"I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability."
Travis and I have just rolled in from a bar down the street from my place and also we’ve been smoking joint after joint after joint. We’re fucked up, it’s 3AM, and we’re laying on the floor in my apartment, watching The Chapelle Show on dvd.
Out of nowhere there’s a lot of noise and banging. It sounds like there are people rolling around on the floor in the apartment right above me. I look at Travis, he doesn’t seem to mind so I shrug it off and reach for a cigarette. Dave Chapelle is screaming something about Coppers! and it has been about 5 minutes since the noise upstairs started. It’s still going on. I’m getting more and more worried. I start to think I can hear muffled voices like someone’s mouth being covered. I know that there are dogs that live upstairs and they make noise on occasion, chasing toys around their apartment, but this sounded different to me. After a few more minutes I convinced Travis that we have to call the police.
I call 911, I explain to the operator what I hear, she asks me how long the noise has been going on, and I tell her about “10 minutes, maybe less.” To be honest, my sense of time is a little skewed, I only know that we’re still on the same episode of The Chapelle Show. Maybe. She says she’s going to dispatch some officers, I say thank you and hang up. Travis makes me a cup of hot chocolate and packs a bowl for us, trying to calm me down a little. An unknown amount of time passes, Travis and I have had cigarettes, a good fuck, and moved on to another episode on the dvd. The noise upstairs has long since stopped, maybe someone was killed and the struggle was over. Maybe it was just the dogs afterall. Either way, it has been long enough now that I barely remember why I cared so much about the ruckus.
I have almost forgotten that I called the police until there are suddenly heavy footsteps tromping through my apartment building. I hear them walk down my hallway first and then clamber up the stairs to the 4th floor right above my apartment. I hear them knock, loudly. Man, these guys are not shy. Travis and I are stoned and giggling. We turn off the TV so we can hear the cops and what’s happening better. It seems like no one answered the door upstairs. See? False alarm. Thanks gents for coming to check that out!
BANG BANG BANG! Oh damn. They’re at my apartment door. Oh right.. I had to tell them who I was when I made the complaint. Wait, FUCK, what am I supposed to do now? I get up and scurry to my closet to throw on some pants and I see Travis putting the bong under the bed. I open my door, trying to stand as straight as possible – the little voice in my head is screaming DO NOT LET THEM KNOW HOW FUCKED UP YOU ARE. My whole sobriety scam was shot when I opened the door and a huge draft of weed smoke goes billowing out the door and right in the po-pos faces. Travis is sitting on the bed and I hear him pronounce, “Hello officers!” Probably trying to appear as sober and friendly as possible, although it would’ve been more helpful if he had actually shown his face at the door. All I can think is, "Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up!"
This is where I first have the thought that I might be in trouble. The boys in blue ask me a few questions about what happened upstairs, and in my effort to persuade them that the noise was real, I suspect that I came off even more suspicious and retarded. My gaze was hazy and I honestly cannot recall what I said to the men. The next thing I knew they were asking me to step aside and coming in to my apartment. At least Travis hid the bong so everything should be fine!
Until they find the crack pipe.
OK OK, I can explain. It’s an unused crack pipe. I swear to god, I’ve never put crack in it, or coke or heroin or meth or anything like that. Anna bought me this bong-like thing as a gift one day, only the pipe part of it was oddly shaped. I attempted to put weed in it ONCE and it obviously did not work at all. Then I realized that it wasn’t a bong, that silly bitch had bought be a crack pipe. We had a good laugh about it, I replaced the insert with a piece from an old broken bong and put the crack pipe insert away in my memories box, never to be thought of again. Two weeks ago, I did a scene in my acting class where the two characters are passing a crack pipe back and forth. I happened to still have that one, so I took it out and used it for the scene – again, NO CRACK IN IT, but there were burn spots on it from holding a lighter to it. I neglected to put it away. Also, the massive amount of weed I just bought is sitting next to it.
OK OK, I can explain. I had that much weed because I got a good deal on it, I’ve been going through it a lot lately, and part of it was a gift for Travis. I was not going to sell it! My pipe and rolling papers were also on the floor by my rocking chair. This looks bad.
Really Travis, you put THE BONG away?!
I try to explain to the cops about the crack pipe, how I only used it for weed once, and then for acting class. But the motor skills in my mouth were failing me and I don’t think my brain was communicating to my larynx especially well and all I can recall saying is, “I use it for weed. I use it for weed man! It’s not a crack pipe, dude, it’s for weeeeeed.” I don’t do well in high pressure situations.
Since I’m the one that lived there, I’m the one that “prank called” the cops, I’m the one in possession of copious amounts of drugs and paraphernalia, the Hispanic man with a crew cut and a shiny badge and the black man in the blue uniform with a billy club put me in handcuffs and walked me out of my apartment. I don’t think the handcuffs were necessary! I was too drunk really to be able to pull any kind of parkour maneuver and jump out of the third story window to freedom.
I spent the night in jail. When I sobered up, a policeman that I vaguely recognized from my apartment a few hours earlier pulled me out of the holding cell –more affectionately known as the drunk tank—and sat me down in a small office. I’m so tired, my vision is a little blurry from not having slept all night, my stomach hurts and I’m hung the fuck over like nobody’s business. But at least I’m sober enough now to have a real conversation and explain the situation again. They let me off with a $100 possession ticket, and obviously they had confiscated all my shit the night before. But no charges, no misdemeanor. Thank god I’m a cute little white girl with no prior record.
