“You have no right to be here - bother me like this. Here’s your out; take it!” What she means is, you’d rather go home, so go! But what it sounds like it a threat. The policewoman sighs and gestures at her partner. They both begin to approach. Maggie braces herself, determined not to move.
“Ma’m, you are under arrest for trespassing. Please set down your weapon and put your hands on your head. Representation will be provided for you by the city. Your rights will be explained…” Maggie spits.
The policewoman takes Maggie by the right arm, twisting in such a way that she has to release the dowling rod. Suddenly deprived of her cane Maggie lurches onto her bad leg and pitches off-balance sideways. The policeman catches her from falling with a quick and helpful arm around her back, catching her under the armpit, but he can’t have known about the newly re-opened wounds there around the limbs she shouldn’t have. Maggie lets out a howl of pain that startles the two cops into dropping her.
“Shit.” The policeman mutters, seeing some kind of assault charge filed in his near future. Maggie has fallen to her hands and knees and is swearing violently through clenched teeth. The policeman takes out a handset and activates some static with a squeeze of the thumb. “28th, dispatch, we need a paramedic at 177…”
“No!” Maggie exclaims, on her haunches now and mentally preparing to climb to her feet. “No doctors! I’m fine, shit, fuck, I’m fine!” The whites of her eyes overwhelm the green irises. The policeman looks skeptical but pauses his request with a “Hold on.”
“I’ve just got a bum leg, alright?” She continues. “For Christ’s sake, don’t waste anyone else’s time on this farce.” She heaves herself to a stand using her good leg and makes a very good show of looking capable of remaining upright. “I’m just a fucking gimp, alright? Keep your hands off me and I’ll be just fine.” The policeman radios in a cancellation and looks at her expectantly. It’s not likely that he sees the fury burning in Maggie’s eyes. Pick your battles, she tells herself. Today she can’t fight them, but there will be other days. Other days when she will not let her weaknesses hang on the end of her sleeve. Today, she goes with them.
***
They book her into a holding cell deep in the bowels of city hall, past the vaulted front doors, the four storey glass lobby, the spiral staircases and the miniature cityscapes. It’s a different side of city hall, one you access through subterranean parking lots and service entrances. They traveled a full twenty minutes underground before the car had arrived somewhere that they could let Maggie out.
The cell is spacious and painfully public. It’s built to hold crowds of up to as many as sixty people. Fence wire is held tightly in place with a heavy steel cage frame. Plastic benches are bolted the floor around the perimeter of the enclosure. The distant walls are painted hospital green, with hospital blue visible where the paint is flaking off the concrete. Maggie is entertaining herself wondering why anyone would bother overwriting a hideous blue with a hideous green when her council arrives, the only being she has seen since the duty officer escorted her to this cage four hours ago.
He's a little man, her council, and young. Younger than Maggie, she thinks. He has the bearing of a squirrel, this little man. He's barely half a head taller than Maggie's own 120 centimeter stretch, though the fluffy island of hair holding forth against the vast expanses of premature baldness perhaps gives him some height he has not fairly earned. He has thick square hipster glasses and fuzzy sideburns that accentuate the squatness of his head. He smiles confidently as he approaches the cage with a guard, but he has a tendency to twitch that betrays his nerves. Young and new, Maggie thinks. Paying his dues doing the good work before the lure of private sector cash finally crushes the last of his idealism.
"Hello, Hetty." He smiles at her openly, a look of honesty that almost makes Maggie feel bad that she'd wouldn't give them her real name. "I'm Dan Malloy. I'll be helping you out today." The guard fiddles with the lock on the door and lets the little man stick his head in. Maggie doesn't say anything to him, but waits to see what angle he has brought with him. "You can come with me so we can have a little chat, alright?" Maggie hops down off the bench and limps over to the door. Dan Malloy frowns. He gives the guard a suspicious look, but the guard is a faceless obelisk that does not contain any secrets to betray.
Maggie works the guy out before they get to conference room 2A. His inexperience shows in how he has a wallet with actual cash in the back pocket of his pants and in the quality of the blazer he has worn to a face-to-face with an unknown streetie. His politics are displayed on the sides of his fair-trade sneakers. His gullibility is unfortunately given away by the seriousness with which he is taking representation of a bum with a trespassing fine looming. He looks at her in the eyes, not averting his gaze, as if he actually gives a shit how this is going to work out.
