Felonious Mopery Concluded

Felonious Mopery Concluded (Where's My Money?)


The next morning I showed up at the precinct where the under-covers first brought me to be caged. Having been awake for 2 nights, spending 27 hours in jail and after a bit of vodka and writing Felonious Mopery, in an all night Korean internet cafe during my first night of freedom, I was a bit hung over. I entered the precinct rather disheveled and rumpled. I was tired and generally irritable over the last 2 days of events, who could blame me? The cops could, apparently - but fuck them.

I stride into the precinct waving my three pink slips, the noted property slips, and the desk sergeant perks up and says "Whatta got there?"

I say "No! Whatta you got? You got my shit and I want it back!"

Well that did not go over too well with the rank and file ‘unis’ gaggling in a corner readying to go out on the beat and they stopping their casual chuckling, which usually involves what perps they heard hooked the shift before (or whose bitch they fucked).

"Whoo whoo", the desk sergeant says "you goota settle down in here."

I'm thinking I'm ready to burn this place down, and I point over in the back to the entrance of the cages across the way and say, “You entrapped me, you put me in those cages in there! And you took my stuff! I'm coming here to get my stuff back!”

I would have loved to say "my shit; my fucking shit!" but fuck that - I'm a coward - right? And then, one of those unis in the corner perks up and says "Maybe you ain't ready to come out of that cage yet."

What? He figuring he be getting his first collar early today? I’d give ‘em a good reason now I’m thinking.

I told ‘em, I told them all, “Your damn undercovers entrapped me for nothing and I'm pissed off as hell and I want an apology!”

And one of the unis says, "You must have done something wrong, and thank you for doing that 'cause that keep us in business’."

The same mother fucking attitude the CO’s have in jail.

And I told ‘em "You don't get it, what a cancer this attitude is on society.”

I could tell the air is getting a bit electrified and for some reason the desk sergeant decides to intervene, slow things down, maybe that's why he's the sergeant and he says to me, “Those undercovers are not part of this precinct. They operate totally on their own and just pick the nearest precinct to house their collars while they go back out trolling for the next bad person until their shift ends and they cart the whole unruly mess downtown to Central Booking.”

I told him, in a very frustrated manner, “They totally fucked up” and he says he understands, and I told him it was an absolute waste of our tax dollars and so corrupt.

He says he totally understands while the gaggle of uni's snickered, can you believe it! Fuck them!!

And the sergeant says he knows it’s corrupt and that's the way it is and they have to make their numbers and so sometimes (a lot of times?) it’s just a game so they look like their doing something and I am astounded; I said,

"But it is so fucking corrupt!"

And he says, "Yeah, but that's the way it is."

And I said, "You OK with that?"

And he says, “What were you arrested for?”

And I say, “Felonious Mopery" and he smiles and says there is no such thing and I says those two cops assured me there was, in Section 9. And he says no, and do I have any paperwork, - my arrest record. I said I ain’t got nothing they didn't give me nothing and then he said to give him my pink property slips.

He takes them, and returns with two clear plastic bags with all my stuff - well half my stuff - and he says to sign these two slips authenticating all my shit has been returned. I'm thinking I can already see there isn't but half the shit I used to have in those two plastic bags. But fuck it - what am I going to do, argue with him that I had stuff in there, that is no longer there - my tooth brushes for God's sake! Yeah my tooth brushes.

Anyway fuck it, right? "Where's my money?"

"Oh" he says, “We don't have your money."

I said "What do you mean, you don't have my money, I need my money! You took my money!"

He said we don't keep the money here. I have to go downtown to get my money at the Property Room.”

I said "You have got to be shitting me; I need my money!”

And what, no metro card to give me to get downtown on this cold winter day and me in a light shirt to get my money that you - ok - not you - some - some of your more nefarious corrupt colleagues took?!

Well no, no Metro Card given me. But you know that - right? You are good with it, right? I mean unless it happens to you which it never will happen to you – right; the cop is, the cops are your next door neighbor, neighbors after all? So I took what I could get and somewhat thankful not putting me back in those bright cages, for this time surely they surely would have good reason all ganging up on me (I would have given them one).


OK, so now I have to make my way back 2 miles downtown to the city's Property Room, which is hundreds and hundreds of yards from where they caged me in Central Booking.

Am I insulted enough? Have they insulted me enough – have you? Do I start to add this time and expense that I am enduring in the aftermath of an entrapment?

