Ramble On #3

Welcome to my new blog series - Ramble On. It is a travel based blog, created for the sole purpose of exploring new creative writing opportunities. It's bent is deliberately humorous. The stories are predominantly fiction.

This is post 25 in @dragosroua's January 30 day writing challenge.

Getting Arrested – For Resisting Arrest

The bar was filled with revellers out celebrating. I'm not particularly sure what they were celebrating. Perhaps their ability to revel. Some of them were quite good at it. It was Friday evening, the place was heaving with a rowdy bunch of all sorts. Office workers stuck in that time zone of having left work for the week, but nowhere near ready to go home. Backpackers from the nearby hostels looking to get drunk, get laid, or get an extension on their nearly expired visas (okay, they were probably in the wrong place for that last one). Even football fans out celebrating because their team won – or lost. Celebrate long enough and you generally can't remember which one it was. And does it really matter anyway? Apparently so. Perhaps best not to upset the football fans.

I was seated at a table with a few friends from my hostel. We were taking it in turns to see who could talk the most amount of shite. Okay officially we were having a conversation. But if you had have been eaves dropping then that would have been the conclusion you'd most likely have come to. We downed the local ale like it was going out of fashion, and proceeded to one up each other on the exaggeration factor. Until it became somewhat difficult to even make coherent words.

I think I learned a lot about my fellow travellers that night. I say 'think' because I can't actually remember. It's like a floater you get on your eyeball and when you are trying to look at something it's right there blocking the way. That's how my memories of those conversations are. I know they're there. I can see them, obscured behind something blocking the way. I know that I know so much about these friends of mine. It's like we've known each other for lifetimes. Except I can't remember any of it.

I have a tendency to forget a person's name only moments after they've told me. Imagine what I'm like drunk. Well for starters, I can't even remember my own name. I can't remember all those stories we were sharing. And worst of all, I can't even recall what level of shite I was regurgitating. No wonder I get hangovers!

Anyway, we all had a blast. Memories or otherwise I'm positively convinced of it. But then it was time to go home. I could still walk. In the general sense of placing one foot in front of the other. It may actually have resembled more of an Irish jig. And that may have been why a couple of local police officers came over to us as we made our way back to the hostel.

"Hello Occifers," I said, trying to show due respect to the law.

"Had a bit to drink, have we now?" he said to my little group in reply. There were four of us in total. I think we may have been jovial, and in hindsight two o'clock in the morning may not have been the best time for such behaviour where the police congregate like a pack of sharks ready to devour hapless drunken tourists. But we were not driving, so no one had had the foresight to choose a designated walker. So we staggered, like a line of lost souls, trying to remember where we were staying, or at the very least where we were right then.

"Just a little," one of our group replied. I would tell you his name, but I can't remember it. He put his thumb and pointer finger near each other to indicate the little that we had just had. Then he proceeded to stagger around in a circle, before promptly falling in a heap beside the police officer. We very quickly heard snores rising from our recently toppled drinking companion.

"Okay you lot, I think you all could do with a rest down at the lock up." I heard the officer clearly say those words, but in my inebriated state, I was sure he was referring to the hostel. That's what I thought some of the others had called it – 'The Lockup.' Seems I was wrong. As he was calling his partner over to assist I started walking back to the hostel. Like I thought he wanted me to.

The rest is a bit of a blur. Oh who am I kidding, it's all a bit of a blur. Even what I just told you. Except next thing I knew I was being arrested. Both officers pinned me to the ground and told me in unison, "you're under arrest." The stereo effect did nothing for my emerging headache.

"What am I under arrest for?"

"For resisting arrest?" they replied. Their united vocal talents were still in working order.

"That's the first arrest I can remember. How could I have resisted it when I've only now been arrested." I was confusing myself with all this double talk. I felt like I was in a real life Escher drawing.

"No, we asked you before to come down to the station."

"Oh that," I said. "I thought that was a suggestion." Or did I? I can't really remember what I thought. I know I thought these two were overstaying their welcome.

"Then you walked off."

"Walking off is probably an over statement. I would suggest it was more like floated off in an inebriated breeze of distilled reflection." Oh listen to me trying to sound like a blogger. You should have seen the look on their faces when I said that. I would have taken a photograph if I could. But my hands were handcuffed behind my back. And my camera was back at the hostel. But you get the point.

"I didn't understand a word you just said," one of them said to me.

"It's okay, I'm a blogger. I get paid to put fancy words together." Actually, to tell you the truth, I didn't understand I word I had said either. But you know what - this alcohol has a bigger mouth than I do. And it was getting me into some serious trouble. Even my mates were looking me in stunned silence. Except what's his name, he was still snoring away on the footpath.

"So I've been arrested for resisting arrest. Do I have two arrests against my name now?"

"No, just the one."

"That's going to look confusing." Well I thought so.

"I'll arrest you for doing my head in, if you're not careful." The senior of the two was showing his impatience with an increase in vocal tone. And his eyes were getting bulgy also. That made him look more Rodney Dangerfield than Dirty Harry. But I could feel the alcohol wearing off somewhat. I was feeling less like my inebriated self, and more like the person I drink to escape from. And my head was starting to pound like an African drumming circle, being performed by a troupe with no sense of rhythm. I shut my mouth and followed them back to their version of the lockup.

At least I didn't get arrested for being a travel blogger.

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