The Curious Case of Christopher Comtois (Part XVIII)

The Real Me

     Monday, it turns out, wasn’t Christmas.  There was no call of salvation and I wasn’t going home.  I had an extra little spring in my step when I left my cell for breakfast and every ticking moment that went by without word of my release brought me down a notch.  As five o’clock came and went, I had to accept that it may never happen.  It had been over five full days since I had taken my DNA test.  The state of Florida had certainly received my saliva swabs and should have concluded long ago that they had arrested the wrong guy.  Laney screwed up and would have to start his investigation over from scratch.  Something else was happening and I had to accept that living in jail was my “new” normal life.    

     How on earth these guys survive in jail is beyond me.  I think that acceptance plays a major role in it.  They have all accepted the fact that where they are is where they are going to be for a pre-determined amount of time.  Living in jail is very much like being in the military in the sense that everyone is locked into a very rigid and unchanging schedule.  You are told when to eat, when you can sleep, when you can relax and when you will go home.  For me, I get it all minus the “when you go home” part, which is the missing piece of my puzzle that has made my time in jail exponentially more difficult, coupled with the fact that I don’t belong in jail to begin with.  Every prisoner I’ve met and come in contact with at least has an idea of when their “time” will end.  Well, maybe not Pepe’, but he certainly should have gotten some more information by Monday, I assume.  He did look very happy when we passed each other in the hallway on Saturday or Sunday, so who knows.  I have to assume that at least knowing when you’ll be going home has to make it easier to accept your circumstances.  I think that had I chosen a life of crime and found myself in my same location as an actual criminal, I could handle it.  When I sit back and think about my actual day to day situation in D Block, it’s not all that horrible.  Once the initial fear of the unknown subsided, life at County has been manageable.  It’s miles and miles ahead of living in the City Jail, which was horrific.  Being locked up for 23 hours per day with only a Bible to read and nothing at all to do but sit and think is the worst thing I could ever imagine, but I did it.  I now know that the City Jail where I stayed for nearly a week isn’t really built for any sort of long term living.  I saw guys come and go so often because they were only waiting to either be transferred to County or waiting to be bailed out.  I ended up there for such a long time due to my situation.  It is not the norm.  Once things started to play out, I stayed there for such an extended amount of time because Franklin and others probably truly believed that I would be released on Thursday or Friday.  I’ve accepted it.  But why Monday passed with no information is beyond me. 

     On a very superficial level, when I exclude the mental aspects of what I’ve gone through, I feel somewhat fortunate to have landed in D Block.  Physically, I could stay for as long as I had to.   I mean, come on, you can watch movies and games, play cards or whatever, read books, play basketball, use the phone, get visitors and other clothes after two weeks, eat decent food, etc.  It ain’t too bad.  There doesn’t seem to be much in the line of violence, although I have heard guys talk about the occasional fight.  D Block is everything that everyone had told me before my arrival.  I do know that living in the general County Jail population is a different story.  My story would probably be much worse had I been sent there.  Guys are housed in a large gym-like room with hundreds of bunk beds.  There are many more inmates and much more potential for trouble, plus very little personal space.  In a way, I feel very fortunate that I ended up in D Block and not where my shackle buddy John went. 

     The reason why my situation is so horrible is really based on one thing:  the unknown.  Mentally, I was exhausted and wasn’t sure how much longer I could realistically hold up.  Everything that I experienced from the onset has been completely new to me.  I’m not a criminal and I’ve never had to experience being treated like one, outside of my mild brushes with the law as a younger man.  I’ve never had to interact with real criminals and I only really know what I’ve read or seen on television or in the movies.  My fear of the unknown has been based on my living situation, the people I’m with and not knowing from hour to hour what was going to happen next.  Much more than the tangible aspects of my ten days in jail has been the fears of what could possibly come next.  My life since the first police visit to my house has been filled with a never ending barrage of stress that perpetuates itself when coupled with the extreme isolation.  On Monday night lying in my toboggan, I was visited by a moment of clarity that allowed me to dissect everything that I’d been through thus far.  I was proud of what I’d been able to manage and scared shitless about the possibilities for the future.  My day to day living situation in D Block, though, was no longer a fear.  On one hand, I resigned myself to the fact that I could last for a long time at Country if I absolutely had to.  On the other hand, though, I was reaching the end of the line in how much more worry and stress I could handle.  When I put those two hands together, I knew that the other hand would win out.  Since I’m not a criminal and I don’t know when and if I can go home and if I’ll end up in a real prison for a very long time and if I have a job and if I’ll ever be able to work with kids again or if my life will be forever altered, I wasn’t sure if I could make it even another day. 

