Candlelight
In the passing of 90 seconds, I had gone from very real thoughts of spending the better part of my life behind bars to planning my homecoming at a bar within walking distance. In those same 90 seconds I also went from very real thoughts that Kira would be waiting for me as my wife when I got out of prison to realizing that it was all a mirage and that my true self knew that I had to end it with her. Again. Although I was still a prisoner and had just a minute or two to get back to my cell before dinner, with the flick of a switch, I could once again see my path ahead and Kira was not going to be on it with me. It wasn’t planned and it wasn’t conscience, but Kira represented the support that I needed to endure the trauma that I faced for twelve days. She hadn’t wanted it to end the first time and she was more than willing to allow me back in as my new world unfolded. As I walked back to my cell, armed with freedom in my pocket, I felt extremely conflicted about what had occurred during my time under the watch of the Colorado
“I’m getting out tonight,” I said to him. Surgery couldn’t remove the smile from my face.
“What? How do you know?” he said.
“My lawyer called my Mom a few minutes ago and told her that I was getting out
tonight. I have no idea why or when, but I’m getting out.”
“That’s awesome. Have a beer for me.” I would. But probably not for him.
I wanted to call everyone (minus Kira). I wanted to know when I’d be home. I couldn’t sit down and just paced the room waiting to go to dinner. Chris was reading a book and didn’t say much, as usual. We didn’t have much of a relationship and I figured that he was probably happier that he would get his cell back to himself again, but he was a decent kid and I could tell that he was legitimately happy for me. For some strange reason I couldn’t wait to tell my basketball buddies. They would be happy, too.
Time slowed, just as it had every day of my life in jail, but this time it wasn’t crawling by antagonizing me with each second while I waited for news or a visitor or daylight. It slowed down just like it does when you’re counting the minutes until the end of class on the last day of school combined with the anticipation of Christmas morning when you’re ten years old and you’re lying in bed in the middle of the night. I didn’t know when it would happen, but going home couldn’t come fast enough. I thought of how I had done what I thought that I couldn’t do, which was nothing. I made it twelve days basically doing nothing, which, for me, is the worst punishment imaginable. My parents knew this early on in my life. Spanking or taking tangible things away was not a deterrent for me and bad behavior. It was taking time and activity from me. When I was grounded and forced to stay home, I was limited in what I could do. No television, no phone and no fun. Minutes and hours that crept by until the eventual end of my “sentence.” The threat of idle time always got my attention when presented as a consequence. I need constant stimulus and jail took that away. The added extreme emotional toll was far worse, but the simple removal of things to do was something that I never thought I could manage. But I did.
The door to our cell finally opened and it was time for dinner. I ended up standing behind a guy who I had spoken with a few times and he asked me how things were going. “I’m going home tonight,” I gleefully told him. I wasn’t sure if I had ever given him the full rundown of why I was in jail, but it didn’t matter. “Go get laid,” he said. For most prisoners, I learned during my stay, sex was the first thing that most wanted to do upon release. I just laughed and told him that I’d give it my best shot, knowing that there would be no line of women eagerly awaiting my homecoming. At least I’d have the option, though. I really just wanted to get a beer and sleep in my own bed. I had had enough of my toboggan.
I loaded my plate with more food than I had since my arrival and took my saved seat with my crew.
“Boys, I’m getting out tonight!”
“No shit!? That’s great! Congratulations!” they all kind of said at the same time.
As I sat back and reveled in the glory of going home, I couldn’t help but think about the journey that led me to the end. I had met so many people that I would have never, ever met in my “real” life. Franklin, Cube, Pepe’, John, Dave, the basketball boys and all of the other random inmates, officers and officials that I interacted with during my stay. Now that the cloud of fear was lifted, I once again very much wanted to document what I was seeing and going through. I wished that I had a camera and could take some photos with my “new friends.” I wanted to show my actual friends where I had been and who I had met. I wished that I could go back to the City Jail and get a shot of my cell and the clock tower. The experience had been so surreal, so out of the norm, that I knew that it would be very difficult to fully explain what it had been like. I didn’t know anyone who had been in “real” jail and now I would be the flag bearer for everyone I knew to give them a little glimpse of what life “inside” was like.
