After closing my laptop, I wrote in my notebook about how looking at those pictures affected me.
I didn’t think anything could cut through me like this. It’s taken me right back—that sick, hollowed-out feeling of seeing something you wish you didn’t know about. Except that in some way, this is exactly what I’d been curious to see. All those close-ups of the needle going into a vein, his expression during and after, the preparations, the rooms and bathrooms and stairwells I never saw. This is like watching a movie of what happened behind doors I imagined but couldn’t follow him through—all the dates starting in 2006 right up through recent months.
Here I thought I’d accepted what he was doing, that I was past being shocked. I’m not. These pictures show someone so far gone it’s hard to imagine him ever giving it up. This is the world that existed apart from me—the life I didn’t want to see as much as I constantly searched for evidence that it existed. Every photo is tinged with despair. Hopelessness. Waste. Maybe the point is, “So you wanted to see? Here it all is.” And then we’re supposed to feel sick over our voyeurism, because maybe we didn’t need to see that after all.
A few days later, I got a bad case of shingles. At first I didn’t know what was causing the tingling on the left side of my back and chest, then I broke out in a rash that hurt so badly I couldn’t bear to have a shirt touch my skin. When I saw my doctor, she told me that shingles was sometimes brought on by stress, so I wondered if that was my body’s way of dealing with seeing Graham’s pictures. It was as if all that emotion worked its way along my nerves and erupted, screaming out in excruciating pain.
At the time, I had a yoga teacher who always asked what people in the class wanted to get out of their practice. If someone said, “I want to get rid of the ache in my back,” she’d ask, “What do you want to replace it with?” As my shingles pain faded, I realized that I wanted to replace it with acceptance. Graham was gone. Addiction had consumed him just like Alzheimer’s gradually takes over a once-vibrant mind. It was only a matter of time before there was nothing recognizable left.
I didn’t know Graham’s deal had gone through until later that fall, when I was having lunch with my friend Scott—who had lost touch with Graham shortly after that summer in Montauk. When Scott asked if I’d heard from Graham, I just said that the last time I saw him he wasn’t doing too well, and that he had just put his house on the market.
Scott and his wife were in the midst of their own real estate search, so he opened an app on his phone, typed in Graham’s address, and showed me the results: Graham’s brownstone had sold. Good for him, I thought. Somehow he managed to pull that off.
Hearing that news was unsettling—it meant that I might not ever see Graham again. I couldn’t go by his house if I wanted to find him. But I didn’t email him, and I didn’t call.
The rest of 2009 went by in the usual holiday blur. I spent Thanksgiving with my cousins, my sister had her baby, I flew to Michigan to see my parents for Christmas. As the recession deepened, layoffs and foreclosures dominated the news, and then in January, a massive earthquake struck Haiti. Compared to most people around the world, I felt lucky: I had money in the bank and a roof over my head. What other people were going through put any of my problems in perspective.
—
AT ONE POINT when I was trying to decide if I should have any contact with Graham, David had warned me, “Most people have a hard time following through when they say they won’t do something ever again.” He was right about that—but he was also right when he said that I should act more on impulse.
So when Graham’s birthday popped up on my calendar, in March 2010, I dashed off an email saying: “Just wanted to wish you a happy birthday. Wherever you are and whatever path you’re on, I hope fabulous by 50 is still on the horizon.”
I was shocked when Graham wrote back, just two hours later.
thanks. i’ve sort of been out the loop for a bit! had no computer, didn’t check emails for weeks, was living out a suitcase, went a few places, gained some money, lost some money, procrastinated, saw a few films i’d been meaning to see, read a bit, slept a bit, thought a bit. and came to the conclusion that no matter how much you read or how many people you talk/listen to there are some things in life you’ll never ever fucking understand!
apart from that i’m okay. you?
i’ll call you - really.
That cryptic summary piqued my curiosity. Graham actually did sound okay, but he didn’t say where he was—and he didn’t ever call. After that, he disappeared: no more emails, no more text messages, not even a photo.
Three months after that, I sent Anna the text message she didn’t answer. Then two months later, I found her email address and tried again.
Sorry to put you in the position of (potentially) being the bearer of bad news, but do you know where Graham is and if he’s OK? The last time I heard from him was around his birthday. I know he sold the house, and he seemed alright then, but now his phones are out of service and his Web site is down, so I’ve been wondering if something happened. I understand if you don’t want to share any details—maybe you don’t know either—but rather than assume the worst I thought I’d ask.
Once again a few days passed without a response. I polled friends (again) about how they would interpret her silence. They told me (again) to just let it go.
Finally, on August 23, an email from Anna arrived.
I hope all’s well with you. Unfortunately graham is in jail. He was arrested for drug possession a few months ago. As bad as the scenario sounds, he seems to be doing ok and I think (and hope) it has been a real wake up call for him. He has detoxed and sounds like he is clean. I have spoken to him a couple of times, the last a couple of weeks ago. He sounds in good spirits under the circumstances and he is working in the kitchen there and really seems to want to change his ways.
I’ve been paying his storage, so he can keep all his things, but haven’t paid his phone, hence why it’s been disconnected.
