Dolly and Donnie Go to the Pokie

"Hey, Paula, I have a great story to tell you." Dolly says to me.

"My friend Dave that lives in Kentucky called me and asked if I wanted to go see Buddy Guy."

"Did you go?" I ask.

"Boy, did we ever. Dave had four tickets, but the catch was that we had to take his sister Bev with us. I had to think twice about that, Bev is, you know, not quite right. So I called Donnie and ask him if he wants to go and he says sure and then we invite our friend Jerry."

So, we head down south, a couple of hours into Kentucky, pick up Bev, and head to the concert. We were drinking before we got to the club, and all I really remember was Bev walking around with two rolled up napkins, one stuck in each ear. Next thing we know, she's up on stage, with the napkins coming out of her ears, dancing with Buddy Guy. I have no idea how she got up there."

"On our way to drop Bev off after the concert, we decided to pull over in this cornfield and have a cocktail. We're absolutely in the middle of nowhere, with the trunk open and stereo blasting. Out of nowhere, because we're in the middle of it so I know, this cop pulls up behind us. I'll never forget watching this cop stroll up to the car through the side view mirror, all slinky like. You just knew it wasn't gonna be good."

"The cop walks around to Donnie's side and asks through the window if we've been drinking. We were gonna say no, but unfortunately, we all had a cocktail in our hand. Except for Donnie, he just had a bag of weed in his pocket.

Since Donnie is in the driver's seat, he's the one that has to take the sobriety test. Donnie refuses to take it, and is immediately arrested on the spot and put in the back seat of the cruiser."

"Next, the cop looks at me and Jerry, and declares us both publicly intoxicated and arrests us and cuffs us too. By now, the only person not under arrest, and therefore, legally allowed to drive the car from the cornfield to the station, is Bev. Bev is having none of this. The more we try to pressure into driving, the more she freaks out. Finally, all four of us pile into the police cruiser, with Bev in the front seat now carrying on a full blown conversation with herself, including maniacal bouts of laughter and tears."

"Before I get in the cruiser, I ask the officer if I can please talk to my husband for just a moment. He says I can, but just for one minute. I go over to the cruiser, lean into the back seat and start to ask Donnie if he's OK, as he leans over at the same time and stuffs the bag of weed down my shirt. I spend the next 20 minutes dancing around on the side of the road trying to shake it out of there without my hands because they're cuffed behind my back."

"Once we got to the police station, Donnie, Jerry and I were all placed in cells with what seemed to be a whole lot of people for the middle of nowhere. None of us are sure what happened to Bev. For what seems like the next five million hours, we wait to be processed. I had used my one phone call to my brother, and by now, he had arrived to bail us out."

"Still, we waited to be processed. At some point, Donnie agreed to the sobriety test and his alcohol level is 0, as in hadn't drank all night. Too late, they already arrested him, he's still under arrest. What the fuck? When I ask him why he didn't just take the test in the first place, he says he doesn't know why, just kinda froze up."

"I ask the dispatcher how much longer it would be and she says, in a cigarette voice "well, it wouldn't be so damn busy if that dumb ass would stop arresting everybody". Turns out he's a rookie, all of one week on the job."

"We finally get out of jail the next day, having agreed to be back in two weeks to meet the judge. The very first thing we have to do is find Bev. It turns out that the she was so beserk that the police dropped her off at the psych ward. Unfortunately, no one at the station could tell us which hospital. We spend the rest of the day going to three different hospitals till we find her. We were so relieved because we didn't have the nerve to tell her brother, who gave us the Buddy Guy tickets, that we lost his mentally impaired sister. I mean, we didn't want him to think we were irresponsible or anything."

"With the exception of the court appearance, I don't think we'll ever go back to that part of Kentucky again. And neither should you, they're nuts out there."

"Well, Dolly" I say, "At least you got all that crazy stuff out of your system a long time ago, when you were young."

"Yeah" Dolly says, "If you consider last year a long time ago."