Moore Stories

There’s a guy in here named Moore. Moore is a mid-fifties black guy who’s been in and out of the system a number of times. He’s also a prime time “whaler”. Whaler is prison jargon for liar, a guy who makes up stories that are so far-fetched they can’t possibly be true.



In Moore’s case he whales about his athletic prowess. One day he tells everyone he was in an NBA training camp. The next, he was a triple A infielder for the Yankees. It’s gotten so bad when he walks by I’ll stop and say “yeah, I invented ramen noodles”, or “yeah, I invented writing”. Or, my personal favorite, “I’m really a 30 year old black rapper who’s married to Halle Berry. I’m just here to research a movie”.


The thing about prison is, you can be whoever you want to be. The more desperate and pathologic the inmate, the more outrageous the story. There’s the guy I tutor with rotten teeth, early 40’s, reading at a third grade level who swears up and down he drove a 2006 Bentley.


Cars, women, jewelry, it all becomes the subject of far-fetched tales. But, as I’ve written before, prison merely mirrors “the street”. This past week the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held as unconstitutional a federal law making it a felony to claim you were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. The defendant, Xavier Alvarez, claimed to not only be a medal recipient, but also a retired NHL hockey player married to a Mexican movie star.


The court wasn’t condoning lying, but was saying lying – without something else like defrauding someone of money – isn’t a crime. I think about the concept of lying a great deal. In one particularly venomous letter, my then wife stated “you’re a liar and a thief”. I wrote back and told her “I only lied about stealing”.


Shortly after meeting my wife in college I took a look at her application to the school. I worked for the associate dean of students and back then privacy wasn’t as big a deal as it is today. Besides the amazing photo on the application, under “extra-curricular activities” she had written “high school cheerleader”. I knew it had to be true. She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. I didn’t tell her I saw her app, I just asked her one night about cheerleading. She told me she wasn’t ever a cheerleader. I never said anything else to her about her embellishment, but I always wondered why. She didn’t have to do it. She was beautiful, and brilliant, and pleasant.


Everyone lies. We do it everyday, multiple times. We lie about big issues (“yeah the money is legitimate”) and we lie about small issues (“you look great”). My ex insisted in one letter “I never lied to you, except telling you sometimes it was good when it was so so”. Less than a paragraph later she wrote “I haven’t loved you for a long time”. Funny, the night before my arrest she told me “I love you”.


I think we lie because in the short term it’s easier. Why hurt someone’s feelings with the truth? Why unload your problems on those around you? Lying is a lot less risky. You can be who you want, not who you are.


But lying comes at a price. You can’t keep up with all the lies. Eventually, the truth comes out and there are always consequences.


I often wonder what my wife’s feelings would have been if I was more assertive to what I needed in our relationship. Would she have been receptive to change? I don’t know; but, I do know the price I paid was way too severe. I lost her. And, ironically, I lied so I wouldn’t!


Back to prison. I teach beginning and advanced writers programs for the school. There’s a teacher for an advisor, but she doesn’t attend class. She just helps me prep materials and topics.


I teach by telling stories. A lot of them are about me. The guys in the class sit spellbound as I describe my ineptitude in building a garbage can holder, or a trial I conducted, or my arrest. My stories are all true. I go out of my way to be painfully honest about successes and foibles, emotions and actions. They gaze on in amazement then say “no one ever tells us the truth about their life”. But, I’ve discovered its OK to be me, like Popeye the sailor, I now hold my head up content that “I yam what I yam”.


Yesterday afternoon “Hank” asked to walk the track with me. He was down. The Virginia Supreme Court dismissed a petition he filed. It was tossed on an urban legend that exists in prison that states an inmate can “de-incorporate” (the government gives you a social security number; you become a corporation. Return the number and they have to release you). From the moment I arrived in prison I told guys “this is a crock. It doesn’t exist. It won’t work.” I upset a good number of guys with my honesty. But, I was proven correct.


Hank told me he had paid an inmate $300 to handle the dismissed petition. “I feel hopeless, like God’s give up on me.” As we walked and I listened I felt the pain in his voice. He’s back here on a probation violation. He previously did three years for grand larceny, got hooked on heroin, forged/altered a check an the judge gave him all his suspended time: 12 year to do. Harsh sentence? No doubt. Decent guy who got in trouble because of a drug addiction? Absolutely. Being helped in prison? No.


After he finished, I told him my story: a perfect life; deeply in love with a beautiful woman; two amazing sons; friends; great job and education. I told him how it was all gone.


He stopped walking and stared at me. “How do you go on?” he asked. I told him the most honest thing I knew; that I trust, I hope, I know this will all work out for the best. Everyday I get up believing that people can endure anything with hope and that’s the truth.


In honor of Moore, let me just say “I invented hope and truth”.