When I finally found the building which is not as easy as I thinking would be; as large as the building is and as long the line snaking in front; apparently other people been able to find the building ‘cause the line curls way outside and I thanked God for my few blessings today as I entering on the end. I thanked God it wasn't raining because I could easily see I would be otherwise standing for quite sometime in the rain - it was way too cold for rain though - it would have to be snow, snowing, blowing snow.

Eventually, I made my way to the metal detector and the conveyor package screener and was pointed to another large building across an open courtyard and stopped at another large round counter by two police - a man and a woman sitting in the middle of a circular island. I showed him my pink property form - he took it and looked at it and told me I couldn't pick up my money, that I needed a release form from the DA's office.

I told them - I pleaded with them, really, that Desk Sergeant at the precinct where they first illegally caged me, told me I must come here to get my money!

Does a cop ever tell the truth ever anymore??!

He, nor the woman cop seems to care a wit. He tells me I would have to go to the DA's Office and get a release form.

"Where’s that Office?"

"100 Centre Street."

Where Central Booking is; I am really not a fan of that place.

Wary now, asking him what the hours of the DA's Office are and now the woman pipes up, "They are on flex time - they are in and out all the time."

"You mean", I said "if I went there right now they might not be there to give me this release form? And I would have to wait?"

She seemed to enjoy this "Yep." The other cop handed me back the/my pink slip.

"For how long would I have to wait?" I asked. She shrugged her shoulders.

I was worried about something else now,

"How long do I have to get my money back before they confiscate it completely, forever?”

"It's on the back of the sheet" she says.

I turn over the pink paper. The size of the type is miniscule as on the very bottom of a prescription wrapping. In this dim lobby light printed against a flimsy, thin, pink sheet, so flimsy thin, the printing from the other side bleeding through, these letters so compactly printed instructions, covering the entire page in dim, lobby light, might as well be Chinese.

Somewhere in that dim mess of characters, is the information I need.

“I can’t read this” frustrated.

“You can read it” she says.

“I can’t read it – it’s too much, so much information here, I just want to know how much time I have to pick up my money; a week? Five business days?”

“You can read it, (I’m not going to tell you).” she says.

Why does a woman cop have to be such assholes, always trying to show they can be/are bigger assholes than their real bigger cop buddies?

“It is impossible to read here.” I say.

The policeman takes the sheet back glancing at the back and says, “You got 120 days.”

The woman cop pipes in again, “And you got a lot longer than that if it’s money; they’ll keep it almost forever.”

So the bitch does know. I couldn't go on anymore that day, dealing with another building and another search and another group of people who treated this outrage as just another day at the office - just acceptable business as usual with what seems to me, nor care or even empathy - in fact just the opposite it apparent - and that quip I hearing earlier that morning still reverberating in me - thanks to me and my plight, they keep their jobs, they have jobs, thanks to me, and as far as they are concerned, the system, and me, should keep churning the good/bad work.

Straight Assholes

I decided to make my way back to the shelter and regroup, although this shelter for the homeless, the final safe refuge for me and others, I’m not feeling it, feeling quite a bit differently. I had a sneaking suspicion, and later verified, when the under-covers need some collars, good or not, who cares, they go to the shelters and mine and troll and dig; entrap victims. They can always count on the shelter system to deliver and make no noise about it. Should I hug my beautiful cops – kiss ‘em on your dime or mine and scream “I love them!”?

I wonder how many shakedowns and collars made, at or very near, these shelters turn in the end to be ‘good’ collars? Who really cares, right? We got bigger fish to fry. Hell, I got no fish and no money - yet. Where's my money?

The next morning, I go back to 100 Centre Street, the building where the DA’s Office is. I get there early since I do not want to wait in the back of another line. This is the same building where those under-covers first brought me bound the other night in tight steel hand cuffs; they brought me here to the criminal entrance; and now I am standing in front of the ‘Public Entrance’.

That sign brings to mind a very large mural I had seen, a long time ago, in the entrance of a Torrance California court house entitled ‘Shrine to Freedom’. The point of the mural seemed to be a sort of realistic, you know California and their painters, right(?); children jostling about, a teacher pointing (really she has no idea of the killing fields); the wild wild west and all that inspiration of how this country created and still creating, and how important a role ‘Justice’ plays? You know? Right?

