Well it's been a crazy busy time. I guess, as usual, nothing really new. But I haven't taken much time to "check in on myself" as M put it, and I obviously have not been writing.
A lot has happened since the last post, nearly three months ago. I pushed through March to get to spring break, and visited M at the front end of break in Phoenix. Then I drove over to Texas, passing through southern NM, staying one night in Las Cruces at the very eccentric Lundeen Inn of the Arts. The morning there featured the 80-something year old proprietor regaling me with tales of her rural New Mexico upbringing. I headed over to Alpine, TX, and stayed at a sort of weird place there, the Hotel Parker Quarter Circle 7. Trying to be on the upscale side of things, but basically a glorified hotel in a chain-type building. "True Cattlemen's Hospitality" the website says. I don't really know if they get to that goal.
I was eager to get out to explore and do some botanizing. I had a few GPS points for cacti near Alpine. I poked around a little bit, not really finding much. I decided to head toward Sanderson, where I had a room for the night. I took a detour down the highway from Marathon toward Big Bend, hoping to see some of the novaculite endemic cacti of that area.
I stopped along the highway at a site with amazing novaculite outcroppings. Just by the gate, a guy drove up on a large road grader. He opened the gate, waved at me, and then drove through, closing the gate behind him. I figured it was a rural road, probably a public right of way. I am used to gates on BLM and other land in Arizona and California, meant to keep cattle in, not people out. So I crossed the gate and went hiking around a little bit, found some of the novaculite endemic cacti, and then, maybe 45 minutes later, hiked back to the gate. I noticed several vehicles there, but didn't think much of it.
The outcrops of novaculite that caught my eye
Some pics of Thelocactus bicolor subsp. flavidispinus and Echinocereus viridiflorus subsp. neocapillus, the latter named that because of its weirdly hairy seedlings.
Little did I know that four Brewster County Sheriff's deputies awaited me. It turned out I was trespassing on private land, and they take that pretty seriously, like insanely seriously, in Texas. After a brief round of introductions, I was informed that I was going to jail. The landowner wanted to press charges, and jail time is mandatory. This came as quite a shock, as you can imagine. The lead deputy tried to reassure me by saying that the judge would probably see me that same day, and I climbed into his truck, and off we went, all the way back to the Brewster County Jail in Alpine. I was grateful to not be handcuffed.
I was booked in, and placed in a holding cell, wearing a ridiculous pink jumpsuit. Ironically, the holding cell had the word "DETOX" over the door. It was a completely bare cell, featuring a stainless steel sink and toilet combo. I had a terrible small mattress and some raggedy blankets, toothpaste, soap, and TP, and that was it.
At first, I was pretty calm about the whole thing. I figured I probably would see the judge and get released on my own recognizance and then pay a fine or whatever and that would be that. I was glad to be alone in the holding cell, not having to deal with anyone else. I could hear the distant goings on in the rest of the jail, but I felt pretty accepting of the whole weird situation.
It turned out that I would not see the judge after all, and would have to wait until morning. The CO in charge told me it would likely be first thing in the morning, and he thought I probably would get let out on my own recognizance. I settled into the weird idea of spending the night in jail, on the bare concrete bench built into the wall of the holding cell, on that awful mattress. Jail trustees brought dinner around. Truly awful, dry bean and cheese burrito. I ate anyway. It was something to do.
Shortly after dinner, the CO let a guy into the holding cell. Fernando was his name. He had been in the Brewster County Jail for 180 days, busted at a border checkpoint with heroin. He had gotten clean in jail. He was only 28, but had already spent five years in a Mexican federal prison for running contraband (weed and guns). He was from the small Mexican city of Ojinaga, just across the border from Presidio, TX, about two hours from Alpine. He was in the holding cell because he was getting bonded out that night, and deported to Mexico. "Two other guys are getting bonded out tonight too, so they'll be here in a while. What are you in for?" I told him I was arrested for trespassing. "They take that shit serious out here, bro," he said. Yeah no kidding. He and I talked about his 2 year old son, whom he had never met, who lived with the mother in OJ (what he called Ojinaga). We talked about the way Brewster County Jail worked, the schedule of the day, the ins and outs of jail life. He mentioned a guy from Guatemala who had been arrested for trespassing and didn't see a judge for five months. That freaked me out, until I realized I was not a guy from Guatemala. Eventually, the other two guys were also brought into the holding cell. Jose from Mexico City, who was being extradited to Louisiana on a cocaine possession warrant from years ago, and Jorge from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, who was being deported back to Honduras. The four of us had some nice conversation about all kinds of weird shit, although the three of them talked in lightning rapid Spanish that I had trouble understanding.
After about two hours, finally, Customs and Border Patrol arrived to take these three guys off to wherever (they didn't know if they were going to Ojinaga, or to El Paso, or where exactly). We said our farewells. I told Jorge I would look him up if I ever went to Tegucigalpa. Off they went. I was alone again in the holding cell, with lights out approaching at 10.
The wheels started turning in my head and over the course of a largely sleepless night, I convinced myself I was not getting out any time soon, I would be put in main. I worked myself up into a terrible state of unending anxiety. It was impossible to stop the snowballing sense of total isolation and panic. I was exhausted, and that was part of it. I was unable to sleep. It was pretty bright in the holding cell even after lights out, a single bare lightbulb still lit. CO's made rounds and looked in the small window in the door every 20 minutes.
By the time morning came around, I was a nervous wreck. I caught the attention of the CO around breakfast time (6 a.m.) and asked if I could make a phone call. "No calls until 9 a.m. I'll get you then." I asked if he thought I would see the judge first thing in the morning. He said, "Probably not. The schedule got switched, and we're doing court. Probably not until afternoon." I was freaked out. "You said first thing in the morning." He said, "Well, things change."
