Typically, the BOP’s response to my latest infraction would be negligible. At a medium- or higher-security, you might not even do hole time for it. But DHOs have an enormous amount of discretion, and I happen to draw a hard-ass.
My BOP sanctions for this bust are a version of double jeopardy. For “use of drugs,” I’m sanctioned to a forty-day loss of good time credit, four months of disciplinary segregation, a one-year loss of family visits and commissary usage, and a two-year loss of all other “social” visits. Then, for “possession of drugs,” I’m sanctioned to an additional forty-day loss of good time credit, an additional seven months of disciplinary segregation, an additional year’s loss of family visits, and an additional loss of other social visits for another two years. I’m now looking at eleven months’ solitary confinement, two years’ loss of family visits, four years’ loss of other visits, one year’s loss of commissary, and ten months’ loss of phone privileges. This is unheard of, even if you have multiple shots, and these are only my first major shots.
A lot of people are disappointed in me. A lot of people are pissed off at me. The judge is angry about Meg Salib and the Xanax. The cops are mad because I lied to them about where I got the heroin, and because of the extra heat they’re now getting. I haven’t heard from Dad since my bust.
If anyone’s happy about this latest development, it may be the prosecutors. They were already furious over my refusal to testify against Gabriel. They couldn’t undo my original sentence, and my immunity deal blocked them from pursuing the contraband charges, but the Suboxone bust, and my refusal to help with the heroin investigation, has provided them with a way to give me at least some of my time back.
Nick reaches a deal with the prosecutors. In return for my pleading guilty to possessing prohibited objects, they agree not to further prosecute me for possession of either Suboxone or heroin. The sentencing guidelines call for another twelve to twenty-four months to be added to my time. The prosecutors reveal in a court filing that they no longer plan to call me as a witness at Gabriel’s trial, because now that I’m no longer cooperating with the government, I’m a “problematic witness.”
* * *
—
For a month and a half in cell 208, in MDC’s solitary unit, I have no cellmate and am allowed contact with no other prisoners. I’ve been deemed a danger to inmates and civilians alike; even with my lawyers, I’m allowed to talk to them only through glass.
I’m enjoying being alone, but this place is grim. There’s a guy here who shits and pisses all over his cell and tries to throw it under his door at the cops. The food is terrible. Liver is in heavy rotation. I’ve never liked liver under the best of circumstances, and the liver here is the worst. It’s inedible. I won’t touch it. I ask a cop for extra bread. One morning, the portion of rice at breakfast is tiny and not fully cooked, and at lunchtime the whole range refuses to eat, screaming and cursing.
I’m in my cell early one evening when I hear scuffling sounds.
“You don’t fuck with me”—hitting sounds—“I fuck you.”
Another voice: “Get off me, what the fuck are you doing?”
“Shut the fuck up, taste my fucking dick.”
More sounds. Lots of banging around, really violent.
“I fucked you.”
Then a lot of quiet, heavy breathing.
It’s a fight that turned into a rape.
This is the bleakest moment in the bleakest stint of all my time in prison. I think of a line from Shantaram: “The worst things that people do always strike at that part of us that wants to love the world.” MDC is a terrible place. I’m angry at my lawyers. I’m at odds with the prosecutors, with the BOP, with the judge. I’m at odds with my parents. And I know I’m getting more prison time. A really dark feeling is sinking deep into my bones, and the rape compounds it. It’s sickening, and unsettling, and feels like a harbinger of things to come. I’m not worried I’ll be raped, but it's like: This is so ugly, and it’s my life right now. How did I get here?
* * *
—
I can communicate with Mom and Dad only by mail. Considering what I’ve put them through, they are humblingly supportive.
Dad writes to me a month after my Suboxone bust.
Dear Cameron,
I must admit, I haven’t written because I didn’t know what to say to you. Not wanting to make you feel worse, yet at the same time unable to comprehend your actions. You were so close, yet so self-destructive. I hope through whatever counseling you can get, and a stronger belief in a higher power, you will understand why you continue to undermine yourself. The serenity prayer. Please.
