They knocked twice.
The first time, my friend opened the door the width of an eye, said, "It's the police!", and shut it. Ten seconds of wood. Then the same knock, as if the first one had been a rehearsal.
I still had the guitar on. I took it off to let them in. That was the last thing I did as a person with a morning.
A woman in an HSI vest. The letters sat on her chest. She did not say my name.
"Are you sober?"
I said yes.
Then she asked for my ID. She took it. She glanced at it. She said I was under arrest. Not for what. I don't have the rest of the sentence, if there was one.
They cuffed me and walked me out to the car. Sunglasses off my face. Then the pockets, one object at a time, a life being unscrewed from a body: phone, cash, massage items, guasha, driver's license.
They put me in the car. We stopped at 26 Federal Plaza, the building beside the court.