This giant mural covering almost the entire building lobby wall; kind of inspiring in a ‘propagandaish (propagandisical)’ kind of way, with Washington crossing the Delaware in garish colors, and the forever scales of justice, and Army men rushing a shore, and a judge, why are they never ever smiling, or laughing, always a mystery to me; & a gavel punching down. I couldn’t help to wonder of the niggers and spics stuffed in grimy cages, the basements full of that building, still in some idea of long ago considered innocent, or this one, or another one and the reluctance or downright rebellious jurors sitting on cracked broken plastic cafeteria chairs really not wanting to be here or there, and the fat cat judges sitting in plush chairs up above with lawyers/prosecutors all, kick’n back in plush chambers puffing on fat Havana stogies, those days you can still smoke; in some of these rooms you probably still, making back room deals and I couldn’t help to chuckle - ‘Shrine to Freedom’.

Anyway, I get to the Public Entrance early that morning, at 7:30 AM and am told by the guard I would not be allowed in the building until 8 o’clock. I went across the street to a small park and fed the pigeons with crumbs in my pockets.

At 8 o’clock I am the first into the building – went though the metal detectors and conveyor package scanner, emptying all my pockets again. This time I gets up to the 7th Floor where I am directed quite easily. Everywhere I go is empty of people, there is a sort of excitement and anticipation that this would go quickly and smoothly, but as I get off the elevator at the 7th floor and crossing the short elevator lobby I am stopped at a gate by an Indian looking guard who tells me I can not enter this area.

I see ahead of me long hallways, shadowy mazes and warrens of offices; I am pretty sure all these warrens, or at least one, holding a key to me, to my getting my hands on my money, but not until 9 o’clock this short dark Indian tells me. I have to wait, another hour, no wonder this place empty.

Luckily, someone had seen fit to locate 2 wooden benches in this elevator lobby, here on the 7th floor; something you rarely see. The morning sun is streaming in from the east; through large cleaned polished windows and I am drawn to the sun, the shining sun streaming in and she is not fucking with me as she can with her glare, it is perfect, and I am looking out warming myself, looking out, looking out, relaxing surprisingly, in this building on my quest to get my money in this gross grody building, looking out at it all, all the beauty, all this beautiful, warming myself in these cold corridors, and sure as I know cold cold corridors up ahead of me I would be having to pass through next to get my money, but at this moment, this instant, I am drawn to a streaming sun God giving warmth. Looking below out this clean almost invisible window in this exquisitely unexpected not quite sure real feeling of relaxation feeling without anyone coming on me or anticipation of what to be or what tithe to pay; staring now with no hesitation or wariness looking out this clean clear window feeling warm and for a moment relaxed looking out the clean window, seeing watching below in silence Chinese women practicing their morning Tai Chi in a park and, for a moment, I actually feeling good and relaxed and it is warm in this elevator lobby with the sun streaming in and I am alone – which is very rare to be given such a quiet lonely situation (well you might always feel lonely) in the shelter system and the sun shining in on me and I sitting down relaxing.

About five to 9 I had to go to the bathroom and decided, on a whim, to ask the guard if there is a bathroom on this floor. He checked the time – just a few minutes left. I am still all alone here, he says he will take my ID and start filling out the paperwork to let me in, and I can go down the hall to go to the bathroom.

When I come back he points me way down to the other end of the hall and I arrive at a thick scratched plexiglass window with holes drilled through the thick plastic at about mouth level, someone else’s mouth, a bit shorter than me. The sign on the wall clearly states office open 9 AM- 5 PM and I sure it after 9 AM.

Inside I can see 3 grey desks and grey chairs formed in a ‘U’ shape with high grey file cabinets behind the desks, at least six feet high, blocking any vision to the larger office space within this cozy ‘U’, three desks and chairs are located with tall grey file walls protecting concealing a larger space.

On the other side of this scratched plexiglass, her fat black ass sitting firmly on a chair directly across from me languidly picking greasy McDonalds morning home fry bits from a white plastic dish and casually talking on the phone. She turns away sideways, leaning back on her chair. Surely, she can see me.

I consider tapping on the window, waiting a few minutes, thinking maybe I wrong, maybe she can’t see me; but no I’m thinking, just another angry black nigger bitch on my dime. As I getting the courage, I deciding against my anger; What if she becomes insulted at my tentative soft knocking and turns her back and cuts me off for another half hour, no matter my yelling and her calling security, and waiting for a line to build behind; I sure.

