Long Way Home

by Cameron Douglas

  Dave and I work out together in the dayroom. We play handball on the roof. We sit on the stairs that lead from the dayroom to the upper tier, shooting the shit. Much of the time, we’re buzzed on Clancy’s hooch, which we call wine or, in code, “pear.” Clancy makes it from sugar, water, mushed-up spoiled fruit from the chow hall, yeast from the kitchen, and grape juice, which he has access to because he works in the chaplain’s office. He usually has a new batch ready each Thursday, just in time for the weekend. It’s good stuff, unlike his white lightning, which he makes by running a live electrical cord into a bucket of the hooch to boil it, then capturing the condensation in a plastic bag. The result is 110 proof and tastes like gasoline. Alcohol has never been my preferred poison, but sipping Clancy’s wine gets me through a day or two a week here. The stuff is potent, and I brush my teeth before leaving my cell and try not to talk to anyone.

  * * *

  —

  Having friends here keeps me from getting too lonely and also helps to muffle the insecurity I feel. A friend is one less person who’s an enemy. There’s safety in having allies. And, though I don’t realize it yet, this period is helpful in training me to relate to people without the aid of heroin. Being forced to make idle chitchat with people I don’t entirely know or trust, I’m getting more comfortable with myself. I go through the prison ritual of “exchanging information” with other inmates, writing down our names and register numbers on slips of paper for each other. This is part practicality, in case you want to stay in touch with someone, and part symbolism, a kind of handshake confirming you have no issues with each other. You do it sooner than later, after meeting, since anyone can be moved at any time without notice.

  Eddie’s been sent here from a high-security penitentiary, and Dave is on his way to one. They make knives and extort people. I’m on my way to a minimum-security. But my friendships with these guys boost my confidence. I look up to them. They know how to navigate this world I’m now in. I learn from them just by watching how they do it, seeing how they handle situations, inferring the unwritten code of life here just from what they do and don’t do. I see that the closer you adhere to the code, the better off you’ll be.

  I romanticize my situation—the seriousness of my charges, of the convicts around me, of the place where I am, and of the amount of time I’m facing. I feel like I’m making moves. When George leaves, I take over the football pool he was running. My heroin detox was involuntary; I still like the idea of having a drug habit in prison, like I’ve seen in movies, and we try various scams to source heroin. They mostly don’t pan out. The couple of times we do get it, I snort it.

  Do I want to better myself? Yes. Do I want to be sober? No. Life in here is so miserable, and I’m under so much stress, that if I have an opportunity to take the edge off, I’ll take it. And the opportunities here are few and far between, so I’m not really worried about overdoing it.

  One day, Eddie says to me: “I can’t believe you’re just coming into the system. I’ll tell you right now, you’ll make it at any high-security prison.” I don’t know if I believe him, but as crazy as this might seem later, it feels good to hear.

  * * *

  —

  I’m becoming more focused on self-improvement. My first time in the exercise area, I go to the pull-up bar, thinking I’ll bang out ten—in the past, I’ve been able to do ten with one arm—and I can’t even do two. This isn’t acceptable. I need to make this prison time work for me. I need to find myself again. After a few months, I’m noticeably stronger. I do 1,500 push-ups every morning, in sets of twenty that alternate between regular, incline, and decline, using a chair for elevation.

  I keep a journal and carry it around with me. It makes me feel more intellectual than everyone else, and I get a lot of “Ernest Hemingway over here”–type comments. I find myself praying to God. I know I’m in a lot of trouble, and I can’t think who else to appeal to for the amount of help that I think I need. I’m thirsting at least for some sign that I matter, that God, or the universe, is aware of me and my situation. I have long, searching conversations with a guy on the unit named Eddie Boyle, a Gambino-affiliated Irish American bank robber whose Boyle Crew knocked over night-deposit boxes. In his late forties, Eddie has ice-blue eyes and an intelligence and reserve that stand out among the bullshitters and gum-flappers who make up most of MCC’s population. He doesn’t have a drug habit. He’s been in prison for six years, and he spends a lot of time working on his appeal, which has brought him back to MCC. He’s arguing that the government improperly applied the RICO Act to his case; his argument will end up before the U.S. Supreme Court (which won’t see it his way).

  We spend hours hanging out in each other’s cells, talking about purpose and suffering and the likelihood of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Eddie introduces me to James Allen, a poet, philosopher, and motivational speaker born in the late nineteenth century who died in his forties, and to his essay “As a Man Thinketh,” about the power of the mind. It makes an impression on me. It lines up with my own innate understanding of how things work:

  Man is made or unmade by himself; in the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself. He also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace. By the right choice and true application of thought, man ascends to the Divine Perfection; by the abuse and wrong application of thought, he descends below the level of the beast. Between these two extremes are all the grades of character, and man is their maker and master.

  To read what I already believe on an intuitive level, clarified in his words and with his authority, feels somehow vindicating. I get a heavy paperback compilation of all of Allen’s works, which I annotate and underline and highlight and read cover-to-cover several times.

