Flashback Friday July Through December, 2002

The Girl Who (had a house, yet) Slept In A Mustang

Chapter 4

Freedom
When we last left Daniel, he had been bailed out of jail by Xanna who, if the letters sent to the jail were any indication, was now his girlfriend, and deeply in love with him. She took him home.

It looked a lot like this

My greatest concern, after getting out into the free world was getting some sunlight, fresh air, exercise and eating good food.
The 155 days that I had spent behind bars, had me feeling like I was in the worst physical shape of my life, especially after all the honey buns which I had eaten -the ones that I hadn't traded for other inmates food trays.

Xanna took me hiking, my second day out, along a trail which ended at a waterfall which cascaded into a clear pool. I had an out of breath feeling for much of the hike, which was kind of disturbing.

A few days of rest and better food (my healthy diet) and I started to feel better. I started a jogging program, and was dismayed to find that the first mile that I "ran" took more than 8 minutes to cover.

Modou had given me my job back at the East Coast gas station. One of my fellow employees told me that she had heard that, when I had been arrested, I had held the police off in a three hour standoff using some kind of weaponry.Modou had no problem with the rumors, and actually promoted me to assistant manager. He thought that it was great that I had a house to live in.

Xanna bought a van, a Ford Econoline, 1983 model. She said that she had always wanted a custom van, probably planned to travel, and so she bought one.

It was to be the vehicle that I would use to drive the 29 miles to work and back. It got about 12 miles to the gallon, costing me 50 dollars per week..

Xanna and I and the two cats lived and slept together in her house, joined by Emory on the weekends. 
Our sex life could have been better; I was finding it emasculating to have a woman supporting me in any way, and I had pretty much been taken in by her, like a stray animal. This was not a turn on for me. I guess I am the anti-Tom in that regard.

She liked T-bone steaks, and so, almost every night, I cooked one on the grill outside the side door that we used to come in and out. She liked hers very well done. She liked them burnt to a crisp, actually.
I found this out one night after I had fallen asleep and left the steak on the grill. Pulling the blackened remains off, and lamenting the fact that I had ruined an eight dollar steak, I told her that I was sorry; I had fallen asleep and burned it. It was black and crispy. The edges of it were flaking off. It would probably make a crunching sound if bitten into.
She tasted it, and then told me that it was the best one that I had ever made.

I continued to work at the gas station, and to live 29 miles out in the country. The 45 minute drive and the 50 dollars per week in gas that the van burned were just concessions that I had to make for being out of jail.

I still had the trial coming up in October.
The State had amended the charges from "suspicion" to "Falsifying an application for a State license or ID card."
When I had gotten my Virginia ID, homeless and living right down the road from an animal shelter (and the elementary school) and had no real address to give the fine people at the DMV, I had given them the address of the animal shelter -amused over the irony that those people would take in stray animals and coddle them and feed them and shelter them, but if they were to find a human being camping on their property, the authorities would be alerted and the human being would be thrown into cage, like an animal. He would be fed and sheltered, but not coddled-
I  thereby falsified my application for an ID.

The charge carried up to 3 years in prison.

September, 2002

I tried not to stress out over the upcoming trial, but rather, enjoy life out in the country.
I set up a playoff type "bracket" and, starting with all 32 flavors of Fancy Feast cat food, I played them off, one against the other, giving each cat two tins and noting which flavor the cat finished first, and then promoting that flavor to the next tier to compete against another flavor.
Mr. Falls chose Ocean Whitefish above the rest. Mr. Mercury, Turkey Feast.
I went back to investing in the stock market, despite the roaming charges that I incurred on my cellphone in doing so from way out there. I started putting together a 2,500 piece jigsaw puzzle on a large table in the kitchen, and I bought a computer and resumed my long running study of UNIX shells and programming languages.
I had gotten my time in the one mile run down to about six and a half minutes, and life was pretty good, in general.
The First Occurance
Xanna and I  were in the hot-tub together. It was the middle of the month, when the nights in central Virginia chilled down to just above the freezing mark.
Steam was rising out of the tub in thick tendrils, reminding me of a huge witches cauldron. The stereo was playing softly. There were glasses of wine standing on the edges of the hot tub. We had just eaten an excellent meal. Xanna was floating next to me -the best amenity of all.

As I reached out of the water, into the frigid air, for my glass of wine, I watched the steam floating off my arm.
I took a deep breath and tried to let my mind go, as I exhaled. I was staring up at the country sky with its stars so clear and bright, letting my thoughts drift up into space with them. I was just at a point when I started to feel my mind "letting go," similar to the the way it had done, back in February, when I was offering a prayer of thanksgiving, in my hole in the ground.

Just then, Xanna spoke.  
Only, It wasn't her usual  voice that I heard. She had a  thick southern drawl, as she asked me in an accusing tone "Who are you thinkin' about? I know it isn't me! Your mind is a thousand miles away and you're thinking about some other girl, I know you are...I have a sixth sense about these kind of things!"

I was taken aback, both by the sound of her voice, and by the fact that this girl, who up until then had been sweet and soft spoken, smiling more often of late, though through clenched lips, and who usually always had something positive to say, was suddenly sounding jealous and suspicious. It was out of character. I had known her for almost a year at this point.

I assured her that I wasn't thinking about anything or one, just letting my mind idle and my thoughts float around with the stars.

She then, just as abruptly, calmed down and apologized, in the voice that I was familiar with. She blamed it on the wine. 
The incident made me wonder if she had a split personality. There wouldn't be another one like it until "the wine glass incident," about a month later.