I’m starting to numb a bit. A pervasive anger is settling in. I’m feeling the evolution that a lot of prisoners experience. It’s the transformation from everyday Joe with a drug problem to convict with violent tendencies. I’m going through the things that twist the mind and fuck with your heart and soul. Some people break, and lose their hair and shrivel up and look like the homeless person on the street corner. The prison system isn’t set up to provide hope or push real reform or rehabilitation. It’s built to test you and try to break your will. A lot of my anger is self-directed, and what Dad wrote is what I’m already thinking about myself. But I’m kind of past the Serenity Prayer at this point. I don’t have faith in God or anything else. I’m looking inward rather than outward for strength to get through this. In that sense, this is an important time for me. I’m developing the resolve I’ll need to endure what lies ahead.
Mom writes too:
Hawk has been talking about his big brother to his teacher at school, they told me. Hawk said you were in trouble for having drunk some water, without following the rules, and that he loved and missed you very much…Something I was thinking about yesterday—I was very young when I married your father. For 20 or more years, I felt as if I was always operating, or trying to at least, in your dad’s shadow. Because wherever I went that was how I was identified, I really must admit I really hated it— It really haunted me. I felt I was a prisoner of his name. Then one day after being haunted by this feeling for decades and being really angry about it, it suddenly dawned on me—what if I could let go of my “EGO,” which is false anyway, because all EGOS ARE FALSE and NOT the true nature of who we really are! What if I could really let go of my “Ego” and embrace the gifts that did come along with that name and all that life entailed—the good and the bad. Nothing in the world is all bad or all good, so I decided to focus on the good (the gifts of the situation) and to let go of the feelings of limitation, expectations, anger, frustration, my feelings of lack of self esteem, etc etc. Because my own emotions were holding me captive, and I was becoming my own victim of the situation. Well, life is far too short for that. Now I am building my own life—sometimes bigger steps, sometimes really small steps. However, the direction I am committed to moving is forward. PS I keep all your letters in the drawer by my bed so I can be closer to you.
Mom has always been insightful, and even wise, and the desire to form my own distinct identity, to be known for who I am rather than for my last name, is something I have in common with her. But the knowledge is the easy part. The hard part is to heal, to use the knowledge to fix yourself. I know how hard and frustrating it must be for her to keep reaching out and supporting someone who’s so self-destructive. I’ve started noticing that when I look at my reflection in the dented pieces of glossy metal attached to my sink and toilet, I only take quick peeks. I’m not sure why, and I tell myself: “It’s okay, you can stand there and stare yourself in the eyes.” So I do. I stare at my features and I ask: “Is that face, or that person, capable of being loved?” I guess the answer to that is what I was afraid would be revealed if I held my reflection for too long.
* * *
—
This SHU time at MDC is something of a turning point for me. It’s now, when I have little else to fill the hours, that I assign myself a formalized curriculum in earnest. Every day, I write—journaling
at first. Every day, I do thirty to forty-five minutes of meditation. Taking advantage of my single cell, I become almost scientific in my masturbation practices. Afraid that the next several years of disuse will destroy my libido, I jerk off twice daily, without fail.
My reading becomes more systematized, so that I always have three books going at once: a beach read, a self-help book, and a literary classic. Erin, who seems to have forgiven me, sends me Chicken Soup for the Prisoner’s Soul. Dad sends me a book of Stephen Crane’s stories. Mom sends me the Odyssey and two books of Crane’s poetry.
I’ve always been kind of put off by poetry, because it has never really clicked with me. Now I start reading the Crane books and I’m touched and inspired, and finally I get it: So this is what poetry can do to people. This is why historically poetry was such a big deal, why in the past poets were the rock stars of their time, why poetry is taught in school. Lines as simple as “A slant of sun on dull brown walls / A forgotten sky of bashful blue,” from a Crane poem, stir me. I start playing around with writing poems of my own, increasingly using my journaling time to write verse. I content myself with the tiny marvels of everyday life: When I go to the hot tap with my packet of coffee, and the water is slightly warmer than usual, I enjoy my cup of coffee that much more.
