Page 110 - Layout 1

98 Beverly Hills Gothic
DOING TIME
Summer after summer,
I sold ice cream on the
beach. But it was
illegal, so I was arrested
half-a-dozen times. I
was a straight-up guy,
on the honor roll,
trying to help my
family make ends
meet. To show you
what good company I kept, my two best friends grew up to be professors, one at Johns Hopkins and the other at Penn. Yet, time and time again, I found myself in prison with fellows who had strangled their teachers or beaten their sisters.
One summer Sunday, Uncle Jack Salter was visiting from Manhattan. He asked where I was, and the family answered, “Oh he might be in jail. Otherwise, he would be home by this time.”
Jack shouted, “You mean to tell me that he’s in jail, and you’re just sitting around here! Are you people out of your mind? We gotta get him outta jail now!”
Easier said than done. You needed cash or the deed to a house to get anyone out of jail. My family talked a neighbor into lending them his deed, and I got bailed out. It was a tossup if I would be placed in juvenile hall or regular jail, since I was very tall for my age.
One time when I was in juvenile jail, they put me in a cell with a kid who had just knifed his father. I don’t have to tell you, I was scared to death!