Ticket to the Graybar Hotel

You do not want to spend a holiday weekend (or any time at all) at my hostelry, the Graybar Hotel, the Glass House, the Incarceria, all the same place: the Los Angeles City Jail. But that’s where you’ll be if you choose to brighten up the Christmas season with some liquid cheer and then get behind the wheel of a car.

As the watch commander at Parker Center’s Jail Division, I am host to people from every walk of life. Regardless of profession or economic status, no one is immune from a paying us a visit and seeing what “the other side” experiences.

A weekend adventure with us will begin in the pre-booking area where a Highway Patrol or LAPD officer will offer you the opportunity to provide a breath sample. (Failure to cooperate here will cost you your driving privileges for six months.) Then you will go to the booking area where you will be relieved of your possessions. After we type your arrest report into a countywide computer and give you your very own booking number, you’re ready for the processing center.

If it’s a busy night, you can expect to be placed in a holding cell with six or eight other people, possibly other drunk drivers, but just as likely petty thieves, barroom fighters or male prostitutes. (If you’re female, at this point you’ll probably be transferred to Sybil Brand Institute.)

While waiting to be fingerprinted and photographed, you will have the opportunity to use the pay phone in the tank; of course, you must wait your turn and find your place in the new social order that you have caused yourself to become a member of.

After being printed and mugged, you will be led to a cell. It has room for 34 men, but will hold more if we are overbooked, so you won’t have to worry about loneliness. You will be issued a mattress cover and a low-quality but durable blanket. If you’re lucky, you won’t have to sleep on the floor.

You will immediately notice some disquieting things about your new environment, not the least being that many members of your new peer group are less than fastidious when it comes to matters of personal hygiene. The climate controls here are probably not what you are used to; the temperature inside is roughly equivalent to the ambient air temperature outside. This time of year, that may be a blessing, for the cool air seems to hold the odor down.

Our restroom facilities are not exactly first-class. They consist of several toilets affixed to the wall, pretty much in plain view of your associates and anyone else who happens to walk down the hall. In time, I suppose, you’d get used to sharing some activities that most people consider private.

A description of your holiday weekend would not be complete without mention of the culinary delights that await you. At 5:30 a.m. you will be served a breakfast of meat, eggs, toast and your choice of beverage--either one cup of water or one cup of black coffee. Noontime brings a light luncheon: a beef burrito (no sauce, no chips, no margarita--just a burrito). Dinner is served at 4:30 p.m.: Salisbury steak, potatoes, toast and the same choice of beverage that you had at breakfast.

You may relax and wile away the hours between meals in whatever manner you choose, either lying on your bunk or walking about your cell. Or you can stand in line at the pay phone. For entertainment, you are completely free to engage your cellmates in conversation.

While our accommodations may not be up to your usual standards, you really should try to give us credit for providing the best lodging possible given the current budgetary restraints of city government.

You may rest assured that we will do all that we can to ensure your early departure from our establishment. After a while, we may find that you qualify to be released on your own recognizance, or you may eventually reach a friend who can bring bail money (but don’t count on that when the banks are closed).

Of course, if our hospitality is not to your liking, there is a simple way to avoid a stay with us. If you choose to drink, don’t drive. Walk, take a cab, call a friend, call your wife--but don’t get behind the wheel of that car.

And remember: Bad as the Graybar Hotel is, you could do worse. The county also has a facility for drunken drivers. They call it the morgue.