Cuffed

Shortly after being arrested, she is interviewed by the police captain who offers her coffee which she cannot drink while cuffed to the steel chair.
She really likes coffee.

"I'm sorry about this ma'am, but you just can't go around town doing that stuff. It's against the law," he said, trying to sound fatherly. (To himself – "damn women libbers and their crazy ass notions of making dramatic statements.")

"Sir, if you'd just allow me to explain," she started.

"You see little girl, you just can't go around throwing your dirty laundry all over the street. It's not appropriate and it's disruptive. You damn near put out that poor guy's eye with the wire hanger!" he added, gesturing to a wounded sap slumped in a corner with an ice pack on his face.

She turned to look at the injured guy. She hadn't meant to really hurt anyone with it. After all, it's just laundry, right? I mean, it's her stuff. The hanger was in there by mistake. She hadn't seen it at the bottom of the hamper before she hurled it onto Coliseum Boulevard.

"I'm really sorry," she said.

"Well, you certainly have a lot to be sorry about!" the captain said, tapping his pen on his notepad. "Now tell me why in the hell you pulled such a stunt and maybe we'll go easy on you."

"Officer, it really was just a purging of stuff I can't really have anymore – stuff that won't fit right. You know, I figured someone else would benefit; they could have it. I haven't been able to wear any of it right for years and frankly, I thought someone else could make something great of it. That's all," she said, half lying. (Do people go to jail for telling half truths? She wasn't sure.)

"And the Good Will or Salvation Army wouldn't do?" he asked.

"They don't take that kind of stuff," she replied. "They wouldn't. I already asked!"

"What about the garbage?" the irritable captain said, snarfling a donut through his enormous mustache.

He really was an unpleasant guy. Who knew this was such a crime? Goodness, you'd have thought she shot someone in broad daylight. Then again, the poor chap with the bruised cornea was probably still pretty pissed off.

"All I can say is that I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't want to throw it away. It didn't seem right to waste it, let it just decompose out there with everyone else's wasted memories. I wanted to get rid of it, but didn't want it to die!"

She smiled at this, realization making a pretty curl around her teeth. She wasn't sure she really felt like that until now. And she had seen a nice looking woman pick up one of the old running shoes that had fallen closest to the gutter. She had spit shined the stripes before tucking them into her purse. The thought of that woman getting the same miles out of those shoes, well, made her feel really happy inside. The whole shebang was worth it.

"You should go out there and pick it all up, you know," the captain added.

Suddenly, she stood up, the cheap chair dangling behind her at the wrists. She hadn't realized her own strength. "Book me," she said.

"What the?"

"You heard me. If this is it, I'll do the time."