As we drove, Dad talked about filing one last appeal.
“No,” I said. “No more attorneys. You can’t spend any more money. Besides, there is no way any court is going to side with us. Our best bet is just to tell the story and let the court of public opinion weigh in. Maybe I’ll get a presidential pardon.”
Dad laughed, but I knew he was disappointed that I didn’t want to fight anymore.
The halfway house was an unremarkable two-story redbrick building that I had driven past dozens of times without knowing what it was. I stepped inside the front door with a small duffel bag and a backpack. Behind a glass partition, a light-skinned black man with a long ponytail greeted me with a casual smile. He said his name was Michael.
I asked him if I could step outside with Dad to say good-bye, but Michael said that once I came in, I couldn’t go back out. He pointed us to a small room with a television. Dad and I sat together for a few minutes. I thanked him again for picking me up and for all he had done for me.
Dad told me he loved me, and I said I loved him, too. I hugged him one more time and he left. Even though my life had been ripped apart, the closeness I now felt with Dad almost made it worth it. I wondered if it would last. I knew he would never get over what he found to be an outrageous injustice. A veteran and a patriotic American, he felt betrayed. I hoped he would find a way to get past it someday.
Michael buzzed me through a locked door and took me back to an office. I was checked in, which meant more paperwork that I didn’t read and an extensive search of my belongings. A woman came in and explained the rules to me: no smoking; no food allowed anywhere except the dining area; and absolutely no cell phones anywhere on the premises. The people running the Dismas Charities halfway house were contractors, not BOP. They were quite nice and didn’t seem interested in making this a miserable experience. The same cannot be said about my new roommates, who ranged from murderers to rapists to all manner of violent criminals. In the federal system of postincarceration, people from all security levels are funneled into the same halfway houses. This was the true definition of a melting pot.
After a twenty-four-hour waiting period, I could leave the halfway house to go to the gym and to the public library down the street to use the computers or check out books. Most important, I could go to AA meetings. The Summit Club, where I had attended meetings for years, was right down the street. I spent the evening unpacking my few belongings and reading. I spoke briefly to a couple of my fellow residents, but I needed no more felon friends, so I planned to keep to myself. I hoped I wouldn’t be there for long. Since I already had a job offer and a place to live, I was eligible for direct home detention.
I spent a fitful night in the loud dorm-style room with twenty other men, several of whom were talking on cell phones. I finally gave up on sleep and went downstairs to wait for breakfast. No plastic bag or any meat trading was needed because the food was tasty and plentiful. I ate pancakes and eggs and grits and cereal and muffins and fruit. The woman doing the cooking had been there for years and clearly took pride in feeding hungry men good Southern food.
After breakfast, I checked out and headed down the street to the Summit Club, as giddy as a kid going to an amusement park. The early-bird meeting started at 8:00 a.m., and when I walked in, I saw some people that I recognized. A few said hello to me. If any of them knew I had been in prison, they didn’t let on. When the meeting started, I closed my eyes and listened. It was the first time I had heard someone else say the Serenity Prayer out loud since I went to Beckley. As the meeting progressed, I heard talk about gratitude and acceptance. It was just what I needed. I could feel myself shedding the heaviness of the past eighteen months.
Saturday brought a steady stream of friends. I received them with gratitude. I had asked so much of them while I was away. They had fed my kids and taken them on trips and helped in a hundred other ways. Later in the day, Pam and Kevin came to see me. Kevin was so at ease and confident. I marveled at how much he had matured. I relished the moment, sitting with the two of them, talking and laughing. They filled me in on Brett, who was still in Baton Rouge for another month. Pam said he was doing well, and she gave me the number where I could call him.
That night, after a couple of tries, I reached Brett. It was clearly a house phone and I couldn’t hear him well because of all the background noise.
He yelled something and the noise died down. “Sorry about that. A few guys are graduating tomorrow and the place is a little crazy.”
“No worries, buddy. I only get five minutes to talk now anyway.”
“That’s funny. Me, too.”
“I guess we are both in halfway houses of a sort.”
“Halfway to what? That’s what I want to know.” Brett laughed.
“Hopefully halfway to something better.”
“Well, I think that’s up to us.”
“Who is this? What have you done with my son?”
When the phone went dead, we were both still laughing.
- - - -
I talked to Brett every few days. He always sounded so good. He was lifting weights every day and feeling healthy. He talked about one of his counselors there and how much he admired him. He said he might want to be an addiction counselor someday. I could tell Brett was fully immersed in recovery. I had gotten used to thinking of him as an addict, as if that were all he was. My love and energy as a father had gone into wanting him to stay alive. With each conversation, I remembered how much more there was to him. He was funny, kind, empathetic, and a great athlete. I had always been proud of him. It was a huge relief to allow these positive images back into my mind.
- - - -
I started my job at Endurance Magazine later that week. Their office was in Durham, about an hour’s drive from the halfway house. Steve Lackey and I had been friends for years, and he’d visited me at Beckley a couple of times. He didn’t need me at the magazine, but he offered to hire me at minimum wage if it would help me get out of the halfway house. We spent the first couple of days in Durham catching up and talking about possible stories I could write. I loved driving back and forth to work every day and going to AA meetings in the evening.