Whose Wine, What Wine?
October, 2002
I was at the house. Xanna was at work. I had smoked some fish over oak wood on the grill and was ready to pour some wine to go with it.
After Taking a wine glass out of a kitchen cabinet, and placing it on the table in the hall across from the bookshelf with the witchcraft books on it,  I looked, but couldn't find, the cork screw.
I ran out to my car, and used one that I kept in my glove box.
Returning to the house with the opened bottle in my hand, I absentmindedly grabbed another glass forgetting about the one that was already on the table.
I was eating when she walked in, returning from work, and flew into a rage at the sight of the two glasses on the table, one of which was clean.
"Who did you have over, drinking wine with you!?!" There was no southern accent this time.
I was able to reason with her and eventually calm her down, explaining what had happened and pointing to the cleanliness of the second glass. 
Around this time Xanna had discontinued taking a certain medication which she only had to take four times a year and which had something to do with balancing her hormones. She did this, she told me, because she wanted to give me a baby, and one of the side effects of that medication was that it stopped her from becoming pregnant. 
The Terrible Towel
Incidents began to come closer together, like the contractions of a woman in labor. A few weeks later, "the towel incident" occurred.
I was at the house. Xanna was at work.
I stepped out of the shower into the frigid bathroom and noticed that there was only one small towel on the wall rack. I used that small towel as best I could, and then scooted to a closet in the old hall to get a second one to finish drying with. I hung both towels on the rack, after I finished.
Xanna came home and was soon ranting "Who did you take a shower with! It better not be that blond bitch!"
The Bitch Is Back
We now had a "blond bitch" living with us.
Xanna started to suspect me of cheating on her. With a woman whom she believed to be living in the very same house with us.
The other woman, whom she bestowed that particular title upon (after she found a strand of blond hair on the bathroom floor) was so adept at sneaking around, slinking from room to room and hiding in closets, the attic, and even the crawl-space under the house, that she was able to stay out of the sight of  Xanna (and myself, for that matter) day after day.
Xanna thought that we were carrying on a relationship right under her nose, right in her house. When she was in one room, the blond bitch would have hidden in another.
More than once Xanna suddenly threw open a closet door and rifled through the coats, hoping to discover her. She was never there.
She became frustrated.
She spent time investigating the attic, where she claimed to have found electrical wires that had been tampered with, as if someone had been pirating electricity to power a hotplate or a lamp. Someone blond.
She found similar evidence under the house, where there was a crawlspace with about a 3 feet of headroom clearance.
She started to do things like parking her Mustang down the road, when returning from work, then stealthily approaching the house when I was there alone, to spy on me. She had raked the leaves away from the house, all along its perimeter, giving her the ability to tiptoe from window to window without making crunching noises; trying to catch the blond bitch and I.
By now, I had had my day in court. The judge, after hearing me speak before sentencing, and telling him as much as I could about this whole story, said "I'm not going to put you back in jail, son."
I had that one less thing to worry about; but Xanna was taking up the slack, by seeming to be gradually turning into a witch.
A Pair Of Paranormal Happenings
December was approaching.
It was a Saturday afternoon and Emory was spending it with us.
These times when he visited, Xanna was able to suspend her suspicions and put on a happy (for her) face, making things seem like there was nothing wrong -at least the things that were within her control. 
I was sitting at the table in the kitchen, working on the jigsaw puzzle.
Emory was in the room at the end of the hall, across from the main bedroom, where he usually slept -the one in which the lady had gone crazy and killed herself in.
Xanna was in our room, on the bed, taking a nap (not unusual for a workaholic).

From where I sat, I could see the entire hallway.

Suddenly, something caught my eye.

It was Xanna's body, coming flying out the bedroom doorway and landing on the hardwood floor with a thump as her head bounced off of the hard wood. It appeared as if she had been thrown through the doorway; her body limp like a rag doll, as if sound asleep.

"Are you alright, mom?" asked Emory, in a bored tone of voice, as if this happened all the time.

Xanna came to when she hit the floor. "Yeah, I'm OK; I was just having a dream," She said.

She didn't like to sleep alone in that house, I had gleaned at that point. I later learned from Emory that it was indeed not the first time that she had been thrown out of her bed by "something."

Whenever I would get out of bed to use the bathroom, she would come with me, then stand outside the bathroom door until I came out. She would then follow me back to bed.
She had a habit of sleeping with one of her hands resting upon my body, the way cats do, when they want to become aware of  you getting up to leave.
One night, during one of Emory's weekend visits, he was sitting in his room. he called to his mother in the same bored tone, saying that he had just seen someone looking in at him through the window. He said it the same way he might have said "It's raining outside."

I went outside to investigate. There was snow on the ground now (which had been shoveled in a swath around the perimeter of the house to allow Xanna to continue her spying). What I saw was a set of footprints, coming from out the woods behind the house and across the back yard and ending underneath the window of Emory's room. There were no returning prints.

I lived long enough in New England to know that a person can't walk backwards, placing his feet inside the tracks he made going forward, without leaving evidence of it. There isn't any margin for error, and snow falling off the feet in between steps would give the person away. These were a clean set of footprints that just ended outside Emory's window.

