The Knobs

Six cops cars is overkill. Two I understand. Backup makes sense. I might be dangerous. But six is a blatant disregard for taxpayer money. The twelve cops all yell over one another.

“Get down!”

“Hands up!”

“Freeze!”

Well, which is it? This is my first arrest and I wasn’t given the script ahead of time. None of this is like the movies. There is no calm voice of reason. It’s high-tensioned chaos. And, I definitely don’t wanna get shot. I try all three: down on my knees, hands up, still as a statue. I say, “I give up. I’m not resisting.” After 45 years on Earth, for the first time ever, I am tackled, and arrested, with force.

_____________________________

I remember the first time I did it. I must have been 8 or 9. Mom was watching the news. A family in Running Springs had their heater go out during a late season Santa Ana windstorm. The family used the stove to warm up the home, until it got too hot. The footage was devastating. 4 blocks of charred ruin in a small mountain town with nothing to spare. I remember the crying victims. Blah blah blah. Some far away mountain place with problems. They’ll just buy more stuff. Adults always buy more stuff.

“That fire could have spread here,” Mom said to Dad.

Without looking up from the TV Guide he replies, “Uh uh.”

“It’s less than an hour from here.”

“Uh huh.”

She was wrong. We lived in the suburbs. Not much to combust. Nothing but concrete driveways, tile roofing and green lawns. But it doesn’t matter when they’re wrong; if the people we trust put an idea in our head, it sticks. That fire, just like mom said, could have spread to our house, and right into my own bed. As that thought planted itself in my brain, the reporter bent down and put the microphone in a little boy’s face. He was devastated. He stared, through his tears, into the lens, over the airwaves, right at me, and into my soul.

“My blankey was in there!!!” You can’t just buy a new blankey.

I clutched at mine. Images of charred remnants of my life flash through my head. My ninja turtle toys - burned up. My legos, melted into a thick plastic slag. My Thundercat sheets, gone. My blankey, ashes. Everything you love: smoke. Then, dad changed the channel. “Jeopardy’s on.”

“Son, did you wet yourself?”

I look down, then run into the kitchen, wet with fear, and touch all the knobs on the stove. One, two, three, four knobs. On, off, on, OFF. I left the kitchen to play and was baptized in dread. Did I really check that last one? What if I’d missed count? The dread rose in me bringing with it goosebumps, panic, adrenaline, cortisol. An elevated heart beat. Hyperventilation. The stove called out. I couldn’t resist. On, off, on, off.

I had to touch the knobs everyday. We stayed at a hotel once; family vacation. The attached water park was all inclusive. There were characters walking around the lobby. Free candy jars were at every turn. An arcade. It had almost everything. What it didn’t have was a kitchen in the room. No kitchen, no stove, no knobs. I panicked. We come in from the water park, turn on the TV, and watch as the Challenger space shuttle explodes. It wasn’t until college that I missed another day at the knobs.

College was the first time I was away from home. Dorm rooms don’t have kitchens. The rules stated pretty clear, “No hot plates.” The cafeteria wasn’t hiring. What could I do? The dread came to school with me. It impacted my learning. I’d go to class and that feeling would drown out anything the professors said. I’d be snappy and impatient with my study partners. I couldn’t retain information. All I thought about was the impending doom. But, this time, the doom didn’t come. After a couple of days, I became brave. I addressed the feeling, “You’re just a fear, you’re not real.” The fear quietened, and became less frequent, and then just went away.

Three weeks into school, I was laughing at the stoves and their stupid knobs. I wrote in my journal how free I felt, that beautiful September day. It was a false sense of security. The next morning, the world changed. I pulled up Yahoo! News, and watched the twin towers fall via DSL. Those towers took my hubris with them. I moved into an apartment off-campus and nearly killed myself working two jobs to pay for it.

My first job out of college. Someone with a team-building course to sell sold my boss on increased productivity if he paid for us all to come to this farm where we sleep in tents and pump our own water. Team building! “Trust us,” they said. “The trust falls build cohesion.” I told the boss I couldn’t go. He told me it was mandatory. “Besides,” he said, “Company retreats are fun!” That Saturday was the first time in seven years I hadn’t touched the knobs and it’s all I could think about. Those hot coals we walked on didn’t build my confidence, they reminded me of the stove. Being away from all screens, I had no idea what I would return to, if there would even be a world outside of this mosquito farm we’re staying at. I couldn’t touch a knob until I rushed into my apartment late Sunday night. I touched every knob four times. I left my apartment, came back, touched them again. Please, knob gods! Forgive me! But it was all too late. Monday, Lehman brothers fell, then the world economy along with it.

The whole ordeal made me quit traveling for awhile. I found another job with less “culture” so less “fun” retreats. I even tore up my vision board with the pictures of Greece. But then, AirBnB came out and I could book houses to stay at. With stoves! For years, there were no issues. I stayed in AirBnBs on 5 continents! Things were great, until Napa.

