Oz: Then I tell my buddies, “You guys gotta get something too.” So they go in the bathroom—which doubles as the employee locker room—and they take three dirty shirts. Dirty shirts from a laundry bin.
Lol, Oz, you adorable goofball.
Look, I get it: your story has to get you to jail, but you don’t want to invent something where you’re like, “My friends and I raped a drifter and set him on fire.” So you’re trying to pick a story that makes you look not too bad. But… um… I’m guessing you never worked in fast food?
The bathroom doesn’t double as the employee locker room—that would be a health-code violation (several, actually).
And Papa John’s doesn’t launder employee’s shirts for them, you bozo. You go home and wash the shirt yourself. Or do what I’m guessing most Papa John’s employees do: wash it once a week once it’s fully saturated with garlic butter.
Oz: We bring them back to my buddy’s house like idiots. We wear them at the party. I barely remember this—I was blackout drunk—like, “Papa John’s! Who wants a pizza? Who wants a pizza?”
I end up going to sleep on his futon around 2 a.m. At 4 a.m., someone comes in and says, “Yo, the cops are here.” I’m like, “Dude, it’s not my house. What do you want from me?”
I find it a little unbelievable you were invited to a party, but let’s pretend, for the sake of narrative flow, that you were.
As you know—because you possess super-human mentalism powers!—people tend to slip on the tiny details when they’re making things up. Saying you were “blackout drunk” and still remember crawling onto a futon at precisely 2 a.m.? That’s one of those continuity errors that gives the whole game away. You’ll want to pick a lane here between omniscient narrator or sloppy drunk.
Joe: Did you guys post the videos?
Oz: No, this is pre-social-media, man. No, no. Somebody ratted us out. Somebody’s roommate—I found this out way later—called and said, “Yo, bro, there’s a bunch of dudes here with a broken phone from Papa John’s.”
I didn’t know any of this, but someone comes in like, “Yo, the cops are here.” I say, “They’re here for you.” They go, “They’re here for you.” I’m like, “Here for me? What do you mean, they’re here for me? I don’t live here.”
The cops come in the room, and I’m wearing aggressively small underwear—like tighty-whities. This couldn’t have been more of a bad perp walk. They go, “You’re under arrest.” I’m like, “For what?” They go, “For stealing from Papa John’s.”
Mmm-hmm… let’s think about this for a moment. First, you’re wearing the fucking dirty shirt to bed, you disgusting slob? 🤮
And let me get this straight—you’re saying a third party, not even a complaining witness, called the cops on you? “There’s some guys here with a broken phone from Papa John’s”? To what end? Did people find you that dislikable that they’d really call the cops in the middle of the night on you for this?
And then what did the cops do? Wake up the manager of Papa John’s in the middle of the night to see if he wanted to press charges?
This is a believable story to you?
Joe: What night was this?
Oz: Friday night.
So, let’s review: it’s Friday night—the busiest shift of the week—and the local cops, instead of dealing with drunk drivers and bar fights, leap into action over a missing broken phone from Papa John’s. At four in the morning.
Sure. Forget the assaults, the DUIs, the domestic calls—we have rape kits piling up for years—but yes, let’s mobilize the entire department because we have a hot lead on a busted landline.
Honestly, removing a broken phone from a Papa John’s isn’t even a crime, it’s a service. They should’ve thanked you. “Hey, appreciate you getting that eyesore out of here, kind citizen.”
Joe: How old were you?
Oz: I was twenty years old and just about to get an internship at Merrill Lynch. While this story’s hilarious now—it’s a funny chapter in my book—it was like, God help me, did I avoid everything.
When I went to jail—yo, scariest, one of the scariest days of my life.
Joe: How’d you get out of everything?
Oz: I had a clean record. I was a pretty upstanding citizen. And, not to get in the weeds, but there’s something called the Holmes Youthful Trainee Act—I wonder if they still have it—where it was expunged from my record. Didn’t have to report it to the Wall Street firm.
How convenient—your imaginary arrest just happened to be wiped clean by the state!
Here’s the issue: the Holmes Youthful Trainee Act isn’t an instant delete button. When granted, you’re placed on a kind of probationary status. There’s no conviction, but the record isn’t immediately erased. Only after successful completion (which can take years) does it get fully expunged.
So the arrest still would have been on your record for that upcoming internship.
Also, I’ve read that part of the book. If anyone told you it was a “funny” chapter, they were fucking with you.
Oz: Then they separated us when we went to general population. And it’s not like the movies—you know, it was wild. When I went in there, I just knew, This is my cheat code. Like everything in life had prepared me for this moment.
The jail was very segregated—the white dudes are here, the Black dudes are here—and I didn’t know what to do. I’m five-foot-nothing, a buck-forty dripping wet. How do I make friends right now?
You’re not going to be put into gen pop while you’re on a weekend hold for stealing a broken phone. I mean, none of this story is true, but even if it were true up to this point, that’s not how it works.
You don’t get the Shawshank experience for petty theft. You’d be in a holding cell, waiting for Monday morning paperwork, not navigating a racially divided prison yard like it’s American History X.
It’s funny that you say, “It’s not like the movies,” and then describe it exactly like the movies, because that’s the only frame of reference you’ve got.
Oz: The jail was very segregated—the white dudes are here, the Black dudes are here—and I didn’t know what to do. I’m five-foot-nothing, a buck-forty dripping wet. How do I make friends right now?
Then I see the Black guys playing spades, and I just walk up. You gotta make your move. I’m like, “Let me see those cards.” And that was it—I didn’t stop for hours, didn’t repeat a trick. I know tricks encyclopedically. I just went all day.
“The jail was ‘very segregated,’ so I went up to the black guys to make friends.” I’m not quite sure I understand the logic there. You know you’re not black, yes?
But honestly, now that I look back on it, I’ve been a bit too critical. This is such a great story. Getting arrested on some trumped-up charges and being stuck in jail over the weekend until you could get things taken care of. So you see all the black guys playing Spades, you go up to them, entertain them all, and win everyone over with card tricks.
Do you know what this reminds me of? That story in Blaine’s Mysterious Stranger. The one where he gets arrested on some trumped-up charges, stuck in jail over the weekend until he can get things sorted out. So he sees all the black guys playing Spades, goes up to them, entertains them all, and wins everyone over with card tricks.