I stop and decide to wait as I watching her languidly eating and talking. What is happening to me? I go from an outraged citizen to a meek mouse afraid to tap on a window for the services – my services – clearly due me – I am a Free White Man In America!! Fuck it! I throw caution to the wind and tap on the window a bit harder than I first considered. She doesn’t turn at all and yells over the wall of the grey file cabinets. So that’s what it takes in here.

I waited, somewhat satisfied, I thought I may be recognized as a waiting customer, although, I couldn’t be sure, since I could not hear what she yelled.

As a few minutes passes and nothing happening and as I considering my next move, wondering to take a rash chance a man in a suit rounded the corner of the file cabinets and looking at me through the scratched plexiglass. I angrily pushed the pink paper through the bottom slot of the plexiglass and explained what happened to me and that I wanted an apology and I wanted my four SOMINEX pills back or failing that, the $20 that the fraudulent bitch had given me. He said neither is possible – or at least extremely doubtful or rather unlikely.

I said “They are thieves!” And he said it police policy not to return blah, blah, blah,

my stolen toothbrushes did not even enter my mind,

maybe it is the drug addict in me.

I said “I don’t give a shit about ‘police policy’. It is a policy of thieves! They’re thieves!”

And the guy turned to me and said “Settle down.”

He seemed to at least get the idea, as the desk sergeant a few days earlier, was it days(?), seemed to get the idea. Then a voice to my left says

“You’re right.”

I turned and I am looking at a small man – a Jewish lawyer I figure, who is pushing official looking papers through a nearby thick plexiglass window, with the sign “Court Filings”.

“You are right”, he says to me again.

“They fucking entrapped me!”, I said, “And stole my shit! Giving me some bullshit about ‘Felonious Mopery.’”

“I know.” he says smiling.

“I want my stuff back! And an apology!”

“You can spend thousands of dollars and sue them and probably get nothing, no broken bones, right?”

No, I nodded.

“Or, you can bring them to Small Claims Court.”

“Yeah! That’s what I am thinking!”

He is turning to leave now,

“You may win,” he says, “depending on the judge and vagaries of justice.”

“But -”, he says,

”There is quite a leap between getting a judgment and collecting.”

and with that, he turns, walking away. Over his shoulder, he says to me,

“Bring them to Small Claims Court, at least you will make the City pay for a lawyer they will have to put there for your case. You’re right, they are thieves.”

And I am thinking ‘Is this what it has come to?’ Spend more of my/our tax money to put an uncaring NYC lawyer sent from an uncaring, ‘We, The People’ system? Ah ‘Fuck it’ I said to myself.

The guy behind the thick plexiglass shield says “Here’s your paper.” Pushing my pink slip and another piece of paper under the window through the slot.

“The Release Letter”, he says.

I took the papers.

“You want a letter for the DA saying no charges were brought?”

I said “Why the hell would I need that for?”

He said “I don’t know what is going on in your life.”

And I thought about what is going on in my life and I couldn’t imagine why I would need more paper, but the hell with it – the City giving me something for free in this process – I said

“OK.”

He left me for a few minutes, as I stood alone in this quiet empty hall. He came back with two 2 page letters of the DA’s statement of bringing no charges and how my photos and fingerprints would be destroyed and my file would be sealed.

There was no mention of the DNA they took from me in that same building underground, why is that? Should I bring an additional theft to Small Claims Court? Embossed, raised, official DA stamps are on all the pages.

So I left that day; now it was time to make another assault/approach on the building that houses the Property Room and my money, really, pretty much the only money I have; I’m homeless – remember?.

I found my way back through the maze of downtown city blocks and tall official looking buildings and get on the back of a long snaking line I had been the day before and again thanking God for few blessings I can count – like it wasn’t pouring rain on me, it was too cold to rain, and I finally got to the metal detector and the conveyor package scanner.

I had to take off almost everything. Maybe the system is especially sensitive that day or maybe my skin is electrified with thoughts of actually getting my hands – actually getting my hands on my money. I would have stripped naked and bent over, feeling so close to my money.

I collected my stuff, got dressed, making my way to that big round counter with the two cops. I pull out my pink slip and my DA’s Release Letter and the cop looks at the papers skeptically, he looks at me, and demands my ID again and looking at all the papers and forms and pictures and stamps and finally, stubbornly, it seems, waves me through, pointing to a stairwell I should take to the bottom; seems about right.

I found my way to the basement Property Room and the essential line – except in this room there are two lines. One is a line of undercover cops lounging around on benches and chairs with plastic crates filled with personal goods, their collar’s goods, taken from people like me. I watched them joking about one collar or another and hooking this or that skel or talking about who shot some perp last night.