  * * *

  —

  Erin is in the all-female wing of MCC. I miss her a lot. I’m also worried she will tell the prosecutors things they don’t already know, either because she thinks it will help me or because she thinks it’s the right thing to do.

  Finally, in November, on a day when we both have hearings, I see her in a holding cell behind the courtroom. We’re in cages across from each other. We agree to write to each other, passing our messages through her friends who work in the commissary and leaving letters behind a pad on the wall of the rec cage on the roof. I implore her to tell the prosecutors that she really doesn’t know anything, that I did my business when she wasn’t around. Another day, I’m visiting the library on the second floor, where Erin is, and we see each other. I scream, “I love you.” She screams, “I love you.” The guards are really pissed, and we get written up for it.

  My proffer sessions are becoming more fraught. The prosecutors tell Nick they may add a cocaine conspiracy charge to my indictment. In December, Erin tells them about our guns, and that I sometimes carried one with me on drug buys. I can’t believe it. What was she thinking? The presence of a firearm during the commission of a crime could double my sentencing range, and the prosecutors exploit their new piece of leverage, saying they’ll add a gun charge to my indictment unless I play ball. I don’t have a chance to confront Erin about this. I’m angry and frustrated, but I know she wouldn’t have done it with any bad intention toward me. She’s just in over her head, and has no business being here, and the prosecutors know what they’re doing.

  For a time, my hopes are focused on getting bail again. The prosecutors are opposed to the idea. My lawyers think I can get it. But then I don’t get it. The upside of not getting out of here is that any time at MCC will count against my eventual sentence. The downside is that I get no relief from my stress and fear. Some of the fear is physical: Am I going to be stabbed? A lot of the stress is emotional: I obsess minutely over my agreement with the government, beating myself up for letting myself get ensnared by it. I worry about what this environment will do to me.

  * * *

  —

  My cooperation doesn’t pose o
nly an emotional struggle or ethical quandary or psychological conflict. It creates real problems for me in a place where the prevailing attitude is Snitches get stitches. People want to dislike someone like me, with a famous last name and a rich family, right off the bat. I’m consumed with anxiety, and itchy red welts break out all over my body.

  Every new hearing in my case yields fresh articles in the press, and after a closed bail hearing in January, reporters speculate that I’m “cooperating.” I’m in my cell and a big Spanish guy I’ve never spoken to comes in, gets right up in my face and says, “You’re a fucking rat. You’re gonna give me money, or I’ma beat you off this unit.”

  It’s a crucial turning point in my life behind bars.

  23

  2010: Acquired Situational Narcissism

  “You’re a fucking rat,” says my would-be extortionist at MCC. Without thinking, I head-butt him. I strike with the crown of my forehead, just above the hairline, and aim for the bridge of his nose. When someone’s too close to punch, it’s very effective, temporarily disorienting to the recipient and giving you a moment to do what you’re going to do. But I’m surprised by just how well it works this time. The guy drops to his knees, and I hit him in the face with a flurry of blows, laying him out flat. He doesn’t say anything, just gathers himself up and skulks out of my cell. I worry that I’ll get in trouble, because his face is bruised and cut, but I don’t. He never talks to me or looks at me again. I begin to build a prison reputation as someone who doesn’t roll over. I feel triumphant.

  * * *

  —

  I’m having more contact with Mom and Dad than I’ve had in years. They’re happy to see me off of drugs. We’re all focused on my case. After so many years of distance, it finally feels like we’re working together.

  Around my birthday, Dad and Pappy visit. The administrator who’s been kind to me arranges for us to have an hour in an empty visiting room where there are a couple of vending machines, and we pull a few chairs together to talk.

  I’m so impressed by Pappy, and touched. He’s ninety-three, and he’s come all the way from California to see me. He’s wearing shades and doesn’t take them off the whole time we’re together.

  “You been getting in any fights?” Pappy asks.

  “I have,” I say.

  “Have you been winning or losing?”

  “Winning,” I say.

  “That’s my boy,” Pappy says.

  I tell him I’m ashamed for him to see me like this.

  “Do what you need to do, Cameron, and make your way home.”

  * * *

  —

  Meg Salib, one of the lawyers from the second firm we hired, visits me every day. She’s on the short side, with shoulder-length brown hair, and she’s buxom. She looks very professional in her skirt suits; she’s my lawyer and I’m in prison, but the first time I met her, from the moment I walked into the visiting room, I had an inkling that something might happen between us. She’s thirty-four to my thirty-one. She’s warm and kind. For a lawyer dealing with a client, she seems overly concerned with me, but in my situation that feels incredibly good. I’m pitying myself, so the fact that she pities me too is a welcome sentiment.

  She started coming to see me every few days, then more frequently. We talk about my case, but feelings are developing. Back on the unit, there are whispers about us, because Meg is attractive and constantly visiting, all eyes are on me to begin with, and that’s what guys in prison do: gossip. They read and watch everything and are remarkably up-to-date on current events and what’s going on within the institution. I start getting nudges and winks from other inmates, and guards make leering remarks to Meg.

