the other side of the bars
More than five years ago, I was thrown into a cell at the Sheriff's station in Southeast Portland. I waited alone in that cold cement box to speak with a detective who, when I was still at-large, had told me over the phone that he was going to hunt me down "like a dog." I told him to speak to my lawyer and to "have a nice day."
I was sure I wouldn't spend more than a weekend in lockdown. But that cell was the first one in a long string of cells which kept locking shut on me until I sprung loose nearly two-and-a-half years later.
Yesterday I sat in the same cell again. I was performing as an asshole policeman in a local independent film, and the Sheriff's department was allowing the producers to shoot there. Without knowing anything about me or my history, the screenwriter wrote a line where my character tells a visitor that "with those tattoos we might confuse you with the animals and keep you by accident."
Animals. Hunted down like a dog. The same cell. To complete the circle, I threw in a line where I tell the visitor to "have a nice day."