The three hours between breakfast and the phone call crawled by. Time was really not moving. Breakfast had been awful and my stomach was churning. I was so anxious that my temperature was up a little, my skin was hot. I discovered I could wad up a little toilet paper and get it wet and try to cool myself off that way.
The CO finally did come and get me shortly after 9. I asked if I could access my cell phone to get a couple phone numbers off of it. He kindly allowed me to do that, a violation of official jail rules, where cell phones are considered contraband. This particular CO was a decent guy, considering. I got M's phone number from my phone (funny that I didn't have it memorized). I called her using the jail phone, where a collect call was probably like $20 or something. It was great to hear her voice and connect even a little. It felt deeply reassuring.
The big question on my mind was whether or not to hire a lawyer. My thinking was that a lawyer could speed up the process of me seeing the judge and get me out of jail. I didn't understand the process at all. M and a friend of hers were researching lawyers and not finding any who would even take my case; probably a combination of very few criminal defense attorneys in Alpine and my case being only a misdemeanor class b, so not really worth it.
A jail staff person came and got me and asked if I wanted to request a court appointed attorney. I figured I wouldn't qualify, but I went with her to a little room and answered a bunch of questions. Every time I mentioned my salary or my bank account balance, she would whistle and say something like "wow, must be nice." It ended up being a mistake even applying, and it disclosed private financial information that the judge ended up using against me later. Sweet.
The morning dragged on. It was Thursday, and I started imagining that I would not see the judge until after the weekend. The thought of staying in that holding cell for four more nights was incredibly unpleasant to say the least. I called M again and was convinced I needed a lawyer. The effort to find one continued.
Finally, at about 1:30, a CO came and got me and said "You're going to see the judge." He took me to the same room where I had applied for a court appointed attorney, and I sat in front of a computer screen. It turned out "seeing the judge" involved a Zoom-type application called Video Magistrate (tm). The CO launched it and a different name from mine came up. "Oh, hang on, he's seeing this other guy first." And he took me back to my cell. My patience was just about completely shot by this point. Anyway, after about a half hour, the CO got me again, and I "saw the judge." As he was reading through the boiler plate, Miranda rights, etc., he mentioned "and I see here where you have $7000 in your bank account and make $5000 a month, so we'll set a cash surety bond for $2000." He might have released me on my own recognizance, but he had the financial info from my dumb attempt to get a court appointed attorney, and set a cash bond instead.
I was so desperate to get out, I actually did not care. I asked the CO if I could make a call, because I wanted to cancel the efforts to hire a lawyer, since I was going to bail myself out, I thought. The CO said "You need to contact a bail bond company and see if they will bond you out. Until you get bonded, you aren't going anywhere." I had no idea, and this just seemed crazy to me. But he let me call a bail bond company, and he gave me access to my wallet and debit card to pay the bondsman the total of $1750 bond. The bondsman couldn't make it to the jail until 6:30 p.m., so back into the holding cell I went. The next four hours crawled by.
The trustees came around with dinner and I turned it down. "I'm bonding out, but thanks." The CO with them said "You sure? You have to work out a deal with your bondsman first." I started panicking again. I thought I had worked out a deal with my bondsman. But the CO was right: she still had not arrived at the jail. What if it fell through? What if I wasn't getting out after all?
She finally did arrive and we very quickly filled out all of the necessary paperwork. She was professional, friendly, and efficient. I got walked back to the holding cell, but I did see her hand deliver the check for $2000 to the CO at the front desk. However, by the time she did, it was 7 p.m., and time for a shift change. This delayed my release another hour or so.
The new CO on duty finally did come and get me, and I signed a bunch of papers, and he gave me a debit card for the $14.50 I had in my pocket when I was booked, and I changed into civilian clothes, finally getting out of that ridiculous pink jumpsuit. He walked me outside and there I stood, in the fresh air and waning sunlight, a free human.
However, my car was in the impound lot, which didn't open until 8 a.m. the next day. So I was on foot in Alpine Texas, where there are no ride services. I booked a room at the Hotel Parker again and walked the 2 miles up the road, getting there right after sunset, just before 9. (Alpine is in Central Time, and it is daylight savings, so it was a late sunset). I had no luggage, nothing. Just the daypack I use for hiking. I had stopped into a Dollar General along the way to get a cell phone charger.
It was a long night even in the comfort of the hotel, as I was in caffeine withdrawals and had a massive headache and no painkillers. The next morning, I winced my way down to the breakfast room and drank a couple cups of coffee. Then I walked back to the sheriff's office, paid $420 to get my car out of impound, and was finally on my way. The sheriff deputy who took me to the impound lot said "Oh yeah, trespassing is a serious thing out this way. We had a guy from Florida a few weeks ago who was lost, and the landowner was out there with his gun, ready to shoot the guy, totally legal. We got there in time to resolve the situation. You're lucky to be in one piece."
Maybe most people would have just gotten the hell out of Texas at that point, but I was determined to get to the campsite I had reserved at Big Bend Ranch State Park, and do some botanizing. So I drove the 3 hours there from Alpine, through Big Bend National Park, and arrived fairly late in the evening.
So strange to go from the Brewster County Jail and weird Alpine to this beautiful, incredibly remote campsite. It was perfect for my mental and emotional health, for sure, but very surreal.
I'll post about the rest of the uneventful spring break trip next, with some less illegal and expensive cactus pics. I have since hired a local attorney, and we are trying to get the charges dropped, which would be ideal. She lives on a very remote ranch in the middle of nowhere, and never returns my phone calls. She was born and raised in Alpine though, and knows all of the ranchers, so we'll see.