Mine's a bit different tho. On this day in 2001, I was a hot mess. Workin in a night club, supplementing my income with shenanigans, letting other hoes stay with me when I knew they were just as much of a mess as I was & could never live up to their promises of help with the bills. Someone called on my house phone & told me to turn on the TV & there it was. The towers, the planes, the explosion, the footage of the dust clouds all up inna street. Whoever was staying with me at the time woke up & started watching with me. He started crying. I don't remember if I cried or not. I just remember a feeling of surrealness as the same few minutes of footage started over & started over, with another voice taking a turn at narrating it. I remember needing to get out while my roommate kept watching, so I met up with my baby sis at Angeli on Decatur st. I don't remember what we talked about or ate or anything or much of the rest of the day. Odds are, I went to work in some form or fashion & got loaded in some way or another, but I'm not really sure.
However, a year later I can tell you precisely where I was. I was sitting on a metal picnic-style bench in an overcrowded receiving tier in Orleans Parish Prison., being bombarded by Public Service Announcements urging me & every other American to cherish our freedom from a TV bolted to the cinder block wall.
For the unaware, a receiving tier is a set of twenty 2-man cells, where prisoners are housed until they are allowed to see a judge. There were about 50 of us in this space designed for 40. In compliance with the laws of due process, no one is supposed to be in such a tier for more than 72 hours. As this is a relatively short period of time, the inmates have no commissary privileges. Without these, the only thing that anyone possesses is the "care package" issued upon arrival, consisting of a small bar of Ivory soap, a towel, a travel size tube of toothpaste and a Kafka-esque toothbrush. No one has any type of grooming equipment. Deodorant is only a distant memory and the laundry facilities are the single man shower stalls, where inmates hang the clothes they hand wash over the mildewing brownish plastic shower curtains. It was certainly no Oz--not the TV show & certainly not the infamous NOLA gay bar. I was one of maybe 5 white guys, but that is nothing new to me. I've been riding the bus in NOLA too long to be fucked up about being pushed up someplace with a bunch of black folks. I wasn't scared, just angry. Nobody was getting raped or beat up of any kind of foolishness like that, but being there definitely sucked.
According to the media, September 11, 2002 was a day for us to solemly reflect on our freedom as Americans. So I reflected on how I'd lost mine...
On September 27, 2000, I was out in the French Quarter one night (as usual) with my dentally challenged drag queen coke dealing roommate best friend succubus & some gal we'd met at the bar & a dancer from the Corner Pocket. The 4 of us got arrested in a parkin lot downtown just after getting spotted sharing a spliff & we were all charged with possession of the $10 bag of pot in the dancer's sock. I was released on my own recognizance and given a date to appear in Magistrate Court. When I made this appearance, the Clerk told me to report back at a different date. Upon my return, the Clerk told me that the District Attorney's office had refused the charges and I was free to go.
Between 2000 & 2002, I was turning my act around. I left the party scene and found a boyfriend, got enrolled at the University of New Orleans, been champion on The Weakest Link. I got rid of that awful roommate and had no contact with the legal system until Monday, September 9, 2002.
At 9:00 a.m., I was sleeping on the couch next to my window unit air conditioner in my boxers, under a thin sheet. My homework was packed in school bag & I'd been up late, studying for our first test. My alarm clock was going off, my phone was ringing, and someone was banging on my door like they were out of their mind. I staggered around, turned off the alarm, told whoever was calling I'd get back with them & opened up the door to a NOLA Sherrif's Deputy & Special Agent all up on my porch. They asked if I was me & asked if I remembered being arrested for drugs awhile back, as they had a warrant for my arrest for possession of "A Controlled, Dangerous, Substance."
I said, "But they told me those charges were dropped, I went to court a few times behind it."
All the officers could tell me was that sometimes "they" forget to take charges off the computer & that I'd see a judge soon enough. Mercifully they let me put on a pair of shorts & flip flops before they handcuffed me & led me out to their waiting police car.
