SECOND WEEK

The second week had gone well until I received a distress call from Courtney. Apparently she had decided to have a beer just before returning to jail. Bad idea. As soon as she walked past the guard she is told to come back because the guard thought she smelled alcohol on her breath. She was given a breathalizer and it showed that she had indeed been drinking. Courtney was put in stripes. This is bad. She no longer had work release and she needed me to call her boyfriend Chris and tell him what happened and that she is sorry. Courtney didn't say she was sorry to ME, however.

I was really shocked. How stupid could she be? All I could think of was why would she do such a thing. You just don't break the rules at Tent City without consequences if you are caught. The guards have a lot of power there. Courtney had told us more than once after she told us about the DUI that she had learned her lesson. Well she obviously forgot her lesson already. She never did pay very good attention in school either. The lesson would really be reinforced now while she was in stripes.

Courtney was moved to a different section of tents and they took away all her regular clothes, she even had to wear their underwear. They took away her flashlight for reading at night (it could be used as a weapon). She would have to work at whatever job they had for her. She thought she was miserable before, now she will find out what misery really is.

With Courtney unable to leave during the day we were presented with another problem. The temporary Arizona license tag Courtney had on her car was giong to expire in three days. Ron and I decided that I would have to go to Phoenix and take care of the tag. I'm always ready for a trip to anywhere so I was quite happy to go. Fortunately Ron had enough points at work to transfer to me for a free ticket on Southwest. (Gotta love those points!) I would leave on Thursday morning and return on Saturday. So I found a La Quinta a few miles from the airport on 48th in Tempe and rented a car from Hertz. I would be within ten miles of where Courtney and Chris lived and just a couple of miles from Arizona Mills Mall. I couldn't have found a better location, especially for the price and especially since there was a huge car auction in Phoenix and most of the hotels were booked.

I texted Chris and we agreed that we should wait until after rush hour traffic to go over to the jail to look for Courtney's car. I was more than happy to just lay on the bed and watch a couple of episodes of Burn Notice. I had reserved a delux king room which turn out to be a large suite with a fridge and microwave. For less than $100 a night it was quite a bargain. The only problem was this hotel did not have a business center and I had to go online with my phone which is a real pain in the ****.

Thankfully I had remembered to bring my GPS so I had no trouble finding Chris's duplex. I texted him when I arrived since it was raining and I didn't want to get out of the car and he came right out. Chris directed me to the jail via the back way so we did not get on the freeway and there was little traffic. Chris is a very personable young man and we had a good conversation during the 25 minutes it took to get to our destination. He is very open and honest and I appreciated that and felt I could probably trust him. The tent city area is huge with different sections for the men and women. The parking lot was not that huge and Chris spotted the toyota as soon as we pulled in. It would have taken me God knows how long to find the correct parking lot in the dark. It would be confusing enough for me in the daytime. I gave Chris the key so he could drive the toyota back to the duplex while I followed him. I honestly don't know what I would have done without him. Since he had a DUI in his past he knew his way around.

Chris parked the car on the street in front of the duplex then retrieved Courtney's purse, phone, medication and all the paperwork we needed for the license and anything else of value and took it all inside. The duplex is in a historic district and one of their neighbors is a cop. It's a good area and I took Chris to a nearby Applebee's for dinner. We talked quite a bit that night. Chris was very open and honest and told me what Courtney had been up to and his concerns for her. We were definately on the same page about a lot of things concerning Courtney and we would be able to work together to keep her in line.

I quickly realized that she was so much better off living with him than at the half way house - I think she had been there too long. Rehab/half way houses are a good thing but there comes a point where one needs to leave and find other people to interact with that are not addicts. Chris told me that Courtney's best friend at the half way house was dating a guy who was still using meth. Chris told Courtney that if the boyfriend was using meth then his girlfriend certainly was. But, Courtney said, "her urine tests are all clean." Chris had noticed this friend had the shakes and he told Courtney that there are ways to fix those tests. He did not believe the girl was clean.
Chris and I decided that Courtney should not be allowed to go out with this girl, which would not be a problem for a while because Courtney's license was suspended. And I knew that Courtney loved Chris and did not want to jepardize their relationship

Friday morning I picked up Chris and he took me to a third party DMV for the license tag. There was no line so I was able to give all the paperwork (lease agreement, power of attorney from Toyota, registration) to a young lady who took a long time to look at everything, then show it to someone else, then type very slowly on her computer. Then after she faxed everything to DMV we had to wait for a response from them for permission to get the tag. We stood there for 15 minutes until the girl asked me if I just wanted to leave my phone number and she would call as soon as she got a reply back. That sounded good to us so I gave her my number and left.

Ron had called and told me to pay Courtney's Jan. fine because it was due today and she could not pay it since she was in jail and if she did not pay it a warrant would be issued for her arrest and she would be in jail longer since she was already there. I thought I would have to wander around city hall trying to find where to pay fines but Chris looked at her paperwork and made a call to see if I could pay over the phone with a credit card. I could and it took only ten minutes of our time. I was beginning to love that boy.

I had to meet a friend of ours for lunch. Courtney had been working for Bill and his office was about a mile and a half from the duplex. I dropped Chris and went to Bill's office. There is a mens halfway house about ten minutes from his office and we went there for lunch and an AA meeting. The speaker was an entertaining woman who had been a lawyer and a municipal court judge. She had gone to work for a short while in Iraq and went to AA meetings in several countries - except Egypt because she was scared to get on the subway since she did not know Arabic.

After lunch I picked Chris back up and we went back to the jail to see if we could talk them into letting us visit or give them her medication and a book I had bought for her. Chris was anxious to see Courtney because he was worried about her and worried if she was warm enough at night. He thought we could tell them how I came 1,000 miles to see her and just maybe they would let us visit her. No way. The guard could care less. We would have to come back tomorrow.

I took Chris back to his duplex since he had plans with friends and I went back to the hotel to watch more t.v. I finally decided that I would just have dinner at the food court at Arizona Mills Mall. I always find it theraputic to walk around a mall and window shop. There is a pet store there that sells dogs and I always enjoy going in and looking at the puppies. I went to Old Navy and bought Courtney five shirts that were on clearance. I walked around until the stores started closing then went back to the hotel and enjoyed having nothing else to do.