Hoodie Cont.

Remember how I said the cops were nice to me when I was arrested (I know you're wondering, what for?)(for petty theft, that's what for.) Well, they were not always nice. I actually urinated in the back of a police car while I waited to be booked the only time I ever was arrested.  Isn't it funny how I have to keep saying that: "the only time ever"? I am trained this way because I just tell employers and explain myself about it.  Isn't the wisest, but I was already caught trying to lie and I know that the jobs I am applying for require background checks. I don't know why I lied about it in the poem called Hoodie that I wrote last night.  Perhaps it was something that just felt humiliating, and my --"whole"---, (the cops have always been friendly to me argument needed a little more persuasion)..

It does make it harder to find a job, but it is one of the many steps, and my conviction saved my ass once:
  I almost started working at Target full-time, and my patriarchal (work ethic) (pull- yourself-up- by- your- bootstraps) brother was pressuring me to WORK< WORK< WORK. Well, I didn't get hired after all, turns out that they found out about the petty theft last minute and let me go. Well, as an alternative, I went to school full-time and found a part-time job on campus.  That was a close call.  My life would have sucked at Target. 

The truth is that I am very lucky that I never had to get caught up in the system besides the only time I was ever arrested.  I'll take what I have and be grateful, considering what some of my best friends have been through, (of all colors by the way) incarcerated.  Being there, in jail, for those four days made me realize how much it sucked.  

In Jail:
I didn't fit in with any of the Mexican groups in jail, I was a loner, and it was so boring.  I thought that I was feeling more threatened by the "gansta girls" but the second night my back went out in the middle of sleep so I screamed, hideously, wailed-wildly, and awfully--a horrific timeless sound that sounded like the combination of a grunt, wail, and agonizing Moan (something unexpected, and spooky).  After that they were all afraid of me.  I was astonished, they thought I was psycho but my back really went out and it hurt really bad, that was just an instinctual reaction, my screaming, wailing, panting and growling-- I never thought people would think that I would want to hurt them due to my own pain.  

I have been very lucky in the sense that the cops have let me go (on many other occasions, that is) --out of their custody because I convinced them too.  And it was an Asian cop that let me go once and all the other times the cops were Latino/a that let me go.  In San Jose almost everyone is Latino/a.  On both sides of the legal system we find nothing but Latino/a, Latino/a, Latino/a.  Heehehehehe. 

Once I was stopped on the way back from Santa Cruz County and was let go by a white cop, but he was harassing us because I was driving perfect and he had no reason to pull us over, his claim was that my tire on the driver's side touched the the line on the right side of the road once.  I convinced him I was the designated driver, and told him that I had had a beer hours earlier but that I would never dream of drinking and driving.  I actually hadn't had a beer but I thought it would be more convincing if the designated driver seemed wise, like she'd actually wait hours after having just one beer to drive.  Playing it safe is the way to go!  And pushing the envelope a little bit. That is me too!

Deborah Leon Godinez Copyright ©2013