Two weeks after leaving Beckley, I was fitted with an ankle monitor and allowed to serve my last six weeks at Chip’s in home detention. Chip had enough cable channels for me to spend the next year catching up on shows I’d missed. I especially liked Dexter, about a good-natured serial killer. We didn’t get Showtime at Beckley.
Chip had planned a huge Fourth of July party with a nearly professional fireworks display. Dozens of friends showed up. I loved it because having so many people there took the pressure off me. The only awkward moment came when it was time for the pyrotechnics. At the end of Chip’s road was a cul-de-sac where he always set off the fireworks. I started down the driveway with the others to watch the show, but realized that if I kept walking, I would be out of range for my ankle monitor.
I made an excuse to head back to the house and told them I would catch up. When everyone was gone, I went out on the front porch and watched the fireworks from there. I liked the solitude, listening to the cheers and the laughter and the booms from afar. The last Fourth of July, the best thing that had happened was that I got a tiny cup of nondairy, chocolate-flavored ice cream with a wooden spoon. Yeah, I could live with this.
- - - -
In the weeks after my release from Beckley, I tried to focus on what was right in front of me and what mattered most: my family and closest friends. I forbade myself to think about what had been lost, but that was like telling my lungs not to breathe. When negative thoughts broke through, I tried to deflect and redirect them. Though my future was uncertain, I believed that good, even great, things would come my way if I just kept doing the next right thing. Against my nature, I willed myself to be patient, to allow things to unfold on their own.
I applied for a furlough to go
to Virginia to visit my mother. It was approved, but I was not allowed to stay overnight, so I had to do the round-trip—six hours each way—in one day. I arrived in Cape Charles early afternoon. My mother’s sister, Laura, was staying with her for a few months while her own house was being renovated, and I was grateful. My mom greeted me with hugs and kisses. She seemed surprised to see me, even though I had told her a couple of times that I was coming. Laura told me that Mom didn’t remember I had been in prison, so there was no need to bring it up. Maybe there was an upside to Alzheimer’s, after all.
Brett left Baton Rouge on July 21 and came to see me at Chip’s. When he walked up the driveway, I almost didn’t recognize him. The skinny, beaten-up-looking kid who’d visited me at Beckley was now a clear-eyed young man who emanated energy and confidence. The sweet and kind person who was emerging from the wreckage of these past few years amazed me. My twenty-year sobriety anniversary was on July 23, so we celebrated by going to an AA meeting together.
In mid-August, I received yet another request for an interview from Rock Center. I followed the rules and told them they would have to contact the Bureau of Prisons for permission. As soon as NBC asked, I was ordered back to the halfway house, interrogated, and placed in lockdown. Prison officials, I had learned in the last year and a half, hated media coverage and would go to any lengths to stop it. On August 20, I signed my final release paperwork and walked out the door for the last time and into the arms of my boys. No more ankle monitors, no more curfew. I still had five years of probation to deal with and $262,500 in court-ordered restitution to the bank, but I would worry about that later. I had my kids, and that was more than enough for now.
We headed to breakfast at Tex & Shirley’s, my kids’ favorite place for all-you-can-eat pancakes. We talked about everything from prison to girls to sobriety. I told the boys I wanted to take them somewhere soon, maybe the beach. Kevin reminded me that he was starting his senior year in a few days, but maybe we could go on Labor Day weekend. As we sat there laughing and gorging ourselves on pancakes, I was astounded at how easy and natural this all felt. Everything seemed right with the world.
After breakfast, I headed back to Chip’s. I realized that I had nothing that I had to do, and nobody to check in with. My time was my own, and that meant it was time to run.
I hadn’t been for a trail run in nearly two years. I was actually nervous as I laced up my shoes and headed out the door. I felt unsteady as I jogged up the road to the entrance of the greenway, the paved path that ran through a section of Greensboro. After half a mile, I saw what I was looking for—the narrow trail that led to the nine-mile loop around Lake Brandt. My breathing settled. Instinct took over. I dodged low-hanging branches, rounded turns, leaped over rocks, skirted puddles. I was focused on everything and nothing.
A steady rain started to fall. I pulled my hood tightly around my head, which amplified the sound of my breaths. The trail had gotten slippery and I had to focus on every footfall. I could feel the water squishing between my toes, making a vacuum that sucked my slipping heel back into the footprint. Gasping, I rounded a bend at the top of a long climb. The ground leveled and my breathing calmed. As I ran, I inhaled the smell of wet leaves and North Carolina red clay. The sun broke through the clouds and the trees, giving me a tunnel of light to run through. It was perfection.
- - - -
That night, I got a phone call from my friend Mike Prstojevich. He wanted to know if I would be interested in coming to Northern California in September to be a speaker at a multiday event called the DO Lectures. I told him I couldn’t afford the plane ticket. He said it was all-expenses paid and I only had to show up and tell a good story. I said yes.