Someone's Playing Games With Me!
December, 2002
Soon, things were starting to move themselves around the house.
Xanna would regularly scream things like "Where's my onyx necklace?!? I hung it right here last night after I took it off! Now, it's gone!!"
She found the necklace, later, on the bathroom floor (where she had found the blond hair...)
Her wallet, which came up missing from under the drivers seat of her Mustang, was eventually located on one of the shelves in the old hallway (where I had gotten the suspicious towel from) between two folded towels  That was after she had gotten a duplicate drivers license and canceled out and replaced her credit cards etc.
Her fits of jealous rage were more frequent now, as Christmas was approaching.
She bought me a car, as an early gift, a white Jetta, which ran fine some days and stalled mysteriously on others.
If she got off of work before me, she wouldn't go to the house. She would park her Mustang somewhere along the way, often just down the road from the house. On cold nights, she would wrap up in the blankets that she kept in her trunk for that purpose. I would spot her car parked somewhere along my way to the house, wake her up and we would both go home together.
She continued to look for clues left behind by the blond bitch, follow me from room to room, and always do "the cat paw" thing when we were in bed.
When Can I See You?
She eventually bought a "voice activated" tape recorder at Radio Shack, as part of a plan to catch me and the blond bitch, which she placed discreetly under the sofa in the bedroom. If there was anything going on while she was away, she was going to capture the audio, and the blond and I along with it.
She showed up at the little booth where I worked that night, and slammed the tape deck down in front of me, proclaiming: "Now I have proof!! Let's see you lie your way out of this one!! I have solid evidence, now. Listen." She hit the play button.
The tape had on it, sounds I recognized; the bed springs creaking; and myself talking to Mr. Mercury, one of her two cats. At one point, the sound of rain through a closed window was audible, then there was a sound like a window sliding open whereupon the sound of rainfall got louder.
Other random noises were on the tape, which only ran for about 20 seconds, but, in the middle of it there was what sounded like the voice of a little girl speaking; saying first:
"Is she gone?," and then about 10 seconds later:
"When can I see you??"

Flashback Friday: February, 2002 - July, 2002

When we last left Daniel, he had been discovered camping on the woods owned by Mr. Woods, and the latter was so cool, that he was going to let Daniel just pack his stuff and move; he just wanted the police to run a quick check on him, "just to make sure you're not, you know, doing anything wrong, out here."

Chapter 4

From Freak out To Bailout
February 19th
The officers of the Charlottesville Police sauntered onto the scene, having been shown the way by one of the wood cutters. Three of them, their radios squawking, slightly out of sync with each other, giving the aural sensation that we were suddenly in a vast canyon.
There was an older one, a Sergeant, a younger one, whom I had seen before, and an even younger one, who looked like a rookie.
The rookie was kind of pudgy, with pale skin and reddish hair. It looked like his biggest obstacle in becoming a cop was probably the physical fitness test; running a 50 yard dash in under...well, running 50 yards...
The one whom I recognized, was officer Thornton.
I remembered him for his involvement with Brenda, one of my fellow employees at the gas station. Brenda had had to file a complaint against him after he tried to barge his way into the trailer that she was living in with her 16 year old daughter and her boyfriend. A neighbor had complained about smelling marijuana "coming from their trailer," and Thornton then lied to Brenda, telling her that an "eyewitness account" such as that gave him the right to enter and search her home.

Brenda knew better, but only after she shouted "I want to speak to the Sergeant on duty; you're not coming in my house!" loud enough to attract the attentions of her neighbors, did Officer Thornton stop trying to push his way past her.

What Have We Got Here?
The officers zeroed in on me, having guessed correctly, right off the bat, which one of us was the land owner and which the one who was living in a hole.

Thornton led the way.
"How are you doing? Do you have any ID?" -getting right down to business.

I told him yes, I did. It was in my backpack, in my dwelling.
As he followed me towards the trapdoor entrance, he asked me if I had any weapons "down there."
"No," I told him.
He insisted upon going down the ladder first, though, not that hadn't believed me...

"Where's your ID, In here?" he asked, as he started to reach for my backpack.

I had been "around the block" enough to know that he was attempting to get me to consent to him searching my backpack. Had I told him that my ID was in the front little pocket at the top, see for yourself, he would done just that, and then continued to rifle through the bag, later claiming "He let me go in his bag; to get his ID; I was already in there." I had seen enough cops in action, and had heard certain questions, phrased the same way, repeatedly.
I was starting to get an uneasy feeling. Thornton didn't seem to be impressed with the marvel of construction that my dwelling was -hadn't said "This is unbelievable!" once.
"I'll get it," I said, reaching for my backpack.
I reached into the pocket, after turning the bag so that it would be facing him, and opening the pocket slowly, and wide enough so that, had there been a gun in there, he would have been able able to see it, especially as he was leaning almost over me, his gaze darting around the pocket of the bag. He would have seen a gun the size of a postage stamp.
I produced my Virginia State Picture Identification card, issued by the government, and handed it to him.
"Is this all you have, I mean, you can get one of these with just a couple of documents. You got any thing else with your name on it?"
I felt like telling him that, if the state had determined that those particular "couple of documents" met their requirements as proof of a persons identity, and I had satisfied those requirements, then, I shouldn't have to furnish additional documents, just to satisfy a nosey cop.
"No, that's all I have, and some pay stubs," trying to let him know that I had a job, at the same time. Come on, I'm just a working man; trying to cut corners and get ahead a little bit...
Now, I was starting to regret not tossing my opened bottle of wine and hiding the Hustler magazines, which were on my bookshelf. The bad feeling was spreading to my stomach.

Officer Thornton shook his head at the notion of pay stubs. Anyone can get those just by working...

"Let's go out there. You go first, and I'll go behind you," he said, pointing to the ladder made of two by fours, which scaled the wall of quartz that looked like diamonds.
While Thornton had been getting my ID, the Sergeant had been talking to Mr. Woods, above ground, about 20 yards up the path.

The rookie had been standing around as if waiting for something to do. He certainly couldn't have been there to run me down, had I decided to bolt. The thought crossed my mind.

