Thoughts on the Governors

Governor Bob has had his whole life exposed during these past 5 weeks. We’ve learned his marriage was in disarray and his wife was a loud, abrasive, near psychotic who could have given Lady Macbeth a run for her money. We’ve also learned Bob was corrupt.

Now, the Gov.’s future, his freedom, rests with a jury. Hey Gov. – I’ve been there. The difference between you and me is I knew what I was doing was wrong; and, I “manned up,” admitted my wrongdoing and took the heat. I didn’t defend my actions on the back of my wife and our problems.

I had a bemused reaction the other day when I heard Mr. McDonnell say he wished he acted in a different manner, but all of us do things we regret. No kidding. As Governor, he could have applied that philosophy to thousands of men and women behind bars who deserve a “second chance” and who shouldn’t be doing time just for time’s sake.

But he didn’t. He supported the present criminal justice system that sends way too many to prison for way too long; it’s a system forged in retribution and vengeance that costs the commonwealth dearly in destroyed lives and communities.

A quote about liberals goes like this: “A liberal is a conservative who’s been arrested.” Governor Bob will soon learn his fate. Perhaps this will be Mr. McDonnell’s Damascus moment when he will find his real calling and his soul. That would be a better result than sending him to prison. I know from personal experience. 

And out new Gov. – Governor Terry? He’s presiding over a budget meltdown. He has the chance to do something extraordinary and change the money-sucking criminal justice/corrections operation in the state.

Like Moses to the Pharaoh, hey Gov., “let these people go.” Institute meaningful early release. Restructure sentencing. Fire your DOC head and his sycophant managers and bring in real reform-minded leadership. Re-establish a parole system that rewards good behavior.

What is happening is DOC has to find $43 million in immediate cuts. “Buy less office supplies” is the message to staff. Are you kidding me? Virginia’s prisons are too full, too expensive to run, and have too many non-violent offenders just “doing time.”

Come on Governor Terry. Be courageous; be bold; make real savings happen. 

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.

Life Lesson

My friend DC learned last evening that his father passed away.  Death is never easy to grasp; in here it is even more difficult.  For fifty years DC’s father has regularly visited.  With his age and health deteriorating his visits to spend time with his incarcerated son became less frequent.  Recently, DC’s mom traveled alone or with DC’s wife for their regular monthly visits. 

When DC took me aside last night and told me the news, I found myself struck by the grace and dignity he possessed.  Later that night as I prayed, I stopped and wrote a few things that in the light of this beautiful, warm, January day surprised me.

But first, a little about DC’s dad.  I had the privilege of meeting him once, up at visitation; but in truth I knew him well through DC’s stories.  He was an infantryman in the United States Army and served in some of the bloodiest battles in Korea.  He served his country and fought and watched friends bleed and die all the while being repeatedly referred to as “boy” and “colored” and being denied basic civil rights living in the segregated south of the ‘40s, ‘50s and early ‘60s.  We, as a people, tend to gloss over our failures, our evils, our sins.  I’ve learned in this experience that too often we like to see things neatly, “us versus them” and the “us” is always right, always justified.  That, I believe, is why it’s so easy for “us” to justify our anger at a whole host of peoples overseas, why “we” so easily support this nation incarcerating two million.  “We” are honorable; “we” are decent.  “They” are terrorists, “they” are criminals.

The truth is, there is no “us” or “them”, there is only “we”.  We all fail, we all have the capacity to hurt and be hurtful.  We all can act a little more humanely.

So DC’s father and mother moved to the District married in ’46; drafted he was sent to Korea.  They raised a house full of children; buried two.  DC’s dad bought a liquor store on the edge of Georgetown.  Kept it his whole life.  Never robbed, never burned during the riots.  DC’s Pop was respected in the community and DC – he was feared.

Years passed.  There was the day in 1968 when his dad came to school and picked him up.  Driving home his dad lowered his voice and gently said “Paul’s coming home.  He was killed over there.  We have to be brave for mom.  She needs us.”  Paul was DC’s older brother.  DC idolized him.  He was drafted by the Phillies one week, the best pitcher they’d ever seen in D.C. they told the family.  Two weeks later the army drafted him and Paul ended up fighting and dying in Vietnam for a war that made no sense, fighting for “freedom” for a foreign people while his own family was denied equal rights in the nation’s capitol. 

Years later, DC asked his dad about the war, if he was angry about Paul dying for such a senseless cause.  “I don’t think nothin of it”, he said.  “I respect your brother cause he went, he fought, he did what he thought was right even knowing the risk.”  DC told me that story a few months after we met during a particularly tough time for me.  “You’re a stand up guy…even in here.  My Pops says that counts for something.”

DC’s dad.  He turned DC’s life around.  As I’ve noted in this blog, DC was one of the most feared, brutal inmates in the Virginia Prison system for years.  A week ago, I began writing a story – an essay really – built around DC.  I’ve been stuck for an ending.  See, my view of DC, the man I know today has largely developed as my faith has grown.  For obvious reasons, I call the story “Damascus”.  I’ve always been intrigued by Paul’s faith journey.  The Apostle Paul was ruthless in his pursuit of members of “the way”.  The blood of dozens was literally on his hands.  And then one day, on the road to Damascus, on the way to attack more Christians, he was struck down.  Why, I wondered, can church people, “good people”, accept that God could change Paul, but not someone like DC?  (You’ll have to wait for the story to come out to get my answer).

This afternoon I found my ending.  DC came by the cut while I was writing.  He just needed to talk about his dad.  So I listened as my friend spoke.  “My daughter was with Pops when he died.  He gripped her hand and called her close and said ‘tell you daddy to remember the goose’.  Then his hand went loose and he was gone.”

DC then told me what that meant.  Back in the early ‘80s, when DC was at Mecklenburg Corrections Center and in the middle of eighteen months of segregated living, i.e. “in the hole”, he was called to a surprise visit.  Visits in segregation are non-contact.  You talk through phones and Plexiglas.  “It was Pops.  He’d come down by himself to see me.”  For hours they talked.  Finally, his father with the phone close to his mouth asked DC why.  “Why do you keep doing this to yourself in prison when you got so much waitin on you out there?”  DC hemmed and hawed.  He had no answer.  “Figure it out son, before it’s too late.  You figure it out and we’ll get you out of here.  And you and me’ll share a bottle of Grey Goose and we’ll talk.”

Ten years later, DC had figured it out.  His dad was at another visit only this time the man sitting in front of Pops wasn’t the same angry, brutal man behind the Plexiglas.  Instead, his dad saw the DC I know, a man of peace, kindness and decency.

“It was about fear, Larry”, DC told me and I felt as though I was looking in the mirror.  Fear had driven me to my own self-destructive meeting with prison and divorce.  “I asked Pops why he came to see me that day in the ‘80s.  He told me a guy called him.  Said he’d just gotten out of prison and knew me.  And he told my Pops if I didn’t get reached soon either the state would kill me or another inmate would kill me, but I’d never make it out.  He just got in his car and drove down to see me.”

There are times in this experience when I’m not sure I can make it another day.  And then there are times, like these past twenty-four hours, when I thank God for this.  I don’t know why all this has happened, but I know I’m a better man for meeting guys like DC.  And I know life; death; pain and joy make so much more sense to me having been put in this place.

DC’s hurting right now but he’s also very much at peace.  He’ll have his time with his dad.  And I promised him, after we’re both out, we’ll go see his dad and have a glass of the goose.  May God bless DC’s Pops.  May God bless DC.  May God bless us all.