The Times Magazine 15COULD I SLIDE MY CUFFED WRISTS UNDER MY BUTT?
fter three years on the road, I started
hankering for a tad more domesticity- cleaner sheets, a full kitchen and
some more water pressure sounded
like Shangri-La, so I decided to
rent a two-bedroom house in the sleepy
neighbourhood of Tarrytown, in Austin,
Texas. I liked Austin because it let me be
myself. It’s really the secret to why Austin is
so cool; all you have to be in Austin is you,
and Austin appreciates it when you are.
It was late Saturday afternoon in Darrell
K Royal Memorial Stadium when my
18th-ranked Texas Longhorns had just
beaten the undefeated and No 3 nationally
ranked Nebraska Cornhuskers 24-20,
handing the Huskers their only defeat of
the season. The city was on fire and so
was I. It was time to celebrate.
I partied through the night into Sunday,
and through Sunday night without sleeping
a wink.
At 2.30 that Monday morning, I decided
to wind down. It was time to lower the lights,
get undressed, open up the window and let
the jasmine scent from my garden come
inside. It was time to smoke a bowl and
listen to the beautiful African melodic beats
of Henri Dikongué play through my home
speakers. It was time to stand over my drum
set and follow the rhythm of the blues before
they got to Memphis, on my favourite Afro-
Cuban drum. It was time for a jam session.
What I didn’t know was that while
I was banging away in my bliss, two Austin
policemen also thought it was time to barge
into my house unannounced, wrestle me to
the ground with nightsticks, handcuff me
and pin me to the floor.
“Ohhh, looky who we got here,” the
’roided-up cop with a crew cut, who looked
like a Nebraska Cornhusker himself, said as
he read the driver’s licence he picked up off
my coffee table.
Then he picked up the bong. “And looky
what we got here. Mr McConaughey, you
are under arrest for disturbing the peace,
possession of marijuana and resisting arrest,”
he proudly stated while squatting atop me,
knee in my back.
“F you, motherfer! You broke in
my house! F***, yeah, I resisted!”
“That’s enough!” he grunted, then wrangled
me to my feet. “We’re takin’ you downtown.”
The other officer, the more civil one of
the two, grabbed a blanket off the couch and
moved to wrap it around my body.
“Ohhhh no!” I barked. “I’m not putting
shit on! My naked ass is proof I was mindin’
my own business!”
misdemeanour of resisting arrest and a class
B misdemeanour of possession of less than
two ounces of marijuana,” the judge said,
“or why two of our police officers forcibly
entered your home without fair warning.
I am going to dismiss the disturbing the
peace and possession misdemeanours and
give you a personal recognisance bond on
the resisting arrest.”
“Well, Judge Penny, I’m not sure what all
that means, but I don’t either,” I said.
Joe Turner, who was the same attorney
who successfully defended Willie Nelson
years earlier in a possession case, spoke up.
“Judge, we all agree that this situation got
out of hand very quickly, but you also gotta
understand that these policemen literally broke
into this man’s house while he was playing
some bongos in his birthday suit! The
resisting arrest was self-defence! I suggest you
dismiss it altogether and my client will plead
to the class C violation of a sound ordinance
as he was indeed bangin’ on those bongos
pretty damn loud for 2.36 in the morning.”
“Deal, case closed,” said the judge.
I thanked them both, got dressed in the
lavatory, splashed my face with cold water
and tried to breathe out the blues that were
starting to set in. Why the blues, you ask?
Well, obviously I was lucky, walking out of
jail only $50 poorer – this didn’t happen to
everyone who got hauled in on charges like
resisting arrest and marijuana possession.
The problem was, in my family, we didn’t get
in trouble for committing the crime, we got
in trouble for getting caught. I got caught
and for that, I felt guilty. Outlaw logic.
Looking for some fearless consolation,
I decided to call my mom before I chose which
way to leave my first prison stint. Maybe it
was the fact that while I was sure she would
have no mercy for my circumstance, at the
same time I knew she would pour a drink
and toast to how it was I got into it.
“They what, Matthew?! Broke into your
house!? Those son of a bitches, you keep
your head up,” she said. “There is nothing
wrong with smokin a little fun stuff and
playing your drums naked at night in your
own home. Who do they think they are,
comin’ in your house like that?!”
Just what I needed. I hung up and
decided to stride toward the media mob out
front instead of sneaking out the back.
Two days later, BONGO NAKED
T-shirts were all over Austin. nExtracted from Greenlights by Matthew
McConaughey, published by Headline on
October 20 (£20)A
EXTRACT
They escorted me out of my house through
the courtyard entry on the way to the street.
Still naked and reluctant to submit to the
inevitability of my predicament, I got relative,
and decided it would be a clever idea to
run up the walls left and right of the gated
passageway and do a somersault backflip over
the Cornhusker cop who was guiding me from
behind. My thinking was that in mid-flight,
while upside down in the air, I would assume
a pike position and then slide my cuffed wrists
under my butt and up and over my legs, then
stick the landing behind the Cornhusker, now
with my fettered hands in front of me. My
rationale at the time was that after pulling
off such an extraordinary Houdini-like stunt,
the officers would be so impressed that they
would abrogate the arrest and set me free.
I know, stupid, but remember, I’d been
celebrating for 32 and a half hours straight.
Before I’d taken three steps up the wall, the
Cornhusker body-slammed me back down
onto the brick footpath.
Meanwhile, word must have spread over the
police scanner as to just who had been arrested
because there on the street were 6 lit-up cop
cars and about 40 of my neighbours.
“Sure you don’t want this blanket?” the civil
cop asked again.
“Hell no, this is PROOF of my innocence!!”
I yelled to everyone on the block and one
more over.
They lowered my head, put me in the back
of the patrol car, and drove me to the precinct.
After we landed and I declined the third offer to
wear the blanket, we headed up the steps toward
the entrance of the Austin Police Department.
At the double doors to admissions, a 6ft
6in, 285lb, tatted-up, working inmate greeted
me just outside the entryway. He was holding
a pair of men’s orange institutional pants.
Before he could say a word, I said, “Proof
of my innocence, man.”
He just looked at me, seeming to understand
but knowing better. “We all innocent, man.
Trust me, you do wanna put these on.”
When a 6ft 6in jailbird built like a brick
shithouse tells you you do wanna put on some
pants before you go in the clink, it’s probably
best to listen.
“OK.”
At 9.30am, my 32-and-a-half-hour buzz
now turned hangover, I was sitting in the
corner of the cell when two people showed
up on the other side of the bars.
“Mr McConaughey, I’m Judge Penny
Wilkov and this is criminal defence attorney
Joe Turner.” An orderly unlocked the cell door.
“I don’t know how in the hell a disturbing
the peace call escalated into a class A