Right Turn, Snowman
Stopping at guilt and innocence
Right Turn, Snowman
Saturday afternoon, late. I sit at a light in our small downtown and hear her lyrically say, “snowman in the window.”
“What?” I say, glancing over at her.
Her tone is cheerful and light, and the phrase makes me smile. I follow her gaze to see the bail bondsman’s pink neon “break out of jail” hotline sign above a cartoon snowman.
The drawing has a crude charm, as seasonal window graphics often do. The little man made of snow looks so happy on his sled, a sack of toys slung over his shoulder. Does he realize he’s trespassing on territory controlled by the Santa mafia? He’s probably packing snowman heat to handle any inevitable confrontation. Then again, he looks too happy to be clued in on any violent underworld drama.
Bail bondsmen always evoke strong feelings in me, though I can’t pinpoint why. I’ve never needed bailing out, nor have I bailed anyone else out of jail. Yet I feel a kind of avoidance—something rooted deep, perhaps from my childhood. Did my family experience some long-buried event?
You’d think, otherwise, I’d feel neutral, even dismissive. But I don’t. Every bail bondsman’s office I’ve ever seen seems somehow wrong. The kind of place that feels tied to trouble. After all, good people don’t get in trouble, right? Only the guilty need to get out of jail. But that’s backward, isn’t it? Shouldn’t it be the innocent who are desperate to escape incarceration?
I try to trace my first memory of a bail bondsman. It must have been through TV or film—maybe Clint Eastwood? Every Which Way But Loose, 1978? “Right turn, Clyde.” And biker gangs. This might be a stretch. But unless there’s some hidden memory lurking in my subconscious, my feelings must have been shaped by what I watched.
This is a whole other conversation about how the media programs us. I’ll save that diatribe for another day.
All of this flashes through my mind in an instant. That’s the incredible power of thought: summoning entire universes from something as simple as a drawing and a smile. What POWERFUL things our minds are.
The light turns green. She’s lost interest in the snowman, instead marveling at the sunset. An old man waits at the crosswalk near the snowman painting, groceries in hand. I doubt the bail bondsman’s “break out of jail” hotline can help him tonight.
We roll through the intersection in the twilight, the rest of downtown quiet and empty. Maybe everyone’s in jail, waiting for their own snowman savior.
Thanks for reading and sharing my beautiful lie.
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