* * *
—
The guards put someone in the cell with me, and we have a disagreement over I don’t remember what, and one day he asks to be moved, and then I’m alone again. I won’t take another cellie. The cops come to my door and say, “Cuff up!” and I refuse. MDC is getting increasingly crowded, but I continue to buck, saying I won’t share my cell. Then one day, a cop I have a rapport with says, “Hey, will you trust me on something? We have a kid we want to put with you. He’s quiet, he reads a lot, he’s mellow, it would really help me out. If it doesn’t work, we’ll take him out.”
“Okay,” I say.
Aracelio is nice and gay and Dominican and likes to read, and we have a good rapport. He has a little crush on me, and he gives me the first massage I’ve had in a long time.
* * *
—
With my resentencing coming up, Mom and Dad once again come together for my sake, cosigning a letter to the judge: “…We love him dearly with all our hearts and feel in part responsible for the terrible situation he now finds himself in.”
It’s now November 2011. If the Suboxone bust hadn’t happened, and I hadn’t refused to testify against Gabriel, I’d almost certainly have made it into RDAP after returning to Lewisburg, which would have meant I’d be released to a halfway house in August 2012, with supervised release ending February 2013. Now, if I don’t win my BOP appeals, I’ll be in solitary until October 2012. And even if I get a time-served sentence, I’ll be in prison until February 24, 2014. And that’s a real “if.”
My legal team and doctors argue to the judge that my heroin addiction, and the BOP’s refusal to fill valid drug prescriptions for me, should be taken into account in my sentencing, as should the sanctions already handed down by the BOP. They note, too, that the length of my SHU time has made me ineligible for RDAP. They point out that only 4 percent of the 3,500 drug misconduct charges handled by the BOP each year result in investigations, much less prosecutions, and that the 4 percent tends to be very serious cases.
The probation department is recommending a sentence of 366 days, the low end of the guidelines range. The prosecutors—unhappy with my refusal to testify against Gabriel, and citing inmate and cooperating-witness reports that I was “seen snorting substances” during my first stint at MCC, and claiming that more recently I “misled the government” about how I obtained heroin—are asking for a sentence of twenty-four months, the upper limit of the guidelines range.
The only silver lining of this disaster is that the prosecution has now documented my withdrawal from cooperating with them.
* * *
—
On December 13, 2011, I turn thirty-three. Happy fucking birthday to me.
* * *
—
On December 20, the night before my resentencing, I meditate over the blue, prison-issue shirt I’m going to wear, willing good vibes into it.
When I enter the courtroom the next morning, I see Mom sitting with Tiffany, her goddaughter who lived with us for a year when I was growing up. Dad isn’t here. Maybe he’s not in New York. I know he’s angry and frustrated and disappointed with me, and upset at the whole situation. My biggest fear has been that he’ll give up on me, and I can’t help wondering: Is this it? Is this the end of our relationship?
Shortly after 10 a.m., the proceedings begin. I plead guilty to one count of “possession of prohibited objects while an inmate of a federal prison.” The government says that it won’t be calling me as a witness at Gabriel’s trial. I address Judge Berman, talking about my addiction struggle, my lapses. I throw myself on his mercy, asking for medical help instead of punishment. “I feel ashamed,” I say. “I feel defeated.” I guess Nick is trying to win me some sympathy points, but it doesn’t feel great to hear my own lawyer say, “We are dealing with a very damaged individual.” I’ve never thought of myself as very damaged, or even mildly damaged. I’m reckless. I’ve been viciously addicted to drugs. I have never felt that I’m a piece of bruised fruit.
