My Piece of the Action

Booked

Slash sat back comfortably in the passenger seat of his friend Dan's oldsmobile. It was only a few days ago that Axl had a talking- or rather yelling- to him about the L.A. weekly article. He'd apologised profusely, not that it could be taken back. Dan and he had just done some dope and were heading home. Just as they came up La Cienega drive, the blue and red lights of a police car flashed behind them. by the time they slowed and pulled over and were quite literally right in front of the band apartment. It was about 4 in the morning and they hadn't been acting suspiciously or breaking the law in any way, the two cops merely seemed to be out to fulfill their nightly or monthly quota, and Slash was just annoyed at the detour. They were so close to home! To him it was just a screw around because they had nothing on them. They'd done all the drugs already. One of the officers appeared at the driver's side window and Danny rolled it down.

"Can I help you? Sir." Danny questioned, the 'sir' sounding like an afterthought.

"Could you and your friend step out of the vehicle please?" The police man requested.

"Uh huh." Grunted Dan, opening the door. Slash followed suit, closing it behind him, and leaned up against the cold metal. The other cop came around to Slash and clicked on his flashlight. He shone it directly in Slash's eyes and said,

"Have you been doing any drugs tonight, Mr-?" He trailed off, suggesting Slash give him his last name.

"No sir, I haven't." Slash lied through his teeth, ignoring the request for a name. He heard the cop on the other side asking Dan the same thing.

"Are you sure, cause your pupils look pinned." Slash's interrogator queried. Slash squinted through his hair in the bright light,

"That's cause you've got your flashlight in my face." He told him.

"Empty your pockets." Slash heard the other cop say to Dan. There was a moment of anticipation, then;

"Aww fuck." Slash could hear Danny mutter. Then-

"Well well, what have we here?" Dan's cop chuckled, and the click of a pair of handcuffs could be heard from the other side of the car. Slash's cop grabbed his wrists and did the same,

"What the fuck- why are you cuffing me?!" He questioned, incredulous. Slash hadn't done anything wrong! The police gave him no answer, they just shoved Dan and he roughly towards the cop car. Dan had forgotten about the needle in his front pocket, which was ample enough excuse for them to take him in. Once they were in the back, the two cops climbed back in and started driving around, picking up one guy who was coming out of a service station with a carton of beer under his arm for 'intending to drink and drive' and a completely sober looking woman for being publicly drunk, who was just across the road from the sheriff's office (there was no more room in the back of the car, so one of the policemen decided to walk her across the road).

The men and women were kept in seperate holding cells, and Dan was soon let out with the whole court sentence/fine thing for possession, and somebody bailed out the other guy Slash had been brought in with. Now coming down from his high and figuring that seeing as he hadn't done anything wrong, he'd be let out any minute, he attempted to gain the guards' attention to find out why he was being kept here. The guards, of course, ignored him.

It was about eight am by this point, and the hours stretched on. Soon he was moved from the small holding cell of earlier into a larger cell with more inmates, a common toilet in the corner, rubber mat on the floor and the putrid stench of piss. Still he didn't know why he was in there. An hour or two later, Slash and the other inmates were all loaded onto one of the black and white buses with the cage bars on the windows. Shackled at the ankles and wrists and chained to the guy in front, Slash realised they were on their way to the county prison, so he raised his hands up to his face and began to chew off the black nail polish he was wearing. There was no way in hell he was going to county with fingernail polish on.

The county gaol was just twenty miles away, but with all of the prisons they needed to stop at on the way, it took hours, at each stop they were loaded into a group holding cell while the new arrivals were being processed, and with each stop, Slash got sicker and sicker from heroin withdrawal.

They made it to county in the late afternoon, and Slash was given one of those stereotypical orange jumpsuits and his belongings were logged for whenever he departed. He was thrown in a communal holding cell until his paperwork was completed. Once that was done, they chucked him in a big, old fashioned room with a few rows of cots. Slash lay on his cot for three days, sweating out his detox. It was like he was having the worst flu he'd ever experienced, and it was in the worst possible setting. And then all of a sudden they let him out with no real explanation and he had to go through the entrance process in reverse; into the holding cell while the paperwork was sorted, sniveling, sweating and coughing, given back his belongings and finally set free. Slash looked and felt absolutely miserable, and as he was handed back his clothes and belongings he finally found out why he was here. He had been hauled in for a six year old jaywalking ticket. There had been a warrant out for him after he hadn't shown up in court or paid the fine. They told him this as they handed him back his stolen top hat. Slash wandered around outside of the county prison, trying to think of who had bailed him for about an hour when Danny suddenly showed up in the oldsmobile. They then drove straight down to melrose and western to cop drugs. Dan drove him home and when he arrived everybody was asleep and Duff was nowhere to be found. He took a well needed shower and had something to eat. After a while, Izzy stumbled out and sat beside him on the couch.

"Aw hey man!" He said, turning the tv on.

"Hey." Slash replied, waiting for him to ask where he'd been the past few days. He didn't. He just kept watching whatever cartoon had come on the tele. When Steven got up, it was much the same. Nobody had even really realised he'd been missing! Axl soon joined them in the loungeroom.

"Hey Slash. How was county?" He smirked,

"Fuckin' miserable." Slash muttered darkly. At least one of them noticed.

"Good, maybe I won't have to bail you out again." Axl replied, seeming amused, sitting down on the carpet and turning towards the television. Axl had been the one who bailed him out?

"Thanks Ax!" He said sincerely. Slash felt touched. That was pretty cool of him.

Okay thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it!  Vote, comment. Let me know what you think! Xx