* * *
—
Danbury is closer to my family, and it isn’t as bad as my last Low, Loretto, but it’s pretty run-down. Before being converted to a men’s prison two years ago, Danbury housed only women. Orange Is the New Black is based on the thirteen months the author was incarcerated in the minimum-security satellite camp here. Maybe because of that history, Danbury has the most female officers of any of the prisons I’ve been in.
After three years in a cell, I’m back in a cube setup. My bunkmate, who everyone calls Lou the Jew, is a slick-talking degenerate gambler from L.A. who’s eight years into a fourteen-year sentence for selling tickets to ridiculous-sounding, nonexistent concerts, such as a “Beatles Revival.”
* * *
—
I know, from when I was new to the system, that I’ll be given some space here, since I’m coming from a higher-security. At lower-securities, there are more guys trying to act some way they’re not, and they put guys from more serious places on a pedestal.
When I went to my first compound, Lewisburg, I was still a child—addicted to heroin, recklessly leaving the grounds and smuggling in a prostitute, enamored of the criminal lifestyle. The last time I was at a Low, Loretto, I was at my bleakest—in despair from my newly doubled sentence and harsh sanctions, and still using heroin. I didn’t understand yet that you can do prison time in different ways. You can make it hard on yourself, or you can make it easy.
Now I’m repelled by the false romance of prison life. I have clarity and focus. As soon as I arrive at Danbury, I go directly to the administration and ask for a no-show, no-pay job, and they give it to me. I contract with a guy in the kitchen to smuggle me four or five milks a day, at a cost of four stamps per bottle. I spend my time reading, writing, meditating, exercising, and running a small gambling ticket to pass time and make some change. I continue to masturbate in the shower twice a day like it’s my job. Some guys here have a hustle selling laminated nude photos that cling to the shower walls, five stamps for three front-and-back pictures. The shower floors are disgusting, and I’m not without blame for that. As a result, cleaning the showers, which happens at least twice a day, is a very important job: the crews assigned to do it are paid well, and inmates expect them to be on point.
I feel safer here. A few weeks after my arrival, I notice that a real weight has lifted. I literally feel lighter, which makes me aware of just how heavy I’ve been feeling for years.
* * *
—
It’s June 2015. I’m twelve months from the door now, which is tantalizingly close, but there are still painful reminders that I’m not yet free. Granny is ninety-two and has cancer. Though I haven’t seen her since she visited me at Lewisburg, she writes all the time. Shortly before my arrival at Danbury, she was moved to the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital’s palliative care unit. As soon as I get to Danbury, I drop a letter to her in the mailbox next to the officers’ bubble, the enclosure on the unit that serves as their command center. I don’t hear back from her, and then, on July 3, Dad calls from the hospital to say Granny has only hours to live. I ask him to put the phone next to her. She can’t speak, but I hear her breathing, and I tell her what I want to say to her. A few hours later, she passes away. It kills me that I can’t be there for her funeral, and my disappointment and frustration are compounded when I find out that the prison doesn’t use the mailbox where I put my last letter to Granny; she never received it, because it’s still sitting in that unused box labeled MAILBOX. I’m more angry than sad. I want to lash out at someone, but I don’t know who to blame.
Me with Granny.
* * *
—
Danbury has a weight room, and after years of calisthenic workouts, I’m curious to see how strong I’ve gotten. I start hitting the weights again, and I bulk up. Being back in a cube, after years in a cell, I find it harder to read in peace here, though I do pick up a James Clavell doorstop or two. With my headphones to tune out the surrounding noise, I write more, and I begin writing notes for this book. I know I’ll be going home relatively soon, and I have a story I want to tell. Dad has suggested that it would be a good idea to tell it sooner than later. This is something productive that I can focus my energy on. It’s also a forced march down memory lane, which is sometimes frustrating, sometimes painful, sometimes funny.