     When I was first arrested and before everything became real, my initial thoughts were that I just wanted to be able to get out in time to return to camp in Maine and be able to see The Who in Boston in July.  That was just me thinking as any innocent person would think if they were suddenly thrust into a situation that they had no hand in creating.  Those thoughts seem so far away and long ago on Monday night.  I still very much want to go to camp and see The Who, but the only thing I now care about is resolution.  I feel like I’m perpetually on the edge of a cliff and precariously close to falling into the abyss every minute.  The more real everything has become, the more I feel like I’m going to fall.  Getting out and actually resuming my life as it was scheduled doesn’t seem like a real possibility any longer.

     I realized that I had changed and this new version of myself could be the real me for a very long time.  If I had to see this through until the very end, which could be possibly be many more months until I was found innocent after a trial in Florida, or worse, after many more years after a conviction, the further I would drift away from my old life.  Every day that passed took me away from who I was before this all began.  I had never been a needy person, but being needy was driving me on a daily basis.  I needed to have contact with my mother and friends.  I needed to talk to Kira more than ever before.  It was hard to imagine being in my situation without my external support system.  I had always been a strong person, but I felt that melting away as I continued to walk a tightrope of breakdown and tears.  I was a free spirit, but the rigors of the daily intense confines of incarceration were virtually squashing this part of my personality.  I was becoming less melancholy, less social, more internal and it was only day eleven.  I simply couldn’t fathom what I’d be like in another week, month or year.   

     Since midday Monday, I’ve had a Who song running through my head that seems to fit.  It’s called “I’ve Had Enough” off of the Quadrophenia album, which I believe to be the greatest piece of music ever written.  The opening lyrics have been cycling nonstop all day.

                   You, were under the impression

                   That when you were walking forwards

                   You’d end up further onward,

                   But things ain’t quite that simple

                   You, got altered information,

                   You were told to not take chances,

                   You missed out on new dances

                   Now you’re losing all your dimples

     I’ve always listened to lyrics as poetry and have found songs that can be applied to many of life’s situations.  You can use songs to say what you can’t.  I grew up in the generation of making “mix tapes” for girlfriends and found it to be an art form.  Great songs are a combination of the words and music.  You can have great music, but the meaning of the song and how it speaks to you is what truly sets a song apart.  Just as some people feel that Keats, Kipling or Frost are geniuses, my list includes names like Townshend, Jagger and Richards.  My mind is constantly applying songs and movies to whatever it is that I’m involved in.  Although Pete Townshend wasn’t writing this song about wrongful incarceration, it seems to fit and I’ve been singing it in my head all day. 

     I arrived in D Block on Friday afternoon and have experienced fears that were all mostly a product of the unknown.  I didn’t know if that group of guys who came out to play basketball with me were there to kill me or not, but I thought it was a possibility.   I had no idea whether or not Chris was dangerous, since aren’t most criminals dangerous?  I had to sign that piece of paper when I arrived that waived my rights if I were killed or injured.  I didn’t make that up.  It actually happened.  I didn’t want to take a shower since don’t most jail assaults happen in the shower?  That’s what movies and television has taught me.  My fears were all real in the moment but, in hindsight, unnecessary.  I had settled into and accepted my highly structured life while my fears of what was happening beyond the walls of the County Jail were very much dictating my inner self. 

     I really thought that Monday was going to be the day. I talked about it during breakfast and on the phone with my mother later in the morning.  I played basketball and was worried that I may not be able to hear the announcement if it came during the game.  Multiple guys asked me about my story during the afternoon recreation time.  During my hour and half on the phone with Kira, every time an announcement was made over the loud speaker, my heart jumped and we both got excited that the end had finally come.  Chris actually asked me multiple times if I had gotten any word about getting out.  Monday was going to be the day and I spent it waiting and waiting and finally, after five o’clock, it was over.  Some guys actually offered condolences during dinner since I think they had gotten wrapped up in my story.  I had become the subject of conversation for a bunch of different groups of inmates, including guys who I had never spoken with.   I think in a strange way I was giving them a break from their mundane jail lives.  Every day is the same and my story was unusual.  I wouldn’t exactly call it an outpouring of emotion, but it boosted my spirits and helped get me from minute to minute.  After the day came and went without anything new, it helped to know that I at least had most of the Block on my side and pulling for me. 

