At the fifteen-minute mark, the call automatically disconnects.
It’s not going to be okay. When federal agents get you in a room and start laying out a limited menu of options, where one choice leads to prison time and another doesn’t, few people can withstand the pressure and not tell them whatever they want to know. I have little reason to think Meg won’t buckle, which means that prosecutors will have new leverage to get me to testify against the Garcia brothers.
I’ll soon learn that early on the morning of July 26, the day after my last visit from Meg, FBI agents knocked on the door of her apartment in Chelsea and handed her a target letter. Prosecutors then played for her the recordings of our phone sex, including her thunderous orgasms. Within days, she told them everything. As a result of her cooperation, she won’t be charged criminally, and she’ll get to hold on to her law license.
* * *
—
Back in my cube, I open my locker and pull a can off a six-pack of Coke. Prison contraband is the art of hiding things in plain sight. Since Sebastian works in the metal shop, he has modified a couple of soda cans so that the tops screw on and off. We keep them in the six-pack tabs they came in, and they look like they’ve never been opened. I unscrew the lid from one and pull out a plastic bag with a few items in it, then grab a cigarette lighter attached with a magnet to the underside of my bed frame and head for a bathroom stall.
There, I balance my makeshift works on my lap: a small square of foil cut from a larger sheet from the kitchen, a short length of hard plastic tube razored from a ballpoint pen, and the pen’s cap. I carefully unfold a bindle of heroin and dip the pen cap into the powder, then tap it out onto the square of foil. Putting the plastic straw between my lips, I ignite the lighter under the foil, and as the heroin vaporizes I suck it all into my lungs, holding it long enough that by the time I release my breath, nothing remains to give off an odor.
There’s no way I’ll have to testify. No way. Right?
* * *
—
A few weeks later, as I head back to my job after lunch, a guy from my softball team comes up to me. “Hey, Cam,” he says, “I’m really sorry about your father.”
“What are you talking about?”
“His throat.”
“What?”
“Maybe I’m wrong, sorry,” he says, raising his hands and backing away.
When I reach the administration building, I see my work overseer, a Queens native who introduces himself to people as Turbo but is universally known as Shmedium, in honor of the too-tight, small/medium T-shirt he was wearing when he self-surrendered.
“Cameron,” Shmedium says, “I’m really sorry about your father’s cancer.”
“What?”
As soon as my shift ends, I go to my bunk, open one of the Coke cans, and pull out the burner flip-phone Sebastian and I share.
I call Dad, but he doesn’t answer.
I call Erin. She answers on the first ring.
“I’m so sorry about your father,” she says.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“He has Stage Four throat cancer. He didn’t tell you?”
“No!”
“It’s on People’s website.”
I try Dad several more times. Later in the day, he finally answers.
“Hey Cam, how’s it going, buddy?”
Dad, Dylan, and Carys visiting me at Lewisburg.
“Were you going to tell me?”
There’s a pause.
“I was going to,” he says. “I’m sorry, the press found out before I expected them to. I didn’t want to worry you.”
I’m really scared. His cancer is far along, and though he says he’s been told he has an 80 percent chance of recovery, the other 20 percent is what I fixate on. I’ve seen other inmates whiling away their sentences as the people they love most die on the outside. Often the relationships are fraught and unresolved, and they never get the chance to make things right. I’m scared that will be my story too. I already know that when I get out of prison, and have another chance, I’m going to live my life differently. But I’m worried that Dad will die thinking of me as the failure who didn’t live up to expectations.
* * *
—
In the evening, I’m talking to Sebastian about the news when he says, “Dude, have you cried about it?”
“I haven’t cried since I was arrested,” I say. “About anything.”
“For real? I cried for two hours yesterday about, like, missing my mom’s pork chops.”
“Yeah, no, it’s disturbing. I want to cry. I know I should cry. I’m pretty sentimental. I used to have no problem crying. I’d get choked up watching a puppy chow commercial. I don’t know what’s going on.”
There’s no shame in crying in prison. There’s a lot to cry about, and it’s not looked down upon. But it’s like my tear ducts have stopped working.
“You know I love you, bro,” Sebastian says, punching me in the arm, “but I didn’t realize how fucked up you are.”
* * *
—
When softball season ends, in late summer, flag football season begins. We all receive a copy of the game regulations, which dictate no body contact, but flag football at Lewisburg is basically tackle football. Players hit, and hit hard. With the huge weight room here, some inmates are enormous, and most of them seem to have signed up for the league. When I tell Sebastian and our friends Dash and Black that I’m going to play, Dash says, “Are you crazy?” Black says, “Bro, they’re going to be gunning for you twice as hard.”
I’m the token white guy on my six-man team, and my teammates address me as Hollywood. I play wide receiver and cornerback, and opposing teams take to tossing the ball to the huge running backs on sweeps in my direction. Once in the open field, they put their heads down and charge, but I stand my ground, digging in and making the hit, sometimes clinging to them as they drag me down the field. I’m not trying to hurt anyone, just trying to establish myself as a kid who isn’t a pussy. Often I grab the flag. Sometimes I get run over. My friends are right. Nearly every game, someone breaks something or gets a concussion. I’m really lucky I don’t get hurt.
