Despair

Simon Says: I was held in Anoka County Jail for two or three days and then transferred to Dakota County where my warrant was issued. Because of the number of charges I had against me and my failure to appear in court for them I was sure I didn't have to worry about going anywhere for awhile. I only had about $300 and that wouldn't be enough for shit. It would be a couple of weeks before I got paid again and I was thinking that by the time I got out of jail I would have enough saved up to find a new place and move on from there. I was only in Dakota County for one night and the next morning I had to go to court to have my bail set and scheduled another court date to deal with all my arrest charges. You get assigned a court appointed attorney and you get to talk with him for about five minutes before you go in front of the judge. There was about ten of us lined up to see the judge and I was in the middle somewhere. I was waiting for my turn and this judge was letting everyone out on their own recognizance (OR for short). That means you get out without posting any bail on condition that you show up for your next court date. By the time it was my turn he had released everyone before me on OR and I was a little worried because I didn't want to be released. I didn't have anywhere to go, with Mush still at the house and the court order preventing me from going back to my apartment. There was no way I was going to be released without bail, it had been about a year since I ignored all my other court dates and they were not going to release me. I've had DWI's before and almost every time I had to post bail. Given the fact that I had been brought in on a warrant I was expecting to have to post bail. The judge released me without bail. I was fucking shocked, now what was I going to do? It was like mid April and I didn't even have a coat. An hour later I was changing back into the clothes I was wearing when I got arrested and they were returning my property to me. All I had was my wallet and cell phone and it was cold and windy out. At least it wasn't early February and 10 degrees below zero. I guess things could have been worse but at the time I couldn't see it. Out the door I went along with about ten other people. Most of the others had rides waiting for them or had one coming. I'm standing outside smoking a cigarette with no clue what I was going to do. There was three of us with no ride out of Hastings, one of us was a woman and she easily caught a ride with someone. It boiled down to two of us stuck in Hastings. The other guy had a place to go in St.Paul but no way to get there and he didn't have any money. That's the fucked up thing about having Hastings the location of the County Court and Jail, there is no public transportation out of Hastings. I've been stuck there a few times but this was the worst. I tried calling Mark for a ride but he was siding with Mush and wouldn't do anything for me. Mark didn't want to get Mush pissed at him and get kicked out of the house himself. I had friends but I had disappeared for over a year and couldn't call any of them out of the blue, besides, I didn't have anyone’s phone number and where would they be giving me a ride to? I had to do something so first thing I did was head for Walmart to get some smokes and a sweater or light coat. Like I said, I had about $300 and I couldn't just stand around in front of the jail release door freezing my ass off. The other guy tagged along with me, he didn't know what to do either, I told him he could hang with me for awhile until we figured out how to get back to St.Paul. I guess I had enough money to call a cab out to Hastings and go to St.Paul but I had nowhere to go in St.Paul either. I was kinda thinking that if I helped this other guy out he might be able to help me find a place to stay in St.Paul when we figured out a way to get there. It was just a thought and I needed time to figure something out. I wasn't feeling very well either, I was detoxing from meth and alcohol at the same time. I really needed a drink so I could think a little clearer. My anxiety meter was pegged and a drink was what I needed. After getting a hoodie and some smokes at Walmart we headed for the liquor store and I bought a liter of 100 proof vodka and a liter of coke. I don't remember this guys name so I'll call him Joe. Joe and I went around the corner and took a hit off the bottle. Then we went back in the liquor store, borrowed their local phone book and looked up a hotel and found a cheap one. There is no cab company in Hastings but I found some kind of sober ride service and called them. The sober cab showed up and took us to the hotel and I got a cheap room. I just needed a few more drinks to settle my nerves and a warm place to think. We finished off that liter fairly fast and I sent Joe out to get some more, a 1.75 liter this time. After everything I had been through in the last week it didn't take long for me to crash out. Got up the next morning and registered for another night and kept on drinking. I still had no idea what I was going to do when my money ran out but the alcohol was numbing my mind and kept me from worrying about it too much, I just didn't have any options, whatever was going to happen was going to happen. I fell asleep for a few hours and when I woke up Joe was gone. He left my booze but he took my phone and I had no idea where the hell he went. Fuck, I needed my phone, it was all I had left. Now I was starting to panic but kept drinking, there was no way I was going to stop drinking until I ran out of money. I started calling my cell phone with the land line phone in the room. I must have called it 20 – 30 times before that motherfucker finally answered it. I just acted like I was stupid and asked him to get back to the room because I needed him to go get some more vodka. He came back and I got my phone back, sent him for some more vodka, then I chased his ass out. I know he probably was trying to hitch a ride out of Hastings and couldn't get one so he was stuck with nowhere to go and he couldn't come back to the hotel because he had stole my phone. He was happy to come back and do a liquor run and have a place to stay for the night. I don't know where he went and I was too drunk to care. The guy was a homeless guy from St.Paul and he knew how to survive. I had enough money to last me a couple more days but that was it. I had a couple of old girlfriends and I still had their phone numbers on my phone, I was desperate and started thinking that maybe I could convince one of them to help me out. I started to send them text messages and they responded. I couldn't get myself to tell them how desperate my situation was so I was kinda trying to get one of them to come out to Hastings and have a drink with me and then maybe I could figure out something from there. I had told them what hotel I was staying in and the room number. I was pretty saturated in alcohol and I don't remember exactly what I had said to one of them but we kept exchanging text messages for quite awhile. I had her on the phone when there was a knock at my door. I figured it was Joe coming back to apologize or something. When I opened the door it was the cops. They were doing a welfare check, my old girlfriend had called the cops and told them she was worried about me. She knows I have major depressive disorder and had been hospitalized for suicidal thoughts in the past. Hell, I met her in group therapy for people who've had suicidal thoughts. Funny thing was one of the cops told me everything and was about to leave when he spotted a couple empty vodka bottles in the garbage can. I guess I can act pretty sober when I have too. Now he wanted to check my BAC just to see how much I had been drinking. I blew close to a 4.0 and I was loaded up in a squad car and brought to Region's Hospital. Once again I was detoxed in the ICU and then put back in the psych ward. I guess you've got to be crazy to drink that much alcohol and in a way I was trying to drink myself to death. They know me by my first name in the behavioral health wing of Region's Hospital. I was in the psych ward at Region's for around two weeks which gave me time to get paid again and now I wasn't too worried about where I would go. I could always live in a cheap hotel for awhile again, but I sure didn't want to and social services didn't want me to either. I guess I was kinda happy I got put back into the hospital because I don't remember being too depressed. It solved my problem of getting out of Hastings and gave me a place to stay while I waited to get my next paycheck. I wasn't even angry with my old girlfriend, in fact she came to visit me there and took me out so I could smoke cigarettes for an hour. She came to see me a couple times and brought me candy bars and pop. I met a couple of other women while I was in there and ended up making plans with one of them. Actually the three of us were making plans on renting an apartment together and in the end there was just the two of us. Her name was Kathy and she was a former stripper and still hot. She was also an alcoholic, just a different type than me. We got to be pretty good friends in a week or so, there just ain't much to do in the psych ward and it's nice if you have someone you can talk with. We talked and talked and then made plans to get an apartment together when we got out of the hospital. Everything seemed to be getting better again which is the weird way things seem to go, from one extreme to the other, back and forth over and over. I'm not sure where I'm at right now, but one things for sure, it's going to change. I guess I feel like I'm somewhere in between pendulum swings. I know my anxiety level is pretty high but I'm sober. Anxiety is a major part of my problem and I'll get back to that stuff when I finish my story.