It’s been nine days since ICE picked me up at Rikers, and I still haven’t seen a judge. I finally managed to get through to Tracy—we get a free call each week—but her halfway house has a lot of rules about when people can go out or use the phone, so I don’t know how much she’ll be able to help. I’m desperate for her to try and find me a lawyer—she owes me money, so I told her to use that until I can get ahold of my checks.
ICE makes it difficult to navigate the simplest things, like sending mail or getting money for commissary or making calls. We’re all totally in the dark, relying on rumors other detainees spread around. Everybody’s got an opinion but nobody really knows—and no one from ICE is around to tell us what’s going on. The guards all work for York County so they know even less about immigration than us.
The only way you can communicate with ICE is to fill out a blue slip with a question or a comment and drop it in a box, but that’s a fucking joke—I’ve already done that. No one ever seems to come and open it, and even if they did, I’m sure they’d just dump the whole box straight into another box that never gets looked at, or they’d send one slip back with a vague answer.
All this frustration is eating away at me and I’m lying on my bunk fuming when one of the COs shouts, “Who’s MacIndoe?”
I sit up, startled.
“That’s me,” I answer, suddenly hopeful. Maybe they realized they made a mistake—or maybe Tracy got through to a lawyer.
“Here,” he says, handing me a small piece of yellow paper. It has the seal of the Department of Homeland Security in the left corner and says “I.C.E. Detainee ‘MESSAGE Form’ ” across the top.
The handwritten note reads: “Susan Stellin called,” along with her phone numbers, home and cell.
Honestly, I’m a bit disappointed at first. I know it sounds crazy, but for a minute I actually thought I was getting released. But then I start to think that Susan might be able to get me out of this jam—I just don’t know if I have the guts to call her.
Other detainees start crowding around me, asking questions: “What’s it say?…How come you got a message?…I didn’t think we could get messages here.”
I didn’t think so, either—no one’s gotten a message while I’ve been in ICE custody.
“It’s my ex-girlfriend’s number,” I tell them, a bit stunned.
Walking back to my bunk, I stare at the piece of paper. It says the call came at 9:58 this morning, September 1. Just looking at it makes me feel relieved that at least someone else knows where I am, but I have no idea why Susan wants me to call her—or how the fuck she found me. After everything that happened and how much I know I let her down, I’m not sure I can ask her to help me. She already did so much and I totally shut her out.
That’s why I don’t head straight for the phone. I need to pull myself together before I can face her. All these memories come flooding back, feelings I’d locked away, all the pain I caused, my broken promises. My mind is all over the place, trying to work up the courage to call her.
But by the next afternoon, desperation and curiosity get the better of me. I wait in line for the phone, my hands shaking when I pick up the receiver. I press the buttons for a collect call, then slowly enter Susan’s home number.
“Please state your name,” the recorded voice says.
“Graham,” I answer.
The line starts ringing. I have no idea what I’m going to say if she picks up.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
August 2010
Cobble Hill, Brooklyn
After Anna emailed telling me that Graham was at Rikers, I looked up his release date on the Department of Correction website, kicking myself because I hadn’t thought to check it the whole time I’d wondered if he was dead.
My relief turned to fear once I read what the inmate locator said. Graham was supposed to have been released from Rikers that morning, but instead he’d been handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement—the Homeland Security agency rounding up and deporting four hundred thousand people every year.
Now I debated whether I wanted to be the bearer of bad news, but I sent Anna another email, letting her know that Graham had been picked up by immigration and explaining how she could find out where he was.
He’s not showing up yet in the ICE system, but here’s a link to a database where you can check the status of anyone detained by immigration. Maybe he’ll get lucky and they’ll just release him, but if you hear from him and he wants help finding a lawyer I can probably track down some names. If there’s anything I can do, let me know.
A friend who worked for Human Rights Watch had told me about ICE’s online detainee locator, which had just launched earlier that summer. Before that, families had a tough time finding out where their loved ones had been taken—often, after agents showed up at their homes with guns.
But there was still something disturbing about tracking a human being like a missing package or lost luggage. I didn’t just want to know where Graham was; I wanted to talk to him and find out what was going on.
Anna’s response was not particularly reassuring.
I remember the lawyer saying Graham would most likely be picked up by immigration and Graham mentioned immigration had been in touch with him at some point, so maybe this is all a part of that process. He seemed pretty convinced he wouldn’t be deported based on what he was arrested for. Let me know if you find anything else out and I’m sure he or a lawyer will be in touch when he’s ready or allowed to.
Based on what I had read about ICE, I wasn’t so sure that Graham would be allowed to call a lawyer—or anyone else, since Anna didn’t hear from him over the next few days. She worked in an office where it was tough to make calls about her incarcerated ex-husband, whereas I could work at home and was used to pestering people for information, so I offered to keep trying the ICE phone numbers we found.
By that point, the online detainee tracker indicated that Graham had been taken to the Hudson County Correctional Facility in New Jersey. When I finally got through to a curt employee at the jail, she told me he was allowed to have visitors, but he first had to put my name on his approved visitors list. The only way to ask him to do that was to send him a letter—which I promptly did.
