But I’m wrong. The very day that Cameron was transferred from MCC to his facility in Pennsylvania, the Escaleras were arrested near their homes in California. They were then brought to New York City to be tried along with the other members of the conspiracy.
When I learn of the Escaleras’ arrest—one month after Cameron is sentenced and two months before Burly Man arrives at my door—I am inexplicably disturbed on Cameron’s behalf. There seems little reason to be: with guilty pleas from everyone else in the drug conspiracy and with the existence of multiple government cooperators it seems reasonable to expect the brothers to plead guilty as well. As Cameron’s lawyer, there is little cause for concern.
And yet, I am left with a persistent queasiness that something is not quite right. It is as though I already know that the filthy residue from Cameron’s cooperation is about to become my own.
The first order of business after the Escaleras’ arrest in May 2010 is to let Cameron know that it has happened. This is a delicate task, not only because any phone communication we have at his new facility is monitored, but also because he will undoubtedly find the information distressing. I decide it best to discuss the matter with Cameron in person. To do that, I will make a prison visit.
Soon after he arrives in Pennsylvania, Cameron mails me a visitor’s form, the subject of which we have discussed in advance. The form asks how long you have known the BOP inmate. Cameron, fearing we haven’t known each other long enough for my visitation to be approved, insists on putting a date prior to the start of the case.
“We had to have crossed paths before that,” he says.
I shrug my shoulders. I believe this to be technically true. We compare notes as to our whereabouts in New York City over the past few years and the various nightclub events we have both attended over that time. Most of these date back to when I was in law school, when Cameron was a DJ in the city. But I feel uncomfortable putting on the form that we’ve known each other for ten years. I agree with him, though, that our first meeting was technically before his case began and so, perhaps somewhat inexplicably, I split the difference and put “2008.”
(It’s not a great move. The government later shows me the form during my proffer session, doubts that this entry has any truth to it. Some Prosecutor goes so far as to threaten to bring a charge for making a material misrepresentation on a federal form, but at some point the issue is dropped.)
I’m looking forward to our first visit. It is early July 2010, nearly two months since we have last seen each other. This experience provides a brand-new context for Cameron and me: the visiting room. According to the visitor’s manual, because this is a personal visit, Cameron is permitted to sit at my side, hold my hand, and even provide a kiss “that is conducted in good taste” at the start and close of the visit.
Though by this time our feelings for one another are out in the open and have been readily discussed in detail, I find myself somewhat nervous at the prospect of being in such close proximity to him. In this way, our meeting is the stuff of Victorian novels, if ever there was a Victorian novel about prison visits between a reformed drug dealer and his attorney.
In truth, I have found something comforting in the forced distance that is always between Cameron and me. In his restrictive environment, our interactions are necessarily restricted, too. Cameron can only call me at certain times and for certain durations. He can only see me when I am willing to see him. Our manner of intimacy is set forth by strict federal regulation. As someone who has come to possess a clinical fear of emotional intimacy, I find my relationship with an incarcerated felon to be one of the safest choices I can make.
When I arrive on the prison’s grounds, I discover that Cameron’s facility is appended to a larger, maximum-security institution. I encounter this facility first. Its facade is actually stunning; one would presume it to house inmates only because of the large tower at its center and the eerie silence that surrounds it. A voice from an intercom commands me to state my business and allows me to pass through.
The minimum-security prison camp presents much differently. As I walk down the hill to its entrance, I see three flat buildings with some sort of sporting event transpiring in between. With its institutional smell, the drab buildings present less as a correctional facility than an underfunded middle school. I line up with the other visitors and feel as though we are waiting to go to a decrepit study hall.
I survey the line, consisting mostly of women and children. The women look comparable to those who would stand on the sidelines of my second-grade soccer games. They don’t appear as what I imagined women cavorting with incarcerated men to be, but I suppose I’m not what I pictured either.
When it is my turn to encounter security, the corrections officer is exceedingly polite. I find this almost disconcerting. He asks to see my driver’s license and checks my name against Cameron’s visiting list. He then motions me toward the visiting room.
“That’s it?” I ask.
“That’s it, ma’am.”
