Justice Notes: Back Home Part II
A White-Collar Journal forum for criminal justice, lived experience, and the personal search for redemption
Last week, “Minutes Before Six, a literary journal that has generously published my work over the years, published a new essay of mine, BACK HOME, about the helplessness of trying to manage a collapsing life from a federal prison camp. Below is the second half of the piece, depicting what happend after I hung up from the call with my wife, leaving her with an unresolved and hopeless predicament.
You can read the full essay on “Minutes Before Six” at the link following the excerpt.
BACK HOME (Part II)
After the call, I went to see Jack, the sea-food king. Jack was in the same boat more or less. He still had some assets left, no cash, but a big house North of Boston and a place in Florida. Big liens on them, made selling them difficult. His wife remained in the big house alone. She visited him every visiting day, three days a week. She was a gentle looking woman. Not very attractive, a bit frumpy and house wifey, but always smiling whenever I saw her in the visiting room. Jack said she was always complaining about something in the big house.
“I have to remind her that I’m living in fifty-four square feet with another guy.”
He repeated that often. Never bitterly or angry. More as a joke. He understood that she may have been in the big house. But she was alone. A woman who never had to worry about anything. Now trying to manage liens, letters from the IRS, packages arriving every day, huge Fed Ex boxes, each containing hundreds of pages of legal documents, credit cards and checks often returned or rejected and government officials showing up without notice.
Jack’s bunk was always organized, and he was almost always reading a book, usually mysteries, thrillers and some biography. He was reading a memoir by an unknown Italian, smuggling Jews through the alps and across the border into Switzerland during WWII. He had headphones on but took them off when I arrived.
“You should read this. John,” he said, removing the headphones. He had suffered severe hearing loss in the Marines. So, he listened to music on the headphones when he was reading. “They should’ve made a movie about this guy. Unbelievable what he did on those mountains.”
“Got a minute Jack?” I asked.
“Yeah. Sure. I’ll give this book to you after I finish. This story would be some movie.” Jack put the book down and put in his hearing aids. “So, what’s going on.”
Jack was kind of the camp wise man. He wasn’t the oldest inmate, but he was seventy and had a Dutch uncle persona. He welcomed anyone reaching out. I even saw Izzy, the gangster rapper reaching out to Jack. He just had a way about him that made guys trust him, a natural wisdom about things. And he made doing time almost look easy, which it wasn’t, and accrued to him respect from the other inmates.
“Things are a disaster at home. Looks like we can’t stop the house foreclosure. My wife’s bankruptcy─ can’t stop it. And the bankruptcy doesn’t even stop the lawsuit against her.”
“Was she in the business?”
“No. Nothing to do with it. But my former investors are suing her. They know she was not involved in my business but they’re suing anyway. Worst part I can’t stop it and can’t help her. I hired a prison consultant to advise her and manage all of this for her. Paid the guy up front. Turns out he’s a drunk and she doesn’t want to have anything to do with him.”
“Can you sell the house?”
“It’s on the market now. But it’s a close call if she can find a buyer to stop the foreclosure. That was the purpose of the bankruptcy. But the bankruptcy attorney is another problem. Keeps changing her mind. All her original predictions didn’t happen. Worse yet, she said she never said them. Now asking for more money or she’ll close her file.”
“You know the joke about lawyers.”
“No. Maybe. Which one.”
“You know what they call 1,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?”
“What’s that?”
“A good start,” he said.
It was funny but I couldn’t laugh. I was too broken. Jack noticed and didn’t let it lay there.
“John, I know. It’s not funny. I know you know this. But you can’t do anything. It’s just going to play out. All you can do is hope she finds a buyer. Any interest?”
“Not yet. The broker I hired isn’t much better than the prison consultant, or the bankruptcy lawyer I hired. I’ve got a perfect record going here.”
“Once we’re on this path. There’s no bottom. Just keeps getting worse. Wish I had some answers for you John.”
“Me too. Thanks for listening.”
“Anytime John.,” a short pause, “Heh. I’ll give you this book when I finish. They should’ve made a movie about this guy.”
Then he picked up his book and grabbed his headphones.
“Ok. Thanks Jack,” I said and returned to my bunk. It was the middle of the day, the dorm quiet. I sat on my bed trying to conjure up a plan. Nothing emerged. I told Lynn I’d call her tomorrow. As if I’d have an answer, a plan. But I had nothing. The foreclosure would play out as it played out. Maybe a buyer for the house would emerge, but the bankruptcy would go as it goes, and probably not well. Lynn will have to move, but there’s no money for that, and our kids are not in a position to help. I knew it would all end badly and I couldn’t do anything about it. I thought how hopeful I was when I arrived. No good reason for that. But it survived the early adjustment, the search for a routine, learning to ghost, the mess back home and my appeal in no-man’s land. My hands were trembling. I’d have to call her tomorrow, and I had nothing to say. It was over like that.
I wrote this in my journal:
The sudden moments of despair come without warning. And when they come, like a tire losing air, nothing to hold you up.
If you’d like to read the complete essay, here is the link: BACK HOME.
If you’re drawn to the idea of storytelling as self-reckoning, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
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"The sudden moments of despair come without warning. And when they come, like a tire losing air, nothing to hold you up." But, of course, you DID have something to hold you up. It was/is the ability to make sense, or begin to make sense, of it through writing.