Jail

My children were visiting me. I’d won in court the right for visitation. On a hot summer day the time for them to be picked up was say, 3:00 pm. She had gone to White Rock with a friend, and perhaps lost track of time, but she ended up being 2 hours late. 2 hours on a front porch, in the heat with 4 children, age 13, 12, 5 and 3. I phoned her later to protest that this could never happen again. Her response was to call the police and tell them that I had threatened to kill her and the children.

It’s very painful for me to revisit this memory.

She never suffered direct consequences for her actions that day.

In fact she built on those lies, and rode the system created to help women at risk get away from abusive relationships. They took her and my children to the Shuswap area, at the government’s expense.

Later on that night my children were calling me, asking me where I was. I’d gone to visit my brother and his wife. It turns out she was using them to help the police locate me, so that they could arrest me.

When I got back home, the one with the front porch, a police paddy wagon was waiting. An officer who showed me great compassion, chose to take me in the back of his squad car instead. I’ll never forget that question he asked me as we drove through the dark streets, “is your wife a vindictive woman?” I didn’t know what that word meant. After he explained it to me… I surely had no idea how exactly he had pegged her.

Upon our arrival at the lockup. He took me upstairs. On the right was a common holding cell, I front of me was the kind of desk you’d see in government office, officers processing the ones arrested were on the other side and this officer who’d driven me in, was I on my side, literally and figuratively. He spoke with them, and left, and I was left sitting on my chair.

Another officer eventually came and put me in the cell. You could stand, lay or sit on the ground, because there were no chairs. I remember the guy who must have had a Ham and Pineapple pizza earlier that evening judging from the puddle beside him, and two others who were sharing a crack pipe.

When we were eventually led away to the cell blocks, we were put in 2×2. I took the top bunk. A metal bed frame, with a yoga mat for a mattress. A prison toilet, and bars, with a locked iron door.

Once the evening’s catch was as all tucked away for the night, the guards left the mail room, closed and locked the door. If the bars to the individual cells had been removed it would have looked like a bunk house.

One of the guys in the cell on the far right side had smuggled some Valium in. He’d filled a condom with the little pills, and some how gotten it up into his rectum. He told us all he’d dispense a McDonald’s stir spoonful onto a little piece of paper, and throw it over, if anyone would roll a loonie to him. Tempting as this was, I didn’t have any change on me. I’d have to forego the chance to have his feces infested gift sent to me. I was absolutely horrified.

The guy with me, on the bunk below said, “hey! You a hype?” In a horse whisper. I didn’t answer him.

I remember it was right about then that I told God that my marriage was officially over. Something had finally snapped in me, that there would be no remedy for.

Who knows how many other things I bore. But that night, I woke up in jail, because of lies she told to get me there.

There in that lonely place God met me, and kept me whole. I vividly remember considering all that was around me. I didn’t know just exactly what she’d said, to result in me laying on a bare mattress on the top bunk, in a cell with one other unfortunate individual. He was an addiction who asked me if I had any drugs on me. I ignored him. I was in absolute fear! I had no grace to church extend to that man. But regardless of that level of conscious understanding, there was a peace that under lay that fear, and all my other emotions in that moment. This is once again where I have to refer to a mental image. Think of a peaceful pool, with an absolutely calm surface. And a sheet of Glass is over it. No matter how much I try to pound on that glass to trouble those waters, I could not! It was beyond my ability to panic. I then finally understood a verse I’d sung about for most of my life.

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 4:7

The next morning I signed a “promise to appear” document, and told that there was a restraining order against me contacting my wife and children.

And was released.

I’ll just say this. I never knew what freedom meant until that moment that I began walking to the bus stop, with my belt and shoe laces in a little bag that also contained my wallet, watch, and wedding ring.