The visitor’s room resembles a large cafeteria. Filled with tables and chairs, along one wall are a series of vending machines and an old microwave. In the center of the room is an elevated podium from which our lunch monitor—a corrections officer—can observe the proceedings. Off to the side, there is a small room with a television set and toys, lest children become bored with the visit. There is also an enclosed outdoor area with picnic tables.
I observe the scene but am not sure how to place myself in it. This does not seem like an ideal place to sit in someone else’s seat. I watch the women scramble as they await the arrival of the inmates. They methodically storm the vending machines, retreating with armfuls of junk food that they then arrange on the visiting tables as though setting the table for dinner.
I remain standing, hedging as to what to do next. A woman stands a few feet away, examining the contents of a vending machine. She resembles a friend of mine, but for her cherry red–dyed hair, which accents her pretty face.
I approach her with some timidity. “Excuse me,” I say. “This is my first time visiting here.”
“Okay,” she says.
I am not sure how to phrase my question. “What exactly should I do?”
She smiles. As she points out to me the preferred seating, two other women join our conversation. One woman indicates the most sought-after vending machines and warns that these are the quickest to sell out.
“You might want to get your stuff now,” she advises.
“Oh. I’m not really sure what he would like.”
The women look at me. It seems as though I should know this.
The women also explain to me the visiting calendar—some weekends the inmates have two visits, some weekends three, and some weekends none at all—and advise me about places to stay nearby. It turns out that by staying at a bed-and-breakfast one town over I’m located farther from the facility than I need to be. I stop short of explaining that I preferred to stay in the quaint college town so that I could enjoy my free time away from the visiting room. This doesn’t seem like the right thing to say.
The women ask me about my inmate. “How long has he been here?” one asks.
“Less than two months.”
“So you’re new to this. You poor thing. How long is he in for?”
“With good time it works out to a little over two years, I think,” I say.
“It’s hard at first,” Cherry Red tells me. “But it does get easier. In the beginning I used to have trouble sleeping, but now I’m much better.”
I have had no trouble sleeping, at least not yet. But I nod anyway.
“Do you guys have kids?” she asks me.
“Oh, no,” I say. I do not add that we’ve only just kissed, that it’s quite possible that I am just a goose in a gaggle. “Do you?”
“No,” she says. “Not yet.”
The other wom
en look at her sympathetically. This seems to be a topic that has been discussed before. “He’ll be out soon,” one of them says.
“I know, I know.” Cherry Red is smiling, but her eyes look sad.
I have no real standing to say anything, but want to fill the awkward silence. “If you guys can make it through this, you can definitely handle children,” I offer.
“I know, I know,” she says again with a smile. “You’re going to make it through, too.”
She is heartfelt in saying so, and I thank her. But I am obviously a fraud standing among these women. I know nothing of their hardship. They have had to sacrifice plans and pick up slack and put on brave faces. They regularly drive hundreds of miles so that their family can be together for a few hours.
I’ve heard people say that the families of the incarcerated serve time alongside their inmate. As I listen to these women and observe the children of the visiting room ready to burst with excitement at the imminent arrival of their fathers, I see that this might be painfully true.
I have made no sacrifices. I am serving no time. I am here to simply see Cameron, sit next to him rather than across, and find out what happens next.
Speaking of which, I notice that inmates are starting to slowly stream into the visiting room. I turn to tell Cherry Red and the others that I should probably find a table, but they are already dispersing. It is something unsaid, like the flickering of lights at intermission, that indicates that the time has come to take a seat.
Cameron emerges from the crowd with a smile on his face. His new prison attire consists of khaki pants—oversized, of course—and a matching khaki shirt. He looks as though he has just returned from safari, a supposition bolstered by his sunburned face. It seems that after spending most of the previous year indoors, his skin has forgotten all about natural light.
I can’t help but smile back at the sight of him, and we are both grinning when we embrace. When he leans in to kiss me, I keep my eyes open to get a good look. He senses this and opens his eyes, too. With our faces pressed together we look at each other and both start laughing.
“Let’s try that again,” he says. And then we do. We then take a seat outside on one of the picnic tables.
There is much to catch up on, but I first want to tell him about the Escalera brothers. I am technically departing his legal team, but I know he might have questions and is flustered when he does not have enough of an opportunity to ask them.