     When the lights finally went out and I was left to my own thoughts, I began to focus in on my DNA test and the real possibility that Laney and his Florida buddies were going to alter the test and I really wasn’t going to get out.  I had thought about this before, but Monday night took me further down that road and I couldn’t shake it.  I’d bounce back and forth between rational thinking that things simply don’t happen like that in real life and truly believing that it was possible.  I’d seen too many movies where crooked cops made things happen in their favor.  I didn’t know Laney or his motives or character.  I’d only met the man for less than an hour and knew that what he said wasn’t exactly what he meant.  He tried to give me the impression that he was on my side and believed what I had told him then went straight to my house to collect more evidence that he thought would convict me.  Why would I believe that when my DNA did not match that of the real suspect that he would simply release me and start over?  I convinced myself that the reason why the test results were taking so long was due to Laney and his inner circle altering the results to bury me.  I envisioned a future of being taken to Florida and actually facing these charges for real.  I thought about photos on magazines of innocent people who had been released after many years of incarceration.  I didn’t want to be one of those people.  I wasn’t in the state of mind I was in when I experienced my break down, but in some ways I was even more depressed.  I think that I was accepting my fate and just too worn out to do anything about it.  I knew that I couldn’t go through this fog of the unknown for much longer.

     Tuesday morning finally came after a completely sleepless night.  Everything re-started again, just as it had on Monday.  The difference was that I wasn’t nearly as excited as I had been the day before.  The lack of sleep was certainly one reason why, but the more you want something to happen that hasn’t yet, the more it seems like it’ll never happen.  The feeling is similar to when you apply for a job and get an interview.  From the moment you leave the interview, you begin an internal clock of when you might get the call that you got the job.  After a few days, you check your messages more frequently and hesitate to be away from your phone in fear that you’ll miss the call.  With each passing day, the fire of excitement is extinguished a little bit more until it finally goes out.  Eventually you receive the letter that thanks you for your interest in the job, but that it was given to someone else.  My fire was smoldering and just about ready to go out for good. 

     I called my friend Luke in the morning.  His was one of the few phone numbers that I knew from memory and I felt like talking to someone outside of the small group of people that knew what was going on with me.  Luke and I had known each other for a long time.  He was a camper at the camp in Minnesota and had come back as a staff member during my final summer there.  We had become close friends and had seen each other quite a bit since our last hurrah as camp staff.  He was in law school in Chicago and may or may not have called and talked to Kermit over the past eleven days.  The last time I spoke with Kermit, he asked me what he should tell people that called for me. I told him that he could tell those people that he knew were friends of mine and ours.  I wanted my friends to know what was going on with me but had no way to get the word out.  I thought that perhaps Luke had called and may have already known where I was and what I was going through. 

     When Luke answered the phone and had to go through the same ridiculous instructions and information as all of those others before, he immediately became animated, which let me know that he had no idea of why I was calling from the Denver County Jail.  His nickname is “The Excitable Boy,” and he was living up to it.

          “What the fuck did she just say?” he asked in a high pitched voice.

“She told you that an inmate from the Denver County Jail was calling you collect,” I said mockingly.

          “Why are you in the Denver County Jail?”

“I failed my urine test.”  It was a take on another movie line that he immediately understood.

          “No, seriously, why are you in jail?”

          “It’s a long, long story,” I said and then went into the Cliff Notes version.

          “How can I help?” 

     Luke and I had compiled quite a few ridiculous outings filled with drunken shenanigans, but when real life emergencies came around, he could be counted on to be somewhere the next day to offer any help that he could give.  Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do, but I appreciated him asking.  We ended up talking for the full thirty minutes and I could tell that once we hung up, he’d probably spend the next day and a half calling everyone he knew that could possibly do anything for me.  I also figured that he was probably booking an airfare to Colorado, which I told him at least three times not to do.  He had traditionally been a horrible listener. 