I turned fifty the day after I arrived in Hopland, California. To celebrate, I went for a great run in the lush hilly vineyards around Campovida farm, which was hosting the conference. I spent the next three days being inspired by the other speakers, eating organic food from the garden, and soaking up the energy of the eclectic group of attendees. I was the next-to-last speaker on the final day. Like the others, I had been given twenty-five minutes to tell whatever story I wanted.
I hadn’t prepared a speech, but when it was my turn, the words flowed out of me. I talked about my childhood and my mother and my kids. I described the depths of my addiction. I told them about my love for adventure and running, and about the deserts and jungles I had crossed. I explained why I thought suffering was the best teacher, and I encouraged them to find some suffering of their own. Twenty-two minutes into my talk, I told them I had just gotten out of prison. The room fell silent. Then I told them that I did not recommend prison as a path to enlightenment. They laughed. I closed by telling them that I believed that adaptation was the key to happiness. Anything could be overcome with the right attitude. I finished in twenty-four minutes and thirty-six seconds, without ever looking at my watch. I made no excuses and blamed no one. I knew then I was done with being angry. I was finished with being a victim.
The final speaker was Cheryl Strayed, the author of the bestseller Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, the story of the death of her mother and her cathartic eleven-hundred-mile hike on the PCT. After she finished speaking, we shared the stage to answer questions. I mentioned I had heard Cheryl on NPR while I was at Beckley, and I had seen the glowing reviews in several magazines. Dad had eventually sent me her book, and I loved it. Of all the books that I loaned out when I was at Beckley, hers was the most popular. I gave away most of my books to other inmates, but Wild was one of the few I brought home with me. I couldn’t believe I was standing there with her now.
A few days after I got back from California, Harry Smith and the Rock Center crew finally came to Greensboro. Before we got started, I rode with Harry over to the apartments where I was living when Nordlander arrested me. He wanted to see the dumpster my trash was pulled from. Once we got back to Chip’s, the crew set up for the interview, which lasted four hours. The questions were tough but fair, and I answered them all. When the interview was over, Harry said that there had to be something we didn’t know about Nordlander’s motivation for coming after me.
“Or the guy’s just a jerk,” Harry said. “Who knows?”
In October, my friend and fellow ultrarunner Chris Roman invited me to run with him and Tony Portera, another ultra friend, along the Caminho da Fé (Path of Faith) in Brazil. The plan was to run a race called the Brazil 135, a sister event to Badwater. But we wouldn’t just run the race; we would first run 135 miles to the start of the race and then join the rest of the field for the official event. Chris told me that Mario Lacerda, the race director, had offered to pay all expenses because he wanted to see me get back in the game.
The offer was generous, but I still needed to get my hernia fixed. Besides, I wasn’t sure that I could run that kind of mileage. I would also have to get permission from my probation officer to leave the country. The prudent thing to do would have been to politely decline, but I had never been prudent. I said yes, I wanted to do it. I hung up the phone feeling sick but excited.
My probation officer shocked me by saying I could go to Brazil. My hernia surgery went well and I recovered quickly. The doctor told me to be careful about lifting anything heavy or exerting myself too much. I asked him if doing a training run of twenty-five miles instead of forty constituted being careful. He laughed, and I decided to just let him think it was a joke.
In December, I took Brett and Kevin up to Virginia to visit my mom. It was nice to see the boys with their grandmother, even though she was confused about who they were. Mom’s friend Kimberly had been to visit her the week before and told me that she thought it was time to think about moving Mom somewhere. She was spending too much time alone and it wasn’t safe for her anymore. I reluctantly agreed that something had to be done. Kimberly said we should do it in January. I was embarrassed to tell her that I would be in Brazil running a race. She kindly said she understood and so
would my mom. We would move her in February.
The Brazil 135 Ultramarathon was set to start on January 17, 2013. Chris, Tony, and I started running toward the start on the morning of the fifteenth. I was still recovering from hernia surgery, so my training hadn’t been great. Regardless, I wanted to test myself after almost three years away from the sport. Most pilgrims on the Caminho da Fé came with the goal of deepening their spiritual connections. I was there to purge some demons.
We covered about sixty-seven miles on day one and sixty-six on day two. I was hanging in there, but just barely. Day three brought us to the starting line of the official Brazil 135, where a couple hundred other solo runners and members of relay teams were waiting to begin. We didn’t have any of the normal pre-race jitters because we already felt like crap. We had sore feet, stomach problems, and were sleep deprived and sunburned. The race began and we shuffled off with the pack. A few of the veteran Brazilian runners were off the front and out of sight in minutes. In most races, I would at least be trying to chase them. But I was here for the experience, to remind myself who I was.
As we neared the finish line, I felt as grateful as any human being could feel. We had run 268 miles in four days along the Path of Faith. For me, this was much more than just another adventure. It was the start of the next part of my life.
- - - -
In February, I made the long drive back up to Cape Charles to help Kimberly move my mom out of her house. But when it was time to drive her to Heritage Hall, an Alzheimer’s care facility, I couldn’t get in the car. I felt that I was betraying her. In her brief moments of clarity, she had said this was just what she didn’t want—to be surrounded by sick people and cared for by strangers. I watched Kimberly drive away with Momma in the car, knowing that she would never live in this house again.
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