“I have no idea whether this letter will get to you, or if someone else might read it, so I won’t go on and on,” I wrote, already feeling guarded about our monitored communications. “But I hope you’ll call me—collect, whatever. I know it’s a lousy situation in there, but it will get sorted out. And since I thought you might be dead, I was happy to hear you’re alive.”
A few days later, that envelope came back marked “RTS”—return to sender—“No longer on A3W,” the wing where Graham had temporarily been housed. By the time my letter arrived, he had already been transferred.
I also left voicemail messages for the deportation officer and the social worker I was told had been assigned to Graham’s case. Neither of them called me back.
Anna didn’t have much better luck on her end.
“Not looking good,” she wrote me, a week after we had first been in touch. “Graham has been moved to York County, PA, which is a prison, not a detention center. I’m now wondering if he still has access to a commissary account, if I can send him some money, as maybe he can’t get a phone card. I think ICE beats to its own drum on what anyone in their custody can do—really kinda scary how under the radar they operate.”
I didn’t want to worry Anna by telling her how awful some of those prisons and detention centers were; I’d read reports about immigrants getting mistreated and abused, or even dying because they were denied medical care. But the more time that passed, the more I started to panic. I had spoken with a lawyer who told me that ICE usually transferred people to remote prisons far from their home states—far from their families and the advocates who could help them. It was essentially a domestic form of rendition, sending detainees to states like Alabama and Texas, where the judges were much less sympathetic to immigra
nts.
As one New York lawyer I’d spoken with put it, “They don’t think like us down there.” He made it clear that Graham needed to hire an attorney soon—before he got moved again.
Finally, on September 1, I got through to a woman at York County Prison who had somehow maintained her humanity in the dehumanizing place where she worked: She didn’t cut me off or transfer me to a voicemail black hole, and she wasn’t immediately dismissive when I asked if she’d pass Graham a message.
“We don’t usually give messages to inmates,” she told me, sounding a bit apologetic.
Sensing a lack of commitment to that policy, I pressed my case. “I’m sure he hasn’t called because he doesn’t remember any phone numbers. They’re all stored on his cellphone, and that was taken away. All I’m asking is for you to give him a slip of paper with my name and number.”
“And you are…?”
“His girlfriend.” I thought it might complicate things if I said I was Graham’s ex.
“Well, we aren’t supposed to give out information to anyone who isn’t a family member.”
“I understand that,” I said, already prepared for this objection. “But I’m not actually asking you to give me any information—I’m just asking you to give him my phone number. His parents are in Scotland so he can’t call them collect, and his son is at school so he can’t answer his phone in class. I’m sure you can imagine how worried he is about his dad.”
My appeal to family ties worked: She agreed to pass Graham a note with my number. I just wasn’t sure if he’d actually call. We hadn’t talked in so long I had no idea if he’d even want my help. Then again, his present situation was so dire I figured he’d grab any lifeline that floated his way.
So why was I bothering to throw Graham that line, after all the times he’d pushed me away? Obviously I still cared about what happened to him, and it was shocking that he could just disappear into this shadowy system—with none of the rights even mass murderers get if they’re U.S. citizens. Even though I’d warned Graham about this possibility and knew theoretically it might happen, it was chilling to actually experience that fear: knowing someone who had gotten picked up by government agents and taken away.
But there was another motivation that didn’t really sink in until later that night, when I couldn’t sleep wondering if Graham had gotten my message. If he did call, I was finally going to get something I’d been wanting for years: the chance to have a conversation with him totally clean. In some sense, that anticipation overshadowed the fact that he was in prison.
I worked from home the next day, trying to distract myself while I waited for the phone to ring. When it finally did, at around four in the afternoon, a recording asked if I’d accept a collect call from “Graham”—his Scottish accent rolling the r in his name.
Suddenly nervous, I didn’t know what to say.
“I got your message,” Graham said, sounding a bit defensive. “How’d you know I was here?”
“Anna told me—well, actually, she told me you were at Rikers, so I looked up your release date, but by then ICE had picked you up and taken you to New Jersey. There’s a website where you can track detainees. I sent you a letter, but you’d already been moved to Pennsylvania. I finally managed to get through to a woman who I guess did give you my number.”
I felt like I was rambling, so I stopped talking—leaving an opening for Graham to launch into one of his rants.
“This whole thing is a fucking nightmare. The day I’m supposed to get out of jail they tell me immigration has got a hold on me so I’m not getting released. Then these ICE officers come get me and put me in shackles—my hands chained to my waist, my feet chained together, like I’m a fucking serial killer or something. All the guys in outtake were looking at me like I was Charles Manson.”
Shackles? It sounded even more barbaric than I’d imagined. “What did they tell you when they picked you up?” I asked. “Have you seen a judge?”