A Cheshire-grin wearing Sergeant left Mr. Woods side and sauntered over to me.
"That's quite a place you got there! How long did it take you build that?!?"
I continued in my belief that, since I was guilty of nothing more than trespassing, and since I was a hard working, well liked member of the community -things which would come to light, should the officers merely make a few phone calls- I would eventually be freed to move my stuff off of Mr. Woods land and go about my merry way.

I started to talk about the construction process in my most charming way, sprinkling humor in, where applicable, like telling them that I thought that I'd struck diamonds when I picked my way into a huge deposit of quartz along the wall facing the reservoir. I was trying to get them to like me.

They listened.

Then the Sergeant, his grin still present, took an opportunity to say "We gotta show the Lieutenant this; she'll love it!"

A call was made over his radio, and soon, not just the Lieutenant, a short thirty-ish woman with blond curly hair, arrived, so did more Charlottesville Police officers, plus some officers of Albemarle County.

Suddenly, Mr. Woods, who had assured me that he wasn't going to press charges against me for trespassing was no longer on the scene; only myself and about a dozen law enforcement officers.

"Nobody lives like this unless their on the run from something or hiding from something,"

-was the opinion voiced by the Sergeant, who was no longer grinning.

His previous "admiration" of my construction skills and curiosity about how long it took me to make such a fascinating thing, was put into perspective when he added "Well, we've got him for vandalism; he admitted to digging the hole..."

Then, it was Thorntons turn.
"Is that your car over there?"
"Yes"
"Do you have the keys, mind if we search it, we're gonna search it anyways?" If you're going to "search it anyways" then, why ask if I mind?
I realized that I could have insisted that they get a warrant to search my car, yet, I still clung to the hope that, even if the officers were convinced that "nobody lives like this, unless he is on the run from something," maybe the judge would be more impartial in dealing with a mere vandal.
In hindsight, I should have told them that I was done talking to them and that I wanted a lawyer, as soon as I had heard the word "vandalism." How badly had I defaced Mr. Woods property? 
Hair Raising Suspicion
"Go ahead, search my car, the keys are in between the limbs of that big apple tree!," I said; still thinking that the more they searched, the more they would find that I was just who I was -nothing to fear..
One of the things that I had used my car for, even after I had stopped sleeping in it; was as a  mirror I shaved in front of the side view mirror, and I brushed my hair, standing behind it, using the reflection that the darkly tinted rear window cast. After I finished brushing, I would usually pull a clump of hair out of the brush and drop it on the ground.
The officers found one of those clumps of hair..
I was suddenly handcuffed and told to sit cross legged on the ground, and warned about what would happen if I tried to stand up.
The officer who put the cuffs on me was trembling like a leaf. As he was doing so, I heard one of the officers, an expert on hair apparently, saying "Oh, it's definitely human, because deer hair...."
By then I was being referred to in the third person tense, as if I had been objectified; another bad sign. I was now "the suspect."
"Kind of creeps you out, doesn't it?" said one of the dozen cops, at one point, to another.
Yanked Out

I sat, handcuffed, in the back of one of their cruisers for about three and a half hours, while the officers pored through a book of statues, open on the back of another car, debating over which was the most serious infraction that they could charge "the suspect" with.
During this time-frame, I had the urge to urinate; and had told one of the officers so, who replied "You'll get a chance to" and then returned to the discussion. 
A tow truck arrived with a winch on the back. The cable was run out and dragged into the woods by a guy.
At a given signal, the winch reversed direction, and the cable began to wind onto the spool at a pretty fast rate, and within seconds, I saw my Honda Civic coming up the path at a pretty fast rate; banging left and right off trees, side-swiping all kinds of forestry, and then half hopping over, half smashing through the barricade of brush that I had dragged there, to hide the entrance, and landing with a sound -a combination of "thud" and scraping metal, at the foot of the tow truck, its grill full of dirt and clumps of vegetation, its sides scratched, its front fenders deformed. I hadn't been pulled out, rather, yanked out -Almost implying some personal grudge was at play.
Albemarle County Jail, For Me...

At the end of the three and a half hours, I was transported to the Albemarle County Jail, where I would get my chance to urinate.
Along with me, was brought the evidence: a clump of (my) hair and three copies of Hustler Barely Legal magazine...and the "police report."
I was given a chance to urinate, and then brought in front of the magistrate. (hey, that rhymes...)
This was only five months after the World Trade Center Attacks on September 11th, and the hunt was on for Osama Bin Laden, who, it was widely publicized, was believed to be living in what the news reports referred to as a "bunker," somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan.
The terrorists responsible for those attacks; it had become known; had fraudulently obtained drivers licenses from both the states of Florida and Virginia, taking advantage of loopholes which each had open in their systems, causing much "embarrassment" and prompting both to change their laws; closing the proverbial barn door after the proverbial horses had already escaped.
This had the effect of making those states become two of the most difficult in which to be issued ID (by installing a veritable "Catch 22," whereby you almost couldn't get an ID without first showing them the ID which had been "lost or stolen").

My Virginia State Identification card, which I had issued to me, after I turned in my Florida (yikes!) ID, only two months before the Trade Center attacks, was as "suspect" as myself.
"They're Gonna Hold Him! "

Could I also have been targeting the

University of Virginia Rowing Team,

which practiced in the reservoir?

