The police baton banged along steel bars sending a stabbing through to my awakening brain. Stale socks left from last millennium combined with urine and soured cheese and a hell against my sinuses, my throat coated in thick glue with a tongue slick with sand.
“She’s awake…”
If this was awake, shoot me now.
I sat upright and felt the ceiling drop on my head. “Oww,” hands to my head and with powder-coated eyeballs I winced at my surroundings. “Oh shit.”
The Sergeant slipped his baton into his accoutrement belt “Yes, you are in the drunk tank, young lady.”
“Huh.” Yep my ability to formulate words lost in my sludge filled brain.
“She’s awake,” called out the younger constable carrying two coffee mugs and handed one to his superior officer
“If …show more content…
“Then the ‘oh, shit, how did I fuck up,’ comes next.”
I glared at the cops in tripple vision– shit, how did I end up here?
“Now, comes the – how and why?” The constable snorted as he sipped his coffee.
Fingers raked through straw for hair mixed with dirt and grass covering my shoulders amid dried mud. “What the hell-”
But that wasn’t the worst.
“What the-” My school-travelling, house-escapee mode of transport, classed as vintage by my peers, because no one would steal the hunk of metallic relic of a pushbike, lay right beside me. “What the fuck!”
Amazing how those three little words echoed inside the cubicle cell.
“You don’t have a license to book your drink riding on the road, and we didn’t find you with any alcohol. Your father said to let you sleep it off and he‘ll come an’ fetchya after he’s dropped your Nan at church…”
Head down repeating that mantra, “I’m dead.” Not from the cops. But dad.
And I couldn’t remember a damned thing to talk my way out of it.
I collapsed back onto the slab cuddled up beside my pushbike inside the drunk tank – I’d become the sideshow freak of Sunday speak in a small town that never forgets - ever. Was it too late to ride away and join the
“She’s awake…”
If this was awake, shoot me now.
I sat upright and felt the ceiling drop on my head. “Oww,” hands to my head and with powder-coated eyeballs I winced at my surroundings. “Oh shit.”
The Sergeant slipped his baton into his accoutrement belt “Yes, you are in the drunk tank, young lady.”
“Huh.” Yep my ability to formulate words lost in my sludge filled brain.
“She’s awake,” called out the younger constable carrying two coffee mugs and handed one to his superior officer
“If …show more content…
“Then the ‘oh, shit, how did I fuck up,’ comes next.”
I glared at the cops in tripple vision– shit, how did I end up here?
“Now, comes the – how and why?” The constable snorted as he sipped his coffee.
Fingers raked through straw for hair mixed with dirt and grass covering my shoulders amid dried mud. “What the hell-”
But that wasn’t the worst.
“What the-” My school-travelling, house-escapee mode of transport, classed as vintage by my peers, because no one would steal the hunk of metallic relic of a pushbike, lay right beside me. “What the fuck!”
Amazing how those three little words echoed inside the cubicle cell.
“You don’t have a license to book your drink riding on the road, and we didn’t find you with any alcohol. Your father said to let you sleep it off and he‘ll come an’ fetchya after he’s dropped your Nan at church…”
Head down repeating that mantra, “I’m dead.” Not from the cops. But dad.
And I couldn’t remember a damned thing to talk my way out of it.
I collapsed back onto the slab cuddled up beside my pushbike inside the drunk tank – I’d become the sideshow freak of Sunday speak in a small town that never forgets - ever. Was it too late to ride away and join the