* * *
—
One day, I’m emptying trash in the administration building when a C.O. who’s been talking up the warden’s secretary gestures out the window. A busful of penitentiary-bound convicts is rolling past. The C.O. says, “See those guys? You guys are all right. Those are the bad guys.”
I think about the “bad guys” all the time. Almost daily, we hear flash-bang grenades detonate behind the wall of the penitentiary when a couple of inmates start fighting in a rec cage. I think about what makes me different from a bad guy. Does being a “good guy” mean being a coward?
Flag football at Lewisburg.
I saw how my cubie Gavin garnered a certain level of respect because he’d come from a low-security. One afternoon after a softball game, I’m griping about the hardships of doing time. An old-timer named John, who’s in on a drug beef and is always shuffling around doing David Blaine–style card tricks, says, “Have you ever been in a Low, Cameron?”
He rasps this, actually, because he drinks a lot of vodka and smokes like a fucking stack, though on the softball diamond he gives the ball a good whack and makes an effort to run the bases, and supposedly back in the day he was an amazing baseball player.
“Have you ever been in a Low, Cameron?”
“No.”
“Yeah, you’re not in prison right now. You’re never going to be in prison. You’re at this camp. And that’s where you belong.”
I can feel my face burning red. But is he right?
For all my work toward bettering myself, I’m still somewhat enamored of the prison lifestyle and haven’t come fully to terms with what’s going on and where I am—or what the ramifications of all this will be, and the taint it may leave on my family and on me, for the rest of my life. I haven’t evolved that far.
&
nbsp; A few weeks after Dad’s cancer made the news, I get a letter from Alex, my old trainer and friend who was an informant in my case. His letter is a mix of self-justification and apology. I’m torn about what he did. I understand his reasoning, but it’s hard to fully absolve someone who had a direct hand in putting me in prison. And what Alex did to me was a lot worse than my unreliable and minimal cooperation. Right?
Every day, I rue my decision to cooperate. It was the pragmatic option, the path counseled by family and my lawyers. It may even have been, in the eyes of conventional morality, the correct route. But it required me to violate some of my most strongly held convictions, about loyalty and friendship and the taking of responsibility, and my decision has tortured me ever since. I don’t expect everyone to understand, but I believe a person should bear the consequences of his own decisions and mistakes, and shouldn’t be the cause of someone else getting punished.
I have a nagging dread, informed by occasional calls from Nick De Feis, that the Garcias, against all legal advice, are going to take their case to trial. If I have to testify against them, it will overturn my entire calculus for my plea deal, which was that I could enjoy the sentencing benefits of cooperation without having to deliver the goods. I’ve already paid a price for the deal, since my supposedly confidential agreement was broadcast in the media. But what if I just refuse to testify?
* * *
—
Mom is having a rough go of it. A magazine runs an article about her titled “Portrait of a Hollywood Momster.” It’s a terrible thing, and she’s understandably devastated. I tell her I can empathize, having had my own experience with press distortions, and remind her that the people who are close to her know who she really is—a great mother and a lovely, smart, inspirational woman.
* * *
—
Dad calls my cell phone a few times to talk, breaking down every so often. It seems like he doesn’t have anyone to do that with, and as frustrated and guilty as I feel that I can’t be with him, I’m glad he feels comfortable opening up to me in this way. He visits with Dylan and Carys right before he starts treatment for his cancer, and then again in late October when his treatment is done. I’ve never seen a body change so dramatically in such a short time. It looks like a gust of wind could blow him over. For the first time, I feel like I have some understanding of what cancer survivors go through, of the will to survive required to get through the ordeal of radiation and chemo.
26
2010–2011: Night Runner
I’m settling into my life at Lewisburg. Unit 2, being farther from the administration building and closer to the fields that unfurl toward the compound’s perimeter, is the camp’s Khyber Pass, the point of entry for smuggling operations. The grounds crew isn’t the only group bringing stuff in. Unit 2 is also the starting block for a reckless sprint off campus, which a handful of inmates make from time to time.
It’s rare for an inmate simply to run away on these trips, because everyone at the camp is going home soon enough, so the incentive to escape is low. But some guys who make the night run go to hotels. They always carry a cell phone, so if they’re found missing back on the cellblock, they can get a warning call. If that happens, some guys just don’t come back. Inevitably, they are caught. But the success–fail ratio of the runners is favorable enough that to me it’s worth the gamble. One night, I join them.
I put on dark green army fatigues normally reserved for the work cadre behind the penitentiary wall, which I’ve borrowed from a friend who works in the prison laundry, and lie in my bunk under the covers until midnight count is done. As soon as the cops leave the unit, I speedwalk to the back door, where there’s a fire escape, and where an inmate named David, who has dark black skin and is a veteran of these missions, is waiting for me.
