Graduation

There's a Bruce Springsteen lyric I can't get out of my head, from his song "Atlantic City:"

“Everything dies baby that's a fact
But everything that dies maybe some day comes back...”

So yesterday was graduation and, in spite of the head of security "Jeffrey" trying to ruin the event--see the man is in over his head; he hates programs that benefit the men, he hates the inmates, he especially hates inmates getting an education--graduation was emotional and wonderful. My man-child friend "Moose" delivered his graduation speech flawlessly. Over and over he would look at the audience and say "believe" and the crowd, about 100 visitors there to see their sons and fathers and brothers earn degrees or certificates began to clap and join in a rhythmic sound of joy--as Moose told his story, the story of getting a college degree while behind bars. And he thanked me and told me I inspired him. Funny, no one in my life ever said I was an inspiration. No one claimed I gave them hope or faith or belief. And yet in here, I play that role. In here, I am father figure to dozens of these young college men who fight the odds and overcome.

The President Emeritus of the college spoke eloquently about the need for college inside a prison--he said, that's what it is, a prison. It's not a correctional center, it's a prison and they try and break you and kill your hope and your dreams. "Don't let them," he urged.

Joy. What a lovely word. We have a literature professor by the name of "Joy." She brought her husband to our graduation yesterday and she marched in the procession. The men, they remember. They remember that in the last British lit class Joy told us, "I pray for each of you by name each night." Joy prays for us. These men don't forget; they know that for the dozens of "Jeffreys" who rely on this place for a living, who see only the worst, there is “Joy” whose prayers are stronger than any negativity from a thousand.

What does school mean to these men? It means everything. It means pride and hope and belief. It means you can overcome the felony conviction. You can leave here and succeed.

They cut visit short yesterday after the ceremony--just another in the "security" measures these people apply to remind you none of us matter. But there's "Joy" who keeps us in her prayers.

Bruce’s lyric goes through my mind. Everything maybe someday comes back. "Atlantic City" is one of those sad, soulful ballads I just love which tear at my conscience; and it reminds me there is always hope.

Graduation--I wrote Moose's speech. I wanted these young men to know that there is life after this. I needed to remind myself of that.

I read a story recently where an American missionary in India was talking to an elderly village elder. "I feel sorry for you Americans," the elderly man said. "You have so much, you forget you need God."
Prison reminds you of your need; and Joy, she reminds us that we can overcome.

"Everything dies baby that's a fact"; marriage, relationships, jobs, even sometimes freedom.
"But everything that dies someday maybe comes back." That was my message in the graduation speech; and the best part of it was, after hearing Moose, after seeing the guys and their families and the folks from the college, I believe it. Believe--God that is a great word, a word that can overcome even all this.

Atlantic City

“Well they killed the chicken man in Philly last night

            And the DA can’t get no relief …”

            

So begins Bruce Springsteen’s soulful acoustic ballad “Atlantic City.” I’ve been thinking about that song a good bit the last few weeks. It’s a song about a guy who has to do a favor for a friend. He knows the favor will cost him… probably with his life. The singer is on the wrong side of the law. And, like most ballads, there’s trouble coming. He knows it’ll cost him his life. Still he has to do what he has to do. Then, the refrain:

            “Everything dies baby that’s a fact

            But everything that dies someday comes back

            Put your make up on

            Fix your hair real pretty

            And meet me tonight in Atlantic City”

            

I can’t get Springsteen’s lyric out of my mind. “Everything dies.” It’s the message of Ecclesiastes and the Book of Lamentations in the Old Testament. Everything dies. Nothing survives. It all ends. And. As I recently read, “nothing dies pretty: reputation, marriage, dreams.” Springsteen’s protagonist begins as a realist. He knows the score. He has a job to do and it can’t be avoided. And there’s a cost to what he’s doing; a dear cost; a cost so great that as you listen you hope he won’t do the “favor;” he’ll choose the other way. “Everything dies baby that’s a fact.”

