‘Doin’ Time’

Life With Kermie

1 May

Written By Graham 'Kermie' Harsant

<<< Life with Kermie Rewind <<<

The year – 1987

My age at the time: 35

Background: Working in the advertising industry (which we commonly referred to as ‘The Wonderful World of Wank’) as a sales executive for a group of regional radio stations, based in Sydney.

Parking fines were an inevitable part of daily life and I collected quite a few over the years…….

It was 6am when I received a knock on the door. Struggling out of bed I opened it to find a young police constable standing there with a folder in his hand.

“Jeez, you blokes start early,” I grunted. “No guesses as to why you’re here. Want a coffee?”

“That’d be good,” he replied, total surprise registering on his face that a ‘customer’ would actually be friendly to a bearer of bad news.

I invited him in and sat him down in the living room while I put the kettle on and went to get dressed. Pouring us both a coffee I sat opposite him and asked, “What’s the damage?”

“Seven hundred dollars. You’ve obviously been here before.”

“A few times. But it’s 6am and I don’t have that kind of money on me. Where are you guys based?”

He gave me the address and I said, “That’s easy, Dave. I work right next door. I’ll pop it in later this morning.”

“No problem, Gra.” He answered. (We got on first name terms pretty quickly.)

As he left he said, “Thanks for the coffee….and do yourself a favour, please don’t leave the bowl sitting in plain sight. You never know who will come in at 6am!”

This was in reference to a large wooden bowl on the mantelpiece filled with glorious green Mullumbimby Madness. Good copper that!

Later that morning, having got an advance on my expenses from the work accountant, in return for the promise of a lunch on the company, I trotted next door to the Police Station and proffered up the $700, which was duly noted and receipted.

“Thanks for that,” said the Sergeant. “Now what about the other $3,000?”

What! I couldn’t have amassed that many parking fines could I? Yep, I had. I was amazed they didn’t slap the cuffs on me there and then.

“You know you could get rid of them all in one hit by spending twenty-four hours in jail,” the sergeant kindly proffered. (This was a long, long time ago.)

“I wish I’d known that before I passed over $700. Any chance I could have that back?”

Later that day I was at my mechanic mate, Pete’s workshop and related the story of my woes and the rock and hard place I’d found myself between, as I really didn’t want a police record. “Hang on,” Pete said. “I’ll make a phone call.”

Pete did a lot of work for the cops at Chatswood Police Station and was mates with one of the sergeants there. Hanging up the phone he turns to me: “No, you’ll be fine. No conviction is recorded. My mate is on from 2.30 on Friday so I’ve booked you in then.”

**My mate, Pete Evatt, AKA The World’s Best Mechanic!**

Not wanting to incur the wrath that I knew would emanate from my wife of the time, I told her that I had to fly to Brisbane on the Friday for a work function and would be home about 5pm on the Saturday. Then I informed the boss at work that I had to leave early to do some jail time and, armed with four packets of fags, duly turned up at the cop shop.

Greeted by Pete’s sergeant mate, Geoff, I was seated in a little fenced area, a bit like where the accused might sit in a court room. The constable who got the job of processing the fines was not happy as it took him some four hours to get through them. “How come I slave while you sit?” he grumbled.

Come dinner time and Geoff asked if I had any money on me as the station food was crap and McDonalds was cheap (for the Old Bill) and overflowing with goodness by comparison. I happily shouted the whole stationhouse dinner. I actually spent a pleasant afternoon and evening chatting to the guys but eventually Geoff said I’d better do a bit of ‘hard time’ for my sins and they locked me up.

The three cell doors were open and led onto a barred common area where they let me stay for a period – me being the only inmate. As the night went on I was joined by a sailor caught for drunk-driving. He had been on his way back to hospital after celebrating the birth of his first child with mates. Then we were joined by a bloke who’d stabbed his partner after discovering that he wasn’t her only partner. “Only stabbed her in the arm,” he said as if that was some kind of excuse for a lenient sentence.

Neither of them had any smokes so my stash diminished quickly. Eventually we were locked in our individual cells – Four walls, no wash basin and a prison bed which was a gym mat on the floor with a smelly grey blanket. No pillow. The next few hours were probably the longest of my then life and I was astounded that they had some felons in there for up to three months. That night I vowed to go straight for the rest of my life!

The next morning I again shouted the station a Maccas breakfast. Come about ten-thirty and I was told that I may as well go home.

“I can’t! I told the missus that I wouldn’t get home till five ‘o clock!”

“Your problem, not ours.”

I ended up finding a pub, rang a couple of mates and sat there for the day. “Gee you had a good night,” said the missus when I turned up at home, slightly inebriated. Years later I confessed my sin to her and she still went off the deep end at me!

I’ve never been back to jail and I’ve moved on to another wife. Now-a-days of course you can’t serve the fines concurrently and I’d have had the key thrown away under today’s rules. Lesson learnt!