Prison Camp: Farewell to Prison II
A White-Collar Journal forum for criminal justice, lived experience, and the personal search for redemption
Last week, I shared the lead-up to my release from federal prison—the rituals, the waiting, and the unlikely friendships forged behind the fence. This week, in Part II: how COVID became the secret combination to the lock that confined us. What follows is the story of that frantic period.
FAREWELL TO PRISON - Part II
On the afternoon after Rasta was released, there was a frightening reminder of my time coming. Death was in the air from the day I arrived. There were breaks and I’d forget, but just when I wasn’t thinking about it, an email message announced a memorial service for a recently departed inmate. A photo from his prison ID card—sinister, solemn, ugly, out of focus. The caption: “May He Rest in Peace.”
During my time in prison, there were many notices like that. Nothing more chilling than those stark announcements. I was seventy-eight years old with five more years to serve. I didn’t want that to be me. So when COVID arrived, I was afraid. But Jake, a new inmate known as Jake the liar, said prisoners were being released in New Orleans on Compassionate Release motions. But Mike the Greek, my bunkie at the time said “He’s going to get his ass kicked with all his bull shit.”
But Jake insisted we should all start filing. Then we started counting the deaths. I started counting in earnest around March when the numbers were piling up. I didn’t care that it was ghoulish. We followed the daily count—five hundred dead a day, then one thousand, then two thousand. We were getting sick at thirty thousand a day. We gathered at our bunks to share our motions and huddled at tables exchanging reports on the plague outside. But there was also the fear of getting it under such tight living quarters.
That was an intense period. Guys could see a real path out. The problem was how to do it. At first, it looked like petitioning the warden. Then the Attorney General, William Barr, issued an order encouraging the Bureau of Prisons to release elderly and health compromised inmates. The Barr Directive. Jake said this was the magic bullet.
Mac the knife, an ex UFS fighter who bunked next to me told Jake he was an asshole. “This is bullshit. It’s only a recommendation. These pricks won’t do shit.”
This went on for weeks. Poor Jake never got a response after hours of typing and revising. So Levine, one of the jailhouse lawyers who did appeals for other inmates, said the only way out was through the courts. Surprisingly, Mac the knife, sided with him. Inmates were filing for Compassionate Release in the courts and motions were being granted. But first you had to request it from the Warden, wait for a rejection, then file with the court where your case was adjudicated.
Everyone started writing letters. The BOP started processing a list of inmates who would qualify for early release. On a late Friday afternoon, guys were being called into Counselor Larkin’s office. We heard that only guys over sixty with short time remaining and real health issues would be released. Although I was one of the oldest inmates, I was not called.
After the list was cleaned out, only a couple qualified and were released. Everyone focused on filing with the court. Then Robert, a former NFL lineman who had ignored everyone on this, suddenly became laser focused. He spent two entire days measuring distances between cubicles, bunks, sinks, toilets, and using a shoelace from his boot. He rewrote his motion over and over. He questioned everyone. He would never share his motion with anyone except me. At the end of it all, his motion was the best. Clear, complete, compelling, and successful. I forwarded it to my lawyer and we copied it allmost word for word.
I was the first to get a response to my petition. The judge ordered a hearing. I could attend virtually. Levine caught me one night just before count.
“I heard you’ve got a hearing. I think you’re good,” he said. “When is it?”
“Tomorrow. But I’m not sure if I should attend.”
“What’s your lawyer say?”
“He said it’s up to me. I hate it when they say that.”
“Yeah,” he said. “It means they don’t know.”
I didn’t sleep well. But in the morning, I decided to attend. All court hearings were virtual due to Covid. I was bussed to the main prison and brought to a conference room with a giant monitor the size of a movie theatre. I sat alone behind a long table. When the screen came on, the Zoom gallery was a pyramid of twenty or more entrants—former investors, two of my children, my lawyer, the prosecutor, and the Judge in the center, above us all. My image was so far away it was like looking at someone else. I could barely recognize the skinny old man in greens with thick black eyeglasses.