On this other line are people like me picking, retrieving their stuff. Can’t vouch for the other people on my line as to whether their shit taken illegally or legally or according to policy, police policy, but I can certainly vouch for me and at least a few I sure on that other line and the fact that our line moving a hell of a lot slower than the under-cover’s line right next to me who would, from time to time glance at us - at me – disdainfully. Because sure as hell I staring – boring – my eyes in outrage at them.

I had to start making an effective effort to calm myself since I could see I was about to be in this rather excruciating excitable environment for quite a time. There weren’t any seats or benches for my line to sit on. Why is that? And I am getting mad. Pull a stunt?

Why is that do you think? Standing, watching under-covers sit and joke pulling at my craw as we people inching along every few minutes.

You see, there are only a few clerks behind the scratched thick plexiglass panels to serve all these people from various walks of life, and society on the two lines and the clerks always having to decide how to divvy their time between the cops and us and you know how these decisions go.

So I slowly winding my way around this line. I had plenty of time to read the signs pasted all up and down the walls and one sign catching my attention: ‘To get any property you must have photo ID and proof of address’. This striking me because until this point my photo ID – my Passport, my identification (if you can call it that) serving me admirably through all this rather gruesome process of living life.

One of the beauties of the passport and one quite apropos to my condition is that it contains no address and since I am homeless, it is accurate – but now I am having troubling thoughts – a rumbling in my body a grumbling in my empty stomach – could it be? I would be this close – and not getting my money? Ah no, pushing that thought out of my mind – there would be no way – is no way - impossible – I am finally at the window.

I pushed the pink slip under the slot at the bottom of the thick plexiglass – then the DA’s Release Letter. She looks at the papers and my passport and then she says “You need proof of address.” I said I am homeless and she shakes her head and she says I have to bring back proof of address as she pushes the mess back at me under the thick plexiglass, through the slot, and for a moment I freeze – I can feel my skin getting icy and a thought hits me,

“Wait – wait!”

saying bending down rummaging through my bag recollecting those embossed papers the DA issued about me being – about him not pressing charges and the guy in the suit saying to me, “I don’t know what is going on in your life (and whether I would need such a letter)” and I seem to remember there is an address on those embossed pages.

I grabbed the papers and opening to the 2nd page there is an address – it the shelter address – the fucking cops – the under covers, must have assumed it where I come from and I thanked God, and pushed the whole mess back at her. There is no way she can argue with all these embossed seals; much as she might/liked.

A few minutes later holding a check in my hands for $172.00! I quickly bounding up the stairs leaving all those sad sacks behind and as I hit the turn style arm to exit, pushing with my leg, I banged it so hard I still have a bruise. I staggered back, rubbing my thigh – the fucking turn styles are locked, preventing you or even me from leaving before they inspect you or even me- again! – shit – this place is surely hell.

OK, a few moments later, I am outside, still rubbing my thigh, it hurt like hell, with a bruise so big with a check in my hand. It an official NYC check, drawn on Chase Bank. There are plenty downtown in Chinatown and I finding one; now waiting expectantly on another line and finally signing the check and pushing my passport & the check to the teller in a slot under another plexiglass shield – a lot less scratchier, and the teller types some stuff on a key board and says she can not cash it.

I say in disbelief, “What do you mean? It is a NYC check?”

“I can’t cash it.” She calls over the supervisor.

The woman speaks to me through the thick plexiglass in heavy Russian accent, looking at the computer screen, she says, “I can’t cash this and I can’t over ride this, they won’t let me. You have to put this into your checking account.”

But I am homeless, I said to myself – I don’t have a checking account, no bank account – I’m home -, then everything went blank.

Epilogue

You know sometimes I think, what if I had shiny gold coins in my pockets – very old – very valuable coins, that an eccentric well dressed old man had given me when I was begging on Park Avenue. You know the kind of coins that sometimes show up in a Salvation Army bucket and everyone gets excited and the TV cameras come in fawning over the valuable/expensive coins and the anonymous donor,
“Where is he??”
What if those coins are in my pocket when I entrapped? Those beautiful gold coins given lovingly by that eccentric old man – perhaps as a cosmic joke? Would I have gotten those coins returned to me as my special property or just a City check for their apparent face value – a check I could not cash?
Then I get to thinking about property rights and rule of law and police policy and shrine to freedom and then my mind wanders away thinking about my God’s green acre and getting warm in the morning sun.