* * *
—
This is the easiest time I’ll do—I’m more seasoned, and the end is in sight. Early on, I’m offered K2, a not-yet-illegal “synthetic marijuana,” which I think is probably bullshit, but which is not yet detectable by urine testing. I smoke it and feel like I’m coming unglued. I’m unable to talk. I see words vaporing out of my head.
I won’t touch the stuff again, but I see other people who use it vomiting and crying. One guy screams that people are trying to kill him and frantically punches a window to escape until his hands are shredded. Another night, a guy who’s an Army Ranger, ex-boxer, trained killer, extreme calisthenics practitioner, and one of the angriest people I’ve encountered in prison smokes K2 and goes into attack mode. He breaks everything in sight, including someone’s nose, and hurts two inmates who try to hold him down. The only thing that prevents additional damage is that these K2 freak-outs wear off after ten to fifteen minutes, and his rage begins to taper. He’s lucky, because there aren’t any cops on the unit when it happens; had there been, he probably would have hurt them, which would have led to a lot more time for him in prison.
* * *
—
Though I’m keeping to myself more than in the past, I do make a few friends at Danbury. On one of my first days here, I’m talking with some guys when a short, chubby man with a yarmulke and wire-frame glasses approaches. “Cameron, I’m Avi Gersten, welcome to Danbury.” I can tell by the way the guys I’m talking to regard him that he has respect.
Avi becomes a friend. He’s an Orthodox Jew who grew up poor in Brooklyn, became a used-car dealer, and went into real estate. He’s here for allegedly committing various frauds.
He’s a gambler, and like a lot of white-collar defendants, he turned down a plea bargain of five years, thinking it was too long and that he’d take his chances. But at trial he ended up with a twenty-two-year sentence. He’s now desperately trying to get some time back on appeal. Prosecutors would say that Avi’s rejection of the plea bargain resulted in the waste of government resources and taxpayer dollars. But it’s hard not to see vindictiveness as a driving force in the justice system. How could those same prosecutors think that it was appropriate for Avi to serve five years and also appropriate for him to serve twenty-two years?
Avi has five adoring kids who visit him pretty much every weekend with his wife. I’ll be in the visiting room, and one of his kids will come over bearing a gift of really good pastrami or lox or a bagel. How they brought it in, I don’t ask. I gravitate toward Avi because he’s smart and open-minded, and he’s generous with me. When I need to make a call, it’s usually his cell phone that I use. At one point he pays for Viviane to go round-trip to India, first class. I write some poems for Avi.
We partner on a gambling ticket, and it does well for most of football season. But when basketball season starts, the ticket nosedives, and then we get killed on the Super Bowl between Carolina and Denver. We shaved the odds to make people want to take Denver, because we thought Carolina was going to destroy them, so we got all the Denver money on the compound. Then Carolina shit the bed. We call it Black Sunday. We also have problems collecting, which is an issue at lower-security places where there aren’t the same repercussions nonpayment would bring at a higher-security place.
Then I lose my partner. At a place like Danbury, which is overflowing with drugs and cell phones, you’re lulled into complacency. If you’ve never been caught, your survival instincts haven’t been honed. And Avi, only two years into his bit, is flagrant about his cell phone use. One day he’s on someone else’s bunk, a blanket hanging down to make a
tent, one of his legs sticking out, jawboning on the phone with someone. He has a lookout, but when a cop approaches and the kid says “Avi, Avi,” he is so engrossed in his conversation that the cop walks right up and catches him red-handed.
Avi is transferred to Loretto, my old terrible prison.
* * *
—
I think about the future constantly, and meditate about it. My relationship with Viviane is strong. We’re talking about being together after prison, though I want to have some time to myself, to live alone, right when I get out. With freedom in sight, I let myself feel twinges of excitement. I feel good that I’ve done the best for myself during my prison bit. I’ve made steady progress, and I continue to make it. I really didn’t know if I was capable of this kind of discipline, and it’s been heartening to see that I am, though I’m nervous about whether it will carry over to the street.