The magazines,the clump of hair, the information that I had been found living in what the officers described as "a bunker," the officers assertion that "We don't even know who this guy is," the "location of arrest," annotated to inform that I was 200 feet from the City Water Supply and along the flight path of planes flying to and from the Charlottesville Regional Airport, 5 miles to the north of the reservoir (which the pilots probably used as a landmark) plus the fact that I was .9 miles from a school, to boot;  was enough of an ear full to convince the magistrate at the jail to have me placed into custody.
Officer Thornton, who had transported me to the jail, and another officer, probably there to bear witness to Thornton cantation of the above details, whooped and high-fived each other. "They're gonna hold him!" said Thornton, continuing to refer to me in the third person tense.
On my paperwork, the line reserved for the listing of the crime that I had been charged with, had "suspicion" written on it.
Ms. Dugger, Mr. Digger
I was given a public defender.

Llezelle, November 8th, 2011; Now

City Clerk of Charlottesville

Llezelle Dugger was her name; representing Daniel, the digger.
She told me at my first court appearance that the court was denying me a bond and that "I'm not going to argue it." Apparently she shared the same grave concerns that the State Attorney had about me being released into the community. ...what kind of attorney doesn't even argue for her client?
She showed up at the jail to meet with me a few days after. She was accompanied by another (male) Public Defender. The door to the "attorney/client meeting room" was propped open by a door-stop. Llezelle sat closest to the door, my chair was placed almost in the opposite corner of the room.
A "trial date" had been set for October 8th, eight months into the future.

Albemarle County Jail

I was housed in a protective custody wing of the jail, with mostly other white inmates. This was where inmates were kept, whom the classification folks deemed to be at risk of harm, should they be placed in with the general population. This is also where inmates were placed whom the same folks deemed to pose a risk of harming others, should they be placed in with the general population. I guess I was a little of both, being a suspected terrorist and all..
I was given the nickname of "caveman" by more than one guard. 
The protective custody, wing was furnished with two television sets, one (unofficially) the "white" one (NASCAR and American Movie Channel), the other, the "black" one (BET and more BET). There was a cabinet full of paperback books; I was soon reading 24 of them simultaneously. There was a huge vat of coffee brought in each morning, and a basketball court out of a side door.
I became pretty certain, as my days and weeks went by in that wing, that there was no other place that the jail dared put me, because of my charge of "suspicion." It made me seem kind of suspicious, I guess.
I was twice caught brewing wine, using apples, raisins, orange juice, bread yeast and a lot of sugar. I was never removed from the protective custody wing, though, only "written up."
Letters, Scent
Letters From Xanna began to arrive quite frequently. 
They were written upon black paper, using gold mettalic ink. They were written in calligraphy, every letter almost perfect, done by quill. They were long, averaging 12.8 pages each (I'm estimating) and they all had been marinated in purfume. When the mail cart arrived, wheeled to the food/mail slot by the mail officer, and as soon as the metal slot was opened, before the officer had even called the first name, I could smell weather or not I was getting a letter from Xanna that day. So could the rest of the wing.
The letters expressed a deep and abiding love, and a promise to stand by me, and to wait for me faithfully, and told me that I was in her thoughts every minute of every day. 
Our relationship through letters would wind up being closer than the ones we had whenever we were physically together.
She also attested her refusal to believe "what they said you did to that goat!" "That's ridiculous, I know you better than that!"*
She offered to send money, and to bail me out if it got to be "too much in there," for me.
Not having an understanding of jail finances, Xanna started sending me amounts each week close to 200 dollars.
In jail, a dollar and a half can get one a Honey Bun from the commissary, which can then be traded to someone for their entire breakfast tray, the orange juice included. This is because the meals served by the jail are sugar free, (because some people aren't supposed to have sugar, and rather than go through the trouble of separating those out and giving them special diets; they just give sugar to nobody at all -problem solved) and there are guys in jail craving it like heroin.
Thus, Xanna made me a wealthy man, while I was in there...
A lot of the other inmates in the wing were educated, especially in the ways of Virginia "justice." 
None of them gave me any encouragement while trying to get me to understand things like "Virginia is a commonwealth, not a state, they can hold you for as long as they want, for any reason they see fit!" and "All a woman has to do in this commonwealth is call the police and tell them that you hit her, and they will automatically put you in jail, even if you don't even know the woman; then, it's up to you to hire a lawyer to prove your innocence..."
I was eventually (finally) given a "bond hearing," where a bond was set at $20,000. I probably wouldn't have been given any chance to bond out, had it not been for Xanna "lobbying" for me on the outside. Apparently the grandmother -the one who had bequeathed all the land and money to her and her siblings- had influence in the county, which still resonated in Xanna from beyond the grave... 
I could now bond out of jail, but, I had to give a valid address, where I would be staying while out. I couldn't await my trial while living in a hole in the ground.
Enter Xanna.
She showed up at the jail with $20,000 in cash, and on the form where it was to be listed the address where I would be residing while out on bond, well, that was pretty much academic: I would be staying out in Rochelle, Virginia, on a road so rural that it had no name, only a number; at Xannas house. 
Her will had been done.
I walked out of the jail to see her waiting in her Mustang, to take us home.
As she drove, her lips were pressed together into a hint of a smile.
She had her man.

