Terry Tales

Nelson Goes to Jail

People don’t pay much attention when things are going smoothly. We just sort of float along, hardly noticing the days go by, nothin' much to say, no news is good news! Nelson Goodsell didn’t care much for ‘good news’, he always lived life as if he wanted to make the front page. And, at least once, he made the police blotter.

I was living on the Montana State University campus in the spring of 1976, in room 210 at Mullan Hall. Nelson was in the room across from mine. I found out almost immediately that he was what my dad called a ‘character’. Nelson was one of those guys that rushed at life full-speed, and never wore a helmet. Heir apparent to the Goodsell Chevrolet fortune, he’d arrived on campus in a shiny new Camaro. He totaled it before I ever got a chance to go for a ride. God watches over drunks and fools, and Nelson qualified on both counts. He wasn’t seriously injured, and it wasn’t the first car he’d destroyed. This time, his father decided not to replace it. So, when spring break rolled around, Nelson was on foot like the rest of us poor folk.

Spring break wasn’t much of a thing at that time and place. Some of the out-of-state students could party on the beach, but few of the Montana kids had the money for a trip to Florida or SoCal. We just went back home and got bored hanging out with our folks. So, the first night after getting back to the dorm meant that it was time to cut loose. So what if classes started the next morning? Who cared if it was Sunday? Not us! And Nelson was up to the task. He was more dedicated to partying than anyone I knew.

One example of his dedication involved a self-inflicted wound. Nelson distinguished himself in ROTC as a marksman. He was the best shot in the Bozeman unit, but he wasn’t very interested in competing. One weekend he was scheduled to travel for a shooting match, but wanted to party instead. We watched as he used a razor blade to slice open his trigger finger, and then helped him to the student medical center to get the gash stitched up. You can’t be expected to shoot with a big bandage on your hand, right?

Later that night we were hanging out drinking a few beers when Nelson said, “watch this!” He swallowed all of the pain pills he’d been given that afternoon and chased them with a bottle of beer. About 20 minutes later we hauled him back to the medical center to get his stomach pumped. Great fun!

There’s a scene in the movie An Officer and a Gentleman where cadet Sid Worley’s marriage proposal is rejected by his girlfriend. Distraught, he goes to the ‘no-tell motel’ where they used to meet, and holds up the engagement ring for the amusement of the desk clerk. “Watch this,” Sid tells him and swallows the ring, washing it down with a big gulp of whiskey. That scene always makes me think of Nelson and his pain meds.

Bozeman is a college town. Its population almost doubles when the students return from spring break. And, on a related note, the state of Montana had lowered the legal drinking age to 18 in 1973. That meant that virtually every college freshman could drink in the bars. And it meant that Bozeman had a lot of bars in which to drink. The Gold Rush was a favorite place - just off campus, but on the far side from Mullan Hall. It had a lighted disco floor - think Saturday Night Fever and you’d be close to its vibe. Karl Mark’s pizza was just across the street, but pretty dull. Its best feature was a bartender/waiter who would sometimes draw a pitcher of beer on the house when you bought a pizza. Little John’s was a country bar with a dance floor for jitterbug enthusiasts, but it was too far to go without a car. So, we decided on the Molly Brown that fateful Sunday night.

The Molly Brown is only about 8 blocks from the Mullan dorm, easily within walking distance. It’s a fairly big place and it has a dance floor on one side that caters to just about anyone. I don’t think any of us danced, I doubt we even worked up the courage to ask, but we watched the crowd, drank beer, and swapped lies until the money ran out. It wasn’t quite closing time, but I think it was after one a.m. when we made our way back to the dorm.

We staggered in quietly enough to rouse the RA, Jim Lopuch. Jim was actually a pretty nice guy, but no one likes to be woken up by a group of noisy drunks at one a.m. He was not amused with our antics, and invited us to “Shut up or get out!” Most of the guys gave it up and went to bed. Not Nelson, he was of the opinion that “The party isn’t over until I say it’s over!” And that’s where I apply my excuse: I fell in with a bad companion. I was the only one dumb enough or drunk enough to join Nelson in his search for more fun. Maybe our buddy was on-duty at Karl Mark’s, he’d spot us a pitcher even if we were out of money.