I checked into a fancy villa on an old wine vineyard that had been “tastefully upgraded while maintaining its classic charm.” I checked in for a three week stay in March of 2020. Unfortunately for the world, that tasteful upgrade brought with it a push button stove. Before my stay was up, the world was in lockdown, and all the toilet paper shelves were empty.

And now, for only the fifth time in my life, I’m here again, all thanks to her.

____________________________

Her name was common and forgettable, like one-night stands tend to be. I met her at a bar and we ended up at the dart board.

“$5 a game?!” she said.

“Jesus!”

“Like, how you gonna charge $5 a game at a bar with $3 shots?”

“You gotta follow the money.”

“Ooooh. I like that. You think this leads all the way up the ladder?”

“Yup. Looks like the whole dart industry is in on it. Let’s fuck ‘em.”

“How?”

I pull out my phone. “We keep our own score.”

After a few rounds of shots, we give up on the dart game, and succumb to our baser instincts. She calls us an Uber back to her place. Good times are had. Insatiable, this one. From the bed to the bathroom to the bed to the bathroom. Snort, snort, moan. She wore me out. I fell asleep before I could even ask about her stove situation.

It’s 10am and she’s out cold. I can’t even shake her awake. I go to take a piss and see the Ambien bottle spilled out next to the coke mirror. Hence, the corpse drooling in the bedroom. I come out and realize it’s just the one room. No kitchen. Just a single with a wet bar. A Bachelor unit. Damn.

I check the cupboards, knowing it’s pointless. Nothing. Not even a hot plate. Of course. Chicks that look like this don’t cook.

I scramble for my phone which isn’t on me. I remember, “$5 for a dart game!” Shit. It’s sitting by the dart board or at a pawn shop. Looks like Uber is out. I grab my coat and rush out the door, destination: Stove Knobs.

I run into the hallway, struggling to throw my coat on and almost run into him just outside her door. He’s carrying coffee cups, pastries, flowers. A real dork, wearing in his pink tie like a hall monitor sash. He stares at me as I exit her apartment. I bolt out of the building and there is a car running. Right there in front of the building, as if the knob gods themselves had left it for me as divine providence. That’s how I ended up borrowing the BMW.

______________________

They swab you for DNA as soon as they process you. Regardless of the crime. After every arrest you are printed, swabbed, photographed and catalogued into the ranks of enemies of the state. Whether you are guilty or not. It’s a reminder that you belong to them and that they can do as they will.

P Diddy learned this. He went to jail for degrading and dehumanizing people. Then, when they booked him in jail, he was degraded and dehumanized throughout the process. Take off your clothes. Stand in your underwear. Squat and cough. Eat this bologna sandwich. No, you don’t get a mattress. Nobody gets a mattress their first night. It’s a real follow-what-I-say-not-what-I’ve-done kinda system and so, there are no real examples to look up to. Only people who haven’t gotten caught breaking the law, or the ones sanctioned to be above it. You don’t realize this in the abstract. In the abstract the process makes sense because the words on paper all sound good. But, in practice, there is no “system,” only people. People with egos, emotions and power, behaving like kangaroos.

But, you get a phone call. Animals can’t use phones. So it’s better than the pound. I dial 1800 BOND BOY. “Bail is set at a million dollars” the bondsman says. “Can you come up with $100k?”

“WTF???”

“Yeah bro, that seemed high to me too. You must have pissed someone off. Anyways, says your court date is tomorrow. Good luck.”

At 4am they’re shouting me awake for court. You wake without showering, exit your cage, line up, shuffle through the jail, board a bus, exit into a cage packed like men awaiting auction, transfer into another cage with less men, then you’re moved into the cage inside the wooden-walled courtroom. All rise as the honorable druid priest emerges from his chambers!

“Your day in court,” they say, as if there’s anything you can do about any of it.

“Someone will represent you,” they say, as if a game of telephone is what anybody should hang the balance of their life on. You tell the lawyer your side, the lawyer tells the court, the DA spins what the lawyer says and ruins the meaning.

“Innocent until proven guilty,” they say. Then, you’re shuffled in from the holding tank shackled at the extremities, shuffling slowly, dragging chains like some Dickensian ghost. Dressed in an orange jumpsuit, the same ensemble all the rapists, murderers and pedophiles on TV wear. You get to look the part for the prosecution, the Judge and all members of the attending public. Innocent until proven guilty is just a marketing slogan, not a guide. Like Google’s “do no evil.”

The prosecutor, in that stupid pink tie, stares daggers at me, like I’m not one of the good guys. He doesn’t care about why I took the car. Of course the prosecutor doesn’t care. His job is to put bodies in jail. Not ‘find justice’ or ‘protect society.’ Once the cops bring them a body, their job is to put that body in jail. Every couple of years there’s an election to affirm whether they are, indeed, doing their job. If bodies are not in jail, the public picks a new person to fill the position of filling jails with bodies. That’s what jails are built for: storing bodies. Bodies like mine.

“Bro, you’re fucked,” my court-appointed ‘representation’ whispers to me through the bars in my court cage.