“What is really important,” Berman interjects, “is not to get warm and fuzzy.”
I don’t know whether Judge Berman dislikes me personally, or the Meg Salib thing has pushed him over the edge, or he feels like a chump for giving me a short sentence the first time, or he wants to demonstrate that he won’t go easy on someone with a famous last name, or what, but he is pissed. He tells the courtroom: “Mr. Douglas…not to oversimplify, seems to have blown the biggest opportunity of his life.” He says I obstructed justice.
Even the prosecutors have argued that any obstruction is mitigated by the “responsibility credit” I should receive in a sentence calculation, because of my immediate guilty plea to the latest offense. But Judge Berman rejects the responsibility credit. He’s angry that the government and defense “swept under the rug” the Salib episode, in his view. He says of me, “He never, as I understand it, testified against his suppliers pursuant to a cooperation agreement; rather, he testified against [Carlos Garcia]…pursuant to an immunity compulsion order.”
Judge Berman has presided over the trials of terrorists and child abusers. But he declares now that he has never “encountered a defendant who has so recklessly and wantonly and flagrantly and criminally acted in as destructive and…manipulative a fashion as Cameron Douglas has.” As he says these things, I find them hard to believe. It’s like he’s talking about someone else. Really, I’m the worst you’ve ever encountered? This is insane.
Then he hands down my sentence. He’s departing upward from the guidelines range and adding fifty-four months to my existing time—four years and six months—essentially giving me back all the time he lopped off my original sentence. Plus another three years of supervised release. He does recommend that the BOP immediately lift restrictions on family visits, and that I be placed somewhere where I can receive drug and dental treatment, and that I be put in an RDAP program.
As I leave the courtroom, I look over at Mom and Tiff and smile and wink to let them know I’m okay and am going to be okay. But Mom is about to cry, and in fact I’m devastated. I didn’t see this coming. Outside the courtroom, I sit in a holding cell trying to digest what’s happened. I’m in shock. My lawyers are in shock.
The sentence is so draconian that the New York Times will later call it “one of the harshest ever handed down by a federal judge for drug possession for an incarcerated prisoner,” and two dozen drug-addiction groups and doctors will file an appellate brief on my behalf, arguing that I’m a classic case of “someone suffering from untreated opioid dependence.” One of the signers tells the Times, “What the judge has imposed has zero benefits for the community and has staggering consequences for society.”
It
seems like it takes forever to get back to my cell at MDC. After waiting in the holding cell next to Judge Berman’s courtroom, I’m shuffled in handcuffs through a glaringly lit concrete tunnel under the courthouse to a set of larger holding cells across the street, the bull pens. There are more inmates here. I lie down on a bench and pull my top over my head. I’m almost dizzy as I try to process what’s happened. My sentence was just doubled from five to ten years. Overwhelmed, I pass out.
* * *
—
Eventually it’s time to get on a bus to Brooklyn, and we roll past storefronts gaily decorated for Christmas. At the MDC in Sunset Park, I go through another two hours of being strip-searched and processed and trading-out my blue court outfit for a bright orange jumpsuit before I get back to my cell.
When I step onto the range, there’s water everywhere. Inmates with mops are wading through inches of water. Other inmates are screaming and banging on doors. A bunch of guys have been “bucking,” clogging their toilets to flood their cells, as happens from time to time in the SHU. I’m confident that Aracelio is dealing with the flood. There are no drawers or shelves in our cell, so I keep my books, letters, photographs, writing, and legal paperwork under the bed, on the ground. I’m sure that Aracelio will have plugged the crack under the door and elevated our belongings above the waterline.
When we reach my cell, I see through the slit of window that Aracelio is lying on the top bunk, passed out. I glance down and see water everywhere. My books and legal papers and my own writing are still on the floor, ruined. So are my photos and magazines. Aracelio is in such a deep sleep that the cops have to bang on the door a few times before he hears them and jumps down, clearly surprised by the water.
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