*When I was in the Duval County Jail (Jacksonville, Florida) in 1999, my cellmate and I both had senses of humor. 
Every inmate in that jail receives, after being booked, a "booking sheet," upon which is listed his charges, along with the exact Florida statute number of the violation, along with his mug shot and other information. 
Some display theirs proudly upon their little toiletry shelf (such as those charged with "aggravated battery," or especially "assault on a law enforcement officer," -these are "credible" charges which gain them instant respect from the other inmates, as a person not to be messed with, or as a "hero" of sorts)..
Others, with less credibility (such as wife beaters) usually flush theirs down the commode, before some other nosy inmate sees it.
My cellmate and I were both charged with very petty crimes (mine was for writing a worthless check, Prevarian's -as that was his name- was for something like disturbing the peace). We both expected to be out in no time (dinner, a hot shower, some TV, a good night's rest, and then back on the street the next day...) and were thus both in good spirits.
As a joke, I took a pen and added a phony charge to Prevarians booking sheet, on the next line after the disturbing the peace charge, along with making up a phony statute number, off the top of my head.
I then said something like, "I don't know, Prevarian, do you really think the judge is gonna let you out tomorrow; this looks pretty serious..." showing him the paperwork.
I had added something like "Assault on a clergyman with a deadly weapon; to wit: a crucifix -F.S. 801-41-038a." We had a good chuckle.
Later that evening, he returned the joke, asking me the same question. Upon mine, he had written "Rape of a farm animal; to wit: a goat -F.S. 123-65-099c (or something)"
The original sheets were photocopied, and it was obvious, well, should have been obvious to anyone, that they had been written over with a ball point pen.
However, after my release, mine got stuffed  into a manilla envelope, along with my other jail-related stuff; and forgotten about. 

In the event of losing one's ID, sometimes the paperwork from the jail can facilitate the acquiring of a now one. After all, they took your picture and your fingerprints...so, I kept my records, just in case.
I guess I kinda sorta should have tossed out the "goat" sheet, though. The envelope was still somewhere in the trunk of my Civic, and the cops found it; amending their report to include mention of it.


Next Installment: Chapter 5: Life Back To Paranormal

Flashback Friday: December, 2001 - February, 2002

The hillside by the reservoir

Chapter 3
From Cold Springs To Hot Tubs

Through November, I worked to complete my dwelling, making it warm and dry and comfortable.

December, 2001

I deemed it complete on December 10th, which was also the last day that I took a bath in the dammed up stream. The air temperature was 65 degrees, that day -about the same as the water.
I was spending a lot of my free time playing the Ibanez guitar which Xanna had given me for my birthday, passing the wee hours of the morning in the booth with it, using the security camera to make videos of myself playing my compositions, and would then make copies of them onto VHS cassettes.
Xanna continued to visit me in the booth after she got off work. We continued to have long conversations, before she went off to park her Mustang somewhere and sleep in it. She always seemed to lost in thought during those conversations, as if trying to solve a puzzle. She didn't visit my house in the woods again.
I learned that she had an ex-husband, with the same name as the abusive ex-boyfriend: Tom. They had one child together, a boy named Emory, who was 14 years old, at that time. Tom, the ex-husband had custody of him.
Xanna saw him only on  weekends, which they would spend at the house in the country. I later learned that these were the only times that she would sleep in her own house.
One of my co workers at the gas station, Brenda -a single mother herself- mentioned, upon hearing about this arrangement, that it was highly unusual for a judge in Virginia to award custody to the father, in a divorce settlement -"99% of the time, the mother gets the kids...unless there is something really wrong with the mother; like she's mentally ill or a drug addict, or something..."

Into January...
It turned out that Xanna and I, in addition to both being musicians, were both pretty big football fans.
My favorite team, The New England Patriots had made the playoffs, and were scheduled to play in the first round on January 19, 2002, against The Oakland Raiders (in what would go down in history as the "tuck rule" game).
She informed me that she had booked a room at The Marriott Hotel, for the occasion, inviting me there to watch the game, and also giving me a chance to meet Emory.
When I met him, I jokingly introduced myself as "Tom," before saying "Just kidding!" ...What's this thing that mom has about guys named Tom?
We watched the game, but not before Xanna insisted that we visit the indoor swimming pool and especially the hot tub. I remembered her having told me that she had installed a hot tub at her house and couldn't help thinking that she was trying to get me to like the idea of lounging in one.
I then enjoyed sipping red wine and watching the game. Emory was thrilled to see that it was being played in a snow storm. He called it "The Snow Bowl."
The Patriots won.
Xanna told me afterwards that Emory had thought that I was "cool" and fun to be around.
The next round of the playoffs the following week would have The Patriots playing against, coincidentally enough, Xannas favorite team, The Pittsburg Steelers. She would book another room in an equally nice hotel, with an equally nice hot tub.

