Woo was one of our first IT students. I say was because this week he was sent to
the hole, locked up after fighting another inmate in the staff kitchen. Fight is the wrong word. It was no fight. Woo, a man I’ve described in the blog before
as having a head the size of a Rottweiler’s is a huge man. He has tremendous
forearms, almost as thick as thighs, “Popeye” arms. He is a large, strong, powerful man.
Woo is a staff cook.
Tuesday, during his shift, another staff worker began running his
mouth. Words were exchanged. Woo has
been dealing for months with his mother’s passing. Because her home was in Georgia he was unable
to attend (inmates are prohibited from funerals out of state). So Woo, dealing with the loss of his mother,
the despair of incarceration, and the stress of waiting to see if his federal
crack sentence is reduced (he has five years to do on a federal conviction
which he starts when he leaves VA DOC in June 2012. In July, President Obama signed into law,
applying retroactive sentencing guidelines, that corrects the harsh disparity
between crack versus powder cocaine sentences) snapped out.
He picked the obnoxious inmate up and threw him on the
heated stove causing second degree burns.
Woo pled guilty to a simple charge of fighting (could have been much
worse), and is doing fifteen days in the hole.
His security level is being raised.
His good time (what little we receive) taken (adding 90 plus additional
days to his sentence). He has been
removed from his job and college.
I have become aggressively pacifistic (an oxymoron if ever I
heard one) since my arrest. Violence is
never the solution. Behavior – fighting especially
– to settle disputes in prison is commonplace.
I regularly recite the mantra to the guys “you can’t put your hands on
someone in the real world”. Unfortunately,
in the “real world” too often “might makes right”. Violence begets violence. As Gandhi said “an eye for an eye and we’ll
all be blind.”
How will Woo respond?
How will the loss of his job, college and good time affect him for the
remainder of his bid? What has he
learned from this that will ensure he won’t repeat the insanity? This is Woo’s third time in prison. I pray it’s his last but this past week gave
me reasons to think it isn’t.
Monday night the 5:00 pm news put up the photo of a “convicted
sex offender” caught in a high school parking lot in Richmond. “An investigation revealed the offender had
failed to register.” The offender? Alexander, the “lawyer” I’d written about
previously who made thousands of dollars each month off the hopes of inmates
seeking a way out, the same guy who became involved with an officer this past
summer which led to him being investigated and her being fired. The same Alexander who was only released 56
days ago.
As I’ve written before, I met Alexander at the Henrico
Jail. To see someone I knew in jail came
as a complete shock to me. I’d seen him
around bar events, legal ed seminars, and the like from time to time. My gut reaction always was “this guy’s full
of it”. My opinion didn’t change when I saw
him at the jail or later when I saw him here.
He was too cocky, too crazy with the officers, and to quick to tell guys
their cases were beatable. I avoided him.
Some of the officers had tipped me off that things weren’t
as Alexander said. He’d tell guys he ran
a $4 million plus scheme on the street to gain inmate awe (point of
information: million dollar thefts carry
reverence in prison. I am treated as a
genius because I was dumb enough to get caught after steeling $2 million). He, in fact, took $30,000 from a trust
account. He also neglected to tell guys
he had a 1999 conviction for indecency with a minor.
Even worse, there were indications Alexander hadn’t learned
anything from his stay in the hole his last three months here – or his three
plus year bid. A number of guys had
stopped me the past few weeks asking for help putting letters and materials
together to mail to Alexander. “He’s
agreed to have his law firm handle my appeal,” they’d tell me. Problem is, there is no law firm. Alexander isn’t a lawyer. He’s still running the same hustle he ran in
here.
Now, he’s back in jail.
He’s facing new charges and these are serious: failure to register is a major problem for a
sex offender. Being in a school zone as
an unregistered convicted sex offender makes things even worse. Alexander will, in all likelihood, be back in
prison within the next few months. He’ll
get new time for his new charges and additional time for his violation of the
terms of his probation.
For the guys in here still doing time, it’s just another
dumb ass who gets out and screws up and makes it that much tougher on the rest
of us to get out early. Will Alexander
ever get it together? The answer appears
to be doubtful.
And then there is Gary.
Gary is an Episcopal minister, a rector at a well-established church in Richmond. Shortly after my arrest a dear friend who
came almost daily to see me telephoned my minister. The minister’s response when my friend asked
him to visit me at the jail? “I’m not
getting in the middle of his legal problems and his marital problems.” He wasn’t the only one from my church who
rejected me after my arrest. But the
sting of being rejected by my clergy was deep.
My friend turned to his own pastor – Gary – to visit
me. Gary didn’t know me. He’d never met me. I wasn’t a member of his flock. Yet, this man, this stranger, called on me at
the jail. He continued to do so monthly.
When I transferred to the hell that was receiving, Gary
showed up. He listened to me. When I cried out asking “why” he didn’t offer
simple, easy explanations for the mystery that is God. Shortly after my arrival at receiving he sent
me a card with the archangel Michael portrayed.
“Michael is the angel who guards and protects the Lord’s people” he
wrote. I put that card on the bunk so that
every night as I lay there hearing the screams throughout the building I saw Michael. That card, that angel, greets me every time I
open my locker.
Throughout my stay here at Lunenburg Gary has written me –
and visited. He sent two amazing books
about Christian meditation that helped me “silence the noise” in my head during
prayers and bask in the quiet presence of God. There are two men that have led
me to a deeper understanding of the mystery and magnificence of the Lord. Gary and my friend Harley, who asked Gary to
visit, are those men.
When I seek to model my Christian life after someone, it’s Gary
I think of. He had no reason to reach
out to me. Yet, his faith led him to
me. I am surviving this because of
people like Gary.
Last night I received a copy of a letter Gary mailed to his
parishioners. My friend sent it with a
short note that said “keep Gary in your prayers”. Gary advised his congregation that he’d been
diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. “The
doctors are optimistic” he wrote about his prognosis.
I have taken to heart conversations and letters I’ve shared
with this wonderful pastor. Life does
indeed not appear to make sense sometimes.
And trials and suffering make their way into our lives and they test us
to the point of breaking. But, God is
good. He is in the midst of all storms
and He does see us through.
Every night since that first visit he made to the jail, Gary
has been included in my prayers. I don’t
understand why or how cancer strikes. I don’t
understand why good people suffer. But I
do know Gary will be fine. He is a good
man and has the love, respect, and prayers of many.
Three men I know this week confronted trials. Like all of us, some of the trials faced were
the result of anger and impulse, or pride and arrogance, and others just
visited upon us for no reason. I pray
for all three men that their trials awaken in them the true purpose God calls
them to.
And these three remind me of a story: “A Rottweiler, an attorney and a priest walk
into a bar…”
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