Yes, that’s right. Exam over. Fawcett’s back y’all.
So I got arrested again. It happens now and then. It’s a strange thing getting arrested. Here is how the most recent one occurred:
My lady and I are having dinner. A hole-in-the-wall sushi restaurant in Soho that a friend recommended. It’s delicious. We’ve each had a couple beers with our luscious sashimi and we decide to split one more Sapporo to cap off our meal. The waitress brings two. We finish drinking one of them and our check is paid and it’s time to go and the simplest thing at 8 o’clock at night seems to just tuck that extra undrunk beer into my inside jacket pocket and enjoy it while window shopping Nolita on a beautiful balmy Fall evening. Done. We leave the restaurant without an eyebrow raised and walk down the sidewalk enjoying that feeling just after a delightful dinner, still buzzed, a Saturday-night city alive around you and a cigarette to top it all off. And a beer. What a great thing it is to be alive.
A couple minutes later we’re crossing Elizabeth when a police car passes. Beer is tucked into the jacket, look away, hope they did too. A loudspeaker sounds “Hey, you, come over here.” Twenty people turn. Clearly he’s pointing at me. I’m still two steps from the corner trash can where I can drop the bottle. Shit. Suavely pass bottle behind the back to wife who is next to trash. And walk towards police car.
“What are you holding?”
“Nothing.” Holding out my empty hands.
“Where’s that . . .” Gets out of the car and walks towards the trash can. Pulls out bottle. Drops it back in trash.
“You (pointing to my wife) come here.” Walks back to car.
“You got ID, funny guy? Where are you from?”
I fumble for my wallet.
“You don’t have to show it to them” says my wife pushing my hand back in my pocket.
“If you don’t have ID we’ll take you in for the night.”
I pull out my ID. He examines it.
“Where’s your ID, lady?”
“I don’t have my wallet with me.”
“What were you guys doing?”
“Having dinner. Just walking around.”
“Where’s your ID, lady?”
“I really don’t have any on me.”
“That’s it. We’re taking you in.”
“No, look, she hasn’t done anything. I was the one holding the beer. Look, we’re parents. We’ve got a babysitter watching our kid.”
“One of you is going in.”
“Are you serious?”
“You want to get smart? Put out your hands.”
Cuffs applied. People on sidewalk take cellphone photos. Look aghast.
“Get out of here lady or we’ll take you in too.“
Fawcett gets put in the car. Car drives away. Wife watches from the sidewalk as strangers move in around her to tell her how “fucked up” that just was, offer cellphone numbers if a testimony is needed later when we press charges.
The rest of the story is pretty short and uneventful. I get to the station in China town, they take everything out of my pockets, they put me in an empty cell, I take off my shoe laces. I sit there for about twenty minutes while the officer writes out the ticket. $25 violation for an open container. They let me out and I walk back to my wife. According to the officer “Since Guilliani started a new policy five or six years ago,” the two officers hand out about 5-10 of these violations a night.
It’s a funny thing being arrested, but it‘s also pretty traumatic. For the past few days I’ve thought a lot about it. You have to process these things. Trixie’s been good for that. I’ve recognized a few different patterns of thinking.
One way of thinking goes something like this: You are an unfortunate victim. A different officer might have given you a warning. But you happened to run across a couple of assholes. (They were assholes.) Also in another era the police officer would have given you a warning. But we currently live in a sort of police state where at any moment the police can do whatever they want depending on their mood. They can arbitrarily apply their power and force citizens into handcuffs and jail cells. Our freedom is very perilous. We DO have rights, but only after the fact. Arrest is allowable under just about any circumstance. And especially right now in post-terrorism America. There’s a feeling that the police have a broader right to act and arrest at will. Be oh-so-careful what you do in public these days, dear friend. This is the noble indignant version of getting arrested.
Another way of thinking goes something like this: What bad luck. Thousands of people drink beers out of open containers on any given Saturday night, you just happened to be at the wrong intersection at the wrong time. It sucks. But of course your karma could have been much worse. You could have been hit by a car. Or had your car stolen. Or been mugged. It was just the strange confluence of chance that crashed into you that night. There was little you could do to prevent it. And the truth is, it was a pretty mild thing in the scheme of things.