He’s due for release soon, sometime at the end of this month and there is a chance he could be deported although he’s convinced this is highly unlikely.
I did get your text message a while ago and I’m sorry I didn’t answer sooner, as I didn’t know if I should pass on the info. When I spoke to Graham I did tell him you had got in touch and he said it was ok to tell you. And then I took vacation time and didn’t get around to getting in touch with you. I think I’ve gotten to the stage where I sometimes shut down from it all, as it can be so worrying and I think I get tired of dealing with him. I’ve told his brother and sister, but they asked that I didn’t tell his parents.
Once I hear any more from him, as to his future whereabouts I can let you know.
In quick succession, I cycled though a series of emotions: relief (he’s not dead), annoyance (why didn’t Rikers inmates show up in the “WebCrims” database I’d checked?), and dread (he’s going to get deported).
Not that it was any of my business, but I was irritated that Graham hadn’t called me, that Anna hadn’t gotten back to me sooner, and that he’d never become a citizen—because of apathy and Scottish pride. It wasn’t “highly unlikely” that he could get deported; it was much closer to certain.
If Graham didn’t already have a good lawyer, it was probably too late for me to help him. But knowing what was likely to happen to him if he got picked up by immigration, I felt like I had to try.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
June 2010
Rikers Island, Queens
A few weeks into my sentence, I’m still reeling from where I’ve landed, but I’ve finally come to terms with the daily routine. I’ve been moved from C-95, for detainees with drug problems, to the 6 building, for sentenced inmates. Almost everyone is doing less than a year for stupid shit, but there are definitely some guys in here who deserve to be off the streets.
At first I was so traumatized bouncing around the system I thought I was going to have a breakdown. I wasn’t scared, j
ust totally alone and depressed and beaten down by the constant humiliations. Like the day after I got sentenced, a bunch of us were strip-searched and lined up naked in a dingy room full of T-shirts, uniforms, underwear, and socks. The CO asked my size, reached over to a shelf, and handed me a pile of clothes.
I quickly pulled on the boxers and unfolded the ugly green jumpsuit—which looked like it would’ve fit Magic Johnson. When I told the guard it was way too big for me, he said, “You wear what you get.”
That’s when it hit me: I’m not a detainee anymore, I’m a fucking prisoner.
There was a three-hundred-pound guy next to me who’d gotten a uniform that was about four sizes too small, so without saying a word we swapped. That’s how it is in here—you figure out how to get by, adapting almost by instinct.
I’ve been off drugs for almost a month now, so the dope sickness has faded, but it’s been replaced by a persistent, gnawing depression and these crushing waves of regret. At least with the physical effects of withdrawal you know they’ll eventually end—the mental agony feels like it could go on forever. That just adds to the painful monotony of each day, which follows the same mind-numbing routine.
5:00 A.M. Breakfast
I have no idea why we get woken up so fucking early for breakfast, but if you skip it, lunch isn’t until noon and since dinner is at five o’clock, that’s a long time to go without eating. But after a while I don’t bother getting up. It’s not worth it for some shit coffee, a piece of tasteless fruit, a mini cereal box, and a few slices of bland bread. “Sleep late, lose weight,” everyone says—and that’s no joke. I already feel bloated, eating way more than I did when I was using.
7:30 A.M. Shave—if you’re lucky
A CO steps into the dorm and says “razors” so quietly sometimes no one hears her—usually it’s the female guards who like to fuck with us. But if it’s actually audible, everyone who wants to shave has to line up, exchange their IDs for a cheap single-blade razor, and try to shave using a mirror that’s been scoured so much you can hardly see your reflection. Not that I really care how I look—I know it can’t be good.
8:00 A.M. Coffee
Once I’ve got some money on my commissary account, I can make instant coffee—52 cents for a small pouch of coffee, 10 cents for a tiny creamer, and 5 cents for a packet of sugar. It’s not great, but it’s better than the insipid crap they serve in the mess hall. Sometimes the only newspaper I can find is a day-old El Diario, which I can’t read since it’s in Spanish, but I look at the pictures and try to figure out the story. This is always the worst time of the day for me, realizing I still have fifteen hours to get through until lights-out.
10:00 A.M. Yard time
Before we can go out to the yard—a patch of dried-up grass—we get searched multiple times: standing against the wall with our arms and legs spread, then passing through a metal detector, then another pat-down with guards constantly shouting, “Shut the fuck up or you’re going back to the dorm!” All just to walk in circles around a dusty track or wait for a turn to lift a set of rusty barbells. Sometimes I lie on the grass watching planes take off from LaGuardia Airport—so close I can almost make out the faces in the windows.
12:00 P.M. Lunch
After we line up and shuffle to the mess hall, we each get handed a plastic tray through a slot in the wall, with a meal that barely passes for food—salad you wouldn’t feed to a pet rabbit, a taco shell dripping with mushy meat, and a bruised banana or mealy apple. Sitting at the table assigned to our dorm, everyone crams it down and trades whatever they don’t want while the guards pace back and forth. We don’t get much time before we’re ordered to clear up, passing our trays through another slot on the way out.