My lawyer stumbled through a clumsy presentation while investors and the prosecutor articulated forceful objections to my release. Judge Bolden, in the same unflappable demeanor as my sentencing hearing, adjourned, promising a decision soon.
I had written a letter to the Judge and planned to read it. But I was so uncomfortable and anxious I never did. I’ve kept that letter and return to it sometimes. I promise myself I’ll send it to Judge Bolden one of these days.
I didn’t think it went well. I beat myself up for not reading my letter. When I returned to the camp, Jake and Levine were all over me. That afternoon, walking the track, Jake appeared out of the blue. I’d never seen him out there.
“Listen, John. As soon as you hear, come get me wherever I am and let me know. Okay?”
It seemed so stupid, coming out to the track and all. But guys could taste it. The First Step Act, the Barr Directive, were all bull shit. But Compassionate Release was real. Guys were getting released.
A couple of weeks passed. I assumed my motion would be declined. I wasn’t even looking for it. Jake, Robert and even Mac had also filed and none were granted. Just when I’d forgotten about it, the order came through on a Monday after my shift. I got an email from my daughter: “Motion granted. You’re being released tomorrow.”
According to federal statutes, after a court order, the motion must be carried out within twenty-four hours or the Bureau of Prisons would be held in contempt. Word spread through the dorm. Guys I hadn’t seen in weeks came into my bunk, hanging around me as if they could catch some magic. Everything after that was frantic and muddled. I culled my locker, sorted clothes, called home for reassurance. By the time I returned to my bunk, I was already mentally gone. A kind of delirious brain fog. Guys were asking for my contact information. I couldn’t remember my emails or phone number. I don’t remember what I wrote down. Only that it was probably wrong. They didn’t understand. I was already out of here.
The camp Secretary called to schedule my flight home to Florida. He was a petty, annoying presence. He asked me questions. I couldn’t answer them. He finally gave up, literally threw up his hands, told me my flight time and said, “Get the hell out of here.” I called my brother who lived nearby. He had already heard and was picking me up tomorrow.
They released me from the main prison in the same area as my arrival. They had me wait in a spartan room with only a chair and no windows. After a while, another room, then another where I waited for half an hour. Finally, they called me out. I stood in the center of a busy reception area where a tall thin CO, who never looked at me, pointed for me to stand next to him while he traded paperwork with a woman behind a reception desk.
I was being released, but I was still an inmate, a felon, a criminal. The woman kept handing him papers which he put in front of me to sign. He explained each one but I wasn’t listening. I didn’t care. I’d’ve signed anything. Then I was ordered to wait in another room. Another guard came out. “Follow me.” I walked down a different corridor. There was a window, closed. He knocked. The door opened, a CO handed me a credit card. “There’s $210 in there. Your commissary balance. Don’t lose it. If you do, you won’t get it back.”
Then the guard walked me out through the same wide steel door where I had arrived. The motor revving. The slow opening. The crack against the wall when it finally opened. A final reminder. Don’t fuck up. Remember this sound.
Then back to the waiting-room in reception, the same room for departure where I waited for my brother. Still cold as ice. No life there, other than one uniformed guard ignoring me behind a high counter. Occasionally a staff member came through. They all stared at me. One last, nasty look. A kind of warning. It worked for me.
My brother showed up. His car pulled under the entrance. He got out with his big smile the only thing I could see. He had been a mentor growing up, coached me in little league, a business partner later, and one of few supporters after my business failed. Everything calculates differently when the end is close. When you really feel it. Prison brought me there. I got that much out of it. All the before doesn’t matter. I just knew I loved him and he loved me. At that moment, I loved him more than anyone I ever loved in my life.
He’d brought me shoes, socks, clothes. I took off my camp sweats and broken sneakers. His bachelor son was with him. They argued about the socks. They lived together and bickered constantly. Silly squabbles about food, clothes, who was last in the shower. It was annoying over the years. But today, I loved it. Eventually I changed, and we were on our way.
I can still feel the feeling of that drive out. I don’t care what anyone tells me. That car drove to the airport and never touched the pavement.
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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The waiting. The time out of time. You capture it beautifully.