Or, perhaps: You are a person who has chronic conflict with the rules. More often than you care to admit you break the law. Or think about breaking the law. Something must be wrong with you. How many of your friends have been arrested? Why are YOU once again in a situation like this? Is this another fucked up way of relating to the world you might need to address in therapy? You’ve got a lot more work to do, kid. Do you want this to happen again? You’re a father now. Deal with this issue already. This is the important self-examining version of getting arrested.
Or maybe this: Getting arrested fits into your general outlook on life. You are an incorrigible member of the resistance. You are a postmodernist. You seek out philosophies that justify struggling against authority. You love Foucault and Gide and Rorty. Marx and MLK and Steinem. John Stewart and Bill Maher. Getting arrested is an inevitable part of the fight. This is the version I like most.
Finally, getting arrested is existential and surreal. Your body is taken control of. Cold metal restraints. People push you. Touch you. Remove your clothes. Interrogate you. It is sexy. And funny. You feel at ease cracking jokes and thinking about the graffiti on the walls and the people who have been there before you. And you think of that Jens Lekman video. “I got busted.” And you laugh. You can’t help but kind of laugh.
Please help me laugh.
Farrell, I love this post, though I’m sorry you had to go to the slammer to produce it for us. Your exploration of all the possible angles — am I a rebel? a deadbeat? Is this fascism? or bad luck? — is so insightful, and applicable to so many things that happen to us all on a daily basis. Ultimately, it seems the quality of life is less about what happens to us than about how we react to what happens to us.
I also love the vision of Trixie standing up to The Man. Though you don’t want to, you know, push that too far.
Welcome back, Fawcett!
“Please help me laugh.”
I love this part.
after stating that i had no ID, getting hassled for that by this cop dude, and then indignantly proclaiming that i didn’t know it was against the law to walk down a street in an American city without one, i realized that i did in fact have my ID in my back pocket, along with my debit card. it was too late to say anything because they already thought we were liars, but i wonder if pulling it out would have prevented this (ultimately it really did suck, as having a night to ourselves is rare enough already without having it aborted by the man.) also, talk about a buzzkill.
nice post baby.
A really close friend of mine got arrested because after refusing to give a cop his name, finally gave a false one. Turns out that giving a false name, even for something as lame as changing out of one’s wetsuit with a towel covering one’s essentials (on a beach surrounded by multi-million dollar mansions) is punishable under federal anti-terror law. The case was dropped, but my (perpetually impoverished) buddy incurred $2,500.00 is legal fees.
Farrell, your story is funny, there’s no doubt about it. I’m sure the funniest part was your facial expression when you realized that you were actually being brought in. (When I was 15, I was sitting with a friend as he got his first “cool” haircut, which I talked him into getting. Anyway, after he got totally butchered, he looked at me with this mixture of fear, sorrow, anger, and deceit. I’m sorry, but the combination of those emotions makes for a pretty fucking funny expression; I could not stop laughing, even as he was shoving and punching my arm and shoulder all the way home.) But the comedy of your experience stops at your probable expression.
The rest of the story is so ridiculously scary. The feeling of the cuffs being tightened around the wrists is so poignant, like oops, there goes my freedom.
Whenever I hear people make the argument that the police should be given more latitude to violate our Fourth Amendment rights arguing, “if you have nothing to hide, you shouldn’t care,” I get so steamed. I think about stories like this one: not only were you not bothering anyone but you were at the top of your game, out strolling with your lady feeling the essential joy of life. What makes the US worth protecting if one doesn’t have the freedom here to experience pure human joy?
It’s stories like yours that make me want to get a big “FUCK THE POLICE” tattooed on my neck.
Anyway, great post.
Actually, the line “Please help me laugh” made me want to cry. This is horrible and so, so wrong. OJ has a book deal and lives the life of a celebrity, and you get arrested (and potentially much worse could have happened in the cell). The end part where you scroll through a variety of possible responses was completely brilliant, but that last line is where it all resides, uneasily, and it’s so hard to shake off.