  * * *

  —

  My anxiety spikes in response to the periodic violence around me. There are people here who don’t know the protocols you learn at higher-security places and unwittingly breach them, leading to swift reactions. I watch a kid named Chino, a member of MS-13, get choked out by Face, a shot-caller for the Bloods, then come back the next day with three padlocks attached to shoelaces: he windmills them, striking Face’s head again and again until there’s blood everywhere and Face’s face is a pulp. I never see Face again.

  In late January, when I formally plead guilty, another burst of articles appears (“Michael Douglas’s Son Admits Drug Dealing”—People), and again I get hostile, menacing looks from the other inmates on my unit. I have a fresh breakout of hives, which I can’t stop scratching. The BOP medical staff still won’t give me anything other than non-narcotic meds with unpleasant side effects.

  * * *

  —

  In February, I have another bail hearing. At this one, Dr. Millman testifies about what he calls my “feelings of lack of self-esteem…On the one hand, I am this guy who is so important—but he is not. And on the other hand, he is nothing, and he couldn’t even graduate from high school. So I think that he was self-medicating from a really early age and doing things that endangered his life…And he really needs to be rebuilt. I hate to say it, but he needs to be rebuilt.”

  The fuck? Millman wears his star-fuckery on his sleeve. He treated Keith Richards and coined a psychiatric diagnosis, Acquired Situational Narcissism, to describe celebrities whose fame makes them go nuts. I’m embarrassed and ashamed that I’ve gotten myself in a position where I have to prostrate myself to get sympathy. That I have to pay someone to basically say I’m worthless.

  Then Millman says that I’m “an informant.” I look at my lawyers, and they look at me, in disbelief. It’s both untrue and the worst possible thing he could say in open court. To a civilian, “cooperating witness” versus “informant” might sound like semantic hairsplitting, but it’s a significant distinction in prison. The judge agrees to strike Millman’s words from the record, but there are reporters in the courtroom who heard what Millman said.

  The next morning, when I come out of my cell, even my friends, Dave and Eddie and Clancy, are looking at me askance. Everyone in prison reads the newspapers, and the New York Post seems to hope I’ll get killed. Their headlines about me are gleeful in a way that seems optimized to ensure that something terrible will happen to me, which they can then describe with another sadistic headline. Today’s is:

  “ ‘SINGING’ ROLE FOR CAMERON.”

  The BOP puts me in protective custody. When Meg Salib visits, I’ve broken out in hives again. But I convince the BOP to put me back in gen pop. At this point, it’s become a matter of pride not to hide out in the SHU. And I’m anxious to clear the air with my friends.

  When I get back to the unit, Dave starts getting loud. Maybe he’s been drinking. “Fuck you, you fucking rat.” I go up to him, get in his face, and call his bluff. I’m standing right in front of him, like I’m prepared to do something, but I don’t think I really am prepared to do something. Which I know isn’t the way to do things. If you’re going to posture, you’d better be ready to deliver. And he unloads on me, hitting me with a series of punches and dropping me to the ground.

  “What the fuck?” I say. “That guy didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. They asked me to be an informant, and I refused.”

  I’m kind of shocked. I thought we were friends. It becomes more real to me what world I’m now in.

  * * *

  —

  Hattersley and Clancy demand that I show them my paperwork to prove what I’m saying. “Paperwork” means the minutes from my court hearings, plus the pre-sentencing report issued by the probation department, which I don’t yet have. Hattersley calls Meg directly to demand the documents.

  Meg brings them with her on her next visit, Hattersley and Clancy are placated, and we make up. But Millman blabbing in court, and the resulting press coverage, makes me very unpopular at MCC and sets the tone for the duration of my prison bit. I’ve fucked myself two ways. My uncooperative cooperation has cost me the goodwill of the prosecutors, while the fact that I have the agreement with them at all has tarnished my name with inmates. M
ost of them will never know the nuances of my unenthusiastic dealings with the government, such as my efforts to keep my accomplices out of it and to provide useless or unreliable information. They just see the newspaper headlines about “cooperation” in return for a shorter sentence.

  * * *

  —

  I can tell that Dad’s angry with me. He has spent a ton of money on my lawyers. He has publicly criticized his own parenting of me. He has visited me a lot. I’m grateful, but I’m also still immature—romanticizing crime and drugs—and probably not acting sufficiently reformed. And my gratitude, tinged as it is with years of accumulated pain and resentment, may not be as robust as he’d like.

  When he visits again, not long before my sentencing, he suggests I may have to work as a coffee boy in the entertainment industry when I get out of prison. I’m not a snob, and this could be true, though I hope not. Because there was a time when everything did come to me, maybe I feel like I’m more important than I am, or that my talent is more special than it is. I guess there’s a level of entitlement in me. But “You can shovel shit when you get out” is not what I’m looking for right now. I’m wanting something else from Dad. A sign that he hasn’t given up on me, some reassurance that he still believes in me, a reason to live and a goal to work for. I’m not sure that he does believe in me, and I’m not sure that he should. When you need someone else’s belief in you to validate that there still is anything worth believing in, you know you’re at a low point. That’s a dangerous place to be.