     The next person on my list to call was my friend Jim, who was living in Dallas at the time.  He had moved back to Texas to be closer to his girlfriend, who was once my girlfriend of three and a half years.  I was actually the one who got them together, sort of.  It’s a long story.  Jim was my only friend who worked in a place that used a toll free 1-800 number, and I called him often. We loved calling Jim at work and his free phone had provided a few of us with multiple entertaining stories.  I had wanted to call him several times during the week but either time restraints or an emotional lack of motivation kept me from it.  When I tried to call the number, I received a message that I was unable to call such numbers from jail.  This was frustrating since I very much wanted to connect with some of my closest friends, and Jimmy certainly was in that group.  During my life I have been blessed with an usually large group of people who I consider to be close friends.  All of these guys and girls could be counted on to hop on a plane at a moments notice if need be (Luke was probably already on a plane).  It wasn’t often that we had to face actual serious events, in fact, most of our time together was spent re-hashing old arguments about movies, sports and music, but at the end of the day, I’d put my group of degenerate friends up against any group of friends anywhere.  Although I worried about what friends on the fringe, co-workers and strangers would think about me once this whole mess hopefully got resolved, I never once feared what my core group would think.  I knew unequivocally that I would have their support and that they were in my corner.  My friends are like my family and those bonds are impossible to break, no matter how much we disagreed about which of our sports teams was the best or what the top five comedies of all times were.  We were a relentless bunch of idiots and smart asses, but harmless.  We may abuse each other and go way past any lines of demarcation, but Lord help an outsider that tries to do the same.  Anyone listening in on one of our ridiculous continuous arguments would assume that we all hated each other, but it was quite the opposite. 

     It was good to talk to Luke and it lifted my spirits to share my saga with another friendly voice.  The morning passed quickly and after trying to continue my book of short stories in my cell, it was lunch time.  My flame of hope was barely flickering and no matter what I did, I couldn’t shake my worry that I would be spending many more days waiting for something to happen.  I couldn’t fathom spending even one more day “behind bars” and my patience was nearing the end.  My frustration showed during lunch as guys continued to ask if I had heard anything, which I obviously hadn’t.  I didn’t have much of an appetite and just made small talk with my table of basketball playing convicts.  At some point, I would get some news.  It was inevitable.  I was assuming more and more that the news would not be good.

     While I waited for the main room to get cleaned and picked up after lunch, my focus was squarely on being able to talk to Kira in the afternoon.  I was anxious and my nervous energy would not allow me to relax for even a moment while I sat in my cell while Chris calmly read a book.  We barely spoke and I paced back and forth waiting until our door to unlock for afternoon recreation.  I could tell that Chris was slowly getting annoyed by this as he looked up at me every few minutes while I walked from the sink to the door and back, over and over.  I was becoming stir crazy and actually laughed out loud when I thought about how ridiculous the realities of my life had become.  I was truly nearing the end of my rope and seemingly out of options to take my mind away to a more positive place.  I knew that I was spinning out of control and I almost ran out of the room once the door finally unlocked.  I probably looked like Peter McNeely running towards Mike Tyson at the opening of Tyson’s first fight after his release from prison. 

     I was the first person to reach the bank of phones and quickly dialed Kira’s number.  I wasn’t hinging on another hopeless breakdown like Saturday, but a building anger was raging inside of me.  During my first few days of living in jail, talking on the phone or receiving new information would put me in a better frame of mind for quite awhile.  Now, on day eleven, those times didn’t linger as long and the wait was nearly killing me.  This was the first thing that I tried to explain to Kira when she answered the phone.  I went on a long rant before she could get a word in.  I was mad and she let me vent before finally cutting me off.

          “You’re going to have to calm down,” she said.

          “I can’t calm down.  I’m never fucking getting out of here.  Somehow Florida   

          is going to fuck me,” I told her.

          “You can’t give up.”

     She knew that she had to talk me off of the ledge.  The more I talked about it, the more wound up I got.  She wouldn’t let up, though, continuing to say what she was supposed to say.  Eventually I just wanted reassurance from her that she would stay with me, regardless of the outcome.  She was the crutch that kept me upright.  She represented hope for me and I counted on her to be there when I had to go to Florida to stand trial for my charges.  I envisioned her visiting me in prison and being there when I got out as an older man and convicted child molester.  She offered me a future when my previous life no longer existed, and she never waivered.  It would be hard for my friends to still be the same after I spent fifteen to twenty years in a Florida prison.  I knew that I would be different, scarred and unrecognizable.  But Kira would be there, faithfully waiting for me, or so she said, and she sounded like she meant it.  We joked about her phone bill and how much all of these long distance collect calls would end up costing.

