by Jerilee Wei

Created on: May 10, 2008

You're having a bad day when it becomes an all nighter and lasts into the next day. Dead to the world in sleep, the phone rang at 2:00 a.m. and thus set in motion, a bad day in nighttime disguise. The Baltimore deputy on the other end informed me that my husband had been arrested and would be arraigned in the morning. Since Bill had only just left on his railroad freight run that afternoon, this sharing of information immediately made me think that one of his buddies was trying to play a joke on me. I knew better, they werent fooling me. My husband of fifteen years is probably one of the most honest and upstanding men on the planet. He is incapable of lying and incapable of committing a crime of any nature. This absolutely could not be. Or could it be?

Still thinking I've got some ha ha jokester on the line, I just let him talk. To my surprise, he next started rattling off a case number and a phone number. In the background, I could hear my darling's voice and something didn't sound right. Now, awakened fully in the realization this was "no joke" I finally demanded to know, "on what charges?" Upon which, the deputy informed me he wasn't at liberty to say, but he would put Bill on the phone.

"Well, Lucy, you've done it again!" Bill said in a half-joking voice. By then, I'm thinking, he's got to be drunk. However, he would never ever risk his job of over thirty years by drinking when he's working. So, that didn't fit with my reality. Besides, he hadn't wanted more than one beer at any time in all the years I'd known him. Therefore, I am very confused.

"I've been arrested for an outstanding warrant for a bad check in West Virginia," he confides.

Now, this is very attention-grabbing. I'm the only one with the checkbook and he hasn't written a check in years. Moreover, Mr. Frugal would never bounce a check and I certainly had never signed his name to a check.

"This has got to be a mistake. Why would they arrest you in Baltimore, when you are supposed to be getting your rest for your return freight run? What check and to who?

The deputy says something to him and he abruptly says, "I've got to go" and hangs up. So, there I sat in the silence of our moutain cabin, absolutely stunned in disbelief.

Then, I remember, his train is due to leave out in a couple of hours. If he isn't in the motel room when the dispatcher calls and on that train on time, he could be fired. He could lose his pension. I immediately try to call back on the number the deputy gave me. No one answers,

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