Since I work in the law enforcement field, we sometimes run into roque cops with small ideals. USUALLY, people are detained because they are a continued threat to themselves or the community, are a flight risk (quite rare actually), or the crime is of a serious nature. Sorry to hear about your problem. Do tell us about the other arrests though, you’ve got us wondering… (I loved the “make me laugh” line also).
i’ll volunteer one of farrell’s more memorable prior arrests: when we were undergrads working on an independent student weekly together, he drove his boat of an old used car into a restricted space on campus on night, then accidentally ran over the cop who was trying to flag him down and give him a ticket. i do think he was arrested on that occasion. the paper actually ran a “keep farrell out of jail” money-raising campaign to pay his fine, which he had to clear up prior to being able to leave for a semester abroad.
farrell: one of the most fun things about you, boy, is your ever youthful risk-taking behavior. yes, maybe you need to take it to therapy. but to kill it entirely would be a shame.
i also like a part of the story you didn’t narrate here: your (shrink-like) engagement of the cops in a conversation about the incident once they had dragged you in and realized you were a doctor and relaxed a little. i loved in particular that you asked “where exactly did this go wrong?” and “what’s the line between being cited on the spot and being taken in?” almost as if you were filing answers away for future reference.
Since Farrell left out the part about his first arrest, I’d be happy to oblige, because I was there and because it’s one of my favorite memories of Farrell.
Anyway, we were walking home (me, my then-girlfriend, and Farrell) from a party, and Farrell was walking down the sidewalk on our residential street while chugging a beer when some cops rolled up, flashing their spotlight in our direction. So he simply chucked his beer into some bushes. The cops stopped, got out of the car, and started to question Farrell, who wasn’t very helpful, so they ultimately made him put both hands on the hood of the squad car while they attempted to retrieve the “evidence” (looking in the wrong group of bushes), all while Farrell kept insisting that “it was just a Sprite, for chrissake!” They, in turn, kept insisting that he keep his hands on the hood of the car which, of course, is what led to one of those classically impish Farrell moments, when he asserts that he is indeed an “incorrigible member of the resistance”–as he playfully lifted his hands about two inches off the hood, and then instantly put them back on the car as soon as one of the cops looked over. This was the breaking point, and even though they found no evidence and couldn’t even really issue him a ticket, he still spent the night in jail.
If I remember correctly, Farrell, I believe you said the highlight was the pancakes they served for breakfast.
A wonderful, wonderful post. I’m sorry you had to go to jail, but I love that you still have that bit of rascal in you.
(Here’s the thing I’m continually fascinated/puzzled by: how were you ever a member of such a restrictive, rules-based religion/cult like Mormonism?)
um … if farrell indeed get taken in during the run-over-the-cop incident, jeremy, that means my arrest story predates yours.
and haven’t you considered that farrell’s rebel persona may have in fact been *exacerbated* by his childhood religion?
I didn’t know about that other arrest story (did he actually spend time in jail, though?), but it only adds to the legend of Farrell.
And, yes, I agree–it’s very likely that F’s rebelliousness could’ve been a product of his religion, but I’m still amazed that he followed along as long as he did, enough to complete a mission, etc.
“he playfully lifted his hands about two inches off the hood, and then instantly put them back on the car as soon as one of the cops looked over.”
For me, this is the funniest part. I’m still laughing. I can almost see the drunken impish glee on Farrell’s face as he was pushing the cops just a bit farther, just to see what they’d do.
Farrell, if you really want to mess with William’s sense of authority, the next time he defies you like this, go over, pick him up and hug and kiss him and say, “That’s my boy!!”
I’ve been thinking about the subject of getting arrested, too, for the last couple of weeks. I was in UT two weekends ago. My sister and I were trying to contact my little brother who was installing a sprinkler system for her, but he wasn’t returning her calls. We started to get a little worried, so we phoned another brother to see if he knew what was up. He had just gotten off the phone with my little brother who was in the county jail in St. George. Apparently, when he went to register a vehicle in SLC, his name turned up with an outstanding ticket in St. George from a few years ago–an oversight resulting from a mixup of who was going to send in the money. He had to drive five hours down to St. George to pay the ticket. As soon as he walked into the police station and told them his name, they cuffed him. etc. etc. After a lot of hassle and some finagling involving a lawyer, they eneded up making arrangements for him to pay the $240.00 in a payment plan (as he didn’t happen to have it in his back pocket).
