By Joe Cobb Crawford
The steamy summer simmered on. The Middle East Oil Embargo continued. Gasoline was hard to find and buy. The eternally televised Watergate hearings were hopefully nearing their end. Everyone and his brother were tired, uptight, and yearned for a reality break, including me.
For days I’d looked forward to the long Labor Day Weekend and a planned getaway with the wife and son to the North Georgia Mountains. A welcomed sight would be Augusta, Georgia, our home, in my car’s rearview mirror.
At work I’d dreamed of driving through the shady green mountains. I could see myself wading and splashing in a creek with my son, enjoying cool breezes. That Friday evening, the tank on my fuel economy car was full and I was ready to escape.
I left work early. Unaccompanied I headed north on Washington Road. A quick stop would be made to pick up my wife, Susan and 3-year-old son Jeff. They’d be packed and eager to get going. We’d load the luggage, start our journey and before bedtime be breathing in cool mountain air.
Traffic was moving well. Like all other drivers, I kept my speed at about five miles over the legal limit. Then the unexpected—the car in front of me came to a screeching halt at a railroad crossing. I skidded into the back of it. Lightning fast, I got out to check on the man whose car I had rear-ended and to examine the damage to my car. He said he was okay. We didn’t speak otherwise, and he remained inside his vehicle. His car was okay too, other than a small dent in the bumper. I looked for a train, but a train was nowhere to be seen.
I walked across the railroad tracks and up the street a block. Entering a convenience store, I placed a call to the Police to report the accident. Then I strolled back to the accident scene. Still no train was in sight. I glanced at the unengaged man whose car I had hit. He sat somber rubbing his neck. On to my car I moseyed, sat down and wiped sweat while waiting for the police … and for the phantom train.Five minutes passed. With no siren going or lights flashing, a police cruiser and a train showed up at almost the same time. The train was long and noisy and emitted a plume of pungent black smoke. Like a herd of elephants it lumbered by. Ear-piercing metal on metal screeching went on for three eternities. Having to shout over its rumble and squeals, the officer interviewed both the driver of the rear-ended car and me.
He scrutinized each damaged car, measured distances and recorded his findings. Finishing the report, he glanced back once more at my car, focusing on its windshield’s inspection sticker. A grin belying anger raced to his face. He yelled at me over the noise, “You know I’ll have to take you to the station. We’ll have to hold you there for the state boys.”
That’s when I lost my calm easy-going composure. Cool Hand Luke and I definitely shared no demeanor resemblance. “What? Hold me for what?” I barked back at him.
I didn’t know the inspection sticker on my car’s windshield had expired and couldn’t believe he was taking me in for a simple bent bumper accident. I told him, “Officer, he just bowed up and stopped for no reason. He says there was a train coming, but no train crossed that track for five minutes after the accident. I’m not at fault here. He is! He caused this wreck.”
The policeman blew a 50-amp fuse. He screamed, “You’re going with me to the station.” Oddly, things got quiet as he clamped the cuffs on my wrists. Passing spectators watched him place me in the back of his cruiser. He wiped sweat from his brow and continued his rant, “You can tell it to the state troopers. We have to do our job and theirs too, nowadays. We have to patrol the city for all expired inspection stickers.”
At the station I was dropped into a large pool of arrested people. All kinds of God’s humanity mingled in that holding tank. The corral had a composite foul odor of stale beer, bad breath, sweat, weed and cigarettes. A cloud hovered over us inside that dingy, cave-like holding pen. Missing teeth, crooked noses, bloodshot eyes and tattoos were prominently displayed on several in the incarcerated cluster. They were drunks, wife-beaters, old seedy winos, and drug-stoned hippies. One had the same persona as the TV character Otis on “The Andy Griffith Show.” He was there simply to sleep off a drunk and get a free meal. But most all were alike in one regard: each sang a song with the same theme. They each claimed to be innocent. They’d been wrongly charged and arrested.
Hmmm.. Just like me, I at first thought. But then I admitted to myself that I was wrong. I should have been driving slower. And I’d heard about Augusta’s Railroad Fender Bender Racket reputation. I also should have kept track of that inspection sticker, had it renewed even if I did feel it was a farce and a state mandated rip-off.
Later, I was separated from my new friends in the holding pool. I was escorted up the hall to my own private cell. I asked the jailer to make a call but was told, “In a little while, someone will come and get you and let you make one telephone call.”
My cell’s sleeping cot was a three-by-eight-foot steel plate with small holes drilled in it. Its thermal properties defied the laws of physics, thermodynamics and natural science—the cot/plate was arctic cold. No blanket was provided nor needed. The cell’s temperature was 90-plus degrees all night. Getting sleep was impossible. A woman’s constant screams and men’s cussing rebuttals echoed throughout the jail’s long hallways.
Around 2 am, the jail keeper came to my cell. He gave me a sandwich of sliced white bread and cheese—nothing more. At that time, I was allowed to make a phone call. No answer. I was taken back to my hot cell with its mystery cot.
About two hours after sunup I was ushered from my cell to the booking room where I’d checked in the previous evening. There my wife stood beside a man in a shiny suit: a lawyer. He looked familiar and was busy signing some papers. I eventually recognized him. I then had mixed emotions. He was the attorney whose office was located in the Georgia Railroad Bank Building where I worked. His office was next door to the law office of Carl Sanders, the former governor of Georgia. I felt nauseated and deeply embarrassed but glad he was there to bail me out.
I asked Susan, “How did you know I was in jail?”
She said, “Your friend Butch called me. He asked why your wrecked car was parked outside the jail house. So, I got to checking around. Finally talked with a policeman here to get the story and to see what I needed to do to get you out of jail.”
I was soon a free man—no longer a jailbird. I could fly again!
The family and I didn’t make it up to the North Georgia Mountains that long ago Labor Day Weekend. We stayed home, instead. I stewed and studied on what I’d witnessed that Friday night, my first and only time to be locked up in jail.
The time spent was extremely educational. I learned a lot from being incarcerated. I learned about guilt and perceived innocence and about anger’s precarious fate and sanctioned scams and legal fraud and unfortunate incidents and injustice. Mostly I learned that life isn’t always fair and our legal system is often hampered in its efforts to deliver justice for all.
“… But I was never gonna be the same … Sweet surrender, what a night!”
From “Oh, What A Night” by Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons