In the Sanctuary of Outcasts

by Neil White

  At mail call, two weeks after my last phone conversation with Linda, I received a large envelope. I recognized her handwriting, as well as her new Oxford return address. Inside were drawings by Neil and Maggie, a couple of photographs, and a letter from Linda sealed in a small envelope. It was the first letter I had received from her in months, and I was nervous about opening it.

  I had asked a lot of Linda. I had asked her to accept my decision to live within a few minutes of her house, in her new hometown.

  I would be an ex-con burdened by insurmountable debt with a $1,000-a-month restitution payment, a $600-a-month child support order, and no job.

  Linda’s friends, co-workers, and attorneys were giving her advice and they pretty much shared the same opinion of me. They told her to get as far away from me as possible. Once I was out of prison, they warned her, my life would be over, and I would drag her down along with me. One of her advisers went so far as to say Neil and Maggie would suffer because they carried my last name. A lawyer said I was a sociopath who would always hurt the people around me.

  With trepidation I opened Linda’s letter and sat on my bunk.

  In a long handwritten note, Linda outlined every reason I should not move to Oxford. But in the last paragraph, her tone shifted. She would not resist my decision. Acknowledging she might be making a huge mistake, she believed Neil and Maggie needed both of us. She closed her letter with a request: Please respect my space and privacy.

  I folded the letter and put it in my locker.

  For the sake of our children, Linda was willing to sacrifice her desire to be far from me. She wanted me to be a part of Neil’s and Maggie’s daily lives and, by extension, part of hers, too.

  I would have some hard times after my release, especially in Oxford. But Linda’s blessing gave me great hope. Linda had done something remarkable. She had given me a second chance. A second chance with my children.

  I didn’t know how I would ever repay her.

  CHAPTER 53

  During the cold winter months, bundled in a brown, government-issued coat, I walked at night. I moved at a slow, methodical pace. Under the bare trees, the moon illuminated the ashy grass in the courtyard.

  Ella had been right. Whatever zeal I had for uncovering the stories of the leprosy patients and inmates was inversely proportionate to my enthusiasm for discovering my own story.

  So I began the process of asking myself the hard questions. How did I get so far off course? How could I have hurt so many people? How could I have put my family at risk? Would I be able to resist the temptations of applause? Could I avoid delusional thinking and admit my shortcomings? Could I avoid caring what people thought of me? And how could I support my family in a way that did no harm, but allowed me to help others?

  I had never set aside time to look at how I felt or where I was headed. I believed I could not afford to question my motives. I was focused on a single goal—success—and had no interest in anything that stood in its way. I had convinced myself that kiting wasn’t a real crime. I didn’t trespass or break into buildings. I didn’t speak any lies aloud or use any threats or weapons. There was no conspiracy. I’d also convinced myself there were no real victims, as long as I covered the overdraft.

  But deep down, I knew better. Over the years, to ease the shame building inside, I developed a dual existence. I made a deal with myself. If I broke a rule, I would perform a good act to offset my wrong. For every instance I cheated time, I would balance the scales with an act of kindness. I was determined to do more good than bad. In Oxford, I gave free advertising space to nonprofit groups. I assigned reporters to cover news in Oxford’s African American community, a group that had been ignored by the Eagle for a century. I wrote profiles of men and women who had committed their lives to helping the less fortunate. I gave away money and time and talent to balance the “good” side of the scale.

  As the kiting became more frequent on the Mississippi coast, I again felt compelled to offer sacrifices for my deeds. I awakened early each morning to write letters of encouragement to my friends and employees. My church was without a priest, so I visited members who were hospitalized. I attended all church events. I led morning prayer when a substitute priest couldn’t be found. I pledged $10,000 to the Red Cross, $5,000 to the Salvation Army, and $8,000 to the church—pledges never fulfilled.

  My dual existence had worked for so long, it felt like second nature. Publicly, I was a publisher, church leader, board member, lavish boss, and budding philanthropist. Privately, I was a man who had discovered a secret technique to make money appear out of nowhere. My life became a frantic race to pile up enough good to offset my secret life.

  As I walked—meddlin’, as Ella would say—I found no simple answers. But I did find something else. The very act of being honest with myself, taking an objective look at my life, was freeing. I felt free of the expectations I placed on myself. Free of my drive to win at all costs. Free of the prisons I’d built for myself over the past seven years.

  Now I felt genuinely grateful to be here. Doc and Link checked my delusions and kept me honest; Ella and Harry were models of simplicity and kindness.

  Walking among the leprosy patients—whether in the cafeteria, the hallways, or the Catholic church—helped me see my own good fortune. Watching them made self-pity impossible.

  For reasons I could not fully explain, I felt an overwhelming sense of euphoria. I still did not know exactly how to change, but I had discovered some simple truths: A good life with my children did not require wealth. It was vital to be honest, without worrying about my own image. And helping others was more noble than winning awards.

  I knew my elation would not last. In a few months, I would be free to make the same mistakes again. I would not have Ella to nudge me along. I would be confronted with difficult choices. And I would have to face my victims.

  But now, with the sounds of crickets echoing from beneath the raised walkways, I thought about my new friends. And I was thankful my life was so rich.

  CHAPTER 54

  During a Wednesday night service at the Catholic church, I noticed a new leprosy patient. He sat in a pew to the right of Stan and Sarah. I’d never seen him before, but that wasn’t unusual. Patients from around the world came to Carville for special surgeries and treatments. The man could have been Asian or Indian, or maybe from South America. I couldn’t tell for sure, but he was performing a ritual I’d never seen. He put his Bible to his chin and pressed it against his mouth, like he was licking the pages.

  Steve Read leaned over to me and whispered, “He must have skipped dinner.”

  When the man’s face wasn’t pressed against his Bible, he stared up and rocked back and forth. Then he would put his tongue back against the pages.

  During Communion, standing at the altar, I got a closer look. He was blind. Like most of the victims of leprosy, the man’s hands were anesthetized, so Braille was of no use. His fingertips could not feel the small bumps on the page. But he had found a new way. He was reading Braille with his tongue.

  If a blind man could learn to read Braille with his tongue, surely I could find some way to make a new start. Helping leprosy patients wasn’t an option for an inmate, but I could volunteer to help my fellow prisoners.

  I walked to the education department and knocked on Ms. Woodsen’s door. A short, rotund guard, Ms. Woodsen was also a teacher.

  “May I help you?” she said, in a tone that made it clear she didn’t want to be disturbed.

  “I’d like to volunteer to teach a night class,” I said.

  “We ain’t got no night classes,” she said.

  “Well,” I said, “I was hoping I might lead a couple of classes for the other inmates.”

  “What you teach?”

  “Speech. Debate. Public relations. Magazine publishing. Current events. Résumé writing.”

  “You went to college?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Ms. Woodsen stared at me for a moment. “
All these men gonna need a résumé when they get out,” she said. “Let me see can I get approval.”

  The following afternoon, Ms. Woodsen approved the night class. I was to start with résumé writing. Armed with a felt-tip pen and ruler, I stenciled a flyer advertising the class. I made copies at the prison law library, posted them at the entrance of each inmate dorm, and distributed them to inmates in the TV rooms. I even illustrated a banner advertisement at the bottom of the menu board in the inmate cafeteria. I was on a new mission.

  More than thirty inmates showed up for the first class at 7:00 P.M. on a Tuesday. The classroom had twenty-five chairs, so it was truly standing-room only.

  During the first hour of class, I distributed three sample résumés. We discussed the pros and cons of each. Then I reviewed the basics of résumé writing. Accentuate the positive. Use short, staccato-style prose. Organize entries in reverse chronological order. Divide accomplishments into logical categories. Proofread. Proofread. Proofread.

  At the end of the hour, I opened the floor for questions.

  A mortgage broker from Pennsylvania held up his hand. “How do we account for our prison time?” he asked.

  “Hmmm, I’m not sure,” I said. I hadn’t even considered that every man in the room would have a two-to three-year gap in his professional life to explain away. “Any ideas?” I asked the class.

  A New Jersey lawyer convicted of tax fraud suggested, “Just write down ‘Federal Medical Center’ and your job description. They’ll think you worked at a hospital. Which is true.”

  A man convicted of insurance fraud proposed, “You could just say you worked for the Bureau of Prisons. Which is also true.”

  “What about this?” A counterfeiter who worked in the kitchen recommended “Chef, Gillis W. Long Hansen’s Disease Center.”

  All the men in the room nodded and slapped hands, impressed with their own ingenuity.

  “Does anyone think we should be more forthcoming?” I asked.

  No one seemed to think a truthful revelation was in order.

  Smitty, a Cajun marijuana grower, argued, “Hey, you said to accentuate the positive. Ain’t much positive about writin’ down you was in the slammer.”

  “I don’t know,” I said to the class.

  “You tryin’ to get us jobs,” Smitty asked, “or tryin’ to get us fired?”

  I had envisioned this class being helpful. But not helpful in disguising our incarceration. For future classes I would propose less personal topics. Current events, debate, or maybe newspaper reporting.

  Back in my dorm, I received a notice that I was scheduled for a team meeting. My team, a group of guards assigned to evaluate me, would determine whether I qualified for a furlough—five days of freedom in the midst of my prison sentence. It seemed odd that the guards would just let me go home for a week.

  The next morning after breakfast, I sat in the patient cafeteria and read a copy of the regulations for inmate furloughs. Ella rolled up to my table and smiled. I told her I might get to go home for a while.

  “No place like home,” she said. “I goes back to Abita Springs all the time.”

  I was confused. I thought Ella had spent her adult life at Carville.

  “When did you first get to go back?”

  “I always been goin’ home,” she said. “’Fore my legs got bad, I walk all over town.”

  “I thought you contracted leprosy when you were twelve?”

  “That’s right,” she said, nodding. “That’s right.”

  “But you got to go home?”

  “I comes and goes,” she said.

  There were so many things I didn’t know about Ella’s life. To me, her history was a puzzle with a wealth of missing parts. But at some level it didn’t matter. Whatever wisdom Ella had acquired over the years was a gift she was willing to share with me. And I was grateful.

  “Hope you get home soon,” she said. Ella put her shiny hands on the cranks of her wheelchair and turned toward the hallways.

  CHAPTER 55

  I waited for my team meeting with five other inmates.

  “Don’t expect nothin’,” one man told me. “They just fuck with you.”

  An hour later, my name was called. I sat in the middle of a big room surrounded by four guards. Mr. Flowers, the tall black man who dressed like a cowboy, led the meeting.

  “Mr. White here had quite an offensive scheme going on the street,” Mr. Flowers announced to the group.

  “I see you went to Ole Miss,” he said, staring at my file. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, looking at the other team members, “Ole Miss was the last major university to integrate.”

  As I realized I was the only white person in the room, I remembered my first year in an all-white fraternity at Ole Miss. I was named Model Pledge. Later, as master of ceremonies, I guided new initiates through a ritual that had its roots in a secret society in fourteenth-century Bologna, Italy, when foreign students needed protection against the evil Baldassarre Cossa. Eventually, I was elected grand master.

  Prospective fraternity brothers were scrutinized before receiving a coveted bid. Any shortcoming—the wrong kind of shoes, a floating eye, an unsightly mole, or any hint of a low socioeconomic background—could be grounds for rejection. When passing judgment on a potential member, a specially designed, two-compartment box was passed in silence from brother to brother. Inside one side of the box were white balls and black balls. The box allowed us to accept or reject secretly, by passing a white ball or a black ball through a small hole connecting the two compartments. One hundred men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two sat in reverence of the ritual. To allow membership to just anyone would dilute our prestige. And that was unthinkable.

  I dropped a black ball more than once to keep out an undesirable. I didn’t want to hurt the young men. I just didn’t want them associated with me, or with my Greek letters.

  The worthy ones who did pass muster based on appearance or wealth or family reputation seemed like perfect companions. I was proud of our pedigree, and I didn’t hide it. Our fraternity T-shirts read a kappa sigma: the most wanted man in the country. The walls of the frat house were adorned with posters that read “Poverty Sucks” and “Greed Is Good.”

  I felt entitled and important. I was the leader of a group of handsome, affluent, prominent men who would eventually be the leaders in our state, or maybe even the country.

  Now I stared at Mr. Flowers and a room full of guards who could blackball me, keep me from a furlough, and block five days on the outside with Neil and Maggie.

  “If I remember correctly,” Mr. Flowers said, “the National Guard had to be called in to protect Mr. Meredith.”

  I wanted to point out to Mr. Flowers that I was two years old during the integration of Ole Miss. I also wanted to tell him that many of the students, even in 1962, were supportive of Mr. Meredith’s enrollment and integration. I wanted him to know I cochaired a Racial Reconciliation Committee and joined a group pushing to banish the Rebel flag as an official university symbol. But none of that would change his view of me. I reminded myself of Ella’s advice. What he thinks of me is none of my business.

  “Do you think you deserve a furlough?” he asked.

  I was glad to see him drop the Ole Miss topic. “I don’t know,” I said. “But I’d love to see my children.”

  Then Flowers mentioned that he attended Jackson State University, a historically black institution. “We played our football games at night after the Ole Miss games,” he said. “We had to sit in stands filled with the trash and beer cups left from your party.”

  I nodded. “We have some inconsiderate fans.”

  “I’m glad to see you admit this,” he said.

  Flowers reviewed their policy for furlough approval. “You can leave now,” he said. “In the unlikely event your furlough is approved, one of us will let you know.”

  CHAPTER 56

  I left the meeting and walked to the library. As I turned the far corner of
the colony, Link joined me. We heard the rattle of chains. Guards were running. The crackle of the guards’ two-way radios echoed down the hall, and Ms. Woodsen ran toward us. “Get in here!” she yelled, waving her short, fat arms. “We got an emergency census!”

  Link and I waited with about thirty other inmates in the education building. Ms. Woodsen had us stand in a line against the wall as she counted and recounted us. I stood between Link and Big Gene, an inmate who weighed more than four hundred pounds. Big Gene leaned in toward me and whispered, “Somebody done left.”

  When a prisoner escaped, all other inmates were detained and counted to confirm the escape. To Ms. Woodsen’s credit, she came up with the same number in each of her counts, but apparently a guard in another part of the colony could not get his numbers to match.

  After standing for almost half an hour, Big Gene said, “Ms. Woodsen, my feets hurt.”

  “What’d you say?” Ms. Woodsen said, moving into teacher mode.

  “I said, ‘My feets hurt,’” he repeated.

  “Oh,” Ms. Woodsen said, “OK, I thought you said ‘foots.’”

  A few minutes later, Link yelled, “Ms. Woodsen, it’s hot up in here.”

  Ms. Woodsen opened the door at the end of the hallway, and the putrid smell of chopped sugarcane rushed in. Carville, a former sugar plantation, was surrounded by sugarcane farms. When the rotten stalk is chopped into mulch, the smell can drift for miles. We all grimaced and coughed at the rancid odor.