Moby-Dick multiple times and everything about Melville and it. I had to confess I never could get past the part just before they first board the ship. I asked him if the wagon ever got unruly — that I was a little afraid. He said ‘In all my times doing this, never a rumble or even a hint of back talk. Maybe they think I’ve some influence at the station, so they stay on their best behavior. Be very careful, though, once you’re in lock up. Don’t go to sleep or show your wallet.’“ They gradually picked up more people: prostitutes, male and female, a three-card monte dealer and a man who peed in front of a movie theater. “‘I had to go,’ he said. ‘New York ought to have more public toilets, especially in crowded Midtown. What did they expect me to do, buy a movie ticket just to piss?’ A few of them in the back knew each other from previous rides, and this guy was a repeater.” She was fingerprinted, more paperwork, put in a holding cell with the women from her van and others who were already there. “Most of them said to me ‘What are you doing here, honey? You look like you belong in a church or leading a choir.’ One of the prostitutes said she could help me make good money on the street, if I ever wanted to give up teaching or use it as a sideline or cover. That I’ve the right face and body and hair for it. ‘What do you do to get it that color?’ a couple of the women asked. When I told them it was real and that my being arrested was a mistake, you can guess the reaction I got. Lots of eye-rolling and ‘Sure, baby’s.’ I’ve never been in a situation before where absolutely nobody believed me. They did say I did one smart thing for myself and that was to bring a big book with me to read, because it was going to be a long night for me. ‘We’ll be out of here in a few hours,’ one prostitute said. ‘You, because your crime’s not victimless, could see two to three days.’ The woman said she was once a lawyer, and that’s when I didn’t believe her. But I’m very tired. I’ll tell you more tomorrow. I have a bunch of quotes and detailed notes written on the title and dedication and copyright pages of the book I never got to read.” When they were turning the couch into a bed, he said “Okay, the truth now—” and she said “I know what you’re about to say, and I swear, it was an accident. I’m surprised at you for having even a shred of doubt.” “I didn’t at first,” he said. “But then I thought, with the bag hanging off your shoulder and you by the door, that you might have done it for the excitement for the first time in your life of getting away with something like that. Then, when you were home, you’d send the store the money and also the sales tax for it, anonymously and in cash, of course, and maybe ten extra bucks just to play it safe.” She said “It was an attractive bag but too expensive and really too small for what I wanted it for. But I’ve never stolen anything in my life and never will. You know me. If a waitress doesn’t list some item that should have been on my check or a store clerk makes a mistake on the bill in my favor, I always correct them. It was something my parents drilled into me and I’ve always believed. You know, though, it’ll cost us to get the charges dropped, and if they’re not, then expunged. My father already consulted with two lawyer friends, but told them the information was for a tax client of his. As an experience, I’d say it was almost worth what I went through. It was exciting. The paddy wagon and petty criminals I was thrown in with in it and then the holding cell, a world I was aware existed but had never come near to experiencing. Have you ever been in a holding cell?” and he said “If I had, you wouldn’t have heard about it by now? I did once see one when I went to the 20th Precinct on 83rd or 84th Street, years before I met you, to report my license plates had been stolen. There it was, for everyone to see, very small, though, maybe big enough for three men to stand in — nothing the size you say yours was — with one skinny hysterical man inside shouting ‘Let me out,’ and the policeman recording my license plate theft saying ‘Shut up!’” “Well, I met some interesting people, none of them hysterical, some of them quite articulate and bright and all of them very nice. One even brushed my hair.”