Ted’s Cautionary Tale, Part 3
Fiction, based on the experiences of someone who got a DUI and wanted this shared.
It just keeps going, more complex than I’d ever imagine. Eventually I’ll be free of this.
My friend Carrie is a journalist for a local paper. It’s a free printed publication that you can pick up from a box outside the liquor store. (I grab some to use when starting a fire in the charcoal chimney when I grill.)
Okay, I shouldn’t have told her that. But I was telling her about my trials and tribulations, and she offered to be my ghostwriter. I kept picturing the Nicholas Cage movie.
“You ramble at me, I bring it into a coherent structure. You don’t have to pay me. I just love to be entertained.” She hugged me. Carrie is too nice.
I may never have had a coherent structure.
So, here we are. I went to court. My public defender is also named Ted. The sitting around waiting in a courtroom for hours (so glad I brought a book) and all the paperwork was bewildering. I’m not senile yet, and was able to understand most of what the other Ted was explaining.
He’s a sharp dresser, grey-haired like me. I’ve always wanted one of those blazers with leather patches on tweed sleeves. I’d put on a white button-down with navy pinstripes and pleated trousers. Glad I’d decided against a suit myself, would’ve gotten mistaken for a lawyer. Everyone else who was pleading their case and getting represented was wearing hoodies and jeans or orange jumpsuits.
Never been in a courtroom before. (I was outside one once for a friend’s wedding. They popped a bottle of champagne and the cork hit the groom in the head. An omen? Not surprised they eventually got divorced.)
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The judge was a small Latin-American woman with big glasses who was very stern at first. Then I mentioned that I was an unemployed carpenter. She smiled. “Life is tough for those in the trades right now.”
She asked about my DUI situation and I started to explain. “Certainly, your honor, I was…”
“Yes or no!” she barked.
I got fined $1699. Why not $1700? I felt like a retail product pretending to be a good deal.
And I’m required to do 35 hours of community service. I like volunteering anyway. I considered the animal shelter, but realized I would get depressed seeing cats in cages. Beach cleanup, or the museum, maybe? I sent out a few emails about possible opportunities.
The DMV hearing comes next. In the meantime, I have a temporary license paper, but I just walk most places.
As my friend John suggested, I’ve started selling my wooden carvings at a craft fair around the corner. It benefits an animal charity thrift shop which is at the end of the parking lot. I keep my profits but pay $35 to have a table there.
It is four doors away in the strip mall from the liquor store, but I’m keeping my cool and have not ventured back in.
To be continued.
