It had been a long day at school. Nothing else could have gone wrong. I was suspended for smoking cigarettes in the back of a fellow classmates truck, received a detention notice for forging a permission slip, and my 1999 Honda Accord broke down on a class trip to Food Lion. After a day as bad as that, all one wants to do is go away from school and do something fun to take their mind off of everything. What better way to do that than to go to a wild party with some friends? The night was damp and cloudy. It was not a pretty night at all.
The air had a strange aroma that somehow smelled of trouble, but I did not are, all I wanted to do was have a good time. Previously that day a friend purchased one-fifth of Burnett’s Sour Apple Vodka to help me have a good time. The alcohol was a definite contribution to my fun. Before I knew it I was drunk. After hours of walking around socializing with my friends I reached a new level of drunkness. The type of level where all self control was lost. Friends told me I was completely out of control by dancing on tabletops, chasing cars, and flirting with every person I met.
Justin noticed that I was out of control. He found me lying in the middle of the road gazing at the stars and talking to God. He convinced me hat I did not have to drink to have a good time, and told me that no matter how bad of a day I had it was no reason to be acting like I was. I had never talked to Justin before, and maybe if the conditions at the party would not have been so severe I never would have been able to talk to him. He said he had a similar experience to mine a few months earlier.
He had gotten out of control to the point where the police were called and he had to spend the night in a jail cell for destruction of public property. He said he did not want to see the same thing happen to me, so that is why he decided to come talk to me and rationalize my situation. I will never forget how much he helped me. Just when I thought my bad day had ended, I saw headlights. It was a shiny silver car with some sort of blue horizontal stripe on the side. It seemed to have some type of rack on the top, too.
I could not tell what type of strange car this was, so I crawled up from my “bed” in the road to get a closer look. I was close enough to touch the car before I could read the bold writing on the side. It read Roanoke Rapids Police Department, and there was a man in uniform stepping outside of the car holding a flashlight in one hand and his police bat in the other. Keep in mind that I had drank entirely too much that night, so I was still feeling a little on the wild side, so I took off running. Needless to say, I did not make it far before falling on my face.
Pain shot through my body, and my head felt as though it had been sliced open. As if this were not enough pain the next sensation I felt was that of my arms being jerked behind me only to feel hard metal gripping on to my tender wrists. The ride to the police station was not a pleasant one. All I could do was sit and think of what my parents were going to say to me. I could visualize the disappointment they would have on their faces when they came o pick me up. I pleaded with the officer to let me go home and I would never drink again.
When that did not work, I even tried bribery, which the officer quickly told me was against the law, also. We finally arrived at the police station. I never had to sit in a jail cell, because my parents were already on the way. All that was left to do was grin and bare it. My parents walked in shaking their heads. I could see the disapproval in their eyes. They did not say a word. I slowly stood up and followed my parents to the parking lot, stepped into the car, and just sat there knowing that our household would not be the same for a while.