During the meal, I told all the guys at the table that I’d mention them in the paper if my story made it to the media. I wasn’t oblivious to the fact that my story may be something that would be in the media. I was a teacher in jail for crimes against a minor and now I would be a teacher who spent time in jail for crimes against a child that he didn’t commit. Very early on during my stay, in the midst of another very long night alone, I worried that my story had already been on the news. “Local Teacher Jailed” would be the tagline above the news anchor along with my mug shot, which most likely looked an awful lot like a guilty man with scraggly hair. I know that if I was watching the news and saw my story, with my picture, I would immediately think, “That guy’s fucking guilty.” None of my friends or Dave had mentioned that it had been in the paper or on TV, so I felt lucky in that respect. But now, since I was going to be exonerated, I figured that perhaps it would be newsworthy.
“Make sure they spell my name right,” one of the guys at my table said. They
all seemed excited that I might actually get them in the paper for something
other than the local crime feed.
Word seemed to travel fast around the room that I was getting out. Multiple guys stopped by my table to give me their good words as they took their trays up after the meal. It was all very, very surreal. I was just a guy from the other side of the tracks and had somehow fit in. While we talked during dinner, my mind was racing elsewhere. I went through the entire journey in my head and just shook my head that it had really happened. It was the exact opposite of when I’d be talking to someone and my mind was elsewhere with worry and fear. I was full of joy and hope. My laughter was real and I was finally able to take everything in that was around me without an ounce of trepidation.
Dinner finally ended and I went back to my cell for what I hoped was the final time. By the time evening recreation began I figured that I’d be already be out, or at least on my way. I didn’t sit down once and actually sort of packed up like I would on the last day of a vacation, which was dumb since I didn’t have anything to pack. My arrest report, which had become ragged and crinkled from multiple, multiple readings, my bible, which I wasn’t sure if I could take home or not and some scribbled ramblings that I had tried unsuccessfully to write. My mind wouldn’t let me concentrate enough to actually write anything intelligible, which I felt was unfortunate. I wanted to document my thoughts and feelings as I was going through it, but the extremity prevented any focus or direction.
Chris sat silent on his bed and wasn’t paying attention to my nervous pacing and clock watching. I had never felt the energy and adrenaline that had been rushing though my body since the first words from my mom about my release. I still couldn’t conceptualize the ending, but I knew it was near. Or at least I hoped. I was stopped in my tracks as the thought of not getting out that night hit my brain. What if they are going to wait till the morning? What if there was a setback? The powerless void reemerged and I felt sick. I couldn’t take the rug being pulled out. Not tonight. Once I let myself believe that it was over, there was no going back. One more night after thinking I was done could possibly be the final push over the ledge. Luckily I didn’t have much time to dwell on the alternate possibilities when the loud and familiar electronic opening of the doors signaled the beginning of evening recreation. I didn’t have a destination, but I shot out of the room as soon as our door opened. I just needed to move around. I needed to go on to the next stage of my life. I needed freedom.
I didn’t talk to anyone, really. I normally didn’t really talk to many people when I was out of my cell. Yes, I had made some connections with some guys and had avoided whatever evils that can come with incarceration, but at the end of the day, I just wanted to be left alone. I had spent hours and hours pacing laps on the outskirts of the recreation room. It was my “track” and I went right back to my counter clockwise loop when I left my cell. I watched the card players deal their games, the chess and checkers guys deep in thought at their tables, the “new Christians” gather for their nightly bible study session and the others, alone in their thoughts and motionless in their chairs. A few guys were on the phone and I was taking the final photos in my mind. Each day and night was exactly the same as the one previous. Same guys, same spots, same games, same conversations and I almost felt privileged that I got to see it all and live it for a while. It was my own movie. It was the strangest feeling that I had ever had. Why on earth wouldn’t I feel anything but contempt and anger for being put in this hellish situation? Now that it appeared that I was at the end of the line, I took it all in and kept checking the clock. It seemed like a long, long time ago that I was the clock tower manager and appointed time keeper. Time had almost ceased to move and every time I looked up at one of the clocks I would swear that the second hand was moving backwards.