2:00 P.M. Quiet time
Every afternoon the dayroom shuts for an hour or so, which means no TV, no playing cards, and no phone calls. The COs call it “quiet time,” like we’re all in kindergarten. We can read, write, nap, or talk quietly, but there’s no milling around. I don’t mind—it gives me a chance to read. You can have books sent to you, or occasionally the “library” opens, which is really a bunch of tables with donated books in the old gym. It was weird coming across all these writers I’ve photographed, like Dave Eggers and Jonathan Franzen, but in here meeting James Patterson or John Grisham would be a lot more impressive—their books are always in demand.
3:30 P.M. Another count
By midafternoon we’re next to our beds for the third count of the day. If the CO marching up and down the dorm doesn’t come up with the right number, he has to start all over and do it again. Sometimes the numbers don’t add up and there’s a shutdown of the entire jail. It’s one of those things you get used to, the annoyance of stopping whatever you’re doing while a guard mutters numbers and we all wait—five times a day.
5:00 P.M. Dinner
Another trip to the mess hall, but at least it means we’re getting closer to the end of the day. My request for a vegetarian meal hasn’t been approved, so I keep trading my meat for whatever vegetables other guys don’t want. It’s never enough, so I end up eating too much bread to fill myself up. We all have to bring our green plastic cups to every meal—if yours gets stolen or lost it can be a nightmare trying to get a new one. That’s one of the many ways this place makes you feel like a child.
6:30 P.M. Evening mayhem
As the day progresses, boredom turns into frustration and then anger as the noise level gets louder. I can’t believe how much everyone around me seems to be alright with this shit—laughing and joking while I’m practically tearing my hair out. I wish I had someone to talk to, but I guess I look pretty rough from kicking dope so people seem to be avoiding me. Mostly I just pace back and forth or sit on my bed staring at everyone else, hating myself for letting this happen.
11:00 P.M. Last count, lights-out
The last of the day’s many counts, but at least it brings an end to the mindless conversations around me. Once the lights go out, it usually takes me a long time to fall asleep, so I lie there looking around at all these grown men curled up in single beds, trying not to think about how I ended up here. I remember years ago telling myself, I’m not going to lose Susan, I’m not going to fuck up my photography career, I’m not going to lose my house, I’m not going to get locked up. But all those things happened and now here I am.
If this is what I have to get through for the next hundred-plus days, I can’t imagine how the fuck I’m gonna make it.
—
THINGS START TO look up when I bump into an old friend, Marco, in the yard. He’s a wiry Hispanic guy who grew up in Brooklyn—we used to buy from the same dealers and hang out in the same spots in the hood. As we wander around talking about who else we’ve seen on the island and what news we’ve heard from the outside, he mentions he’s got a job in the kitchen. I beg him to hook me up.
“You’ve got to get me in there. I’ve been working in the mental health dorm occasionally, but it’s really boring and I’m only on call. I need a job that’ll take my mind off this shithole.”
“I can try,” Marco says. “But my boss is tough—and you’ll have to tell him you’re doing a bullet.”
“What the fuck’s a bullet?”
“A year, dumb-ass. If you’re only doing a short bid they don’t want to hire you. It’s too much of a hassle to train you.”
It takes three days before Marco manages to sneak me into the kitchen during lunch. His boss is a quiet guy with a pained expression on his face—as if he’s the one dealing with being locked up. The so-called interview is easy: Marco’s bragging about what a great worker I am and how I went to college. I get the job, starting a couple of days later when another guy goes home.
I thought working in the kitchen would involve more real cooking, but in reality it’s mostly dishing up things that have been prepared somewhere else. It’s still busier than I expected, with guys wheeling racks of food around and trolleys coming and going and the constant clatter of metal pans being dr
opped. My two shifts consist of loading hundreds of dirty trays into slots in a conveyor belt that feeds into a huge dishwasher that belches steam and sprays hot water the whole time. It’s exhausting, and I’m only making about twenty dollars working seven days a week—a long way from getting paid thousands of dollars a day to shoot big advertising campaigns, with catered meals.
But working two shifts a day eats up a lot of time, and it helps me make friends in the dorm. All the kitchen workers sneak food out, jamming a piece of chicken or some fruit into a rubber glove, stuffing it down their pants, and tying the fingers around the waistband of their boxers. I usually share whatever I bring back, so before long I’m mixing with the other guys in my dorm, even playing in some of the card games at night. The first time I was asked to play on one of the card teams, I finally felt like I’d been accepted—which was a weird feeling, realizing I was starting to get comfortable in jail.
Marco and I only work together during the lunch shift, and for those few hours we manage to take ourselves out of Rikers. He grew up surrounded by drugs and criminality, cycling in and out of jail ever since he was sixteen, but he’s a different person when he’s not getting high, telling me how much he misses his kid and how badly he wants to change. We talk constantly as we work, taking turns lifting and loading the trays—making plans for getting out, starting over, staying clean.
“If you fucking relapse when you get out of here, I’m going to kick your ass,” he says, punching my arm so hard I drop a tray into the dish machine, causing it to jam and shudder to a halt. When I look at Marco, I know he’s talking about himself as much as me.
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