            

But, I can’t mouth that first line without the second. “But everything that dies someday comes back.” And, I can’t help thinking Springsteen’s telling me something. There’s a season to mourn, but that season will roll forward. Like the tide coming in and going out, everything dies, but everything someday comes back.

            

I’ve been thinking about that a lot – the dying and coming back part – as I watch lives go on around me in here and outside. It’s a recurrent theme in literature, which means in life as well. The most critically acclaimed show on TV right now is “Breaking Bad.” The premise is simple enough. A high school chemistry teacher faces the news he has cancer. From the outside, all looks well in his life. It isn’t, his marriage – like his health – is failing. So he makes a deal with the devil. He needs to make sure his family is provided for, needs to make sure his family survives. He begins manufacturing crystal meth. And, the money pours in. What does he do? He lies repeatedly to his wife to cover up his wrong doing.

            

Here’s the funny thing: audiences pull for him. You know what he’s doing is wrong. And, you know that crossing the ethical line, the line that keeps you doing what’s right even when no one’s watching, can’t be uncrossed. And, you know that one ethical lapse makes the next one easier. Walter White, the protagonist anti-hero of “Breaking Bad” survives his cancer; but the cancer of selling his soul, corrupting the man he is, eats away at him worse than the disease ever could. We watch and we pull for him; we hope he finds his way out because we know what the story writers already know: we are all capable of crossing the line.

           

 “Everything dies baby that’s a fact, but everything that dies someday comes back.” Walter’s life dies in many ways. His marriage survives – his wife becomes a partner in his business venture. She devises the lies to hide the money, to keep their friends and family from learning the truth. But, she betrays him in so many ways. And the security, the future, that Walter sought when he made his deal with the devil can’t exist with drug manufacturing, and drug gangs, and killing. He can’t stay in and he can’t get out.

           

 Most of the guys in here watch “Breaking Bad” because they understand the drug culture. They understand the tweaked out junkies, and the guns, and the wrecked lives. I watch it because of the disintegration and transformation of Walter. I watch because I know what Walter is dealing with.

            

Atlantic City. I spent dozens of nights in Atlantic City. We’d go every month or so with friends, three and four couples. There’d be suites, and concerts, and spa treatments and shopping for our wives. Dinners were with wine and sixty dollar glasses of scotch. There’d be five hundred dollar crap tables, and cohiba cigars. We were living a fantasy life. In the back of my mind I always said I’d quit. But how? That’s the dilemma.

            

So one night we’re in our suite and the full wall length windows show off the lights up and down the boardwalk. You can see the white tops of waves crashing into the shore. She senses something isn’t right. “Tell me what’s wrong,” she says. And for an ever so brief moment I consider telling her. It flashes through my mind. I want to tell her. I want to leave the country and buy a small beach bar in the Caribbean and read and run and live with my soul intact. “I love you,” I tell her. “I always have; I always will.” I explain I’m stressed out at work. We dress and go to a late dinner with our friends. Two months later I’m arrested. “I haven’t loved you for years,” she says. “Everything dies baby that’s a fact …”

            

The “Boss” sings his soulful refrain and you know it won’t end well for his anti-hero. The funny thing is, you hope it does. “Everything that dies some day comes back.” Springsteen knew dying is just part of living. And living goes on. There is a tomorrow. There will be a second act.

            

So “Miko-bones” – a new reader: remember prison in many ways is a state of mind. Focus on the future. It’ll be different, but there will be a future. Springsteen was right:

            “Everything dies baby that’s a fact

            But everything that dies some day comes back.”