          “You know I can’t possibly pay you back once the phone bill comes,” I joked.

          “We’ll figure it out once you get out.  I don’t care how much it costs,” she

          said.  “You’ll just owe me for the rest of our lives.”

     After six or seven call-backs while half hour after half hour flew by, it was getting close to five o’clock.  The time was always in the back of my mind while we talked at the end of another work day was once again at hand.  Dread filled my mind while the realities of facing another night in jail loomed in front of me. 

          “I hate to go, but I gotta try to call my Dave,” I told Kira.

          “Stay strong.  Remember that I love you and I’ll be here for you,” she said.

          “I love you, too.  I’ll call tonight.”

     Once we hung up, I immediately dialed Dave’s office.  While the phone rang, I became extremely nervous and was nearly shaking.  I was desperate and feared that at some point he would have to deliver the bad news that I wasn’t getting out.  Eventually something would happen, and the longer I was in jail, the more real an unfavorable outcome became.  I think I just wanted any information, regardless of what it was.  The phone rang and rang and eventually I heard his answering machine pick up.  It was now after five o’clock and immense depression ascended upon my body.  I wasn’t getting out and I wasn’t getting any information.  I was out of hope and nothing but another evening in D Block awaited me.  I stood motionless without a thought of what to do or say.  The blackness of everything totally descended upon me and I felt like I was truly reaching my final straw.

     I thought that it was time to go back to our cells before dinner, but there hadn’t been an announcement and no one looked like they were ending their card games or whatever discussions they were engaged in at their tables.  Without anything else to do, I decided to try to call my mother since she was most likely home from work.  I just needed to talk to anyone and she seemed like the logical choice.  I dialed her number and she picked up on the first ring.

          “Hi, Mom, how are you?”

          “Chris, did you talk to your lawyer?”  There was urgency to her words.

          “No, I just tried to call and no one answered.”

          “So you don’t know?”

          “Know what?”

          “You’re getting out!   I just got off the phone with Dave and you’re getting out

          tonight!   It’s over!  You’re getting out!”

     I heard the words that she said but they didn’t compute.  I asked her to repeat them.

          “Honey, you’re getting out!  Dave just got word and he called me

          immediately.  He must have been on the phone with me when you tried to

          call him.  You’re getting out tonight!”

     It still didn’t register.  It wasn’t real.  It’s over?  I’m getting out?  After the suddenness of the message and initial shock, I wept.  I hunched over the phone to avoid anyone near seeing my tears, but it was uncontrollable.  I tried to ask my mother a question, but nothing came out of my mouth. 

          “I’m getting out tonight?” I said as my voice cracked and tears of extreme joy

          poured down my face. 

          “Yes!  Tonight.  He didn’t have time to give me any details, but he was

          sure that you’d be home tonight.”

     In the span of two minutes, I went from unimaginable fear to an elation that I’d never be able to properly describe.  I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t know what to say.  My mother repeated it several more times while I just listened and let her words wash over me.  With the passing of every second, the weight, worry and stress melted from my body.  A joyous feeling that I had never known replaced the cavernous void left from the ugliness that had built up within me.  I felt reincarnated. 

I’m going home. 

“Are you sure?” I asked, just wanting to hear her tell me again.

“Yes.  You’re going home.”

          I told her I’d call her once I got some more information.  She was also crying as I heard the announcement that we needed to start returning to our cells.  I said goodbye, hung up the phone, and didn’t move.  I just stood and let the last remaining bits of negative relinquish their hold on me.  I was going home.  I made it.  It was over.  It wasn’t real, but it just happened.  I felt normal for the first time in over eleven days.  Suddenly, I was myself again.  I was back.  It happened that quickly.

     I was going home.  I didn’t know exactly how or why, but as I walked back to my cell, my world of endless possibilities was once again in front of me.  I wouldn’t have to try to manage another night in my toboggan.  I could almost taste the beer that I hoped I’d soon be drinking.  This homecoming deserved a party.

     Before I turned to begin the short walk back to my cell, armed with my elation, my first conscious thought past the fact that I was going home came into my head and it literally stopped me in my tracks.  I spoke to myself.

“Fuck.”