“Can lawyers say that?”

He doesn’t answer me. Just continues shuffling through the stack of evidence against me: stills from every Ring camera in the nieghborhood, every traffic signal, my mugshot (that definitely looks guilty, BTW. You can’t take a good mugshot). The public defender continues, “Dude, they got you on camera. DNA. Eyewitnesses.”

“Let me explain…I’m not like this… It’s just that, if I don’t touch the knobs…”

He cuts me off. “Bro, if you just say ‘guilty,’ we can wrap this up and all get home tonight at a decent hour.”

“I wouldn’t go home. But I have to get home. It’s important.”

“Right. That’s what everybody says. Money talks, bullshit walks. Can you post bail?”

“Not for a million dollar bond.”

“Woah! For stealing a car?! Yeah. That’s high, dude. Who’d you piss off?”

“Is there a way to get it lower?”

The lawyer shrugs. “I could try.”

Somehow the request to lower the bail is granted. The judge found a bail amount of one million dollars to be excessive for a first time offender. Somehow $30,000 seems less arbitrary. I bail out, $3000 poorer. Then, I shell out another $8,000 for a real lawyer. There goes my vacation fund. After a single night in jail, ONE NIGHT without knobs, I bail out to the news that America is invading Venezuela. I rush home to the stove to prevent further escalation.

____________________

My lawyer says, “Alright, I just spoke with my contact at the DA’s office.”

“And?”

“Things aren’t great. They got all kinds of evidence. He’s adding a pile of new charges. And he’s pissed. They have a great case.”

Damn. I hired an idiot. I’m going to jail. I shoulda stuck with the public defender. At least then I’d have money for commissary.

“Did you know that was his girlfriend?”

“Oh shit. Really?”

“Did you sell her cocaine?”

“No!”

“Well, he’s got evidence that says you did.”

“What the fuck.”

“But, your apartment came back clean in the sweep. No drug stash there, so that’s good. I don’t wanna know anything about your drug business.”

“I don’t sell drugs.”

“Great. Stick to that. You definitely stole his car though. That is one hundred percent you in all these photos.”

“Oof. I thought a BMW was too nice for a Door Dasher.”

“With this collection of charges - grand theft auto, reckless endangerment, distribution of narcotics, ugh, it keeps going - you could be looking at real time, my guy. Like a decade, with good behavior.”

“Woah! A decade? Nobody got hurt!”

“Yeah, man. Nobody wants car thieves out there.”

“Jesus. Who’s team are you on?”

“I’m here for you, bud. This is reality we’re dealing with. Two of these charges carry strikes. We do not want those to stick. Otherwise, one more felony and you’re gone for life.”

“Woah.”

“Yeah woah. See what I mean? But we’re in luck.”

“How?”

“OCD is in the DSM-5. We might be able to play the insanity angle.”

“Wait…”

“I’ll get you set up with a therapist. Make sure you tell him everything you told me about the knobs and stuff.”

“But, I don’t have OCD”

“Hey. I don’t know. I’m not a psycho-analogist. Let’s let the expert decide what’s wrong with you.”

“Alright, whatever we gotta do. I cannot go to jail.”

“I know. I know. My guy’s gonna call you. Ok? We’ll chat later. Buh-bye.” click.

____________________

“So here we are,” I tell the therapist.

“Wow. That’s a lot.”

“Yeah. See why it’s so important to keep me out? Not for me. But, for the world. Unless I can get a job in the kitchen, we’re all fucked.”

“But, deep down, you know, right? I mean, you’re a reasonable guy. You have a good job. A good life. Educated. You don’t actually believe you caused these events, right?”

“No. Not caused. I’m not crazy. They say a butterfly flapping its wings in Bengal will cause a hurricane in Birmingham, but that’s bullshit. 'Cause' isn’t right. It’s more like 'Correlated.'”

“How do you see them as correlated?”

“I can’t not see it. When I don’t touch the stove, bad things happen. I’ve stopped looking for reasons and just trust the process, you know? How hard is it to just touch a stove knob? They’re everywhere. Usually. I just gotta touch ‘em.”

“Like OCD.”

“It isn’t OCD.”

“You’re definitely dealing with OCD.”

“But, I’m not obsessive. I wake up, I brush my teeth, check my text messages, touch the stove knobs, go on about my day. Everything normal sounds weird if you think about it.”

“Huh.”

__________________

“I’ll accept the plea deal,” the judge says. “Your sentence is to serve sixteen months in the county detention center. May you use that time to reflect on your choices, and what changes you’ll make to become a more productive member of society upon release.”

“Yes your honor.”

The bailiff cuffs me and leads me back into the cage, where I am then transferred to another cage, and then board a bus that drives me to the county detention center where I land in my final habitat for the next year or so.

I put my things on my bunk and try my best to arrange a towel and shredded bed sheets into a mattress. It’s useless. I walk into the common area with the TV playing. The common area is silent. The TV plays news footage of Sacramento, which has just been bombed, by the sitting American president.