On the Road

Perhaps it’s not so odd to dream about being on the road while you’re passing days behind barbed wire fences. Prior to my arrest and conviction, I spent a good deal of time on the road. Each day, Monday through Friday, I’d commute sixty-eight miles one way to get to my office. Two or three times each month I’d be on the road to cover trials in various parts of the state. Each month, I’d find myself in an airport flying off for business and later gambling trips to Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

            Then, there were the vacations, the trips each summer to the beach, Hilton Head Island in South Carolina, and the trips tied into business meetings where our children would see the country: Seattle, Park City, Utah, Sun Valley, Idaho, New Mexico, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We’d travel over Christmas to Caribbean Islands or head back to the beach. Travel, being on the road, was a focal point of our family dynamics.

            On the road. How ironic that what I’m going through now is also a road of sorts. It’s ironic that all the travel I had “before,” all those resorts and beautiful vistas, pale blue waters, they were all on a road to nowhere. They were an escape. I was running, running from my failures and self-loathing and guilt over my behavior. Stealing, embezzlement is too sanitized a word, didn’t come easy to me, at least at first. Moving, constantly bombarding myself with travel and work and meals and dice, kept me from thinking about what I’d done. So I focused on the road and it led me right to this prison.

            Recently I’ve been thinking about roads. I’ve wondered where this road is taking me. My life is not where I expected it would be. And maybe that’s ok. Maybe I’m on the road I’m supposed to be on, the road that was meant for me.

            I think often of Paul. Here was a man well regarded in the elite circles of his culture. He moved freely among the well-heeled and intellectuals. He was, by all appearances, a success: Good family, devout, articulate, on the right side of the law. And, he was arrogant, an arrogance built on being so sure you are always right, always justified in your actions. There’s no mention of Paul, before his conversion, ever had any doubts about what he was doing even as the blood of innocent men and women stained his hands. Their crime, punishable by death, was to believe that an itinerant carpenter was the Messiah who had come to set them free and reconcile them to God Almighty.

            So Paul did what any law-abiding leader of his time (and our time it seems) would do. He sought to keep his nation, his people, within the code of conduct handed down generations before. And he did his work well. Still, I asked myself, did he ever have doubts?

            So many days as I’d drive alone along the backroads of Virginia, traveling from rural courthouse to courthouse, it would hit me “You’ll lose everything,” and that strange, small voice in the back of my mind would whisper.  I would be overwhelmed with guilt, and fear, and dread. I’d begin to speak out loud to no one in particular, or maybe it was to someone specific; I’d cry out “God, I don’t want to lose my family. I don’t want to go to prison.” The voice would pass, the road would lead me home, and I’d try and forget the voice and my response.           

            It didn’t seem like Paul went through that, which made his trip to Damascus all the more powerful. Paul, it seems, never saw it coming. Paul never thought he was going the wrong way. And then, he left for Damascus.

            Have you ever been lost? You’re driving, sure you know where you’re headed, then get to a point where things don’t add up. You sense this isn’t the right way. And it’s a strange uncomfortable feeling not knowing if you’re lost.

            No one wants to be lost. No one wants to feel the insecurity of not recognizing where you are. Your heart flutters and races a little; your breathing is more rapid; your palms sweat. You go over how you got there. Maybe, you think, you should have turned left instead of right a mile back down the road? But even that doesn’t make sense. It hits you: You are lost,

            Paul knew the way to Damascus. He knew the route and was headed in the right way. Or was he? Sometimes you’re headed the right direction for the wrong reasons. And sometimes you’re headed the wrong direction for the right reasons. Either way, you’ve got to get back on track. Paul needed to go to Damascus, just not for the reason he thought. He was struck down, blinded, laid out on the side of the road. He was bewildered and scared and alone. He had to trust, trust that voice he heard; the voice who called out to him and struck him blind was God, and God would lead him where he needed to go.

            It’s ironic isn’t it? Paul, blind and alone, ends up in Damascus and regains his sight. And for the rest of his life he traveled the known world of the Roman Empire. He encountered storms which sank his ship; he was stranded on islands, run out of towns, beaten, stoned and dumped in jails from Asia Minor to Rome. Not once in any of his travels after Damascus was he ever lost again. His entire remaining life is spent on the road and his sense of direction is perfect, never a day lost. Lost, it seems, is a state of mind.