On one of my laps I stopped at the control desk. The officer who was seated behind the desk always seemed annoyed when anyone would ask him a question. It didn’t matter who was asking or what they were asking about, he always acted as if it the biggest pain in the ass in the history of pains in the asses to give the answer. Most of the time he was reading the paper or doing a crossword puzzle and most guys knew that it generally not worth the hassle of asking him for anything, however large or small the request was. He was an overweight, balding white guy with a horrific mustache. I had created life stories to go with most of the guards and police and his wasn’t pretty. He had been relegated to County Jail late night guard duty and was counting the days until his retirement, which took a lot of math since he was years away from the end. He disliked his wife and would often go to a bar on the way home and stay just long enough to avoid seeing her when he got home. He had always wanted to be a cop simply to get the power over others. Tonight, though, I didn’t care. I wanted some more info and he was the only person who might have answers. I made a pit stop during one of my laps around the room.
“Sir, do you have any information about any prisoners being released
tonight?”
I asked him as nicely as I could. No movement. He was reading a People Magazine.
“Sir, I got word that I am supposed to be released tonight. Do you have
any information about when I might get out?”
‘
As if I was asking borrow his Camaro, he very slowly and methodically closed up his magazine, set it on the desk and looked up at me. He made it abundantly clear that reading about the Sexiest Man Alive in 2002 was far more important than whatever I was asking him, but while he looked up at me, his eyes glanced at my photo ID badge and he began to flip through a stack a papers near the phone on the desk.
“Justice. Justice…that’s funny,” he said chuckling to himself while he continued to scan the papers. I was in no mood to discuss the ironies of my last name as an incarcerated inmate, but I tried to smile like what he said was humorous and original, neither of which would be words used to describe him. Ever.
“Who told you you were getting out tonight?” he asked. I nearly blurted out the real answer, which was my mother, but instead told him that it was my lawyer. No need to hear whatever ridiculous comment “my mother” would have brought forth.
“Well, looks like your lawyer was wrong. I don’t see you on any release list.”
Surprisingly, I wasn’t as immediately deflated as I probably should have been. I could have very easily just walked away from the desk, ran to my bed and curled up into a ball. I almost did, but I felt like Dave wouldn’t have told my mother that I was getting out unless there were things happening that would prompt my release. The officer had already moved back into his seat and was re-opening his People when I said, “If someone isn’t on your list now, does that mean for sure that they aren’t getting out tonight?” I knew that I was kicking the hornet’s nest and that my additional questions could really set him off.
“Look, Justice, I don’t fucking know. You’re not on the list now, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t be on the list later. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but shit doesn’t happen very fast around here. Now leave me the fuck alone.”
I had hope. It was still fairly early in the evening and I thought that whatever paperwork that needed to be done hadn’t made it to D Block yet. All I could do was keep doing my laps with some occasional pit stops to talk to a guy or two that I knew. The TV had just been turned on and a small group had sat down to watch whatever was on. After an hour or so of pacing, I decided to sit down at a table by myself. I wasn’t having much conscience thought and was just kind of dazed. My body and my mind were just about out of any energy resources. Too much emotion and thought had been expended and I was out of gas. So I just sat. I didn’t even hear it the first time it came over the loud speaker.
“Justice, 240. Justice, 240.”
I heard it the second time, but it didn’t register. It was as if it was only in my head. It was so simple, but so hard to understand. I knew from others who had gotten released that 240 was code for getting out and to gather you stuff and report to the D Block exit door. I had heard it probably once or twice day since I arrived, but hearing my name attached to it didn’t compute. A sat motionless staring at the wall for a solid 15 seconds before I was snapped back to the world by a slap on my shoulder from one of my basketball buddies.
