When I was 17 I went on spring break to Myrtle Beach SC with a group of 4 other guys (my younger brother included). While there we drank and had parties in our hotel room. We met a bunch of girls and a guy named Dan that ended up being called "Dan, Dan the Opium Man" (he was a good guy to know). Anyways, one night we were pretty much partied out and were just quietly hanging out in our hotel room with a few girls we had met when we get a knock on the door (thud, thud, thud) we open it up and the cops walked right in. It turned out that someone from another hotel room had taken it upon themselves to puke right in front of our door and thus the hotel called the cops... on us. We were arrested but we pleaded with them to leave the girls alone. Chivalry!
Arresting kids for underaged drinking is an industry in Myrtle Beach. On the way to the holding cell the cop pulled over the car and arrested two other kids for open intox and put them in my car. One of the kids was so drunk that he began banging his head against the cage that separated the backseat from the front till his head started bleeding yelling "POLICE BRUTALITY"... he was a mess.
We 5 were thrown in to a holding cell with about 40 other guys. We were scrawny little kids compared to some of these thugs. One guy was clearly running the show and was bossing every in there around, "you sit there, this is my seat", "did I say you could use the toilet"? That kind of stuff.
About every 30 minutes or so a cop would come to the little window at the door and yell out a name and that lucky person would go free. It felt like a long, long time before any of our names were called. One of our friends last names is Lutman and that's what we all call him. One of the girls remembered this and apparently he said to her "you'd better come bail me out" just as the police took us away in chains. She said she would and she lived up to her word.
One by one we bailed each other out but I'll never forget what it was like in that holding cell. It really sucked.
As I mentioned, arresting kids is an industry in Myrtle Beach and when we came before the judge, this was very apparent. The seating in the courtroom is "stadium" style and it probably comfortably seats 1000 people. -It was packed.
When it was our turns to come forward one of the arresting officers read out the list of what they found in our room, "we found approximately 500 beer cans/bottles, 3 fifths of vodka, 2 half gallons of gin....etc", all the other kids in "stadium" erupted in applause. We were celebrated as heroes for the enormous contraband of alcohol found in our room.
We had made the mistake of hiring an attorney and because of it, the judge gave us a pretty stiff sentence.
We ended up going back to our hotel room and just starting all over again. It was a fun spring break but the jail part sucked.
My parents were pissed!
So how about it.... ever been arrested?
I visited my brother at college with a girl, and got pulled over on the way back, because my speedometer was broken and I was going too slow. I wasn't drunk, but I was underage, and am sure I would blow something on the breathalyzer. We also had some nasty cinnamon liquor in the car. Anyway, the cop ran our licenses, and the girl, who was 17 came up as a runaway. She had previously, and her parents hadn't changed the status after she returned. Luckily, we got her aunt on the phone and they sent us on our way. But, I remember the feeling of being freaked about the alcohol, and then what? You're a runaway!?
Do you too love the smell of napalm in the morning?
Crazy thing though: Not long after our hi-jinks had ended, two kids from our high school were caught breaking into a candy machine by my friend's neighbor (a math prof) in one of the same buildings. These kids chased him down, beat him senseless with a pipe wrench, and left him for dead in the snow. He survive, but was brain damaged, and could never teach math again. The assholes were picked up soon after (for bragging about it), and sent to jail.