            After my arrest I spent almost a year confined in the regional jail living, at times, three to a cell. One man would have a mattress on the floor of the cell, a cramped eight by ten concrete block room complete with commode and cold water sink. We were locked in that tiny space ten to twelve hours each day. The rest of the day the dayroom was open. Dayroom is a sterilized name for the common area for all the cells in our pod. Twenty-four cells triple bunked. Seventy-two men moving around a space the size of half a basketball court. Monday through Friday I’d leave the pod and walk two narrow corridors to the adult basic education classroom where I worked as a tutor.

            That pod, those narrow hallways were my whole world for a year. I only saw the outside, only felt fresh air on my face, eight times that entire year. Four times, I was shackled and handcuffed and driven the twenty miles to the rural county courthouse where my trial, was a cause celeb. I noticed very little on those rides, my mind awash in a thousand screaming thoughts about the disaster that was my life.

            Four other days our pod – along with two others – had outdoor rec. Outdoor rec was a blacktopped, open-air, basketball court smack in the middle of the jail building. Every side was three stories of brick and barred windows. You could see the sky, feel the sun, and then mill around with one hundred other inmates. You knew you were still locked up. And because of the time of day – usually mid to late afternoon – the sun was beyond the blacktop area. Shadows from the tops of the jail covered the court; shadows formed stupid, reckless decisions that covered my life.

            It’s funny, but that small, closed in world soon became comfortable. I learned multiple paths to the same location. I became known to inmates in every pod. Each time I‘d leave the confines of my pod and venture out to court an article in the local paper would follow. With each article my status at the jail grew. Each day, as I’d walk out of the pod and down the hallway to class I would hear “Heh, Mr. B, can you look at my paperwork?” And, hands would reach out through the bars with an assortment of legal documents.    

            I saw it all, divorce and custody papers, foreclosure and debt notices, and warrants for every crime imaginable. This was my world, hallways measuring less than the distance around a high school track, artificial light, bars and deputies and the smell of disinfectant trying to kill the smells emanating in the stale air. Still, I knew my way. I was comfortable. My road had become compressed, controlled, and contrived. I didn’t think about the mess I’d made. I only thought about getting from point A to point B.

            August 12, 2009. 6:00 a.m. Breakfast in the pod. I had been at the jail 359 days, almost one full year. My life was completely changed in that year. I had gone from a claims attorney for a property and casualty insurer headquartered in Richmond to a convicted felon early into a fifteen year sentence. I’d pled guilty to six counts, paid over $600,000 in restitution on my sentencing date, signed all my other assets over to my wife (that was the deal I made with my employer: I’ll plead guilty; you let me take care of my wife and kids), and she promptly hit me with divorce papers.

            In one year, I’d gone from first-class airfare and evenings at the Ritz-Carlton to shackles and dirty, worn, threadbare sheets. I’d gone from sixty dollar glasses of Johnnie Walker Blue to tepid water; from fourteen ounce ribeyes, lamb shanks, and seafood alfredo to grayish “breakfast gravy,” instant scrambled eggs, and white bread. I’d gone from the life of the party – a man with dozens of people who would hang on to his every word – to a guy with less than five friends. Hell of a road I was on that year. There was a suicide attempt, prescribed anti-depressants to “help me sleep,” and bi-monthly visits to the State’s forensic psychiatrist to prepare my case for sentencing. One year. I didn’t want to think about moving on. I just wanted to survive, survive in my small world I’d built at the jail.

            6:00 a.m. and the call came. “Pack up. You’re transferring to D.O.C.” DOC, the Virginia Department of Corrections, prison, real prison with real time, with real crime, real despair. Yet, I treated the news with ambivalence. I was scared, but I was also tired, tired of everything my life had become.

