Familiar Details

Tinkerbell is an internet sleuth. When I told her Firefly was arrested, she found Firefly and the boyfriend on the county inmate tracker during her lunch break. It wasn't a challenge. Firefly is in the county jail, which means she did not get arrested in Detroit.  They were probably pulled over on the return. Suburban police wait on the main roads coming out of the city to pull over suspected addicts.

Firefly is being held with a $20,000 bond. There is no 10% which means someone would have to post the entire $20,000 to get her out of jail until her court date. I don't see that happening. I actually think jail is a good place for her. If she survives detoxing cold turkey, she will be clean before her first court date on the twenty-first.

The boy has a $10,500 bond. $10,000 is from the current offense, and $500 is 10% of either a probation violation or a warrant out for his arrest.  I can only speculate. He looks like he was doing a lot of thinking in his mugshot.

For those of you who read my book, this all sounds very familiar.  Excerpt from my memoir, Lost and Found In Glitter.

Another Arrest (Recreated from Court Records and Memory)

Unposted: April 8, 2014

In the spring of 2014, Billie lived with her parents. LLL was out of the picture for good. He lost his house and was living with his parents. Billie worked the day shift at Penthouse. I went into the club to see her. She was a brat that day, but I could not understand why. She agreed to come back to my condo but tried to ditch me on the road. We ended up in a car chase through the city of Detroit and back to her parent's house. We were arguing outside their home when the police showed up. I am not sure whether her mom or the neighbors called the police.

Billie went inside the house. One office went to talk to her. The other spoke to me briefly and suggested it would be best if I left. I got into my Challenger and drove the hour home.

Later, Billie told me what happened next. She was sitting on her couch in the living room. The office saw her shove a baggy full of dope between the sofa cushions, and she got arrested. She couldn't avoid being arrested. She had a warrant for not obeying her previous arrest terms, but the dope added a second possession charge. This time there was no bail, and they sent her to Wayne county jail in downtown Detroit.

I was partially to blame for her arrest. She remained in the Wayne county jail for over a month. Billie felt like her parents weren't helping her. I got her a lawyer and paid off her outstanding fines. She was sentenced to probation and a drug rehab program, but she went to neither. The day she got out of jail, she used. She returned to stripping a few days after, but jail scared her, and things slowly changed. This was the turning point of our relationship.

*     *     *

Unlike Billie and me, this will not be a turning point for Firefly and me. I understand Harvey's question now. While I should have gone to AlAnon during my time with Billie, I am glad we had the time together we did. I needed it as much as she. Firefly, on the other hand, only benefits from being around me when it helps me. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening any time soon.

"We think we are out to find partners that will make us feel happy, but we are not. We are out to find partners that feel familiar. And that may be a very different thing. Because familiarity may be bound up in particular types of torture (from our childhood). We pick partners that make us suffer in the ways we need to suffer in order to feel that love is real." Alain de Botton

I feel I've come a long way just being able to understand that quote. I imagine the guy Billie is with and I would have a lot in common.