My relationship with Mom was pretty nonexistent when I entered prison. Now it’s solid, and I’m grateful to her for giving me a chance to get to know my little brothers and sister. Dad sends me packages filled with real-estate brochures and information about different apartment buildings in Manhattan. I love getting them and visualizing life after prison, and my friends gather around and look at them with me. Catherine visits with Carys. When I last saw Carys, I was at Lewisburg, and she was seven years old. Now she’s almost thirteen, a mature little lady.
* * *
—
Meg Salib’s book is in heavy circulation here. Early on, some people say they have an issue with me sitting at the white table. I tell them I’ll sit wherever I want, and that’s the end of that. Otherwise, the few people who bring it up—“Dude, I was just reading this thing you were in”—do so more for conversation than provocation. At this point in my bit, I’m not looking to make new friends.
Meg comes to visit. I’m upset about the book, based on what I’ve heard about it, though probably not as upset as some people around me expect me to be. It probably helps that I didn’t read her book, so I don’t have specific phrases or opinions rattling around my head and fueling my anger. And I want to ask her to advise my friend Sebastian on his case. The visit goes weirdly. We don’t even talk about the book. It’s clear she still has strong feelings for me. She kisses me. I just stand there, kind of disgusted, which is saying a lot when you’re in prison, desperate for a woman’s touch. She tries coming back in for more kisses, and I bob and weave, avoiding her lips, and say it’s time for me to leave. She ends up not helping my friend.
* * *
—
I feel more at peace. At lower-securities, a gay man is frowned on until someone who’s respected talks to him. By this point in my journey, I seem to be seen that way, because shortly before I’m to leave Danbury, an obviously gay man moves in across from me. He’s a great guy, and I speak with him openly, and pretty soon a couple of other guys talk to him openly, and soon he’s accepted on the block.
34
2016: Kashi Vanilla Pepita
“And so you arise from the mud…And you cleanse your eyes in a great brightness, and thrust your shoulders among the stars, doing what all life has done, letting the ‘ape and tiger die’ and wresting highest heritage from all powers that be.”
—Jack London
June 13, 2016.
My last full day at Danbury.
I’ve known my release date for several months, and have been counting down to it for the past five days, but I can’t believe the day is finally here. It’s surreal. I do what’s called the merry-go-round, getting signatures on my release paperwork from every department head. It’s a joyful pain in the ass.
It’s a mildly warm day, and I play handball with my friend George. I give away my things to the few people I’m close to, including John Willis, who came here from Cumberland and who gets a gold chain Viviane brought me from Brazil. I’m going to walk out of here with only a couple of keepsakes, like a pair of prison-issue khakis I’ve turned into cutoff shorts, and my journals, and the white Chucks I first wore at Lewisburg. They’ve been to hell and back and look like it, and I cherish them.
The next morning, around eight, I hear the words I’ve been waiting to hear for nearly eight years: “Cameron Douglas to R&D.” I’ve already packed. I say my goodbyes to friends, and then I walk to Receiving & Discharge, where I sign some paperwork.
I step through a little door in the side of the prison, wearing prison sweats and a T-shirt and clutching my little bag of belongings, and I’m outside the walls. It’s an amazing feeling. I’m still inside a couple of layers of security fencing, and can’t see beyond them, but I let out a primal scream. The cop walking the perimeter looks at me warily, like I might be a threat. Then I walk through a gate, and I’m in the parking lot.
The blue sky is cloudless. Mom is running toward me. Hawk, Hudson, and Imara are running behind her, and Viviane behind them. Mom reaches me first, and we hug, rocking from side to side. The kids join us. Then Viviane. We all just hold each other, crying and laughing. It’s very emotional.
They arrived in town last night, stayed at a motel, woke up at five this morning, and got to the prison at six, the earliest they were told I might be released. It’s now 11:30 a.m. When we reach Mom’s and Viviane’s cars, they show me the huge banners they made: WELCOME HOME CAMERON.
