Transcript: "A Mop Sink and Maybe God", a Story By Matthew Dicks

This is a transcript of Matthew Dicks's story, A Mop Sink and Maybe God, at a Boston Moth GrandSLAM. You can watch Matthew telling the story here:

I'm standing in a mop sink in a tiny closet in the police station in Bourne, Massachusetts. The door is closed, and there's no light in the closet, so it's pitch-black. It's 1993, I'm 22 years old, and I'm about to confess to a crime I didn't commit.

I came to this police station two weeks ago after a seven-thousand-dollar deposit disappeared at the McDonald's where I work. After three days of frantic searching, my boss and I determined that it was not going to be found, and I was responsible for it. I accepted responsibility and said I'd pay back what was lost. She said no. She said it's company policy that you don't pay it back, and it’s not the first deposit that's ever gone missing, so don't worry. I'll lose about a year of promotions, but I'm a rising star in the McDonald's managerial career, so she says I'll be fine. But we have to go to the police station to report the loss for insurance purposes.

So that day, we go, and we meet a police officer. He's a tall guy, he's old, and he's got steel-gray hair. I tell him what happened. I say I brought three deposits to the bank, and only two ended up in the night drop. I don't know where the other one went. He listens and then says, "We need to go back so I can ask you some more questions." My boss jumps in and says, "No, no, we don’t think he stole the money. We're just here to report it for insurance." He says, "I understand, but we still need to go out back."

So I go to the back room with him, and I'm in this tiny room with a metal table and chairs. He pushes a piece of paper across the table. It's my Miranda waiver that I need to sign, which means I'm going to be questioned without an attorney. I'm going to accept that, and I do, because I didn't do anything. Innocent people don't need lawyers, is what I'm thinking. So, I sign my Miranda rights away, and he starts to question me. Almost immediately, he gets right to drugs.

He asks, "What drugs do you use, and are you selling?" I tell him I'm not using drugs. In fact, I've never used an illegal drug in my entire life. He does not believe that. And I want him to believe it because it’s true. I've been on my own since I was 18 years old, and it’s been really hard for me. I don't have parents, and I don't have family. I’m living without a safety net. I feel alone in this world, and I made a decision when I was young that I wasn’t going to use drugs because if I had a problem, no one was going to be able to save me. But he doesn’t believe me, and I can see it in his eyes.

But after an hour, he says, "You can go." As I'm leaving the police station, my boss leans in and says, "What the hell was that?" I say, "I don’t know, but I'm just glad it's over." But it wasn’t.

Two weeks later, the police officer calls me again and says he needs me for more questions. So I go back to the police station, and I'm back in that little room with the metal table. Now, there's another police officer there too. He's a younger guy, and he's smiling when I walk in. He gives me a cup of Sprite, and I like him right away. He says things like, "Take your time, it's fine, think about it." I get that. I understand. And I'm looking at him, and I start talking directly to him. I think, "He's such a good cop. He’s not like this bad cop."

I'm literally thinking good cop, bad cop, and it's going right over my head, like hundreds of hours of criminal drama, and I'm missing it completely. They’re right back at drugs. "What drugs are you using? That's the only way you spent seven thousand dollars in the last two weeks."

I’m telling them again and again, and three hours of questioning go by. Then they say, "We're going to take a minute," and they leave the room. When they come back in, they say, "We have no more questions for you. We're going to arrest you. You got to be arrested for grand larceny." And they tell me they have a deal. The deal is, I confess to the crime, and I get no jail time. But if I don’t confess, they’re going to push for five years in prison. They tell me I am going to be convicted.

So I decide I’m going to confess. I’m going to confess to a crime I didn’t commit. But there’s a sticking point. They need me to tell them what I did with the money. And I know what they want me to tell them. They want me to say I used it on drugs, and I would if I could. But I don’t actually know where to buy drugs. I don’t even know how much drugs cost.

I don’t know whether to say I bought a gram of cocaine or ten pounds of cocaine. I don’t even know what drugs look like—like which ones come in blocks and which ones come in baggies. Whatever lie I make up about drugs is not going to sound right, and they’re going to know I’m lying. So I’m panicking because I can’t think of a lie. I can’t lie to make these people believe that I’m telling the truth when I’m really lying.

I ask the cops if I can have a minute to think. I think they’re going to leave the room, but they don’t. They bring me down a hallway and put me in a little closet with a mop sink in the floor. They have me stand in that mop sink, and they close the door. I’m in the dark, and I feel more alone than I’ve ever felt in my life. I think there are two people in the world who know I’m in this police station right now, and they’re standing on the other side of the door. They want me in prison.

And I’m just standing there trying to think of a way that I spent seven thousand dollars and have nothing to show for it. And I’ve got nothing. Standing there, I start to think, and I say, "God, should I confess to a crime I didn’t commit?" I’m not a person who believes in God. I’m one who wants to, but can’t. But when I say those words out loud, and I hear them out loud, I realize how insane it is to say I did this thing. For the first time in two weeks, my body fills up with something—like, this is not going to happen to me.

And I push the door open, and I look at that steel-gray-haired man and I say, "No, I didn’t do it, and I’m not going to say I did."

So they arrest me, and they send me to jail. It’s a long two years before I’m sitting in a courtroom and I’m found not guilty. But that is not my victory day. My victory happens in that mop sink, in that dark closet, when I call out to a god that I don’t really think exists, and he maybe gives me the answer I needed to hear. And somehow, I think in that dark space that maybe I’m not alone.

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