Jailed in Diapers

Last month I watched a film that really warmed my heart and made me mad at the same time. It was part of 3 films made about the life of Dick Proenneke (Richard L. Proenneke) called ‘Alone in the Wilderness’. This man was an incredible carpenter and self made naturalist, who built a cabin in the Alaskan wilderness in his later years and lived alone there for years. Several years he was there year long and others he wintered in Iowa. He wandered and explored those remote mountains mostly alone without a gun a lot of the time using his intelligence and wits to survive. It was a truly amazing feat to me, and a big part of me is envious of his life and experiences.

But the part that boils my blood is his part in helping change the area into a National Park. Granted there are many unscrupulous people that would have exploited the area destroying it and inflating the land prices or destroying the natural beauty and animals there needlessly. But the part that upsets me is at the time he built his cabin on public land; anyone could have done the same thing and attempted to live life a free, their own way, But now that is no longer possible and the area is very expensive to even think about visiting not to mention all the regulations surrounding even a hike in any of these remote area around the US.

There has always been a big part of me that wanted to try my hand living alone pitting myself against nature and the elements. I can remember years of wishful planning and fantasying about doing just that starting when I was twelve. I had discovered the remote wildness when I was spending time with my Uncle in the Lone Pine area of California. Several times I attempted to return to the area but not succeeding until I was twenty years old to not find the place he used to live. I was at times unrealistic about my desires, such as the time 1976 when I took off to explore ghost town in the northern Nevada area. I didn’t have enough money or supplies to last more then a couple of weeks ended up stranding myself in the middle of no where. I drove my car in areas I shouldn’t have and busted the oil pan and later I ran the battery down listening to my tape player. After the hunger got almost too much to bear I walked the 30 miles From Aurora to Hawthorne.

The best part of the time I spent there alone was the freedom to do as I pleased with only myself to answer to. I ware my diapers and plastic pants the whole time and washed them out in a nearby abandoned mine shaft before handing them to dry on a makeshift clothesline near an empty cabin that was still functional. It contained a double bed a table in the kitchen area and a homemade barrel stove for heating. I cooked on its top or outdoors on a fire pit I threw together. Since it was so isolated in the area; I freely walked around most of the time in just boots, a tee-shirt and diapers. It was a very exhilarating experience for me that I will never forget. Even the tortuous hike out was thrilling.

I saw very little signs of other humans in the area during the first week. One morning around 9 am I was awakened by a knock on the cabin door. Of course I was startled awake, after shouting just a minute I shimmied into my pants and answered the door. There was no one there by then he was standing out on the dirt road near his truck, while his wife sat in the passenger seat. He said his name and told me it was his place. I stood in the doorway staring absently at them confused for a minute lacking the words to communicate. The he asked me how I liked the place. I told him fine it was nice. Then he told me to stay as long as I liked but not to destroy it. He calmly got in his truck and went on down the road. This left me with a weird feeling; I hadn’t imagined anyone caring or really owning the ruins of this old gold mining town.

I was naïve surely but well meaning, except for running around in just diapers of course, anyone that might have come by would have surely spotted what I was wearing. After that I was more aware that others might show up and was more discreet. One day a man and his wife showed up in a large motor home and camped out nearby for a couple of nights. I didn’t bother them or they me, I’ve always assumed they were either afraid of strangers or just loners like I was at the time. Another day a couple of young guys rode around the area on dirt bikes for a couple of hours, but otherwise it was like I was on the planet alone. I appeared alone in the wilderness; there wasn’t even much visible wildlife to speak of. Beyond the few rabbits, lizard and bug I spotted.

I was severely depressed for the few days I stayed after running out of food; I still had cigarettes, which let me hang on longer. In some ways I guess I was hoping someone would come along and give me a ride back to civilization. I really wanted to stay and would have if I could have found a job of any kind to earn food and cigarette money. And of course get the car repaired. But another part of me realized I shouldn’t stay, I had a wife and two year-old to worry about and take care of and I should go home and do just that. I knew that although she may have followed me and lived a life in the wilds, it might not work so well with a youngster. At least not without a substantial grubstake which was unlikely to happen any time soon. I also felt guilty about leaving her alone in that huge apartment building in Walnut California without so much as a word I had taken my last paycheck and vanished. It sucks being fired from even a prissy job and I suppose I was angry at everyone in the world again, or on my pity-pot which ever is not really important I guess. The important part was knowing I was wrong and needing right my wrongs.