I ride with Viviane, as we all go back to the motel for what Mom calls the Freedom Breakfast. I ask the kids if they remember me before I went to prison, and they say no. They were so young then. I try on some outfits Mom and Viv have bought for me. It feels awkward to be wearing clothes picked out by someone else. Then Viviane and I have an hour and a half at the motel to ourselves. After fantasizing about this moment for so long, there’s a little awkwardness at first, but we laugh about it. I’m also a bit nervous about how I’ll be able to perform in the flesh, but I surprise myself and her. And with the touch of her skin, everything else melts away. There’s an underlying tenseness to our reunion, because I’m on the clock. I have to report to a halfway house in the Bronx within four hours of my release, so Viv drives me there.
* * *
—
The Bronx Community Reentry Center, off of Fordham Road, is known among the BOP suits I’ve talked to as the worst halfway house in the country, and the loosest, and occupies a run-down brownstone apartment building. It will soon be gutted and its administrators replaced.
It feels bittersweet to have had a few hours of freedom with people I love, only to return so soon to a version of prison. The people here are the same people as there: convicts and BOP staff. The vibe is the same, and you interact with people the same way. Right away, I’m under pressure. I have to get a New York State Identification Card, which is a catch-22, since you need identification to get identification, and all I have is my prison I.D.
Shortly before my release from Danbury, I received $90,000 from the government from my negligence lawsuit over the BOP’s mishandling of my knee injury at Loretto. I have the check, but I can’t cash it without a bank account, and I can’t get a bank account without identification. You have to get special passes to leave the halfway house, like a half-hour pass to go and buy snacks or clothes, or a forty-five-minute pass to go and do your laundry. It takes me a couple of trips to the DMV, and a lot of waiting around, to get a new I.D. Every time I leave the halfway house, I have a fixed amount of time before I have to return, and it’s very stressful. I’ve just gotten out of prison, and I’m scared of getting back late.
I’m one of the lucky ones, since I have a job lined up—reading scripts for Dad’s production company, Furthur Films—which I have to start within forty-eight hours of my release from prison. The scripts come in by the dozens—screenplays for his consideration as an actor and as a producer, as well as new drafts of scripts he already has in production. I’ve read scripts before, during my years of making a half-assed effort to be an actor. Now, though, I read them with a new vigor, and as I jot my notations in the margins, I soak them in in a differe
nt way. I’m reacclimatizing to the business.
I have other BOP-mandated obligations. Any night, a halfway-house staffer might tell me I need to take a urine test before I leave the building the next morning. I attend weekly, one-and-a-half-hour group counseling sessions for reintegration into society. At the same place, I meet for an hour each week with a social worker. And, for the first time in my life, I give psychotherapy a shot.
When I was younger, I thought that that’s what friends were for. Or I dealt with issues internally. But where did that approach get me? Now I want so badly to succeed that I’m ready to use any possible tool to achieve that and to help me live the life I’ve envisioned all these years. People I respect tell me therapy has helped them. And I have a lot of stuff to get off my chest. I start seeing a psychiatrist, Rami Kaminski, once a week.
With everything else that I have to do, if I have an hour to burn I’m seeing Viviane or Mom or Dad. Everyone asks me questions about prison, but I don’t think any of them can really imagine how dark my life was—and I’m happy about that. Mom gets an audience with a visiting healer from Brazil named John of God, who’s credited with performing psychic surgeries, and tells him her story. He gives her a crystal bracelet he has prayed over to give to me, and I start wearing it. My attitude about the supernatural boils down to what I call my Big Bang theory: If scientists agree that in one one-thousandth of a second, a point smaller than a grain of sand became an infinitely large universe, then it’s hard for someone to tell me that anything isn’t possible. So whenever I’m confronted with something that is both interesting and preposterous at the same time, I think: Okay, maybe it’s full of shit, but maybe it isn’t. If someone has put as much energy into an object as I’m told John of God did into this one, then I’m willing to hope that maybe it does have some sort of positive vibrational energy.
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