“Yo, Dawg, ain’t that you? You’re out!” he said with a big smile on face. I slowly turned my head and saw a bunch of the other guys looking at me, clapping, smiling. My knees buckled when I got up and I was so dazed and worn out that I didn’t know what to do. What was I supposed to do? For whatever reason, instead of an intense release of emotion, maybe dropping to my knees in a pool of tears or jumping up and down like I just won the World Series, I just stood there. The world around me was swirling and guys were coming over to shake hands and give a quick goodbye. A few different groups of guys had stood up and were clapping and whistling. It was Brubaker, for real. I was slowly making my way to my cell to grab nothing, really, but thought that I should at least say goodbye and good luck to Chris, but I was literally in a fog. I understood what was happening, but I literally felt like I was watching it all from afar. I had tried to imagine this moment in my head for countless unmanageable seconds, minutes, hours and days, and now that it was really happening, I was detached from it all. I was watching a movie with someone else in it. It was almost like my mind frozen and I was paralyzed or in a coma. I was in a state of shock. But from the back of the brain, from inside the fog, I did know one thing: I was going home. It ran like a recorded message. I was going home.
I was going home.
From this moment forward, time took a u-turn. However slow the previous twelve days had been, the next few hours were the reverse. I was on fast forward and I was in a room putting on my original clothes. I nearly felt drunk and unable to focus. I was shuttled into a holding cell or two while I was processed out and I honestly have no idea how long any of this took. I had entered a state of consciousness that I had never experienced before. From the moment that my name was called until I was standing with an officer explaining that I would need to exit through a gate outside the door in front of me, I was literally a spectator of my own life. Suddenly, it seemed, I was standing outside alone, in the cold, in the dark, watching an electronic gate slowly slide open in front of me. Watching the gate open was exactly how the Blues Brothers started. Jake Blues, standing at the prison gate while it slowly opened, and Elwood, on the other side, waiting for him. Even now, at a point in my life when my body was nearly ready to completely shut down from exhaustion, this movie reference wasn’t lost on me. It was perfect, really. I wanted someone else to see this happen with me, but it would have to wait and there would be plenty of time for stories. While that gate made its way open, I was surprised that instead of being overjoyed and jubilant that instead I was in a state of total disbelief that the last 12 days had actually happened. It wasn’t real. I had just happened, I lived it, but it wasn’t real. The gate stopped and I was out of my coma. My mind and body connected again and time was back to normal. I began to walk, and as suddenly as it started, it was over. I was alone, in the dark and free.
My breath was visible and it was chilly. I stared out to nowhere as the gate behind me slowly grinded closed. My hands were jammed in my pockets for warmth and I was happy, again, for my choice to bring along my USA hockey fleece. I realized that I stunk. I was very aware of my old, unwashed clothes that I had lived in for nearly eight full days and I couldn’t piece together when I had last showered. I really did smell bad. I must have stood there for five minutes with my mind jumping from thought to random thought. I snapped out of it for a moment and looked around to realize that I was on the far side of the building and in a parking lot. A few cars were scattered around and in the distance I could see a highway which I assumed was either I-70 or I-25. I couldn’t remember what had happened on the bus ride to County, but I knew that we hit a stretch of road that had to be one of those two highways. Since it was dark, I couldn’t orientate myself with the mountains and I couldn’t see downtown. I began to walk around from the side of the building and tried to figure out where I had entered back on Friday. I was horribly confused as to what I was supposed to do next. I’m out! But what now?
