Prison Camp: Daily Life
A White-Collar Journal forum for criminal justice, lived experience, and the personal search for redemption
The following is another profile from my prison memoir, A Muddled Brotherhood, a collection of portraits of the men with whom I served my sentence in a federal prison camp. Like many of the inmates I came to know, Robert (Bubba) was far more complicated than the crime that brought him there.
THE FOOTBALL PLAYER
Bubba (Robert to me) was a former NFL lineman who became a successful mortgage originator after his playing days. A big, intimidating man, he still carried the presence of the violent game with him. He had a compelling face and a fearless demeanor. But he was more of a businessman than an athlete. He looked like he should be commissioner of the NFL or, at the least, the player’s union president.
He was in prison for financial violations. He arrived at the camp with a chip on his shoulder, aloof and above the fray. He told me he didn’t ‘come to prison to make friends. Just do his time and get out. He was reading Mandela’s memoir when he arrived. He told me that “Nelson Mandela used prison to plan for the future.”
He sat where he wanted in the dining hall, taking a seat allocated to another inmate. Seats in the dining and TV rooms were unofficially reserved for specific inmates. A new arrival usually had to wait several weeks to identify an unreserved seat. Robert sat wherever he wanted. Surprisingly, no one confronted him.
According to Robert, a former employee embezzled funds from his company. However, when indicted by federal regulators, she negotiated a plea deal based on irregularities she claimed she had witnessed at Robert’s company. Robert denied the irregularities, but for reasons I never understood, he pleaded guilty to wire fraud and was sentenced to 24 months. He was someone who spoke endlessly about his case and the injustice of it, repeating the story ad nauseum. I didn’t like him initially. I was intimidated by him like other inmates. But we became friends when I was relocated to a bunk next to him. Someone told him I was in the real estate business, like him. After that, he was in my bunk all the time. Mainly with the exact retelling of his mistreatment: the employee who embezzled him and subsequently turned him in for nothing he did, and what his lawyer didn’t do and the Judge didn’t understand, and the prosecutor didn’t give a shit, and he and I should have been partners.
He had a wisdom about him. Maybe it was from growing up as the only Black family in a white-only town. His father, a contractor, installed septic systems, and his mother was an educator. He had five siblings, all solid and productive. An impressive presence when he arrived, he was six feet five and two hundred and ninety pounds. But he worked out soon after arriving, and by the time we became friends, he was down thirty pounds.
When we first connected, he was reading a book about grammar. He became consumed by it and constantly asked me about past participles, conjunctions, prepositions, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, and advanced grammar: direct and indirect speech. I don’t know why he thought I knew. I’d answer him like I knew just to end the conversation. His grammar book was thick. I never thought he’d finish it, but he did. He said he always tried to complete anything he started. No matter how insignificant. He said there’s always growth when you complete something. Anything.
Like him, I had been in real estate, and he had become convinced that we could start our own company once we were released. I never took it seriously. I was approaching eighty and couldn’t see myself with the energy to launch a new career. I was hoping to find anything to make it the rest of the way when I got out. I had given up on all the big ventures. But I never told Robert that.
I was released in May 2020. Robert was scheduled to be released a few weeks after me. He said just before I was released, “Promise me we’ll connect when you get out.”
“Sure,” I said.
“Lying fuck,” he answered with a rare smile. Then he waved his arm down and went back to his bunk.
He was right. I never reached out. I can still see him pouring through that thick book of grammar, lying on his bunk, small strips of loose-leaf paper sticking out like ribbons between the pages. I don’t know why I haven’t called him. But I try and complete everything now.
Up Next on White Collar Journal:
Wednesday (Justice Notes): Criminal Justice Reform
Thursday (Notes from Exisle): Log/Verse: Daily, fragmented reflections
Sunday (Prison Camp): More Stories from prison
If you’re new to White-Collar Journal, you can read earlier chapters and essays on incarceration, justice, and reentry at whitecollarjournal.com.
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