Chapter Nine
JEREMY
January 2017
“Jeremy Jameson.”
My head flies up when my name is called. It takes a second for me to locate who’s talking to me through the bars. The stress I’ve been feeling since making my phone call has been eating me alive. But when I spot the cop with the large waist, the ambivalence on his face reminds me that no one here cares about my personal problems.
“Ride’s here.”
I stand from where I’m seated on a long bench, surrounded by others in various stages of repose. I don’t know why they seem so relaxed. I just want to shake them and sayyou were arrested for something! How can you be so calm?
I’ve only been arrested one other time – for beating up my sister’s cheating high school boyfriend. Maybe I was calm then, because I knew I did what I needed to, and even today I know that I’d do it again. Maybe the people here aren’t worried because they don’t regret what they did to get here.
I can’t say my time in the tank were particularly restful for me, though. I’ve been here for about four hours, practically climbing out of my skin, even though I’m sure I just looked like an angry drunk as I fumed in the corner. But what anyone on the outside looking in probably doesn’t know is that I’m not angry at anyone but myself.
I follow the cop out to the front of the fairly small station. It’s nothing like I remember, mostly because it was a different station I was booked in a few years ago. But also because I’m probably seeing it differently this time around.
When you’re a sophomore in college who gives some cheating punk high-school prick a few pops to the face, when you’re defending your family, the police station feels like something out of a movie. All grit and dark colors and gasping secretaries as you storm out after being released on your own recognizance. You’re the superhero, the person being blamed for bringing down the hammer of rogue justice.
Now?
As a 26-year-old professional soccer player that was pulled over for being over-the-limit at six o’clock in the morning?
It makes the lens through which I see the station cast a completely different light. It’s a drab building with cracks in the walls and watermarks on the ceiling. Tan tables covered in paperwork, phones ringing, two people talking at a water cooler as they hold tiny white cups, with the smell of stale coffee in the air. And this time, when people look at me, I feel a judgment that I know I deserve.That’s the guy who got pulled over because he was still drunk from the night before. What an idiot.
I inwardly cringe and focus my attention on the back of the cop’s head as he leads me to the front. He stops me at a counter and has me sign a few things, then hands me back my phone, wallet and keys, rambling something about getting information about my court hearing in the mail, and handing me a pamphlet about dealing with my impounded car.
And then I’m through the doors to the front, and faced with looking at the familiar face that has been haunting me, that I just saw this morning. The one that I want to see every day except for today.
Charlie.
We stand there and stare at each other for a second before she turns on squeaky shoes and starts walking down the hallway towards the exit.
I catch up to her as she pushes through the front door and follow her outside.
“I’m sorry for calling you, but I’m not ready to tell Rachel.”
“And you didn’t have any other friends you could call?” she bites out, still walking at a quick pace through the parking lot.
I shrug, but realize she can’t see me where I’m walking just behind her. “I just… I thought about who I would want to pick me up and it was your name that came to mind.”
She stops abruptly and I nearly crash into her, but narrowly avoid a collision by lunging to the side.
“Why would you wantmeto pick you up?”
I stand there and stare at her, unsure of what to say.
Finally, I settle with, “I don’t know.”
She shakes her head, then turns and continues walking. I have no choice but to follow her.
“Well, Idon’tappreciate you calling me. I was atwork, Jeremy. I had to find someone to cover my shift, and then take the bus home, and then dig around to find RJ’s keys and then come drive into downtown LA traffic to get you. You should be thankful RJ left her car here when she and Mack went to the beach. Did you forget the part where I don’t have a car?”
Shit. I clearly didn’t think about what it would do to her day to have to come get me.
“I’m sorry, Char, really. I didn’t think about that. I just…” I let my words trail off because, what am I supposed to say to her?