That they required him to resolve the issue with the ticket before being able to register the vehicle was perfectly reasonable. While it seemed extreme to have him drive down to St. George in person, I could go along with that, too. But to cuff him and interrogate him after he came all that way to resolve the issue. That just seemed completely out of line.
I grew up deeply afraid of risk. I spent an inordinate amount of time making sure that I didn’t break any rules. I absolutely hated the idea of being confronted by an authority figure. (And, as a result, was probably the most boring teen-ager ever.) Over time, I’ve eased up a bit and learned to relax and enjoy moments like the one you described. I find risk taking to be an incredibly compelling personality trait and I’m with Bryan–you should keep some element of it always.
Great post. I’ll keep watching for lessons on how to enjoy life…
Almost five years ago I got a phone call from Farrell’s sweet mother, Lucynthia. She was trying to track him down after he and Trixie had blown through New York on a round of residency interviews. I’ll always remember that tone in her voice as she sighed “Oh that Farrell, you just never know what he’s going to do!”
Dear friends,
I’m sorry it’s taken me all day to get back to you. I was at work today where I don’t have internet access. It sucks. Anyway, I hate doing these long respond-to-everyone-in-one-comment posts but I don’t have a better option:
Lisa: Thank you for universalizing my responses to getting arrested to other parts of our lives. It’s a good point. And yes, trixie likes to push against the man. bless her.
Lane: Thanks for both of your responses. You are one who is capable of speaking to this side of me as you have been an intimate part of some of the mischief over the years. As to my mom’s tone of voice. During a family home evening my five siblings once voted me “most likely to go to jail.” I did have a beard at the time and wasn’t attending church and had already been arrested once. Not the most objective vote, but it does provide a little context for a mother’s tone.
Trixie: Your umbrage and presence and tolerance have of course been the greatest comfort.
Scott: your story is also strangely comforting. thanks for the show of support. i wish i had a picture of the night to share. You’re right, it would be so special.
Steph: Your comments on this blog always have such a sweet soothingness. Thanks for recognizing the unsettledness in the post. it is quite acute and you offer a needed “there, there.” bless you.
Marleyfan: I like knowing more about the inside view of police work. I really enjoyed the opportunity of sitting in the holding cell getting to interrogate the police woman completing my paper work who was remarkably willing to answer most of my questions. I’d love to know more about NYC’s policies on arresting folks with an open container. Even after all my questions, I’m still unclear about when they slap on the handcuffs vs. writing out a violation. I wish there were some forum for figuring this out. We would all benefit by knowing. oh, and I look forward to meeting you someday Marleyfan–i know who you are.
Bryan: Yes, you were there for my first official run-in with the law. You have an amazing memory for detail. But, as you weren’t actually a witness to the event, you wouldn’t have a clear memory of the fact that I was *not* actually arrested that night. just given a moving violation. a week later, though, the police called me in to formally charge me with assault with a deadly weapon (the car) (and a very expensive charge)–and got the finger prints and mug shots. yes, somewhere in a provo police office i have a mug shot. the charges were eventually dropped. I’m glad you appreciate the risk-taking side of me, brother. I can only imagine that part of your empathy comes from that not dissimilar line-crossing side of you (that side that got you officially arrested while a Mormon missionary! Now that’s a story that needs telling.) I also appreciate you bringing up the conversation with the police at the station. Indeed, I was quite forward in my questioning with them. And i did find out–among many other things–that “if you had just told us you were a doctor, we wouldn’t have brought you in. You know, we have that professional courtesy.”
Jeremy: Thank you. That was a fantastic retelling of that unforgettable night in long beach. You got every detail just right. Except that it was waffles, not pancakes, they served the next morning (the eggo kind of course) and yes, they were delicious–and you get a bowl of cereal too! Ah, and impish. I’m so flattered. Thanks for your sympathetic retelling and your continued fascination/puzzlement at how I arrived at this current state of personness from such strange mormon beginnings. The same question could be applied to you, dear. Especially as your most recent remarkable blog post highlighted again. Could you ever guess at the crazy stories that made us who we are now?