Into February...
I See Xannas House
The Patriots advanced to the Superbowl. Xanna chose this occasion to invite me to watch the game at her house, and to see it for the first time.
She brought me there, along with Emory, who was on another weekend visit.
Half of it had been built in the early 1900's, and another part attached in the 1970's.
It sat on 3.19 acres, most of it wooded. The driveway circled around what looked like might have once been a flower bed, now overgrown with trees.
The side which faced the dirt road, had what looked like a front porch, but the walkway leading it it was also overgrown with vegetation. Xanna used the side door, closest to the driveway, where ex-boyfriend Toms black Monte Carlo sat in a state of disrepair.
Prominent in the kitchen as we walked in was a wood burning stove, with a plate bearing the manufacturers name and a date of "1788."
"You have to be careful, because if you put too much wood in it, it will set the wallpaper on fire," said Xanna, showing me the blackened wall a couple feet away from it as proof.
The house was, as advertised: drafty.
The heat wouldn't go very far, she added, before it fell prey to the drafts down the hall.
The kitchen was part of the old section of the house. 
Past the stove, to the left, began a short hallway, which had been attached in the 70's, and which led to two rooms; one full of junk, the other with a couch and an entertainment center, apparently where Tom, the ex-boyfriend had drank his Crown Royal, cranked Metallica and played video games.
On the couch lounged two cats, that Xanna introduced to me as "Mr. Mercury," and "Mr. Falls."
Mr. Falls had gotten his moniker by virtue of being white and having fir running down his front side which looked like a waterfall.
Mr. Mercury, had been rescued by Xanna from an animal shelter. "He was supposed to be free, but I wound up having to pay fifteen dollars for his shots...he was a rip-off!" she said, as she petted his grayish brown head. I was glad to see that she had a sense of humor.
Along this hallway, were placed a small wooden table with two wooden chairs on the left, and a wooden bookcase on the right, which was populated with, among other things, candles, incense and books about witchcraft, I noticed. "Those books and stuff were left behind by a guy that I was letting stay here for a while. He went to California," Xanna explained, when she noticed me noticing. 
At the end of the hall was another door and, through the quartered panes of its window could be seen the hot tub, sitting upon a concrete slab.
"I keep it at about 90 degrees when I'm away, to save electricity, but in a few hours it can be up to a comfortable temperature," said Xanna and then pressed her lips firmly together -her common gesture- as if to drive home the point or imply "...despite what anyone says!".
Down the drafty hall of the "old section," which she seemed to "keep" at about 40 degrees, there was a music room on the right, where resided Xannas Baby Grand piano. Its mantissa supported a book of sheet music which was opened to Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag," published in 1899. 
Along that hall, past some rows of shelves on the left, which held mostly towels and which had been positioned as if to bar the entrance to another room, there ran a staircase which ascended to an unfinished second floor (she called it "the attic"). The upper aperture of the staircase had been sealed off with plastic sheeting, secured with duct tape, and a probable conduit for some of the drafts which seemed to swirl everywhere. 
At the end of the hallway was what looked like was intended to be the front door. It too had been sealed off with plastic and duct tape. To each side of it were doorways, leading to bedrooms.
The main bedroom was on the right, where sat a kerosene heater on the hardwood floor, in between a king sized bed and a mahogany dresser. The bed was covered by a heavy quilt in autumnal hues. Atop the dresser sat a jewelry box next to a display rack which was adorned with an onyx necklace. "I like onyx, always have!," she said, before pressing her lips together, as if to imply "...despite what anyone Else's opinion is!"
There was a small antiquated looking couch against the far wall near the foot of the bed, and a small antiquated looking wooden table near the head of the bed, with a phone sitting on it. Its touch pad being one of the few "modern" touches in that room. ...So this is where she hardly ever sleeps...
Across the hall was another bedroom -the one where Emory slept during his weekend visits.
A woman had purportedly "gone insane and killed herself" in that room, long ago, when the old section was the new section.

A Super Sunday
After this tour of the house, the three of us repaired to the TV room to watch the Superbowl.
I had to do some fiddling with the rabbit ear antenna and eventually place  it outside the house after running its cable out a window, so that we wouldn't be watching another Snow Bowl.
We enjoyed good food (I had grilled T-bone steaks over hickory wood, which was plentiful in the yard) and wine (soda for Emory) and a great Superbowl, which came down to a last-second field goal.
Sitting there together with the cats by our sides and the kerosene heater blazing like a hearth, felt like a "family" atmosphere. There was a lot of laughter and kidding around.
"Yes! Can there be any doubt that The Patriots are the greatest team that is; ever was; or ever will be?!?" I exclaimed every time they made a good play, to the amusement of all.
Then, "They are the worst bunch of ragtag, pathetic losers to ever don a uniform, they're horrible; horrible!" whenever they had a miscue, to the amusement of all.
Emory giggled as we wrestled on the couch, recreating tackles made on the field.
We all seemed to get along great and it felt like I had everything that I needed there.
I had grown to love being out in nature, living as I did. I loved feeding animals, tending a fire every night and cooking over it. I liked the peace and quit.
There we were, 29 miles out into the country, surrounded by miles of woods with two cats, a wood burning stove inside and a grill outside.
My spring water fed tub could be replaced, quite amply by the hot tub.
I could have a music room to play and record in, adding a piano to the mix, if I so desired.
Then there was the entertainment center, hell, I could drink Crown Royal, crank Metallica and play video games all the time...
By the time the game had ended, the hot tubs thermometer was reading 100 degrees, a temperature that Xanna assured me would be just about right; and I found that she had been right, as I sunk into the water. I happened to notice that she had a lovely shape to her body, once out of her work clothes and into a one-piece bathing suit.
As we soaked in the water, watching the stars in the February sky above, she invited me to spend the night, adding "I don't really feel like driving all the way to Charlottesville." 
I did.
I realised that  I could have it really well there, surrounded by creature comforts, Xanna included.
Yet, I still balked at agreeing to move out there. I had worked hard on the life that I had made for myself in Charlottesville, with a comfortable place to stay and a steady job within walking distance of it.
"We need to see about getting you a car," Xanna said; apropos of nothing, as she stared up at the sky.
She seemed to be doing everything in her power to get me to move in with her, but I continued to resist. She even told me that I could dig out a dwelling in the clay of her back yard "if you feel more comfortable living underground..."
Soon though, other irresistible powers would come into play, and Xanna would get her way.
A Voice In The Forest
February 19, 2002

