I had decided to name the book after the old newsletter I used to write as a teenage hacker, when I still lived in Germany. That newsletter was just about computers and video games. It really had nothing to do with sex at all. But it sure was a catchy title! This time, the name actually fit. My book really was full of sex and crime, so the title was perfect.
I dropped off three copies of Sex and Crime at the jail library and told Haley, Nicole and Ashley that the book was waiting for them. Each one of them was in a different dorm, and each dorm housed about 80 to 100 inmates. I figured this way the book would reach the widest number of readers. Once they were done reading it, they would pass it to the next person, and so on. Soon everyone in those three dorms would know about the book and then tell their friends about it.
But when I talked to Nicole the next day, she said the books were not available in the library. The librarian had rejected them, because the title was too sexually suggestive. Again with this fucking censorship!! So stupid! Nicole had told me that there were all kinds of sexually explicit books in the jail library, but as long as the book titles sounded harmless, they flew under the radar. Now you know why Fifty Shades is called Fifty Shades and not Nipple Clamps and Dildos.
So I decided to print a special edition of the book, just for jail. It was still the same book, just a different title. I called it Love is an Addiction. As soon as I got the new paperbacks from the printer a few days later, I dropped them off at the LCJ library again. This time they were approved.
Haley, Nicole and Ashley were able to request them. By now they had told all their friends about my book, and half the jail was eagerly awaiting its release. Well, at least the female inmates in three out of four of the women's dorms. I didn't know anyone in the male dorms. But they weren't my target audience anyway.
Ashley was able to read the whole book and then gave it to one of her friends. Nicole and Haley were only able to read about half of the book each, before the trouble started in their dorms.
When I talked to Haley on the phone the next day, she said: "You're not gonna believe this! These bitches are going crazy over your book! I had to make a waiting list for all the people who want to read it after I'm finished with it. And they're fighting about their place on the list! They're paying other girls to trade places with them on the list. One girl gave up her upper bunk bed and traded it with a girl on the lower bunk, just so she could jump ahead on the list and get her hands on your book sooner! And a lot of them are paying with candy to get a better place on the waiting list. It's crazy! I've never seen anything like this!"
Wow! I knew they'd all want to read a book that takes place in the jail they're in, but I didn't anticipate that people would fight over who gets to read it first. That was pretty awesome!
Nicole told me similar stories from her dorm. Everyone was going nuts over my book! Some people started arguing over who was who in the book. Since I had used fake names, some girls claimed a character in the book was based on them, and argued with other girls who disagreed.
Some of the girls claiming to be characters in the book were complete strangers I had never even met. I guess they just wanted to feel important. Or maybe they honestly believed it was their story in the book, since all of their stories were so much alike. They had all been through very similar experiences.
After a few days of commotion, there was a big crack down. The guards searched all the dorms for copies of my book and confiscated them. But they didn't destroy them. Instead, the guards started reading my book themselves! Apparently they liked it. A lot of them just sat there during their shift, reading and laughing. I heard that the guards kept talking about the book to each other, trying to guess which of their inmates was which of the characters in the book.
I didn't think that was fair. Why did the guards get to read the book, but not the inmates?
I ordered a few more copies from the printer and dropped them off at the library a couple of days later. But Haley and Nicole told me they didn't get them. I stopped by the library again and asked them what had happened to the books. Did they get lost? Did the guards working at the library take the books home? The officer behind the glass window told me to wait in the lobby, because the librarian wanted to talk to me.
Oh oh. Talk to me? For what? Was I in trouble? I didn't see how. All I did was drop off some books at the library. Since when is that a crime? Yeah, but they were treating my book like contraband. Bringing contraband into jail is a crime.
I was getting nervous. Was I sitting here in the lobby, waiting to get arrested?
Two middle-aged female officers finally walked through the door and approached me: "Are you Oliver?"
"Yes," I replied. I shook their hands. My heart was pounding. I didn't like the fact that cops knew my name. I was really nervous. For some reason I felt so guilty. But guilty of what? I didn't do anything! (Well, apart from writing about a whole bunch of crimes in my book.)
"You're the one who dropped off Love is an Addiction, right? Did you write that book?"
"Yeah, that was me. And yeah, I wrote it," I replied timidly. I was waiting for them to pull out some handcuffs and read me my rights.
"Why do you keep dropping it off here in jail? It's causing nothing but problems," one of the two officers said. She had introduced herself as the head honcho overseeing the female dorms.
"I didn't mean to cause any trouble. It's a book about the true face of addiction. And the pain it causes for everyone. Not just for the addicts, but also for people who care about them, like me," I explained.