Tim, that is some good advice. I will make sure to nurture the authority-challenging side of little william. you’re welcome to contribute to that enterprise if you come to philly. and reexperience my “drunken impish glee.”
MF: Your brother’s story is fucked up. Much worse than mine. I’m sorry. Send him my felonious condolences. Thanks for your words about how you value risk-taking as a personality trait. I do too. Hope I don’t ever completely squash that side of me.
Farrell -
I’m a lurker/infrequent poster/FOB (friend of Bryan’s), but I loved that you posted that. And loved that you started analyzing the reasons why it happened, and can still look for laughs out of it.
Hadn’t hit me before that you’d been Mormon - no doubt that may have contributed to those ‘impish’ tendencies. I can relate - as a creator of evil comic book fictions, I’ve been criticized by Mormons - the ones on the tightass end of the spectrum - for years. A couple of unsublte comments from a Bishop several years back resulted in the next comic book I drew having 1) several panels of exposed nipples, and 2) the word ‘fuck’ in an accompanying essay - just because I knew he’d be reading.
For what it’s worth, the best laughs that can come out of your experience are going to be droll ones. I mean, you already do that: “I got handcuffed. And fingerprinted. And photographed. And thrown in a cell. But I also got WAFFLES. Mmm… waffles…”
i’ve been arrested, but it’s only really useful in games like two truths and a lie, because it was for protesting nuclear testing in nevada. i kind of like having it in my back pocket. i didn’t go to jail though…just ticketed in a cop car. come to think of it, the whole thing was kind of exciting. my mom ran a local jail for youth and once i asked her to lock me up for a few minutes, just to see what it felt like. even though i didn’t like it, i remember thinking, i could get a lot of reading done here.
I’ve been arrested twice, also for civil disobedience. I’m quite proud of it, actually - I spent about 6 hours in jail. The actual arresting part was laughable: because there were so many people at the civil disobedience (350) the arresting officers were having their pictures taken with their arrestees. My particular officer couldn’t figure out how to work the polaroid camera - he kept ripping off the top layer of the film too early, so they ended up taking, like, 20 pictures of me with my cop. The cops were all starting to laugh at their own lameness. The funniest part was that I didn’t quite know how to react. Always the perennial nerd, my first thought was show them what they were doing wrong. I mean, here I am, with my supposed adversary in a very serious situation, and it’s quickly deteriorating into a comedy of errors. I was only 18 and had no experience with that kind of thing, so I didn’t know if it was okay to start laughing along with them or not. I think I just remained steadfast in my seriousness. It was the 80’s, after all.
I’ve been arrested twice, also for civil disobedience. I’m quite proud of the second time, actually - I spent about 6 hours in jail. The actual arresting part was laughable: because there were so many people at the civil disobedience (350) the arresting officers were having their pictures taken with their arrestees. My particular officer couldn’t figure out how to work the polaroid camera - he kept ripping off the top layer of the film too early, so they ended up taking, like, 20 pictures of me with my cop. The cops were all starting to laugh at their own lameness. The funniest part was that I didn’t quite know how to react. Always the perennial nerd, my first thought was show them what they were doing wrong. I mean, here I am, with my supposed adversary in a very serious situation, and it’s quickly deteriorating into a comedy of errors. I was only 18 and had no experience with that kind of thing, so I didn’t know if it was okay to start laughing along with them or not. I think I just remained steadfast in my seriousness. It was the 80’s, after all.
Farrell, I was listening to this last night and it sort of reminded me of you:
There I was completely wasting, out of work and down
All inside its so frustrating as I drift from town to town
Feel as though nobody cares if I live or die
So I might as well begin to put some action in my life
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
So much for the golden future, I cant even start
Ive had every promise broken, theres anger in my heart
You don’t know what its like, you don’t have a clue
If you did you’d find yourselves doing the same thing too
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law