Locked Up in Miami

The Winter Music Conference in Maimi in whatever year it was was crazy. I wound up in jail but it was an interesting experience in retrospect.

There was a bar that I was drinking at with Lisa, my girlfriend at the time. John was there with his girlfriend as well and they were arguing about whatever, which happened all the time and it was no surprise. The police were apparently because of their bickering. In Hindsight I don't know how I came to know that but I guess gleaning that wasn't really a stretch. Anyway, we were all leaving and on the streets of Miami, stumbling and joking with one another doing our best to stay in a group. Spring Break had coincided with the WMC that year and it was Friday night on a popular street around midnight so the streets looked like some rogue sports team just won the biggest game of the year with drunkards everywhere partying. There was an upcoming release I was promoting and I had 12" some records that I was giving out. Somehow I managed to have a few left that I didn't lose in a drunken stupor. Messing around with my girlfriend, I smacked her butt with the promos. She was wearing leather and the sound rang out through the streets like a firecracker. She spun around and knocked them out of my hands, walking onward as kind of a continuation of this unspoken game we were playing in our minds. The next thing I knew I was wrestling on the ground with multiple attackers. I remember my shoe came off during the struggle and I was doing my best to keep my attackers off of me - at that point, I still didn't know who it was or what was going on. Then I heard someone shout "spray 'em" and I immediately knew what was going on and stayed as straight and still as I could. I was yelling for Lisa or anybody to help me but they were down the street already and the streets were packed with hooligans making noise.

At the holding cell, while I sobered up, Lisa apparently came and saw them. They twisted up her words from "it was a joke, we play like that all the time" to "he thinks it's a big joke and he does it to me all the time." Reading that makes me think, was I actually like that? And then of course I think not but I guess I've been conditioned to think the possibility exists.

They wound up charging me with domestic violence which can't be disputed by the person in question, this being Lisa, and some other thing they decided I needed to pay for. After what I don't remember but what I can assume was an unpleasant time checking in and what have you, they moved me from the drunk tank to general population. The air was kept very cold so prisoners wouldn't fight but it was intensely hot outside. I had on shorts (which nobody will probably see me in ever again) and a short-sleeved shirt. They gave me a mat, pillow, and blanket, all of which looked like they had never been washed and stank and were soiled with who knows what. I had no choice... I'd been partying for days so I needed to get some rest bad, so I wrapped myself in that stinking blanket with my arms tucked into my shirt like a turtle and tried to get some sleep. Sobering up in jail in Miami locked in with people who've killed people in my mind was getting to me as well. I was just a kid. What sort of things would they do to me in my sleep? There were evil vibrations everywhere.

The next day was surprisingly easier, though in no way enjoyable. They gave me a used (in my mind it was used but it could've been new) red solo cup for drinking. We had to dunk the cup into a big drum that was filled with some mystery drink that was kinda like weak Kool-Aid without the sugar. There was this panic growing inside me where I was thinking I would never get out. I couldn't show that outwardly though, and at the same time, I thought that I was completely innocent and I'd get out eventually.

Being that was after midnight on Friday when they brought me in, I had to wait until Monday to see a judge. I had a couple of days at least to acclimate to my surroundings and I figured I'd better start quick. Somebody taught me how to play checkers and I remember being terrible but I would've lost the game on purpose anyway. After trying to meet people it turned out there was a guy in there that knew some of my friends and was meant to go to a party I was going to later on in the week. I forget what that dude's name was or what he did to get in there, but he was the only one I remember talking to most of the time from then on.

Eventually, I went to a video session or something and got sentenced or something - it was all a blur and I don't remember big chunks of that part. I didn't know anyone in the area to contact and a friend of a friend wound up paying my bail. Some friends of mine picked me up and I went to my hotel and showered immediately. I had rashes everywhere from the infected blanket but I was free, I was in Miami and I went out somewhere to get wasted.

I went to that party that my friend was hosting. It was somewhere outside during the day and wound up getting on the mic and MCing for a bit. I'm sure I did other things as well. I never saw that dude I was locked up with again.