would be time to tell my story. Story? Hell, it was simple.
A guy tried to rent me a bar stool!
Chapter 3
The jail was right in the police station, or rather in the same building, but to get there, you had to walk through the part where the cops were passing through, and secretaries were working. There was a lot of activity.
Guys and women making hasty notes, and some of them typing on several machines. There was a desk, bigger than all the others near the entrance door, and that’s where they booked me.
“This is just a routine,” one of the arresting cops said. “We got to do it because it’s the law. We can’t take a citizen, off the streets and put him in jail without making a written record of it. As of right now, you are arrested. The judge will see you in the morning.”
“Right now, I need your basic information, like your name, etc., so what is it?”
“Jake Bonner,” I said, and the other cop who was now sitting in a chair at the desk tapped a few keys on his keyboard, and suddenly I became a written public record in the city of Cambridge, Ohio.
“Address?”
“Have none.”
“Oh c’mon man. Everybody’s got to live somewhere. Where is the last place you lived?” He just stood there with this perplexed look on his face. He’d done it all before.
Some prisoners would not cooperate. Some wouldn’t even give their name so as yet he wasn’t mad at me. Soon that would change.
“A Salvation Army flophouse back in Indiana.”
“What’s their address?” and now he wasn’t so perplexed. His prisoner had given an answer. Not exactly what he wanted, but he could see that I was cooperating.
“I just don’t know. After a while, they’re all the same. Kind of run together in your head.”
“Step up on the scale,” he said pointing to it, and I did it while he read my weight and height.
“One six five, and six foot one,” he said to the guy doing the typing. Then he went on. “No visible tattoos, scar on the right underside of the chin, and one over the right eye, in the eyebrow. No abrasions from the recent fight. Hair black, and eyes blue. Nose a little off-center. Somebody might have moved it for him.That’s it.”
“Get his age,” the typist said.
“Twenty-six,” I said. “Born December nineteenth, nineteen twenty-nine.”
“Give me your wallet.”
“Don’t have one,” I said
“Where do you keep your driver’s license, and your folding money?”
“Don’t have a license, and I carry my money in my pocket.”
The cop typist rolled his chair back away from the desk.
“No wallet, no driver license, no home address. Do you have any luggage?”
“No.”
“What’s that sticking out of your shirt pocket?”
“Toothbrush,” I said. “Only thing I’ve ever owned.” “A toothbrush...and you own nothing else?”
“Nope, just needed nothing.”
“That makes little sense.”
“Well, it’s all a state of mind. Once you realize that anything you own is also something that you will have to take care of, it’s easy to convince yourself that you don’t need it”
”Where do you work?”
“I’m between jobs.” And right then, I decided. Getting these guys exasperated would not win me any favors, so I told them what I could.
“During the summer months, I travel with a carnival, and I sleep in the truck we use to haul our tent. I do that from the end of January, down in Florida, and then we travel up the east coast to Canada, until we come back down S outh in the late fall, and then we shut down on the first of November.”
“That’s why I don’t need a home address, and why I don’t need a license to drive a car. I always travel by bus or train, and sometimes I hitchhike and since this isn’t my first arrest you can look me up and see I don’t break the law.”
The guy in the chair stared at me for a couple seconds. “Where’d you learn to fight?”
“I’m a Carny mister,” I said. “I was born a Carny, and I been one all my life, except the time I spent in the service. The military taught me a couple of things, but most of my experience I got out behind the tents.”
“What’s your job in the carnival?”
“Most of the time I sell balloons. I also help put up and tear down the rides.”
“Balloons? How the hell do you sell a balloon?” “I put air in it,” I said and I couldn’t help but smile,
“but first, I blow up some heart balloons, and stuff them inside the big balloon. Then I write happy birthday, and the customer’s name, on the outside of the balloon, with an airbrush and charge them four bucks for eighteen cents worth of balloons.” “Damn,” the cop said, “that’s almost illegal. What’d you do in the army?”
“Marines, and I can’t talk about it.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
“Can’t.”
“Those guys you beat up. They’re kind of special people. Nobody ever messes with them. You might find it advisable to leave town as soon as we turn you loose.” Then he moved his chair back in typing position and spoke to his partner. “Take him on back to lockup.”
Chapter 4
Jails are all the same. This one was what I call, an all in one. That is. The bullpen is a part of the individual cells instead of being separated.
The arresting cop opened the door and stood aside so I could enter. He didn’t shove me either, which didn’t surprise me. Most cops simply can’t resist shoving a prisoner, but the guys that arrested me didn’t seem the type.
The first thing I noticed was that I wasn’t alone. There was a card game going on over against one of the outside walls, and there were a few guys just walking around the corridor which encircled the two lines of cells.
I pulled out one of my smokes, lit it, and then took a couple steps in the game’s direction. Maybe I’d just watch them for a little while until someone spoke to me.
Jailhouse protocol. Don’t speak until you’re spoken to and don’t look anyone in the eye. It’s a challenge. It didn’t work.
“Hey, boy. Gimmie one of your smokes,” and he was suddenly right in front of me, and there wasn’t all that amount of space between us. I didn’t hesitate. Automatically I reached in my shirt pocket and pulled my pack back out and offered it to him. It’s just common courtesy.
Smokers all over the world know they can always ask a stranger for a cigarette and get it. I had time to study the guy as he was reaching for the pack, but not long enough to understand his intentions. He didn’t take out a cigarette. He just put the pack in his shirt pocket and walked away. I followed him but stopped short when I felt the arm snake around my neck.
His buddy was behind me and I could see the cigarette thief grinning as the guy locked me in a Japanese stranglehold. I should have panicked, but I didn’t.
Old Joe, my jiu-jitsu teacher from long ago, had told me in the very beginning of his lessons. “I’m from Singapore,” he said, “and the stuff I will teach you is what we teach the girls, but never fear. Nobody, and I mean just nobody, can beat our girls.”
Anyway,