Things Fall Apart

3:12AM - Sunday, June 25, 2006. My phone rings. Katie picks it up. She hands the phone to me, says that it's Jenny, and she's calling because Joe Boles has been arrested. I need to call Gerald, because he's been left on the side of the road as Joe was whisked off to jail.

I call Gerald, and he picks up his phone, telling me that Joe has been arrested and he's now left on the corner of Pullen and Western Boulevard. We ask him how Joe is doing, and he drops the first of several quotable quotes from the evening: "FORGET ABOUT JOE, I'M WALKING DOWN WESTERN BOULEVARD LIKE A TRICK. COME AND GET ME!" He also informs us that someone sober needs to go to the police station as pose as Joe's girlfriend, and will then be released on his own recognizance. We tell Gerald that we don't know how to get to the police station. He tells us not to worry, he knows where it is. We all should have asked how a 27-year old SCHOOLTEACHER who went to college in GREENVILLE knew where the RALEIGH police station was. However, it was a little too late and we were all a little too stunned to ask.

We then take an informal survey of the room to see which girl was sober and coherent enough to go to the police station at 3:30AM to get Joe out. I had appointed myself the middleman/stenographer of the evening, and I said I needed to be there to field any phone calls. Amber was too bombed to make it, Tracey was making believe that she was asleep, and Katie could only open one eye. So the duty falls to Will's girlfriend (forgive me for not remembering the name), and she bravely marches out to get Gerald off the side of the road to go to the police station. Will stays in the bed with Katie, trying to take a trip to snuggle-town. Pepper looks at the situation, and says in a tone of voice that is just so Pepper, "don't worry [insert Will's girlfriend's name here] I'll go with you." And they were off.

This is the time when Katie gives us the second quotable quote of the night (re: Will): "Did you really send your girlfriend to jail so you could climb in bed with me?" Answer: YES.

This is the time when truly decent people get the coffee started, and prepare for a long night awaiting the release of their wrongly imprisoned friend. Not us. We started talking about how the hardened criminals are going to have a fight over who gets to shower with Joe first. And we kept screaming that the other prisoners couldn’t hurt his face. We kept talking about how he'd return a changed man. After the 15th mention of jail-induced sodomy, we decided to stop discussing his trip to Brokeback Mountain. We were making ourselves upset, and he was probably only sitting in a drunk tank waiting to sober up.

And then we decided to watch the video from Frank's 21st birthday party. Now, contrary to popular belief, this really is one of those things that IS funnier if you were there. If you weren't it's sort of an odd sight to behold. No offense, I'm sure you all had a good time, but I decided to go to bed.

I get to the room, brush my teeth, and pass out almost immediately. (Important note, kids: Never neglect proper oral hygiene. Even at 4:30AM after a day of drinking.) Almost immediately after I fall asleep, several people receive the following text message from Gerald (and henceforth known as quotable quote number 3): "U suck 4ree joe Boles". That's it. That's all there is. No mention where they are or what's going on. I go back to sleep.

5:28AM - Text message from Katie Flaherty: Joe is free.

And the ordeal is over. But I have no idea of any details, and I cannot physically get up to go back to the room I'm so sleepy. I figure that I can get all of the information on the arrest and release after I catch a few zzzzz's.

I am up at 9:00AM, after four and a half hours of blissful sleep. Everyone is still asleep, and I need my information NOW. I go to Katie's room, wake up Katie and Tracey and take coffee orders. This was a nice, simple bribe to keep them awake and in good enough graces to tell me everything. I bring the coffee upstairs, they sit me down and we start discussing:

• Pepper, Gerald and the Girlfriend get to jail to have Joe released.
• Unfortunately, they are looking for Joe BOWLS instead of Joe BOLES. So they can't find the poor guy in the system.
• After a good long time, they find Joe, release him, and turn him over to that motley crew waiting in the jail waiting room.
• They bring Joe back to the hotel (at some point, they picked up Byron along the way, but I don't know how all of that happened).
• They take the customary pictures of the criminal with his release papers. And here they are:
  

• Then, as the sun comes over the horizon, Pepper drove Joe to Winston Salem to sing at church with his family, after the crazy-ass University Theatre reunion.

So there's the fallout. There is the reason for this blog. Everything else I might discuss will now pale in comparison. But I'll still write stuff anyway. Because I like talking about the theatre reunion. More to come later.