Though the camp has no fences, a guard truck makes regular circuits of the perimeter, and the penitentiary’s front tower spotlights include the fields we’ll cross in their sweep. We have to time our run carefully. It’s a good mile to the nearest point with car access, and we bound across the softball diamond to the low outfield fence, jump it, then duck and wait for the truck to pass. The grass is tall this time of year, so we have good cover as we make the sprint to the tree line. The wind blowing in my long hair is exhilarating, a small sip of freedom.
While I’m running, Sebastian is on the phone with Erin, who has been waiting at a nearby Weis Market, and giving her turn-by-turn directions to our rendezvous spot. When we reach the last field’s edge, David leads the way through a stand of trees to a barn near the road. Suddenly, there she is.
Erin is sitting in our BMW with the lights off. I haven’t seen her in more than a year. It’s so good to see her, and we have sex in the back seat. It’s quick, because we don’t have a lot of time, but it’s loving, and amazing, probably the best sex we’ve ever had. I love her for having gone through with this whole plan and showing up; it’s very risky, and not a lot of people would do it, and it shows me she really cares and is willing to go the distance for me. She hands me the bag of goodies she’s brought me, which include a new pair of white Chucks, as well as deli meats and bread for sandwiches. We kiss goodbye, and then I begin the mile dash back to my unit.
Every prison sells different sneakers, so you can get away with wearing brands that aren’t sold by the commissary at the place you’re at. Some guys push it, wearing $200 Air Maxes, but the next day I proudly wear my fresh $30 Chucks around the compound, together with socks pulled to my knees, West Coast style. They feel like home and get me some compliments. “Nice kicks, Hollywood,” I hear often.
* * *
—
On birthdays, we do what we can to make friends feel special. Everyone in prison has a hustle to make money. There are guys on the compound who make cheesecake using commissary ingredients—every maker has his own slightly different technique—and others who make pizza that’s really good, by prison standards. When I turn thirty-two in December 2010, Sebastian arranges a cheesecake and pizza to celebrate. But his big gift to me is a chair he designed in the metal shop. I’m always leaning back in my chair, tipping it up on the hind legs and lifting the front legs off the ground, so Sebastian has made me a chair with an extended back and legs that stretch forward. Kind of a customized foldout chair. It’s pretty cool.
Dad and me.
For Christmas I send Dad a miniature rocking chair, with a picture frame for a back, that I buy from one of the art hustlers–in–residence. “The amazing thing,” I write to Dad, “is what it’s made of and how it’s made…these are all chip bags from commissary fitted together tastefully and held together with dental floss.”
The greatest present I could receive comes in January, when Dad learns that his tumor is gone. He seems to have licked cancer. And he has gained back the thirty-two pounds he lost during treatment.
* * *
—
Sure enough, eight months into my time at Lewisburg, Nick calls and says I have to come to New York to testify. I’m angry, given his repeated assurances that this turn of events was all but impossible, but I have a new clarity about what I’m willing to do and not do going forward. Nick, my parents, my friends—none of them has to do my time. I have to do it. And I’ll have to live with my actions for the rest of my life.
“Nick,” I say. “I’m not going to testify.”
There’s a pause on Nick’s end of the line.
“This is what you agreed to, Cameron.”
“No, you told me all I had to do was talk about my role. You said I’d only have to say what I did and how I did it, and that would be enough.” This is substantively true (there are so many people I never said a word about) and technically untrue (I signed papers agreeing to testify), but right now I’m more interested in focusing on Nick’s deficiencies than in recognizing that I rolled the dice and lost.
“Cameron, you can’t back out of this deal. You agreed to it. And my reputation is on the line here.” He’d convinced the D.A.�
��s office, in an unusual arrangement, to give me the deal before I’d really cooperated.
“Fuck your reputation, Nick. You put yourself in this situation. I know what you told me.”
“You have to do this, Cameron. They’ll cancel your cooperation agreement, and you’ll get ten years at least.”
“Goodbye, Nick.”
Dad calls. “Just come to New York and meet with the prosecutors,” he says. It’s not like I have a choice. Prosecutors have the power to move me, whether I agree or don’t. I could go kicking and screaming in five-point restraints, but I’d still have to go. Two days before Christmas (not a coincidence, I’m sure), I’m put in transit from Lewisburg. I spend New Year’s Eve in a transitional cell at Canaan and arrive in Manhattan in January.
* * *
—
A few days after returning to MCC, I’m taken to the courthouse for a hearing. When I’m led into the bull pen, a holding room with more than a dozen orange-suited, shackled inmates waiting to be called to testify in various proceedings, I immediately see Gabriel and Carlos, my former friends and suppliers and the defendants I’m here, supposedly, to testify against as an adverse witness. It’s a major BOP fuckup to have put us in the same bullpen. We warily exchange greetings.
“Look,” I tell them, “from what I understand, they’re going to give you a plea bargain of five years. Take it. Don’t put me in a position where I have to testify, because I will.”
I won’t. Or at least, I won’t testify to what I said in my initial confession. But I need them to believe that I will, because I want them to see that taking the deal is their only real choice. If they take the deal, I can avoid having to refuse to testify, which would almost certainly add years to my sentence.
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