So, we headed out the back door of Mullan Hall and across the street. On the corner to the right was the best sub sandwich shop in the world, the Pickle Barrel. To the left was Joe’s Parkway, a mini-mart with a couple of gas pumps out front and a small parking lot at the side. Karl Mark’s was just beyond Joe’s. We sort of zigzagged diagonally toward Joe’s Parkway and Nelson stopped in front of a sandwich board sort of sign that displayed the price for a gallon of gas.

“Hey! That would look good in my room!”

For some reason, Nelson thought the number ‘8’ would be perfect for his dorm room decor, so he slipped it out of its slot and held it up for me to admire. What we hadn’t seen as we went weaving our way across College Avenue was the Bozeman City police car parked between Joe’s Parkway and the Pickle Barrel. Maybe they were having coffee, I don’t know, but the engine and lights were off, and we didn’t have a clue.

“What ya got there, son?”

The two officers had stealthily gotten the drop on us merely by stepping out of their car. Nelson’s eyes got big, but he didn’t lose his cool. He just whipped that big number ‘8’ behind his back and answered, “Nothing, officer.”

“C’mon son, what are you doing with that?”

The sign was fairly big, maybe two feet wide and four feet tall. Certainly not small enough to hide behind your back. Nelson brought it out in front of him and looked puzzled, as though he’d never noticed it before. Then, he innocently handed it to the officer and said, “Here.”

The cop naturally reached out to take the sign, and Nelson used the distraction to book it down a side street. This was hilarious! I started to laugh as the officer quickly dropped the big ‘8’ and chased Nelson into the darkness. Better and better! The cop was chasing Nelson and I was almost doubled over with glee. Then the second officer grabbed my arm and, with a well-practiced motion, he slapped the cuffs on me. I stopped laughing.

“No, wait, not me! I didn’t do anything!”

My protests fell on deaf ears, and the two of us waited to see how the hot pursuit would play out.
It took a few minutes for Nelson to reappear, stumbling along with his hands also cuffed. He was dirty, scuffed, and had a little trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.

“Nelson! He hit you! That’s police brutality!” I was outraged and too drunk to keep my mouth shut.

Later, I found out that Nelson’s mad dash for freedom had been cut short by a back yard clothesline. Nearly invisible at night, it had caught Nelson across the mouth. His feet kept going but his face didn’t. He landed flat on his back, hard enough to knock the wind out of him. The ‘hot pursuit’ had ended with the officer merely rolling his limp body over and placing him in handcuffs. Dazed but not unconscious, he was marched back to the car as soon as he could breathe again.

I didn’t know that, however, and I continued to give those dirty cops a piece of my mind as we drove away from the scene of the crime. Eventually, I ran down and shut up for a couple of minutes. But, as Ron White once said in a comedy routine, “I had the right to remain silent, but not the ability.” So, I came up with this bit of wit.

“Hey Nelson, you know what I hate?”

“No, what?”

“Cops” I said, with all the bravado that I could muster up, considering that my buzz was going sour, and I was riding in the back seat of a police car with my hands cuffed behind my back. That drew a muffled chuckle from Nelson.

It was an awkward position, my wrists were chafing, and my shoulders were starting to hurt. But I wasn’t done yet, oh no, not me.

“Hey Nelson, you know what I really hate?”

“No, what?”

“Bozeman Cops” I declared solemnly with utter disgust.

Nelson really cracked up at this brilliant zinger, and I felt almost victorious at getting one over on those brutal stormtroopers.

I don’t remember the two officers saying very much at all, but I’m fairly sure they picked up on my tone as well as what I said. It wasn’t very far to the station, no more than a couple of miles, but I think it took about an hour to get there. My buzz was gone, my head ached, and I wasn’t sure if I could make it through the police station lobby without hurling. We were deposited in the drunk tank with few other lowlifes who looked almost as bad as I felt. I slumped on a bench half-comatose, trying to keep my stomach down and hoping those other guys weren’t going to murder me before the cops came back.

Now, here’s where I began to realize that the arresting officers were slightly pissed at Nelson and me. The other guys remained in the tank, waiting for morning to be released once they’d sobered up. But Nelson and me? We were in for the full treatment. First, they took our clothes and gave us some lovely orange pajamas for our ‘sleep-over’. Then we were fingerprinted and shown to a couple of cozy cells in the basement. Believe it or not, I managed to fall asleep, exhausted and stretched out on the cot under a thin wool blanket. I drifted off in a fog of alcohol and self-pity, feeling that this was the low point of my life. But it wasn’t, not quite yet.