By September 11, 2002, I still hadn't seen a judge and I was one bitter bitch watching those PSAs about freedom.Where was mine? No bond had been set, yet bail-bonding companies, eager to capitalize on my loved ones' anguish, sent them letters upon letters, asking for exorbitant amounts of money to ensure my freedom. I had no idea exactly what charges I was facing, nor how I got them back after they were dropped in the first place.
Other inmates had been in this receiving tier for several weeks by this point, and some told me that they'd been there up to 60 days on the same charges without seeing anyone but the guards. Sixty days. In sixty days, I'd be evicted from my rented house. In sixty days, I'd have failed all my classes. In sixty days, all my utilities would be disconnected & I'd be hit with disconnect fees if I ever had a house to use them in again.Gripped with fear, I called my parents and all my mom could really tell me was that the bail bonding agent she'd spoken with told her I wouldn't see a judge any time soon without a lawyer.
Even though I'd just won over $30K on The Weakest Link, I wouldn't have that check until February. My parents were kinda sick of me and my drama & I'm not 100% sure they believed the story about TWL until later, so they wouldn't help me get a lawyer. Feeling sick & sad & ashamed, I asked my boyfriend to loan me $2500 as a retainer for this lawyer my friend Swervella & I had used in the past. He went to the bank & got a loan to help me out of this situation.
On Friday, September 13, 2002, I learned about the kind of freedom that money can buy. I was woken up at 4:30 a.m. to go to court, along with about 30 other inmates. We were brought to cells of varying sizes (none of which qualify as large), shackled to one another for transportation, unshackled and the herded in sections between four holding cells whose only furniture consisted of a metal toilet/sink combo bolted to the wall. When the prisoners for my section of court were called, I was cuffed by wrist & ankle to a black guy in his late teens & we were led alone into yet another holding room, but this one was not so lavishly decorated. There was a drain in the center of the floor & a bunch of Dixie cups on the floor with varying levels of urine in them. My chain partner told the lady guard in charge of us that he needed to pee, but by this point it was time for us to go into court. She told him to use one of the cups. He told her they were mostly full but she just said "Piss on top of it and come on!"
I will never forget the sight, smell & sound of this poor unwashed kid's water overflowing the cup, and how that cup tilted over and how hard I think we were both trying not to cry and failing as the yellow froth splashed both of our OPP flip flops.
The Guard Lady came in & grabbed one of us by the elbow & said "Come on ALREADY" and the metal ankle cuff smashed again into my ankle bone as I was led from the stinking room & down a filthy cinderblock corridor & into a brightly lit, carpeted courtroom, just after being separated & single-cuffed. When I saw my lawyer, my heart leapt. I knew the day was saved.
My attorney informed me that a subpoena had been sent to my former address & when I'd not appeared, a warrant had been issued. He was an older gay man with a shock of white hair and a tough-love attitude.He fussed at me for getting myself in trouble, like an irate grandparent, asked me why I hadn't informed the court of my change of address. I replied that it never occurred to me to do such a thing as I'd been under the impression that the charges were dropped. It would seem to me that if my new address could be found to have me arrested, the certainly it could have been found for the purposes of sending me a subpoena. Apparently charges being refused is not the same as charges being dropped & the DA has the right to accept them for some miscellaneous amount of time, and someone was trying to look "Tough On Crime." I was brought before a judge in Section C, who sent my case back to Magistrate Court & ordered me released around 10:30. He said a subpoena would be sent to me. At this point my attorney felt it wise to read my latest address into the record. I was taken back to the "docks" (yea those gross ass rooms) and from there back to the receiving tier around 1:30pm. I did not actually walk out of Orleans Parish Prison until 3:02 a.m. on September 14th, according to my paperwork.
The Magistrate court kept pushing my court date back & back & I didn't actually go to trial until the March 17, 2003. I was angry about this delay at first, but glad that I was able to hand the judge a copy of my previous semester's transcript showing my 4.0 GPA from UNO. I was given a 6-month suspended sentence & a $500 fine, with a payment plan. On April 21, 2003, I made my last payment and the case was CLOSED.
So much has happened since then, but this is what September 11 means to me. Not the horrible tragedy that has been forever immortalized by the 24 hour news cycle from 2001 but a more personal tragedy from the following year, when I was just another broke bitch who couldn't seem to get it right.
