So the next step is being processed. Now this is what they don't tell you... depending on your police officer your being detained can be quick or long and drawn out. Here's how:

- Your officer arrests you. Takes into the precinct and now can sit down, do your paperwork speedily and send it either ahead of you or with you down to Central Booking. Once they receive it they process you, hand it over to the judge and then you are seen by the judge and released.

Sounds simple... BUT...

- If your officer is a DOUCHE, like mine was... he can arrest you, shoot the breeze with the other officers at the station. Goof around and not do your paperwork, then realize his shift is almost over and get this... There is no pressure for him to do it, he can go home and get to it on his next shift. Thanks to NYC wages, they don't get paid overtime... so why put in the work?

So you could either be held for about 2 hours or 30 hours... and let me tell you, 30 hours is not pretty.

Let me not get ahead of myself... So I'm in the cell for 2 hours at the 26th Precinct W 126th Street, before I'm moved to 25th Precinct E 119th Street where I will be overnight.

The cells there are small closet spaces with a metal toilet/sink combo and a small metal cot. No mattress or cloth or anything. It smells of 5 year old urine and broken dreams. I slept in spurts... I didn't lay down, because you feel the griminess and dirty all around you. But, there is no central air or AC, so its hot and this makes you sleepy and also intensifies the smell. So I sat... you really can't lay your head back on the wall, because again they are metal cots, so you begin to slide forward and you don't want to end up on that floor. Trust Me. So I put my elbows on my knees, sort of the trick used on subways by old chinese dishwashers or spanish bike messengers after a 72 hours shift. This let me sleep for about 30 minutes before I'm woken up by my legs falling asleep. I would stand, shake them out for a few minutes then back to sitting/sleep.
This awful ritual went on until about 7am, when they decide to move us to Central Booking.

Now I found out the reason they moved me to this precinct was that I was the only one at the 26th Precinct and they weren't going to waste a whole squad to just take me. So lump us together and send a batch down.

Now while I'm going through this awful sleep pattern and the inside of my nose is burning due to the smell. I'm left to believe Officer Larkin, which is his real name. Is doing my paperwork... not playing with himself and screwing me over. Au contraire!

So they wake up my other cell mates. Real catches.

There is:

- Heavy set spanish guy, picked up on gambling (cee-lo prounounced See-Low for my suburban friends)

- Thin spanish guy, picked up for attempted murder; but he was banking on the fact he only shot him in the foot... not to kill him but to scare him

- Thin homeless black guy, picked up for smoking crack on the sidewalk

- Me, no front license plate... temporary suspended license for a denied appeal with the DMV

- 30 something year old Haitian guy, picked up for resisting arrest

Can you just hear the Sesame Street song playing
"One of these things is not like the others...
One of these things just doesn't belong...
Can you tell which thing is not like the others?"

They line us up outside of the cells and chain us together with a large chain. Like in the movies. They march us outside into a police van where they ship us through Manhattan into Central Booking.

It's very surreal, to be in a police van during morning rush hour. You see the city waking up... people driving to their jobs, eating breakfast, touching up on their make up and outfits for the day. And there I am, shackled to a guy who actually shot someone else... Thinking it will all be over in a matter of hours, unknowing that my experience is nowhere near over...

TO BE CONTINUED...