Meditations in an Emergency

This post is going to be about the poetry. I promise.

But first I have to tell you all that I got arrested with the rest of these nice people in Citibank on Saturday. We were held for 26 hours before we were able to see a judge and finally go home. And so this post is also going to be about dark humor and how wonderful it is.

I think Frank O'Hara is a master of dark humor:

there in the hall, flat on a sheet of blood that
ran down the stairs. I did appreciate it. There are few
hosts who so thoroughly prepare to greet a guest
only casually invited, and that several months ago.

In my view, dark humor doesn't always have to be about death. I think the line, "I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love," oozes with loneliness and self-pity (very dark stuff indeed), but O'Hara also has the courage to laugh at himself. The great thing about this line, though, is that even though my first thought is, "Right, only boundless love, that's all," my next one is, "Well, why not? Why shouldn't someone, why shouldn't we all, expect that?" Laughing in times of despair can be a way to self-medicate, but it is not necessarily a denial of reality. In fact, jokes can make the most poignant statements. I think Jon Stewart's career is a testament to that. Laughing at frustrating or stressful situations can help you work through it without losing your mind.

So back to the arrest. The room (the "pen" they called it) where we were placed to spend the night was unpleasant to say the least. It had hard benches, most of which were placed directly against the wall for maximum discomfort, linoleum floors, concrete walls and no clock (though the meal times were posted). There were three mats on the ground, which we were told for pregnant women, though the guards were "nice enough" to leave them for anyone to use. Of course, when we got there the mats were already taken. We were told there were no more of them and that no blankets would be provided to us. This is around 2 in the morning (no clock...), after being photographed, finger printed, frisked, held in a cell for several hours and then led through hallways and up and down stairs, left in waiting areas and positioned up against walls for questions, while being handcuffed to one another by a "daisy chain."  We had been told several contradictory stories about when we would be released and had our personal belongings vouched before we were informed that the place where we pick our things up would not be open on Sunday, which is when we were to be released. Many of the women I was with would not be able to access their money, car keys, apartment keys, medication or other necessary items when they were let out. Etc, etc. This is all to say that there were some very cranky people trying to sleep on benches early in the morning when one of the women lying on a mat decided to entertain us by singing loudly and talking, mostly to herself. Quite a few of us found her amusing, particularly her method of asking for more toilet paper ("Hey, po po, we need some more tissue paper in here!") But after a while people just wanted to rest. One of the older women I was arrested with entreated her, "Please! Be quiet! Some of us are trying to sleep." The singing woman, who clearly had some mental health problems and/or was extremely high, bluntly said, "No! You're in jail! You're not supposed to enjoy yourself! This way you never come back." Honestly, this was the only reasonable thing anyone had said since we had been arrested. From the cops not letting us leave the bank because it was "too late" to my fellow arrestees thinking they could appeal to this cracked-out woman's sense of reason by explaining that people were trying to sleep, the entire experience had been a hellscape of incompetence and utter nonsense. This nuttly lady had succinctly pointed out what we with our detailed criticisms of "systems," "hierarchies" and "internalized beliefs" had been bitching about all day: jail was designed to torture you so you never want to return. She was my favorite person in jail.

So when after a few moments of silence in which it seemed possible that people would be able to calmly drift to sleep, she started singing, "Five, five, five-dollar foot long," I lost it. I was laughing uncontrollably for several minutes. The only other person with her eyes open asked me what was so funny, but the only thing I managed to sputter out was, "She's singing about a sandwich."

I am the least difficult of women. All I want is to smile while in jail.