Good...Bye...

“In the clearing stands a boxer, 

And a fighter by his trade 

And he carries the reminders 

Of ev'rye glove that laid him down 

And cut him till he cried out

In his anger and his shame,

"I am leaving, I am leaving." 

But the fighter still remains”

Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer" reminds me of two dear friends who left this past week. Chuck and DC both have gone home to begin new lives, real lives, lives outside this cesspool with family and friends who love them and respect them and understand they are not the total of their "update sheets."

DC--like an older brother to me; 43 years--imagine that number, 43 years, locked up. He was ruthless and cruel and ignorant and now...now he is a man with dreams and ambitions and knowledge. He never shirked responsibility for his wrongs. That was one of things I loved about DC. He always told me he got what he deserved. I don't think so. I think he got more...so very much more than he deserved and he never complained. More importantly, he never gave up hope.

And Chuck? Chuck was just a decent guy; a military retiree who on one night made a terrible mistake. And it cost him. It cost him a marriage, and time with his three sons; and the birth of a grandchild; and his job; and his freedom; and his self-respect. And Chuck wore his guilt and his pain much like I do. But the beautiful thing about Chuck was, he never let it sour him. He cared about people; he helped people; and he found the inner strength through his faith to make a difference in a lot of younger men's lives in here.

Chuck and DC were my "go to" guys. On those days--more than I care to admit--that I felt the whole world crashing down around me, it was those two who would listen and then tell me to fight on, see the good, and never give up.

Prison is not a place for relationships and yet I love these two men like a brother loves his brothers. They were real in a place where almost everything else was phony. And I miss them both dearly, but know they are doing great.

Don't misunderstand me--I hate this place; I hate what it stands for; I hate the waste of money, and lives; and I hate the lack of accountability and the lack of honesty from those in charge. Prisons are failures--nothing, I repeat nothing, good comes from doing time. But these two men, good men, men who would stand with you no matter what, they survived and thrived and overcame this place in spite of the system's failures.

The boxer--my friend DC was a boxer and I know from his stories he was hit and knocked down and left on the mat more than a few times; but he always got up. "The fighter still remains."

If there is a silver lining to all this, it is in the fact that even in an environment like this you can find humanity. And, even when it looks like someone is beyond repair--even when we think there is no hope a person will ever be "right" we never can tell what is in that person's heart.

So Chuck is watching his beloved Red Sox in Tampa, and DC is going to see his Skins, and I'm still here a much better man for having friends like them.

“I'm on your side. When times get rough 

And friends just can't be found, 

Like a bridge over troubled water

I will lay me down.

Like a bridge over troubled water

I will lay me down.”

Old Paul and Art knew what they were singing about. Live wonderful lives my two dear friends.

Postscript: I've been thinking a great deal this summer about the meaning of incarceration, faith and the failure this system has to actually rehabilitate the vast majority. See it every day; you will see it on the pages here for the next few months. Governor McAuliffe is looking at parole--he needs to know the truth about this place. And if he reads the upcoming blogs, he will. 

Saturday

“We exalt in our tribulations …” I have those words underlined and hi-lighted. That is a tough concept to run with. Face it; we all have days when we think, “I just can’t get through this.” It’s part of the human condition. Life throws adversity at us, and usually it’s unexpected. James Taylor summed it up pretty well in “Fire and Rain” when he sang,

“Won’t you look down upon me Jesus

You got to help me make a stand

Just got to seem me through another day

My body’s achin

And my time is at hand

I won’t make it any other way”

That’s Saturday, that day when everything you believed in, everything you placed your faith in, comes crashing down and you’re alone and scared. You’re ready to give up. Hope is just another four-letter word.

I was arrested on a Monday; it was a terrible day. And yet, it didn’t compare to that first Saturday, five days later when I was ready to give up. You’ve heard of “come to Jesus” moments – that Saturday was mine. A year later it was on an early Saturday morning when they woke me up at receiving. My mail had been “misrouted” the C.O. said. For weeks I’d held on to some ridiculous (in hindsight) hope. Four a.m. they woke me. “Sign for this,” the officer said. It was an envelope from the court; my divorce was official. I felt an emptiness and heartbreak I didn’t think possible. All the hope I held was dashed and shattered on those three legal pages.

            “In a clearing stands a boxer

            A fighter by his trade

            And he carries the reminder

            Of every blow that laid him down or cut him ‘til he cried out

            In his anger and his shame

            I am leaving, I am leaving

            But the fighter still remains”

Simon and Garfunkel. Those two guys knew where I was that dark fall morning in October 2009. I was “beyond” hope. I have that date recorded next to Paul’s words in his letter to the Romans: “We exalt in our tribulation …” Go to hell Paul, I thought. He didn’t have any idea how lost and discouraged I was that Saturday. And what kind of ironic twist has me reading that particular verse that particular day? Yeah, it was Saturday.

I had always considered myself mentally and emotionally tough. I had become a lawyer not out of any real intellectual curiosity, but instead because of the dream of gladiatorial combat in the courtroom. And I thrived in the battles. So often, like the victorious boxer standing over his vanquished fore, I exalted in breaking my opponent in court. But here I was, humbled, broken, feeling more alone and scared than I could ever imagine.

I’m not sure when it hit me, but sometime during Lent an idea blossomed in my mind. As it would be expected I came across Paul’s exhortation to thrive in difficulties, and I saw the different dates registered around that verse, each date an emotional scar, a reminder of blows that laid me down and caused me to consider throwing in the towel. And, I thought about another time and other people.