"Well, these girls feel bad enough about themselves as it is. They don't need a book that makes fun of them," she said sternly.
"I didn't make fun of anyone! I just wrote an honest depiction of what life is like when you're a drug addict. I don't know if you read it but..." I started, but didn't get to finish my sentence before she interrupted me.
"No, I didn't read it. I just glanced at a few pages here and there. I read a paragraph about you smoking weed. We don't allow books that glorify drugs."
Great. Out of 500 pages, that's the page she read!
"My book doesn't glorify drugs. It's the opposite. It's about how bad drugs are, and what they do to people."
"Well, we can't allow your book in jail," she said. "Your book almost caused a riot. So don't bring it here anymore. If people want to read it, they can read it when they get out."
I was relieved that our conversation was over. We shook hands again and politely said good bye to each other. The officers had been professional and courteous. Not mean or rude. Not threatening or intimidating. I wasn't in trouble. They just told me I couldn't drop the book off anymore. Wheeww.
Lucy didn't get to read the book, because she wasn't in the dorm with Nicole when I dropped it off. She had gotten in trouble and was sent to solitary confinement in D Pod – the jail within jail.
In D Pod you can only make a phone call once or twice a week, when they let you out of your tiny cell for a few minutes, to take a shower.
But I was still allowed to write her postcards though. So I copied the text from the book and included it on my postcards, little by little. Every day she got a few more paragraphs. I figured even if the book isn't permitted, postcards are allowed. And I can write on my postcards whatever I want.
For the next few days, I was able to send her the first five pages of the book that way, until the officers who read every postcard before handing them to the inmates recognized the text. Of course they had read the book, too. Damn.
I had heard that Lucy had been sent to D Pod because she got caught making out with another female inmate, but she swore that wasn't true. It probably was true, but did it even matter anymore?
Lucy was about to be released from jail. She had been calling me several times a day every day, before she was sent to D Pod. She had always told me how much she was looking forward to coming home to me and starting her life over. She told me she knew she could be sober. I believed that she believed that, be
cause I had read her diary a few months ago, and saw her most private, unguarded thoughts. She really did want to be clean and have a normal life, like other, normal young women her age.
But that changed the closer her release date came. Now that she was in D Pod, and we could only talk to each other once or twice a week, she started talking about how it wouldn't hurt if she did a little bit of heroin here and there, as long as she stayed away from crack.
"It doesn't work like that," I told her. "The word addiction means you have no control. If you're addicted to heroin, it won't be just a little bit here and there. You won't be able to control it. You're going to crave more and more, and then you'll be right back where you were a few weeks ago, fucking random lowlives on Backpage."
That made her angry: "You don't know what you're talking about! You don't know what it's like to be an addict. You can't tell me whether I can do a little bit of heroin here and there. I know myself. I know I can handle it! And I can't never do any drugs again! I need to know that you're ok with me doing some heroin when I feel like it, and that you won't give me a hard time about it!"
She was obviously setting the stage for going right back to her old life. Yeah, she liked the idea of having a free roof over her head at my place, but she didn't want me to interfere with her doing the same stuff she had always been doing. She had been an addict since she was a young teen. It was the only life she knew.
Now that she was about to be released from jail, the one thing she was looking forward to more than anything else in the world was to get high.
I knew that if I told her I wasn't ok with that, she'd just have some drug dealer pick her up from jail, instead of me.
I tried to calm her down: "Alright, I don't wanna argue with you right now. I'll pick you up tomorrow and we'll figure it out."
"Ok, great! I love you! See you tomorrow," she said, and we hung up.
The next day I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was anxious. The last few times Veronica was released from jail, and I was supposed to pick her up, it never worked out that way. Was it going to work out with Lucy? Probably not. I hoped for the best, but expected the worst. I figured I probably wouldn't even hear from her anymore once she gets out, and she'd just disappear.
But, to my surprise, Lucy texted me the next day: "I just got out! Hurry! I'm waiting for you in front of the main entrance."
I had been waiting for her call, so I was ready. I immediately got in the car and headed north, towards LCJ.
"I'm on my way," I texted her from behind the wheel.
"Ok, great! See u in a few min," she texted back.
After a few minutes, she texted again: "Where r u?"
"Almost there."
"K" she replied.
After another few minutes she texted me again: "Never mind. Darlene is picking me up."
Darlene was another one of Lucy's drug friends. She used to be a stripper in some crappy strip joint near Fort Myers Beach. She had contacted me on Facebook a few months earlier, after she had been released from jail. Back then Darlene had told me about some of the shit Veronica had done behind my back in jail, and Darlene asked me for advice on how to stay clean, because I was the only sober person she knew. Or maybe all that was just an excuse to contact me.