I had to call Kermit to let him know that I was out and ask him to come pick me up. I had tried to picture this moment for an endless eternity and now that it was happening in real time, I couldn’t believe how blasé I felt about it. It was like I needed to call him to get a ride home from the airport. I had been incarcerated for twelve days after being charged with five felonies associated with the molestation of a teenage cheerleader. I didn’t know why I had gotten out, but I assumed that the DNA test had come back negative. I felt like Dave and Franklin and Kermit and Aimee and everyone else who knew where I was would be waiting on the other side of the gate with a cake, a cold beer, balloons, streamers and a marching band. Maybe with TV reporters and blinding camera lights asking me how it felt to be free again, how angry I was at the police department, whether or not I was planning on suing anyone or when I planned on telling Jerry to fuck off. But I stood alone, watching my breath dissipate into the darkness, trying to figure out where I’d find a phone. I walked around the building a little more and saw a short sidewalk leading to a glass-door entrance to the building. I could see through the windows that it was a public waiting room for families and friends. There were maybe three people inside and I could see a row of phones, very similar to one on D Block. I looked up at the sky and let out an audible laugh. I’d have to fucking go back in to call Kermit.
Back inside. That’s funny.
I walked up and pulled the door on the right open. As I entered the room, I could see the people I saw through the window. It appeared they were all together, probably a friend, a wife and a teenage daughter waiting for a prisoner to be released. They were all sitting down in the individual padded seats next to the pop machine. The room had the feel of a bus station: vending machines, wooden benches, plastic padded chairs, a bank of phones, maroon tile on the floor and a control booth that was shielded by bullet proof glass. Very Greyhound-esque. I went over to the phones and realized that I’d have to once again call collect since I didn’t have any change. I thought for a split second that I’d ask one of those other folks for a quarter, but decided that one more collect call wouldn’t hurt.
I dialed the phone number the same way I’d been dialing phone numbers for two weeks, adding a zero in front rather than a one. I waited for the time to record my name but was surprised that an actual operator answered and asked my name. I could hear the phone begin to ring and almost immediately Kermit said, “Hello?” I had become conditioned to waiting for the recorded announcement about my whereabouts and the conversation being recorded, etc., and naturally tuned out during that process since it really did take about 90 seconds to get connected after the person on the other end had answered. I drifted off for just a second when I heard Kermit saying, “Hello? HELLO?” There wasn’t any recording! I was on my own. This was the first real indication that I wasn’t in jail anymore, even if I was technically calling FROM jail.
“Wood, I’m out,” I said calmly.
“Out, out? As in out?” he asked.
“Out.”
“Where are you now?”
“Jail.”
“I thought you said you were out?” He was easy to confuse.
“No, I’m still at the County Jail, but I’m out. I’m in a public waiting room or
something. Can you come pick me up? Wait, what time is it?”
I realized that I had almost no concept of the time. It could have just as easily
been three in the morning or ten at night. I had no idea.
“It’s 9:30. Where are you?”
“I have no idea. I was blindfolded when they brought me here.” It was closer to
the truth than he thought.
I really didn’t know where I was. I told Kermit to hold on and went over to the officer behind the glass to find out the location of the County Jail. Apparently People magazine was extremely popular at the County Jail since the officer sitting at the desk was reading the same one as the dickhead back in D block. When I asked him where we were, he went through the same bullshit as the other guy with the pained facial expressions, the exaggerated closing of the magazine and the asking me to repeat my question. There was obviously no premium put on customer service at the Country Jail. He did finally give me the address and I didn’t recognize it, but there was zero chance that I was going to ask for further information from him. I said the address four times in my head while I walked back over to the phone, where the receiver was dangling from the metal cord.
“10500 Smith Road in Denver,” I told Kermit. I figured he would know where it was since he’d been out in Denver since 1996.
“Where the fuck is that?” he asked.
“No idea. I think it’s off of 25 or 70.”
“OK, I’ll look it up on a map and be there as soon as I can.”
My immediate thought was that I doubted he owned a map.
I told him about the location of the waiting area at the building and hung up the phone. As I turned around to go find a seat, the inmate who the others were waiting for had just arrived in the room. There was hugging and kissing and visible happiness happening. It went on for several minutes. I found a bench to sit down on and realized that I was very, very tired. But I was also wired. A final remaining dose of adrenaline had injected itself into my veins while I was on the phone with Kermit and I was excited to begin the beginning. I sat fidgety with my knee bouncing up and down and did what I had just nearly perfected, which was waiting. I waited for over an hour. Was he lost? Was the County Jail really over an hour from downtown? I didn’t think I was on the bus for that long. I knew he didn’t have a map.