"Can I get you anything?" He offers as they sit at a table in an otherwise empty room. "Have you eaten anything?" Maggie resists the urge to sigh or roll her eyes and just shakes her head instead. Truth be told, she has felt off all day and the idea of food makes her stomach brace itself as if its about to revolt. Dan Malloy looks disappointed and slips some papers out of his book bag. "The charges levied against you are trespassing with a minor mischief misdemeanor. The city requires only a fine be paid or equivalent public service. You will have to complete 12 hours of counseling with an appointed representative - I have someone from the Streets are for People network lined up - and to show up for the court date. So if you'll just-"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Dan Malloy," Maggie interrupts. "I thought you were my council. When do I get to speak to someone about contesting these charges?" The little lawyer looks up in surprise, not expecting even this little eloquence from a girl who looks like a well-worn sleeping bag. Maggie smiles sweetly and tries to let intelligence show in her eyes.
"Well I'm your - contest the charges? I'm afraid this is an open and shut case Miss.... ah.... King. Counseling and some public service is the usual plea for someone in your... circumstances." He adjusts his glasses and wriggles his little nose with a squirrelly sniffle.
"I have no doubt that these are really great plea terms Mr. Dan Malloy, but I don't have any intention of pleading for a moment's mercy. Not guilty. Want to write that somewhere? I'll sign that." Maggie looks at his papers with a feigned innocence. Dan Malloy smiles at her and gives her a sly look, one half conspiratorial and one part patronizing, like a skeptical agent who wants to believe what he's hearing.
"Call me Dan, please. Who are you?" He starts slowly.
"Why, I'm Hetty King, Dan." Maggie says with some sarcasm. He sighs.
"Right, right... fine. Let me explain the charges. You were found by two on-duty police officers on the site of
"I wasn't on the grounds of 177 Bellview."
"Both police officers have entered their paperwork saying you were. You won't get anywhere calling them liars."
"I think you'll find I was fully and squarely on the grounds of 179 Bellview, Dan. The man who came to scare me away - I've never seen him before. I don't believe a minute that he had the authority to tell me where to be!" Dan Malloy looks curious, so Maggie has tossed him the biggest treat she can think of. She uses her best "aw gee" voice and looks at him with her big green eyes (pupils only slightly dilated). She knows what he sees: Some smart, pretty young girl down on her luck and being unfairly marginalized by a society that can't look after its sick and its poor. She has nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to. Here she is, articulate and presentable, sort of, whose only crime was getting in the way of The Man, not fitting into the System. Dan Malloy is, against all reason, becoming hooked.
"Now listen, Miss. King, lets assume a minute that we," She notices he doesn't say "you". "That we have some wriggle room here - and let me emphasize that I don't think that we do - even if we did, if you don't agree to this plea now than you will be booked into more permanent lodgings down the hall. Unless, of course, you're ready to give us your real name and a contact we can approach for bail." He looks at her pointedly, but her look says only that she's still listening. "The only way out of here right now is this plea or bail." He repeats. Maggie makes a show of looking like she's considering these two horrible evils.
"Do you think you can do this, check the lots of 177 and 179 Bellview?" She asks with a shy glance. She pretends to be studying his papers because she's starting to feel nauseous. She needs to extract promises from him before she blows her image as a basically-nice-girl by vomiting somewhere.
"Well, sure." He says slowly. "But..."
"179 is owned by a tenant’s association. They'd leave me alone, I know they would." She focuses on a spot on the table. She's starting to experience vertigo. She tries to control it by distancing herself from the feeling - Since when do I suffer from vertigo? She wonders absently.
"I'll check the lots, Miss. King. But please, consider speaking with the councilor. She can..." Maggie starts nodding to shut him up. Now she is going to puke.
"Can I use a washroom?" She asks in a weak, wet voice. He hasn't finished assenting when she gets up and runs for it, the guard barely on her heels. She manages to direct most of the mess into the bowl. At least I got him to promise to help first. She thinks. And then, I haven't even had anything to drink today. This is fucked. She spits up a quantity of smooth, milk-white vomit that seems impossible, given what she has eaten and drunk lately. But she's too sick to give it much thought. As for Dan Malloy in the guard; they look away, embarrassed. Meth, they figure. They think they've seen it before.
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