So like feeling like an abandoned waif I trudged those 30 miles along dusty dirt roads until I arrived the next morning in the one horse town of Hawthorne Nevada. The first dilemma I had to resolve was no money and starving. I was so desperate I entered the towns only casino entered the diner and ordered steak and eggs. I figured if the worst they could do was either beat me up or throw me in jail. After eating I went to the cashier and pretended to have lost my money, she called the manager and he said it was on him, telling me to beat it. After that I wandered the little town a bit looking for someone to salvage my car. I found a car dealer and gave him the particulars, along with my car keys and a promise to contact him once I returned to LA. The only thing left was to hit the road and hitch the four hundred miles home.

My wife was relieved that I had come back but pissed at the same time. We made plans to recover my car; it took me a couple of weeks to earn the repair money which I sent off. But the storage fees were mounting up, so we devised a plan to recover it. I got a bus ticket back and with enough to get it out of hock and drive back in my pocket. The problem was I had an eight hour layover in Las Vegas, This compounded the situation. You have probably already guessed what happened, yes I got broke again, it was all so innocent, bored as I was I started checking out all the lighted casinos and in the first one I entered, I forget the name of it they handed me a two dollar roll of nickels. So I started putting them in a slot machine, three coins later I had ten bucks, which I put back in the machine alone with the free nickels, then I won twenty dollars, with a few nickels still in my pocket. The pretty lady shows up next and offers me a free drink and hands me a small bucket for my winnings. With booze coursing through my veins and an estimated jackpot of two thousand dollars in front of my beady eyes I continued to play, for the next six hours. Eventually, I had to break the hundred dollar bill in my pocket to continue and thy kept plying me with free drinks every half hour. I still had high hopes on putting in my last nickel. Then despair and horror hits me, now what am I going to do. I tried cashing in the rest of my bus ticket, so I win back my losses but that was a no deal, they have seen it all before. I accepted their complementary free meal and wandered the streets for two hours wondering what to do. I found five dollars on the side walk during my wonderings and had accepted free nickels at several other places which I pretended to use before slipping out of another set of doors.

I eventually gathered up about twenty dollars and caught my bus, thinking about stealing my car back. They had been paid for the repairs and the tow fee, why should I also worry about the storage fee in an outside parking lot. When I got there I hung around until after midnight before going to the car lot. It was in a fenced lot so I hoped the fence and started it up, unfortunately I didn’t wait for it to warm up enough and my attempt to ram the gate open failed with it stalling out. There I was in a car with a dead battery in the middle of the lot, I used tools out of my trunk to remove the batteries out of several cars, hooked my jumper cables to them, but no dice. It was dawn and I was out of time. My attempts to push back into place also failed so reluctantly I left it where it hopped the fence and left town. Hitching home this time, I was wearing a set of diapers and plastic pants, I had taken out of my car and for some odd reason I decide to also stuff a pair of my wife’s panties’ along with my hunting knife in the pockets of my army fatigue jacket. I put my failures behind me after a few miles walking and hitching especially after finding a thick pocketbook of TS Elliot’s works along side the road. I was standing reading it and putting out my finger whenever I herd a car going the direction I was traveling, when a deputy Nevada sheriff pulled up. I was slightly worried but being almost a hundred miles from the crime scene I wasn’t really worried. After a brief questioning and pat down, he was on his way, and I went back to reading.

An hour later he was back telling me I was under arrest for suspicion of murdering a girl with a knife in Reno. I was in shock and retracted the part about coming from Reno, explaining that I had come up to get my car from Hawthorne but didn’t have enough money to recover it so I was going home to get it. He radioed for conformation while I sweated it out in the back seat; he started driving telling me this was no joking matter, I had started laughing nervously when he told me the charges, I was mortified not only about being accused but because I was wearing diapers. It seemed so ironic to me I couldn’t help but laugh about it. He was almost back to Hawthorne before it was confirmed I had been there, That and my bus ticket stub convinced him he had the wrong man so he pulled over a left me on the side of the road. The deputy told me the lot owner wondered why I hadn’t taken my car but obviously didn’t say I trespassed on his lot and tried to steal it.

Eventually I got enough rides to make to LA but was about 10 miles from home and it was 2 am. I started walking and hitching figuring I could at least make it by daylight. As my bad luck would have it here came another cop to hassle me. This time Los Angeles County Sherriff deputies, another pat down and questioning. I figured it was just routine; knowing how the LA cops were. But they come back with a warrant for an unpaid traffic ticket, this time I was going to jail and to a lot worse one then the one would have been in Nevada. At the substation during a further search a deputy wanted to know why I was so bulky downstairs. What did I have in my pants, without waiting for a reply he unzipped my pants and pulled them partially down exposing my diapers and plastic pants? I had been so worried about going to jail I had forgotten about wearing them. I stuttered when he asked me why I was wearing them and how often I needed a diaper change. Finally I was stuck into a holding cell, I would have only been five miles away from home and the only person I could call was my mother. I asked her to contact my wife and let her know I was alright would be home as soon as I was released.