They were a small, tight knit group. They had given up everything to follow him and they hadn’t been disappointed. Their three-year trek had been one miracle after another; and his words – they were like nothing they’d ever heard before. Everything they’d been told about God, and life, and justice, was turned on its head. They believed. With everything in their being, they believed he was the long-awaited Messiah. Then came Thursday and the terrible betrayal. One of their group, one of their own, turned against this Man of God. And Thursday led to Friday and Friday was even worse. They killed all their dreams Friday on a desolate hill.

It dawned on me that Saturday was a lousy day to be a disciple. You had said out loud this man was the Son of God. Now, he was dead. The fear must have been overwhelming that Saturday. At that moment, I knew they – and He – knew exactly how low I felt all those days. It was life and life kicks you in the teeth and knocks you to your knees and its Saturday and you have nothing left and hope is gone. And then it’s like the Tom Petty tune:

            “The waiting is the hardest part

            Every day is one more yard

            You take it on faith you take it to heart

            But the waiting is the hardest part”

           

It is so very tough to have hope and go on on Saturday.  But, that was what Paul was getting at. It’s an idea as old as humankind; it’s an idea King David expressed over and over in the Psalms:

            Wait for the Lord

            Be strong and let your heart take courage

            Yes, wait for the Lord

I realized, looking at my Bible, there hadn’t been another “Saturday” in almost two years. There’d been dark, terrible days during that time, but never the fear and hopelessness I’d known and documented so many days before. It’s because I knew there was a “Sunday.” Pauls’ verse about exaltation doesn’t end with tribulation. It goes on; tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint….

And I thought back to “The Boxer” – “But the fighter still remains.” You don’t quit; you don’t give up; you go on because you know no matter how bad Saturday is, there is Sunday.

            Prison had made me an Easter believer. I know that sounds funny, but Paul was onto something. It’s in those Saturdays, those terrible days when we are at our lowest that faith flickers and we hang on because we know what happens Sunday morning.

I’ve seen way too many Saturdays, but those Sundays, well I know anything is possible. Prison is Saturday … but the future is Sunday.

The Boxer

There’s been a Simon & Garfunkel song that has been rolling through my mind the last week.  Two week’s after 9/11, Paul Simon, alone on a stage with just his guitar sang “The Boxer” to a hushed Saturday Night Live audience.  It’s a song about being pummeled and beaten down, yet finding the strength to stand back up.

“In a clearing stands a boxer

A fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of every blow that layed him down
Or cut him til he cried out
In his anger and his shame
I am leaving, I am leaving
But the fighter still remained…”

Three nights ago EL, a young college student, was called to the watch commander’s office at 1:00 am.  The Captain on duty informed him his mother had died suddenly and unexpectedly earlier that evening.  He was allowed to make a collect call to his sister and then requested that he be placed in the hole for a few hours – to grieve – because you don’t cry in prison around other inmates.  He returned later in the day to attend class.  He’s not allowed to attend the funeral.

“Li la Li
Li La Li Li Li La Li”

What makes us keep trying, keep hoping, keep believing when the rational part of our mind, when everyone around us tells us it’s hopeless?  I think often about Dr. Viktor Frankl’s thoughts in “Man’s Search for Meaning”.  There he was confided to a concentration camp, being starved, witnessing the worst in humanity because he “broke the law” (we forget, yet Dr. King pointed it out in his letter from the Birmingham Jail, the actions of the Nazis were carried out according to properly passed laws).  He was sustained by the memories of his wife and their life together.  He would not learn until after the war that his wife had been executed early after their arrest and separation.

I live amongst criminals.  With few exceptions, (Big S being the only guy who is factually innocent) the vast majority of men here broke the law.  But, for an equally vast number, the punishment bears no relationship to the crime.  Yet for the vast majority of these men, they remain hopeful.  They believe something better will come to them.

The writer H. Jackson Browne, Jr. wrote:  “Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have.”

When Paul Simon performed his song, New York City and the country were still in a state of shock.  Where once stood the trade centers, there was a ten story pile of smoldering rubble.  The death toll was still not calculated “but the fighter still remained”.

I love that line.  I love the image it creates.  Everyone one of us bears scars of hurt and shame.  We all feel pain.  We all suffer loss.  At times, we all want to give up and quit.  But, like Simon’s boxer, we stand back up battered and bruised and vow to fight on.

This blog isn’t about anything in particular that occurred.  It may have come about over the past few weeks as a group of students I hadn’t worked with before started coming to me for help.  As I worked with these guys invariably one of them would ask “Is it true you haven’t heard from your kids?” or “Your wife divorced you?” or “You really got fifteen years for embezzlement?”  Maybe it was the two officers last weekend reminding me how many lies were printed about me in the paper after my arrest and then officer H saying “you’re a decent guy; you deserved better”.

I asked DC, a great boxer in his teens, if he was ever put on the canvas.

“Yeah”, he said.  “Guy beat me senseless and I hit the deck.”
“What’d you do?” I asked.
“Got up.  Can’t stay down.  No matter how bad it hurt, I couldn’t let ‘em beat me.”

Couldn’t let ‘em beat me.  The fighter still remained…

POSTSCRIPT:  In an ironic twist, USA Today columnist Craig Wilson wrote a piece two days after I penned this on the same topic.  Aptly titled “You can’t turn back now…” it included the following lines from poet Annie Johnson Flint:

“Have you come to the Red Sea place in your life.

Where, in spite of all you can do,
There is no way out, there is no way back.
There is no other way but through?”

Wilson then concludes:  “Getting down that path isn’t always easy.  We stumble.  We fall.  But we get up and march on.”

Amen to that.