She ended up sending me a few topless pictures. I could tell that she took the pictures backstage at the strip club, wearing her stage outfit. I guess she was fishing for compliments, or showing me what I could be having, if I asked her over to my place. But I didn't. I never met her in person.
If Darlene was going to pick her up from jail now, that would be the end of Lucy trying to be sober. Darlene would bring some heroin and crack with her, and they would get high in the car together, before they even got out of the jail parking lot.
"WTF?!" I texted back. "Why would u ask Darlene to pick u up when I'm picking u up???"
No answer.
"I'm almost there!" I texted.
No answer.
"I'm at the red light on Colonial and Ortiz! I'll be there in 2 min! Wait for me!!!"
No answer.
By the time I pulled into the parking lot of the jail, Lucy was gone. I knew I missed her by just a few minutes. FUCK!!! It was killing me!
There were a few shady characters standing by the main entrance, smoking. They were other inmates who had also been released a few minutes ago. They were waiting for their rides.
I asked them if they knew Lucy. One of the girls did: "Yeah, we got released together. You missed her by like 5 minutes. Blizzard and Darlene picked her up."
MOTHERFUCKER!!! How could she DO this to me???
I tried to text Lucy again: "WTF is wrong with u?? Someone just told me you drove off with Blizzard!! Turn around and come back right now! I'm waiting for u at LCJ!"
No answer.
"If u don't come back right now, we're done!"
No answer.
I got in my car and slowly drove home. I was in no hurry, because I was still hoping that Lucy would suddenly text me back to tell me that she had only gotten some drugs for the road, and that she wanted to come home with me.
But of course that didn't happen.
As I slowly made my way home, heartbroken, I kept thinking about how different everything would have played out if I had already been at the jail, waiting for her when she got out. She wouldn't have had a chance to change her mind, and she wouldn't have had a chance to call Darlene while she was waiting for me. Lucy would have come home with me, and we would have lived happily ever after.
At least that's what I kept telling myself. But deep down I knew that was bullshit. Deep down I knew that the way things played out was the only way this ever plays out. It wouldn't have mattered if I had driven to jail hours earlier and waited for her at the main entrance. She would have found an excuse to run away and get high. You can't stop drug addicts from doing what they want to do. You can't guard them 24/7.
Once I got home, I called George and told him what had happened. He wasn't surprised. Of course not. Why would he be? He knew the drill by now. It was the same fucking story over and over. Only the names changed.
Later that night, I saw Lucy and Darlene on Backpage. They had posted an escort ad for doubles.
Another few days later, they got arrested again and were both back in LCJ. Lucy had not even been out of jail for a whole week.
She called me, crying: "I'm sooo sorry! I can't believe I did that! I wish I had listened to you! Can you please send me some money? I have nothing! I don't even have a toothbrush!"
"Fuck you! Go ask Blizzard, you piece of shit," I replied and hung up on her. I think what pissed me off the most about that phone call was that she didn't even have the courtesy to wait until the second or third call, before asking me for money.
Obviously Nicole had been right about Lucy all along.
NOT TODAY. MAYBE TOMORROW.
"Hope is the confusion of the desire for a thing with its probability. "
Arthur Schopenhauer
I stopped talking to Lucy after that incident. But Nicole and Haley still called me from jail every day. Ashley still called me too occasionally, but I had really just been talking to her so she would borrow my book from the library and spread it around in her dorm.
Nicole was a pretty good tattoo artist and could draw. She kept writing me love letters and included elaborate drawings she made just for me. Some of the drawings were of her and me, hugging and kissing. She decorated the edges of her drawings with rows of little hearts and romantic sayings. It was touching.
She couldn't hide that she was happy I wasn't talking to Lucy anymore: "I told you, you can't trust Lucy. She's all fucked up in the head. She's too far gone. She can't just stop living that life. But I'm not like her. I love you and I really want to come live with you and have a normal life."
She sounded sincere.
It's easy to read this book and roll your eyes. But I was lonely, and I simply wanted to believe her. Hope dies last, as they say. I want
ed to believe that all this pain and heartache I had been going through for the past few years was not for nothing. I wanted to believe that something good would come out of all this. That if I only held on long enough, a silver lining would suddenly appear, and everything would work itself out.
I wanted to believe that all this crap had a happy ending. That somehow all this would lead me to find The One. And then all this horrible stuff would just be an interesting story about how we met. Like when your grandparents tell you that they met during the war.
Finding Happiness in Los Angeles Page 3