Ninety minutes after I hung up the phone, two hours since I had rejoined society and five hours since I had left D Block, I saw Kermit’s green Ford Explorer pull into the parking lot. I slowly stood up, walked out the door to the passenger side and opened the door. I leaned over, shook Kermit’s hand and sat down in the sea. It was a seat that I had been in countless hours on many long road trips over the years. We had been to Vegas in that truck, to Chicago, to camp and all over Colorado. This road trip would be my favorite.
“Welcome back,” he said. “How was it?”
“Good. Good,”
It was so simple, but it meant so much. It was normal. We had been good friends before this began, but through this had bonded even more. He had visited me in jail twice and, along with Aimee, he’d always have memories that none of my other friends would have. There was never a question or hesitation from him about whether or not I was guilty. Neither of us were ever the kind of guys to openly talk about our feelings or offer a hug. Our affection was shown through handshakes and harassment. We had shared a lot in nearly a decade and now we would always be able to talk about the time I went to jail.
“I thought you might need these.”
He leaned his right arm back behind the front seats and came back up holding a bottle of Coors Light and can of Copenhagen.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t get you anything,” I said. He laughed.
“Wait, what’s the date?” I really had no idea. I couldn’t think.
“It’s March 12.” It was nearly midnight.
“Well, let’s go celebrate your birthday!” I said as I cracked up the beer and began
to open the can of Copenhagen. I hadn’t dipped since the day before I was
arrested and hadn’t really thought about until the moment he showed me the
can.
I realized that Kermit’s birthday was in ten minutes, when it would officially be March 13. There was a lot ahead of me. I had to deal with my employment situation. I needed to call my mom and eventually I’d have to drive back to Missouri to see her. I wanted to reach out to my friends who had supported me while I was inside and I wanted to tell the others who had no idea it was happening. I needed to figure out how I was going to pay rent and my bills. I wanted to know why I got out and what was next. I wanted to tell the story of the first basketball game and Pepe’ and John and the bus ride and Cube and all of the other crazy shit that suddenly seemed like it happened in a dream. I wanted to talk to Franklin and thank him and let me buy me the beer he promised me. At some point I would have to start to think about a job. Fuck, I’m going to have to call Kira. I had nearly forgotten. There would be plenty of time for that stuff, though. Tomorrow. Later. I had no plan in front of me and, besides, Kermit was turning 31 in a few minutes. It was a Tuesday night and he had to teach in the morning, but I figured he’d be up for going out before we went home.
“Let’s go to the Candlelight,” I said as we exited the parking lot onto a frontage
road.
We rode silent for a few minutes. I had made it out unscathed, so to speak, but I was weak and felt beat up. I had hardly slept in a week and a half and I figured that I probably lost nearly ten pounds. My brain was scattered, but as we turned onto the onramp for I-70, I suddenly remembered why I was supposed to be mad at Kermit. I looked at him with an angry look on my face and started shaking my head in disgust.
"What?" he said while speeding up to get on the highway.
"50 goals while I'm locked up? Really? Bullshit."
Kermit just laughed, but he knew it was bullshit. We would be able to debate it at the Candlelight.
We rode silent for a few minutes. I had made it out unscathed, so to speak, but I was weak and felt beat up. I had hardly slept in a week and a half and I figured that I probably lost nearly ten pounds. My brain was scattered, but as we turned onto the onramp for I-70, I suddenly remembered why I was supposed to be mad at Kermit. I looked at him with an angry look on my face and started shaking my head in disgust.
"What?" he said while speeding up to get on the highway.
"50 goals while I'm locked up? Really? Bullshit."
Kermit just laughed, but he knew it was bullshit. We would be able to debate it at the Candlelight.
No comments:
Post a Comment