Two weeks, to the day, after we had watched the Superbowl at Xannas house, I was at my dwelling, after having gotten off work.
I had just opened a bottle of wine and was letting some red snapper marinate in a dish. 
I had chosen white wine that particular day -the first time I had done so since the previous summer. It was the first day of the year forecast to reach 80 degrees. The spring-like conditions made me feel like I had come through to the other side of winter with flying colors, and that things would now only get better. I had gotten the white wine (a "summer thing" for me) to celebrate having staved off the elements, and to toast my bright near future. 
I had just gotten my fire started.
I closed my eyes and was in the middle of offering up a prayer of thanksgiving, when, just as my mind was letting go into it; I heard a voice. 
It was muffled slightly, and I thought that I might have imagined it, or that the Lord may have audibly spoken to me; like some people claim to have happened the them.
Sticking my head up through the trapdoor, I caught the sight of a man about 100 feet away, along the path which lead to where my car was parked. He was headed away from where my car was; towards the road.
I realised that  it had been his voice that I heard after he added something which sounded like "You're not supposed to be burning out here!"
Had he come down the path far enough to have seen my car?
What transpired the next few minutes is something that I have often replayed in my mind. Had I the opportunity to go back and do things differently, I surely would have.
I decided to catch up to the guy and try to explain my situation -that I was just a guy who came into town almost broke and homeless, but who now had a job and was just trying to make the best of things -hoping that he wouldn't call the police to report me "burning out here."
Leaving my fire smouldering, my fish marinating and my bottle of wine uncorked, I set off after him.
When I reached the road, I saw a white truck parked in front of the pile of brush which I had dragged there to hide the entrance of what used to be a logging road. The name of a tree cutting service was emblazoned upon the side door. The man that I had seen in the woods was standing on the passenger side, speaking through the window to a skinny man with a scraggly beard, who was sitting behind the wheel. 
I introduced myself and attempted to explain as best as I could about my situation, from my arriving in Charlottesville, my getting a job, and the fact that I was just trying to make myself comfortable. "I'm not one of these homeless guys who sleeps on a piece of cardboard in front of a business at night, trying to get someone to pity him and throw him some money..." I was trying to put them at ease.
They were there to survey; preparing to cut down some lumber, they explained. They also pointed out that I was not quite upon the "city property" that I originally thought that I was on; having missed by about 25 feet, "-just to let you know..."
They were polite and seemed to sympathise with me.
The one that I'd seen in the woods actually told me that he too was once "down and out" and had to sleep outside (I would have thought it of the one with the scraggly beard) and that he didn't hold it against me. He glanced at the guy behind the wheel who shook his head, as if to say that he didn't hold it against me, either.
"There's only one problem, though" said the guy from the woods. "I already called the landowner, and he's on his way out here." He was holding a cell phone.
The owner of the land that I had built my dwelling on had the apt name of  "Mr. Woods," I was informed
Mr. Woods
.
"Well, let me at least go pick up some trash, and make it more presentable," I said, before walking off to return to my place.
I really didn't envision Mr. Woods having any great problem with my being there (apart from the fact that I was trespassing). I was kind of proud of my dwelling, having put about a hundred hours of work into it, and a part of me wanted to show it off. I guess the "cat was out of the bag," and I might have to move on, but, who knew; maybe he would let me continue to live on his land...
I had managed to save almost four thousand dollars, working at the East Coast station, investing in the stock market and living like I had, and I thought that, at worse, the free ride was over; maybe I would be able to move down a couple hundred feet and rebuild, this time on city property, where nobody would be coming to gather lumber.
I waited at my place for him to arrive. I didn't think about going through all my possessions, tossing out anything which might reflect negatively on me. I didn't pour my wine out; rather; sipped it, and was considering putting the red snapper on the grill. Maybe he would be hungry.
He soon arrived, flanked by the two tree surgeons, as if for protection.
"This is unbelievable," he repeated more than once, as he looked at my handiwork.
I started to fill him in on my recent history and what had lead me to constructing a dwelling in the woods. I showed him pay stubs from my full time job at the gas station. I told him about my investments in the stock market, and even offered him some investment advice, based upon my hours of pouring through issues of The Wall Street Journal during the wee hours of every morning.
I told him how I had actually stood in my dwelling, hair all mussed up and sweating from having shovelled and swung the pick ax, and arranged stock transactions with someone on the other end, who was on Wall Street and probably wearing a three piece suit. "Imagine if he could have seen who he was dealing with!"
"You even have a cell phone! This is unbelievable!" repeated Mr. Woods.
He seemed to calm down and become understanding, eventually saying: "Well, we all have to do what we need to, in order to survive and get by. If this is all you're doing is just living out here, I'll be more than willing to let you -I'll give you a certain amount of time, maybe a week- to move your stuff out of here -I really can't let you stay, there's insurance considerations -if you got hurt out here, you could probably sue me; you know how all that goes, but...and, I'm going to have people out here knocking down trees, and a bulldozer, so it could be dangerous...I'm getting ready to sell the land, and, well..."
I had the impression that Mr. Woods, landowner, never had to do whatever he needed to do, in order to survive, but I seemed to have garnered some respect from him, as I spoke to him; some of the incredulity went out of his voice, at least.
I remember thinking: I've had had a good little run here, living for free -just erred a bit with the location that I chose- all things must pass.. I've got a few thousand dollars saved...that'll help me to relocate to somewhere else...
Then, he said something that would alter the course of my life.
"Um, I'd kind of like the police to come out and just run a quick check on you, just to make sure you're not doing anything wrong out here, you understand...other than that, I'm fine with you just picking up and moving on...I'm not going to press charges on you, or anything..."

Coming Next Installment: The Police Freak Out!
Excerpt:
The police freaked out as if they had found another uni bomber. They seemed convinced that I was on the run from something because, as one cop said: "Nobody lives like this unless they're on the run from something." 
This was shortly after the "9/11" attacks on the World Trade Center, and....