“Are you kidding? They don’t tell you a fucking thing. I haven’t seen a judge. I don’t get a lawyer. They just come at four A.M. and take you away. Hundreds of people come and go every day in this place, mostly Mexicans—I’m the only white guy. And these ICE officers are so fucking racist. While everyone’s lining up one guy says, ‘See this line? Don’t cross it. Wait till you get back to Mexico and you can try jumping the border again.’ It’s unbelievable how nasty they are.”
“Are you okay? I mean, obviously you’re not okay, but are they treating you decently?” I didn’t know how to ask, Is anyone beating the shit out of you?
“I’m alright—it’s not violent or anything, but this place makes Rikers Island look like the Hilton hotel. It’s fucking freezing in here, I’ve not got any commissary so I can’t buy a long-sleeved shirt, or anything half-decent to eat. The food is shite, and there’s no outside time. You’re stuck in this dorm with nothing to do, nothing to read. Just Jerry Springer on the telly all fucking day. How often is that show on?”
At least Graham hadn’t lost his sense of humor, but being in jail had clearly amplified his swearing. In some sense, he didn’t sound all that different off drugs.
“I’m trying to find you a lawyer,” I said, shifting the conversation to practicalities. “I’ve got some names of firms that specialize in deportation cases. The thing is…” I hesitated, thinking it was a bit crass to bring up money.
“What?”
“Do you have any money left? I know you sold your house, but I don’t know how much these lawyers charge, or if you even want to fight this. Maybe you’d rather just go back to Scotland.”
“I’ve got money—I can pay for a lawyer. But I can’t spend a long time in this situation. I’ve met people who’ve been in here for years fighting their cases. That would do my state of mind serious damage. I’d rather sign out if I’m gonna get stuck in this place.”
“I don’t think it takes years to see a judge. You’re supposed to get an initial hearing within a couple of weeks, but if you agree to leave, you’re exiled forever. You can’t ever come back to the U.S.—not to see Liam, not for work. You don’t even get to pack up your stuff. They basically just put you on a plane.”
Graham was silent; I wondered if I was being too blunt. Hoping to soften the blow, I added, “I really think you should talk to a lawyer before you decide what to do, just to find out your options. Or I guess I should talk to a lawyer—you can only make collect calls, right?”
“You should call Tracy.”
Tracy? The mention of her name totally threw me. “Why would I call Tracy? I thought you finally got rid of her.”
“I did, but she came to see me when I was in Rikers. She’s living in a recovery house—she’s been clean for a while now. I talked to her and she was going to call a lawyer.”
I wasn’t quite sure how to interpret this news. From everything Graham had told me about Tracy, I didn’t want anything to do with her—and I wasn’t sure I wanted anything to do with Graham if she was back in his life. After they broke up, she had even called me at one point, leaving crazy messages demanding I call her.
“I can’t believe you’ve been in touch with her,” I said, more bothered by this revelation than I was letting on. “Please tell me you’re not back together….”
“She’d like to be with me, but no—that’s not happening. Please, just call her. She owes me two thousand dollars so you can get some of the money for the lawyer from her. I can’t access my bank account—they took my checkbook, my wallet, everything.”
This was not at all how I pictured our conversation going. The fact that Graham had called Tracy made me wonder if he really was free of that life. Why would he have called her, instead of Anna or me?
“Why didn’t you tell me you were at Rikers?” I asked—it sounded more like an accusation than a question. “I didn’t know what had happened to you. I actually thought you were dead, and it turns out you were talking to the most dysfunctional person you’ve ever been involved with.�
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“I didn’t call her. She found out where I was and came to visit. I didn’t call you because…I don’t know. I was ashamed, I didn’t want anybody to see me there. But I asked Anna to tell you where I was—I thought she had. I’m sorry, I should’ve written to you. I didn’t even write to Liam, or my family. It’s hard to explain, but I was coming out of a really fucking dark place and I didn’t know how to deal with that.”
Just as I was mulling over that explanation, a recording interrupted us, saying our time was almost up. There was a twenty-minute limit on prison phone calls—which wasn’t entirely a bad thing, since it cost about a dollar a minute to talk.
“I’ve got to go,” Graham said, adding “thank you”—almost as an afterthought, I noticed. I was starting to remember what it felt like to get sucked into his chaos, a gravitational pull I wondered if I should try to resist. But there was no time to deliberate over what I should do: I couldn’t call him back or email him later, after I’d thought about it. I had to decide in that instant.
“I’ll call a couple of lawyers,” I told him, brushing aside my reservations. “Call me tomorrow.”
Before he could answer, our call got cut off. I sat there for a while longer, just holding the phone. The sensation I always got after talking to Graham was back: that buzz, that hum—like the electricity had just come back on after the power went out, making you notice how quiet it had been when everything was off.
I lay back on my bed, staring at one of the pictures Graham gave me when we were together, which was still on my wall. It was a black-and-white photo of a skinny guy with his hands in his pockets, by the street photographer Leon Levinstein. With just his torso and legs visible, he looked a lot like Graham.
“I’m not the only person who keeps their pants up with a too big belt and their hands,” he’d written on the cardboard backing. “Think of me every time you look at it. With love, Graham XXX.”
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