Arrest on Game Night

Bunch of us guys: What? Arresting? A cop? What? It's his turn!

Alana: He's putting handcuffs on him!

I slip my cards in my pocket (not the wisest reflex), wrestle my way through the curtain at living room doorway, and see a policeman on the porch. Sven stands well and truly handcuffed, on his own porch.

Five minutes ago, he was playing cards.

Sven, I should note, can jump through a burning hoop and breathe fire. Not in the roleplaying games — in real life. Seriously. He's actually better at it in real life than in RPGs. So, I expect him to slip out of the handcuffs. Doesn't he get a bonus?

Sheriff: … and you're going to need some shoes. Put some shoes on! Flip flops! Something! And I need your ID!

The sheriff also needs Sven to stand there handcuffed. So I retrieve the wallet, which Sven holds in his mouth. Alana shoes her husband.

Alana: You can't just take him away! What's the charge?

Sheriff: I don't have to tell you that.

Sven: Alana ---

Alana: Yes you do! He has a constitutional right!

Sheriff: No, he doesn't.

Alana: [to me] Doesn't he have a constitutional right?

Me: [helpful mumble]

Apparently, Sven now has to be frisked. On his front porch. I turn away. He radiates innocence and a certain tragic gleam, but still, at moments like this, I'm not sure an audience will help.

In the kitchen, the other guys call the police department to confirm that this really is the sheriff, not some angst-ridden cartoonist pulling the mother of all pranks on his nemesis. Sven doesn't have any nemeses that I'm aware of, but then, the whole felony thing hasn't really come up either.

Alana: He has a constitutional right!

Me: I think he has the right to remain silent.

Alana: What? That's it?

It's looking that way. The sheriff escorts Sven across the shaggy part of the lawn to the police car. I wonder if the sheriff got annoyed trying to find a parking place; it's game night, so the lawn is full of our cars and minivans. To my untrained eye, they don't seem particularly gangish.

Alana: You can't just take my husband away!

Sven: Alana ---

Me: It's okay. He'll come back.

Me: [aside] Why did I ever start reading that Solzhenitsyn book?

(Solzhenitsyn is that Russian guy who wrote a three-volume set about the gulags. Also, this is real life, so "aside" means "in my head.")

Sheriff: Ma'am, I have a felony warrant. With a felony warrant, the rights of the law are very broad. I could walk right in your door and apprehend him.

Me: Shit. [aside]

Alana: But what's the charge?

Sheriff: I will not tell you!

Me: [aside, to the Solzhenitsyn voice in my head] Shut up, shut up.

Sheriff: I will tell Sven, in private. I do not have to tell you. I can't. Look — [exasperated] — hasn't he been arrested before? [to me, appealing] Haven't any of you been arrested before?

Me: Um. [Did I smirk? I hope so.]

Other Randy: No, we haven't been arrested.

(There are two Randys in our group, but they're not related.)

I'm making up a few things in this little tale, but not many, and I wish this was one of them. I can't adequately describe the confident tone in the sheriff's voice as he puts this question. There's a bunch of guys here. Someone must have been arrested. What, are we embarrassed?

But his disbelief dissipates into distaste. His expert glance seems to note our minivans in a new light. We will be of little assistance in soothing the distraught wife/constitutional lawyer, having completely blown our teens and twenties in a riot of legal innocence. On top of everything else, he'll have to give a little tutorial.

He does. With an emphasis on felony warrants. And on getting booked, which is not the same as going to Siberia.

Alana: Okay, I'm sorry. I have a great respect for the law. I'm pregnant and hormonal.

Me: [aside] Yeah, a normal wife would have laughed and snagged her husband's cards. We could be finishing Munchkin.

Sven is now securely ensconced in the backseat cage of the police car, and Alana is permitted to converse through the window.

I stand in the lawn.

Me: [aside] This long grass is where the ticks are.

Me: [aside, again] What? I can't believe I'm thinking about that. I'm a bad friend. And now I'm thinking about that.

Alana turns away from the car, and now she radiates peace and joy. I check; Sven is still in the car.

Me: What is it?

Alana: Sven figured it out! It's just that $500 check that guy cashed in Sven's name.

Me: Oh, right! That! What?