It took about a hour until the bus picked me up for the trip downtown to LA County Jail, once there a deputy was informed they couldn’t take me into the normal intake side and I was ushered into the medical intake holding cells. I had only been here once before when I was eighteen and it took almost eight hours to be processed through the maze of increasingly garbage filled holding cells into your final destination. It was a lot faster through the medical side though since there were only about a dozen of us there. In the first room the moment of ultimate embarrassment came when I had to strip down for a shower. I slipped everything off with my jeans and tried unsuccessfully to put on the hanger I was given. They were really for me and made me remove my diapers and plastic pants from the jeans. A deputy wearing plastic gloves removed them and undid the pins after pulling the plastic pants off the diapers. He checked them then tossed them one at a time in a trash barrel.

Even with my head hung in shame and despair I was aware of all the eyes on me. I shuffled through the rest of the processing. Totally exhausted by the time I entered the final phase that I didn’t even realize at the time what or who I was talking too. I figured out later was the medical staff and I completely lost it in front of them. The next thing I knew I was putting on blue pajamas and put in 4 point restraints in a single cell. The stuck my penis in a milk carton style urinal and left me alone. I fell asleep and was awakened some time later by having one hand released and breakfast set on the table beside me. I feel back to sleep, only to be disturbed again at lunch and later dinner. I was just couldn’t or wouldn’t stay awake long enough to try eating that way. I just pushed the stuff on the floor when they left and closed my eyes. I also refused to answer their questions or talk at all to them. Eventually I woke up and somehow worked my other had free by then it was late at night and I was staving. They didn’t notice I had both hands free until breakfast came. I greedily swallowed it all down this time, although I still kept my eyes closed peering through the slits till they left the room. When the remains were collected they re-strapped my left hand with a new cuff that I couldn’t wiggle out of.

As my bad luck it was Friday night when I was picked up so I had the weekend to cool my heels before I could go to court. I was able to sleep most of the first day and night between waking for meals. Sunday I got upset and tossed the urinal at the door and was rewarded with a few smacks of a club of some kind by the jail staff on my torso and legs warning me to not do it again. I screamed at them something unintelligentable while I struggled against my bonds trying to get loose some lady told here male to be careful that I was an animal and would be treated so. I was getting the attention I had warranted but in my mind I wanted to get back at all the unjust treatment they were giving me, I didn’t want to understand why I was getting the shaft. I was the victim in my mind; the world was against me in my bid for freedom. I couldn’t figure out why I just couldn’t be left along to go my own way. I especially hated them for not only taking away my diapers and plastic pants but tossing them in the trash. I wasn’t made of money and all they needed was a good washing. So much to think about when you have nothing else to do but think or sleep, it seemed like a never-ending nightmare.

Getting ready for court was the real nightmare though, I was escorted downstairs to departure holding cells being segregated from the rest of the prisoners. The rest were chained together in fours. But they put one those four man chain sets on me like I was Rambo or something I was wearing both sets of handcuffs with the chain wrapped around my body and the only one wearing leg irons. One of the deputies trussing me up was so rough I was resisting him. I became infuriated and shouted something stupid about being a GI and that he couldn’t hurt me so he showed me with his club, somehow I didn’t feel it anymore then I did the day before. I now felt like the animal they were treating like, even a bit invincible. There were three or four single cells on the bus I entered and this is where the put me. There was only one other that was occupied and he was trussed up similar to me, except he was wearing his street clothes while I still had on pajamas. The ride to El Monte was long, yet the most boring part was being placed in an empty private cell in the courthouse for the entire day. I didn’t even get to go inside the courtroom.

I was treated better the return trip back to the main jail after being informed I was released for time served. The problem was the processing had to be continued. I was relieved by then and didn’t feel like the world was still out to get me. Back upstairs in that single cell again to wait for my release to go through I felt okay for the first time in three days, I even got a couple of ice cream cups to eat with the sandwiches they rustled up for me, since I had missed dinner. The problem was they had to put me back in restarts until I was released since I was doctor ordered and he wasn’t available at the moment. When the order finally came to be set free I stressed out again and had to explain why I was so upset and that I was okay to go home to my wife and kid.

Another hour of exit processing and I hit the streets, the weird part was they returned my hunting knife back to me when I left. I always found that a bit funny, I didn’t even mind that I was in downtown LA at one in the morning and had over twenty miles to walk home.
I had to earn more money to get the car released which continued to grow until it was over a hundred dollars. This time my wife came with me to make sure nothing went wrong, it was a fairly uneventful trip, we stayed in the bus depot during our eight hour layover in Los Vegas though.