Nobody does. There is a narrow metal shelf for signing papers under the window opening. I test it; it holds me. So I sit up there on that metal shelf and try to relax. Since I can reach right into the jail office from there, I help them with some training they are doing on Identikit, a fingerprinting program. So the C.O. accesses the program on his computer, there’s a little glass pane that I place my fingertip on, and Bingo I am identified.
We play this game for a couple of hours, and I mention how much I enjoyed lunch, and the head C.O. thinks I’m funny. Then he decides, “We’re gonna cut you loose.” So he begins to process the paperwork to release me on my own recognizance; meanwhile, I go back in the cell with Emily.
Emily is really jonesing for a cigarette now. She is pacing and talking to herself. She is on her way to rehab somewhere near the coast. She explains how she lost her apartment and everything she owns due to her heroin addiction. She is only nineteen and has just gotten out of detox. She turned herself in to take care of a warrant for a small possession charge. She is angry because she wasted twenty-four hours of her life. She said it was a complete waste of time. We are finally called to be released.
As we are leaving, Emily asks me if I want to smoke some meth or some heroin; she has both in her purse in a locker in the jail lobby. I decline only having a short time to get back to the disc golf course before dark. She turns on her phone, and her peeps are blowing it up! I said, “Girl, you’re never gonna get sober in this town.” She smiles as we go our separate ways.
A couple of days later, I go back to my property on the mountain. Brandon has been arrested for grand-theft auto, and the place is deserted. I am home. I am back in my cabin. I am back to my little pot farm in the woods with its friendly little creek. My little shack never felt so homey. Like Dorothy in The wizard of Oz, I have learned many things, been through trials and tribulations and tests of faith. I have faced the Great and Powerful Oz and the flying monkeys! As I Fall asleep, I realize there’s no place like home.