Sven and Alana used to live in a different house. Then they moved. People do that. But a check from a publisher arrived, after they had moved away. (This is the crazy part, but honest, it happened.)

Someone (we don't yet know who), opened the envelope, and did the obvious thing. S/he cashed the check at a local convenience store/gas station.

I'm not sure how. I've never cashed a check at a convenience store. I thought no one took checks anymore except landlords and grandchildren.

Meanwhile, Sven realized the check had gone above and beyond the call of delay, even for a publisher, and he had them cancel the check.

But it was too late. Fake-Sven, possibly aided by a fake ID that cost less than $500 (one hopes), had already walked off with the $500 that were magically in some always-less-than-$30 convenience store cash register.

The convenience store sent Sven a letter. Who did he think he was, cashing a $500 check and then canceling? Hmm?

I try to imagine Sven doing anything with that kind of letter besides drawing on it.

Sven did not send the convenience store $500.

Eventually, he got arrested.

MORAL: Publishers, send those damn checks.

On the one hand, this explanation from Alana is reassuring. So much for the hypothesis that Sven was secretly growing weed or robbing banks with those bare feet. On the other hand, he's still handcuffed in a police car.

One of the cars belongs to Other Randy, and so Sven asks that he and Other Randy (it's only fair if they're both Other Randy) follow the sheriff into town.

Me: [aside] I never get picked.

Just before they drive off, one of our missing Game Night guys drives up. He is late.

Alana: Welcome, Dan! Sven's getting arrested!

Dan: [wants to say] Do we still have enough for a game?

Dan: [actually says] I'm following them.

Children have about thirty-five forms of ESP, and one of them drags Sven's pajama-clad daughters downstairs and outside, just in time to see their father hauled off in the paddywagon.

Angela (age 8): Where's Dada?

Alana: [brightly] Oh, he went with the policeman.

Me: He'll come back.

Angela: Why did the policeman take Dada away?

Alana: They just made a mistake.

Angela: Why did the policeman take Dada away?

Alana: It's okay, honey.

Me: They mixed up his name with someone else. It's all on computers.

Angela: Why did the policeman take Dada away?

Alana herds the kids back upstairs, and soon we hear a boisterous bedtime story thundering from upstairs. Alana is the sort of person who, after the initial shock, will focus on making the bedtime story terrific.

I'm the sort of person who stands around awkwardly in the tick-laden grass, along with the rest of the guys who were always last on the kickball teams too.

We cross our arms. We shift our weight. At times like this, that is what men do.

The prize for Most Awkward Extended Moment may go to Charlie. Charlie went to school with many of the guys, but he hasn't been coming to Game Night all that long. Actually, this is his second time.

Me: So … this kind of thing really doesn't happen all that often.

Bryan: Yeah, I think maybe, what — five times?

Charlie: Should we get going? Maybe we should get going.

I hope we see Charlie next time.

It occurs to me that after all these years of slashing gnolls, stealing treasure, and escaping whole armies unscathed, we ought to be able to do something about a single Level 4 sheriff.

Rats.

But as it turns out, we do do something. Kind of.

First I go home, and watch the kids so my wife can go hang out with Alana. This is a little ritual we have, whenever Sven or I get arrested. I mean, we may as well start it, since apparently we're way behind schedule.

By "watch the kids," I mean "be in the same house and go online." I find that, in Virginia, theft is a felony at $200. In other states, it can be $500, $1000 or more. Wow. $200 seems kind of low, now that I'll have to get all my freelance checks in misdemeanor increments.

Meanwhile, Other Randy, Other Randy and Dan keep vigil at the police station in town.

It's a rotten couple of hours.

But apparently, the quickstart guide was right. Sven gets fingerprinted, booked, "processed," but his record is clean, so they let him go on an unsecured bond. As long as he shows up at court, he won't have to pay it.

Just legal fees, and maybe even those $500. But it's only money, right?

Anyhow, for tonight, he goes home. And we reconvene. Not everyone, (some people have, you know, schedules) but we have a quorum, and we play that ridiculous card game. Other Randy wins.

I mean, how many people get to come home after an arrest and lose Munchkin with the guys? We definitely score a few ranks in Good Cheer Against Armed Bureaucracy. Not a bad Game Night, I'd say.