Off to Jail: When Dan Got Arrested

At 8 a.m. on a beautiful Sunday morning in June, I woke up, looked out the window, and decided I’d go down to Main Beach in East Hampton for a swim before breakfast.

This was in 1964, a long time ago. I was 24 years old. I’d started this newspaper a few years earlier, had rented a bungalow for myself on the Montauk Highway for the summer, and was selling ads in the paper most days. That year’s first issue would come out in a week, just before July 4.

Dressing in a bathing suit, flip-flops and a T-shirt, I chose not to use my car. Instead, I hopped on my Vespa motor scooter. Few cars were on the road at that hour. But there were plenty parked on Main Street. Sunday morning meant church for many of the locals in those days. It also meant stores were closed for the day.

There was nobody at the beach. I came to a halt, put the kickstand down, hopped off and took a towel out of the saddlebag. Then a police car pulled up and a cop walked over to me.

“You can’t park there,” he said, pointing to a sign. “And where’s the license plate on that scooter?”

“The new one came in the mail yesterday,” I said. “I took the old one off. But the new one won’t fit with the old screws. Getting new ones today.”

“Driver’s license and registration,” the cop said. He’d taken out a pad and pencil.

“That’s home too,” I said. “Just came down for a quick dip. I’ll move the scooter.” And I hopped on it and started it up. Mistake.

“Whoa, whoa,” the officer said. “You can’t drive that. You’re in the street. It can’t be moved.”

“What do you want me to do?”

The conversation went on and on. Both of us were getting agitated. Finally, we worked something out. I’d drive it home but with him following me. And after I picked up my license we’d go down to the police station and sort things out.

At my house, I hopped off the scooter, turned, and saw he had turned his flashing lights on as he came in behind me. I thought about this.

“Can I change into some clothes?” I asked.

“Just get your license and registration.”

When I came back out, he was standing in front of the police car with handcuffs. I stopped short.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“It’s just procedure,” he said. And he walked over and put them on me.

He turned around, told me to follow, and walked back to the police car. However, he’d handcuffed me with my arms in front. As I walked behind him, it occurred to me I could bash him over the head with the cuffs. I resisted the urge.

At the car there was more procedure. Back door open. Hand on my head. Down and in. Inside there were no handles on the doors. Also a glass panel separated the back from the front. With me the prize, he backed the car into the street, kicked up gravel changing gears and headed off. Mercifully, he did not turn on the siren.

But now I thought of something else. I know this is going to sound hard to believe, but in those days, the East Hampton Village Police Department was downtown on Newtown Lane, between what is now Gucci and Louis Vuitton. This meant if he pulled up in front, I’d be a man in a bathing suit in handcuffs walking across the sidewalk from the police car to the station. Next door to the police station was Speed’s Luncheonette. I’d been there just the day before selling him ads. What would people say?

“Is there a back entrance to the police station?” I asked.

“No.”

“Could you take the handcuffs off before we get out of the car?”

“No. It’s only about 10 steps.”

Pulling up, there was Speed standing right by the luncheonette entrance in a dirty white apron. He looked at me. No expression.

Inside, an officer at an elevated reception desk told me to empty my pockets and put my meager possessions in a manila envelope he had. He licked the flap closed and wrote my name on the front. Wallet, change, a pen.

“It will be right here,” he said, patting it.

The tickets showing the three violations were handed to me. And I was told I’d be detained until they got a judge to arraign me and set a court date. “Won’t take long,” one of the officers nodded. Then two officers led me into a back room where there was a jail cell. Pushed in, the bars closed behind me with a bang. Then everybody went away. And I sat down on the single thin bed there and looked around.

The cell was about 6 feet by 7 feet. Beside the bed was a bench and a steel toilet with no lid. That was it.

I got up and rattled the bars. Everyone had gone back up front. I rattled them again. Someone came, annoyed.

“You want to make a phone call?” he asked.

I’d thought about this. Mom and Dad lived in Montauk. But why bother them? I wouldn’t be here long, they’d said.

But six hours later, I still was. There were only two judges in East Hampton. And both, apparently, were out playing golf.

At 11 a.m. they brought me a cheese sandwich. Also a borrowed jacket. At 3 p.m., I used my one phone call to call a lawyer I knew.

“This would happen on Sunday,” he said. “But I’ll find you somebody. I won’t let them keep you overnight.”

I looked a lot at the rest of the room. Metal shelves with evidence tags on them. A cement footprint. A hammer. An anvil. A shovel. Helmets and jackets and boots. I got a pen and paper and wrote a letter to a girl friend from college.

Finally, at 4 p.m. an officer led me out to a waiting police car. As we approached, I saw another policeman escorting a singing, disheveled young drunk into the police station. I would have been in that cell with him. Wow.

The officer drove me to a house on Madison Street in Sag Harbor where a judge lived. He sat in the basement at a desk with an American flag and a gavel and set a date.

“He’s free to go,” he told the officer. He then drove me home.