            Everything I had fit into a plastic trash bag. The deputy at the jail took my things and dumped them right into the bag. My papers, a Bible, a few pair of underwear and tee shirts, socks, all tossed in and tied off in that clear plastic bag. My clothes from the day I was arrested were handed to me. “Put these on,” he said, and I stripped off the two piece v neck jump top and elastic bottoms in the drab olive green color. There I was with my navy blue blazer, oxford shirt, and khakis from the day my life changed. I put them on and they hung loosely off my waist and shoulders.

            “Lost weight.” The deputy was staring at me. I had. When I was arrested I was embarrassingly overweight, heavier than I’d been my entire adult life. It was too much scotch, too much rich food and it had made me puffy and bloated. A year in hell, depression, despair, and a lack of meaningful exercise and the liquid weight fell off. So did the muscle tone. I was twenty-seven pounds lighter, back to my marathon training weight of 170, but I was gaunt and weak. My clothes, wrinkled from a year balled up in a bag sitting in the jail basement hung from me. Even they were tired and ready to quit.

            The handcuffs and shackles were put on. My bag and I shuffled – that’s the only way to describe it, shuffle, how you walk with shackles. One foot slid forward eighteen inches then, as the chain tightened, the other foot drug forward to the sheriff’s car. Seat belted in, we pulled out into the warm, humid August air and I felt the sun hit my face.

            And as we drove out into the country into the neighboring county and DOC’s inmate receiving prison nestled in the middle of farmland, I watched the homes and lots go by. Everywhere there was green grass and trees in lush, dark summer green. I’d been down that highway so many times traveling with work and I’d never noticed how green everything was.

            For the first time in a year, I was on the road and I had no idea what I faced. I didn’t know where I was going or what lay in store for me. But, instead of fear, I was calm. I’d seen so much, been so far off the right road for so long, this drive felt right. I was going the right way. I’d been lost, but had slowly started to find my way. I didn’t know how long it would take, but I’d find my way back, I vowed.

            I remembered Paul again. Blinded, broken, he found his way. The key I realized was he didn’t find the way. The way found him. That’s where the peace came from. Even as he traveled, even as he faced immense suffering and setbacks, he never despaired. He was on the right road. No matter what he faced, he knew he was going the right way.

            I thought about that as we travelled along those rural Virginia roads. That thought stayed with me when we pulled up to a real prison complete with gun towers and razor wire. And, that thought stayed with my when I was dumped in a sticky, one hundred degree cell with an anti-social twenty-four year old gangbanger starting on a seventy-six year sentence for murder. Each day, as I walked the narrow concrete walkway back to my cell or tier two, and I passed men whose lives were forged on violence and hate, I doubted I could go on. The road was over. I would look below, at the concrete floor, and think there was where my road would end. I’d gone so far off course, thrown away so much, there was nothing left to do. I’d hear a little voice tell me after so many years off track I was finally going the right way. “Don’t be afraid. I know where you’re going.” Funny little voice. But sometimes that’s all we need to see the big picture.

            The road led to a tenth of a mile sandy track outside our building where almost every day I’d go and run. In a prison jumper with Velcro sneakers, in August Virginia heat I’d run round and round that little track under the gaze of a shotgun toting officer just feet behind the fence. It felt right. It felt good. It felt free. The voice was right. There was healing and redemption on that unlikeliest of roads.

            Roads lead so many directions. You can get anywhere really. If you aren’t careful you’ll head out the wrong way. You’ll end up lost and confused. Just like using GPS, there’s a way you can get turned around. And, you may find the road to lead you back isn’t what you expected. It may go through some valleys and broken pavement may be the surface. It won’t matter. You’ll know you’re headed the right way.

            I travelled so many places, took so many roads but never knew where I was going until I admitted I was lost. Now my travels are confined to concrete prison walkways and a gravel track, but I’m going the right way. I found out who I was and who I was meant to be. And the road? I see it clearly in my mind and it’s not defined by this prison.