I woke up to a throbbing head and dirty carpet in my mouth. I was looking blurrily up at the underside of the top bunk in a jail cell. I felt totally disoriented, like waking from a bad dream.
What the hell? Where am I? What's going on?

I sat up slowly, nausea churning in my gut. Glancing around, it suddenly hit me. The steel bars were a dead give-away.

Oh my God. I'm in jail.

I tried to think back to what had happened last night. I had a vague memory of being printed. I still had the smudges of black ink on my fingertips to prove it. I honestly couldn't remember them taking my clothes, but here I was, in an orange jumpsuit. I tried desperately not to throw up, but my nervous stomach finally rebelled and I had to face that awful, institutional toilet.

My head was pounding, my pulse made a rushing noise in my ears, and I was choking back bile. This, finally, was the lowest point of my entire life. It took another hour or so for the misery to subside a little. I managed to sip at a cup of water, but they didn't serve breakfast. I probably couldn't have choked it down anyway. Finally, they brought us before the judge.

The prosecutor stood up in his nice, clean suit and read the charges against us. The judge was freshly showered and shaved. We were hungover and stank of beer, sweat, and vomit. It was petty theft for me and an added charge of resisting arrest for Nelson. The only good news was that it was Monday morning. If we’d been booked on a Saturday, it would have meant an additional night in jail.

The judge was all business. He had no time for whining, excuses, or explanations. "The charges are petty theft and resisting arrest, how do you plead, hearing scheduled, next case."

I don’t remember meeting a public defender, but we managed to escape with our pleas of not guilty. I truly felt that I wasn't guilty, but Nelson was just going through the motions. He was used to this kind of stuff and seemed to take it in stride. They took us back to the jail, let us change into our street clothes, and turned us out.

“Wait, what about a ride?” Nelson whined.

“It's only a couple of miles to campus. It'll do you good,” the bailiff laughed. Apparently, the entire force had heard about our bad attitude.

Nelson and I didn't say a word for a long, long time. We just trudged through the early morning streets of Bozeman, heading across town back to campus. Nelson finally ventured that, “those cops were really assholes, wouldn't even drive us back to the dorm”. I didn't have much to say. I sort of agreed, but I felt pretty ashamed of myself and I didn't really want to do or say anything. Didn't really want to talk to Nelson. Just wanted to go home, get a shower, and go back to sleep. And hope that it was just a bad dream.

As I recall, we had a couple of weeks to prepare our defense. I suggested getting a lawyer, but Nelson insisted that we didn’t need one. We’d opted against a jury trial, and Nelson promised to convince the judge that I was innocent.

“But I didn’t do anything!” I kept insisting.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” he offered. “If you pay half my fine, I’ll say that you didn’t know what was going on.”

“But I didn’t! I really didn’t!”

“Well, they don’t know that,’ Nelson said ominously.

Eventually, I agreed to go along with Nelson’s plan. And, amazingly, it worked out. Nelson’s brash confidence allowed him to question the officers in a nearly competent manner. They were honest enough to agree that I hadn’t resisted arrest, and they admitted that I hadn’t actually touched the stolen sign. The prosecutor moved to dismiss my charges and allowed Nelson to plead down to just the petty theft charge. He’d run, but didn’t (or couldn’t) resist after hitting the clothesline.

The judge released me without conditions and then sentenced Nelson to time served and a $200 fine. He also commented that it was too bad the officers hadn’t charged us with drunk and disorderly, or being a public nuisance. He said that he certainly considered us a nuisance, and we’d better hope that he didn’t see us again.

I was actually scared straight for a few weeks, I didn’t go out drinking and I laid low, hoping that no one back home would find out about my arrest. But, in spite of its size, Montana is a small state. I was sitting in my parent’s living room one day that summer, after finishing up my freshman year, and Dad brought up an amusing story about being rousted by the Shore Patrol when he was in the navy. I didn’t really get the point until he took a casual pause and asked me a question.

“So, what’s a civilian jail like? I was only ever in the brig, myself.”