Last Night I Almost Went to Jail

...For smoking pot in the park. Which, y'know, I knew was against the rules, but fer cryin out loud: after 9 hours being nice to people who populate this little island just long enough to photograph it, rape it and trash it, I really just wanted to relax on the beach and remind myself why I continue to reside in a place where slavish attention to tourists is so high on the survival list.

I brought a joint with me, which several of us smoked in due time. We were not loud, obnoxious, or obvious. We were all tired, all local, all wanting to chill the fuck out and enjoy our current home for the sunset hour. When the bone was finished, it was finished. Done and done. We're not sure whether the out-of-uniform head park ranger witnessed us or whether it was some idiot tourist; regardless, my brother looked up about 20 minutes after we were finished and saw a very diminutive, very hostile cop fastmarching toward us with two uniformed park rangers and a really tall (vaguely familiar) guy in tow. BadCop immediately started shouting in his Outside Voice (wanting desperately to impress everyone within earshot),

"Where's the marijuana? Huh? Don't lie to me. Don't make me be an asshole! I know you're smoking marijuana out here, now where is it? Who's got it? We've got witnesses!"

Of course, all of us were fuckin stoned by this point, so fortunately didn't get as irate as LittleGoebbels (nee Lopez) deserved. He obviously had an eyewitness, the tall guy, who was unwilling to let go of the issue. Kept squawkin about "kids know(ing) what marijuana smells like" (begging the question of whom the hell exposed 'em to pot in the first place). Reiterated to us how criminal our activities were, that this was a state park, a family park (with concessions full of carcinogenic nonfoods). I realized we had too many witnesses and one PsychoCop(Lopez) too far off his rocker, too mad with power and inferiority to let us go with just a bag of denials. Somebody had to confess something or he was gonna have us there forfuckinever.

So, I, with my West Coast sensibilities, told him and the assembled rangers (who know me well enough) about the joint. Told them, yes, I brought it down; yes, a couple of us smoked it; yes, it was irretrievably finished and had not left a trace of evidence. I apologized for my mistake and reiterated (in careful fashion) that LittlePapaDoc was too late, the deed was done, over, finished, with nothing but the squint in my eyes to prove anything had ever happened. The confession mollified him a bit and he treated me a little less patronizingly after that (a little less), but oh that man was fuckin desperate for someone's head. Just desperate.

Unfortunately, there was a little metal Zippo case with a smidgen of pot in it sitting on one of our tables. GestapoLopez made a big show of asking to whom the case belonged; no one owned up (of course). So, he, shouting, said, "Well, if this doesn't belong to anybody here, and since it's on state park property, then I, as a police officer, can just come right over here and open it! See? And I'm not gonna find anything, right? Isn't that what you told me?"

"No, sir, we told you we don't know whose it is. We don't know what's in it."

"Oh, really?! Well, I'm just gonna pick this up, see? And now I'm going to open it, right here in the state park. And...and look what I found! And this doesn't belong to any of you, is that what you expect me to believe?"

The dialogue was so impossibly cheesy. I was having a hard time separating his reality from my own stoned "This is totally a cartoon, right? Nobody honestly speaks like this outside of pulp comix, right? Jeez, this guy is really badly written."

PsychoCopLopez demanded our IDs, knew we were criminals. Several of us denied having identification; several handed over their licenses; I gave 'em my Green Parrot Bar Tradesman card, unflappably.

Stormtrooper Lopez stalked off to run our information. I overheard him tell the tall guy that he intended to keep everyone's IDs, that we "should all be booked." Then Otter comes sauntering out of the water, walks right up to the tall guy and starts a conversation. Turns out Tall Guy is actually the Head Ranger Guy who's known Otter since he was a pup. Ranger was quickly and quietly informed that he was about to arrest Otter's wife and brother-in-law. Ranger Guy, after a bit of consideration, said he wanted to give us all a second chance, since we were local and otherwise not causing a ruckus. Ranger gave us a little talk from the You Know Better lecture series; told us to "smoke (y)our dope at home;" told us Otter had been in trouble many times before and that, much as he'd hate to do it, he'd bar us from the park if he caught us doing anything so blatantly ridiculous again. The petulant and egregious Lopez was angry as all hell that he didn't get to take anybody "downtown" (do we even have one of those here?), and did his best not to kick up gravel as he pulled out of the parking lot, probably to go home, get drunk, and beat his wife. Or his dog.

So, I didn't go to jail last night. Went home, rolled a huge joint, and smoked it with my brother instead.

Pays to be married to the guy who knows everybody, I guess.