I have driven past there a thousand times, but I get a little uneasy every single time I am on I-94 going through Osseo, WI, which is on the northern tip of the long and narrow county of Trempealeau in western Wisconsin. Sometimes I tempt fate and stop and get a Blizzard at the DQ there, but usually I just drive past Exit 88 and be thankful that it is in my rearview mirror. This next story has 4 parts that will be spread out over a week of posts: The Arrest, Our Day In Court, The Long Hard Journey Home, and The Aftermath.
The Arrest
This was in the winter of 1985/86. Me and my best friend at the time Mark Smith were in my '72 Dodge Charger and were heading back up to college at the University of Minnesota. We had been home for the weekend at our parents' house in Waukesha, WI, and were now making the 5 hour trip back up to Minneapolis on a Sunday night. Mark and I were roommates at the dorm in what was my 2nd year and his 1st year of school at the University of Minnesota, and we could never seem to stay out of trouble for very long.
Before we left Waukesha, I went over to his parent's house to pick him up and he told me he was all ready to go except for one thing...he had a single pot plant that he had grown for fun that fall out in his back yard that he had moved to his room when it got cold. It was just a little plant with probably no way of getting anybody high, but it had sentimental value to him and he wanted to bring it back up to Minneapolis. So I distracted his parents with small talk about school while he grabbed the plant from his basement bedroom and threw it in the back seat of my car...then we headed out.
Several hours later we pulled into exit 88 at Osseo to get gas, about 9 pm and dark out now. I was pulling into the gas station parking lot when suddenly the cherries go on behind me and there's a cop right there. Huh, why?! Mark and I had had a few scrapes with the law in high school and it was never good, so I was instantly paralzyed with fear and felt like I was going to puke as I stopped the car and awaited our fate. The spotlight was on us and he walked up with flashlight in hand, shining it in the car as he approached the driver window. But he stopped before he got to my window and was staring through the back window with his flashlight beam on (oh crap, we forgot all about the plant!). Yep, Mark's skinny little 2 foot pot plant was laying on the back seat in full view.
I guess he pulled us over for a broken taillight, but the cop did not care about that now as he excitely called for backup thinking we were drug runners or something. He asked us who the plant belonged to. I looked at Mark and he looked like he was going to puke too. I thought about it...if they just take him in, what am I gonna do? I didn't have money for a hotel....I didn't want to sleep in the car...I didn't want to drive home alone and have to come back and pick him up. In a moronic show of solidarity, I told the cop it was both of ours. "Huh?" Yep, both of ours I kept insisting. The dismayed cop told us that we didn't both have to go to jail, just one of us has to own up to it. I was stuck on the stupid idea of sticking with Mark no matter what so I just flat out said again and again that it was both of ours.
Okay...so he searched us, searched the car, cuffed us, threw us in the back of the squad car, called off the backup, and informed us that he was charging us both with possession of marijuana. So while the I-94 freeway runs through the northern tip of Trempealeau County, the jail/courthouse is on the southern half, 18 miles away. The whole way there he kept asking us if we had any money. No...we're poor college students. We had a little gas money and that was it. He told us he would let us go for $400. Then he lowered it to $300. Was this bribe money? Or was he saying that's what the bail was? It didn't matter...we had about $10 between the two of us so that was not going to work.
We finally get to the jail, pull into the garage, and he parks the squad car right next to a huge pile of weed about the size of a pick-up truck. The cop pulls us out of the back of his car and leads us past the enormous pile of nice looking buds while carrying our sad, crappy little plant in his hand. Jesus, couldn't he just throw our one little plant on this big pile of plants and call it a night? Maybe if we'd had $300.
So he brings us in and we go through the whole drill: another search, fingerprints, pictures...then into adjoining cells for an overnight stay in the crowbar hotel. Wait, I know my rights...I get one phone call! I called my girlfriend Lona collect in Waukesha. I am not sure what she can do, but I just wanted to hear her comforting voice. It's late now though and she is sound asleep. She gets on the phone and I tell her I'm in jail. "That's nice, I'm glad you made it safely." she mumbles. "No no, I am in JAIL!" I yelled. "Okay then, sleep tight, I love you...call me tomorrow." and she hangs up. Sheesh, that was a waste. That was not comforting at all. I layed down on the thin metal cot and tried to get some sleep, which was almost impossible with the harsh bright lights they kept on all night long and the nauseating country music blaring from seemingly all around me.
Early the next morning after a few restless hours of sleep I am awaked by grunting from the next cell over. It's Mark...he's bored and doing push ups. Whenever we had tried talking to each other they yelled at us and told us 'no talking'. I felt like we were in 3rd grade. The night before we had tried tapping messages to each other like in the prison movies we'd seen, but neither of us knew morse code and had no idea what we were tapping so we gave that up after awhile. The hours dragged on. Then I hear him turning pages. He's got magazines?! The only thing I had found in my stupid cell was an instruction manual under my bed for I want to say a toaster or some small appliance like that. I read the 4 page document over and over and over again till I had it memorized and wanted to cry. This was inhumane. Bright lights, country music, tall ceilings with no windows and absolutely nothing to do except try and pretend that all of the disgusting boogers on the wall next to my bed were not really there...that I was not really there.
I was getting claustraphobic and worried that they would never let us out of there, but finally they came for us a little before noon and led us to the courtroom. The judge said we had to come back for another court date and he set a date and that was that. We could go!
I assumed they would drive us back to Osseo but they said no way, they were too busy. But our car...it was 18 miles away. Tough sh*t they said. So we walked down the courthouse steps, got to the road and started walking. As soon as we got out of sight of the jail we stuck out our thumbs and started hitchhiking. Before long a cop we had not seen before pulls up and tries to arrest us for hitchhiking. We explained that we just got out of his jail and were trying to get back to our car. He stared at us for awhile...contemplating...trying to decide what to do with us...finally we get a break as he grudgingly says he will give us a ride back to the freeway, but only after he takes care of an errand. He leaves and we were not sure what to do so we started walking and hitching again. After about 20 minutes he returns, yells at us again for hitchhiking, and then says to jump in. We nervously get in the back of his car, but thankfully uncuffed this time, and finally get back to our car and finish our road-trip back to the dorms.
Part II - 'Our Day In Court' is next...
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