His face displays shock and dismay as I relay what has happened. He had filed all of the unpleasantness of his case away, and I have just forced him to reopen the file. He looks down at the picnic table for some time, rubbing his thumb against the metal. Though we are outside in the summer sunshine, holding hands, it feels as though we have suddenly relocated to the attorney room. I remain quiet as he processes the news.
“So, what does this mean?” he finally says.
“For right now, it means nothing. You’ve been sentenced, your case is over. The government will only want you if they go to trial. And that’s unlikely.”
He looks up. “Is it really unlikely, or are you just saying that?”
“That’s what everyone says. That the brothers would be crazy to risk going to trial, that they will be much better off if they plead.”
I don’t mention the inexplicable bad feeling I got when I learned of their arrest, but Cameron appears to have caught wind of it.
“Okay, everyone tells you that. What do you think?”
“I have no reason to think they’re wrong.”
“You didn’t really answer my question.”
I sigh. “Cameron, I don’t know,” I say. His face looks worried. “But yes, I think they will plead.”
I don’t think I’ve convinced either one of us, but we let the topic go.
I notice Cameron eyeing the vending machines through the window. “Are you hungry?” I ask.
“Yeah, let’s get something to eat.”
We walk inside to the visiting room and make our way to the vending machines. I catch sight of Cherry Red at a table with her husband. They are holding hands and smiling at each other. I am distracted from this sight by an odd feeling from behind me. I glance over my shoulder and uncover the reason: the entire visiting room is examining Cameron’s back as he decides between a sandwich and a candy bar. I watch several inmates conspicuously lean over to their visitors to whisper something and then point Cameron’s way.
I had sort of forgotten that Cameron is famous here.
I look at Cameron to see if he notices his audience. He seems enthralled with his vending machine choices and oblivious to the dozens of eyes staring at him.
“What are you going to get?” he asks me.
I glance over the possibilities. “Maybe just a diet Coke for now. What about you?”
He is transfixed by the vending machine that offers submarine sandwiches. This seems a questionable choice to me, sweaty cold cuts wrapped in plastic and then shoved into a rotating shelf, but Cameron so rarely displays any appetite that I think he must really want it.
In consultation with the visitor’s manual, I have brought a clear plastic bag with dollar bills for the vending machine. I push the bag toward him. “Here,” I say. “Just get what you want.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a corrections officer closely watching.
Cameron sees him, too, and pushes the bag back at me. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t handle any money. You have to get it for me.”
He watches as I insert the bills and retrieve a sub sandwich. Like all Bureau of Prisons refreshments, the sandwich is starkly overpriced. It’s also very small. I decide to get him two.
When we get to the picnic table, I put the sandwiches down in front of him. “I got you two,” I say, “because they looked pretty small.”
“Aren’t you going to have one?”
I take a look at the nuclear pink lunch meat and involuntarily scrunch my face. “No, I’m good,” I say. My tone might bear a twinge of disgust.
He opens a packet of mayonnaise. “Yeah, everyone here gets so excited for the vending machines because it’s so much better than the food we normally get, but it’s still stuff that regular people would never eat.”
Though he appears unfazed by my insensitivity, I feel terrible.
I watch as he spreads mayonnaise on one half of a processed bun. “I just don’t like lunch meat,” I lie. “But I’m hungry, I am going to get something for me, too.”
“You don’t have to, just because I said that.”
“What?” I exclaim. He raises an eyebrow at my dramatic reaction. “No, I really do want to eat something.”
I leave him at the picnic table and return to the vending machines. Cherry Red is standing by the microwave. I smile at her as I select an inoffensive chicken cutlet sandwich that resides in the same machine as the rubbery subs. When I retrieve it from the machine, Cherry Red waves me over.
“You’re going to want to heat that up,” she says, pointing to my sandwich.
I look down at the sandwich and decide that this could do no further harm.
She shows me how to work the microwave, an early model that appears to have been manufactured in the late 1980s. I delicately remove the plastic, though some of the bun manages to stick to the wrapping, and place the sandwich on a small paper plate that is offered next to the microwave.
We stand side by side, watching my sandwich rotate.
Cherry Red playfully nudges my hip with her own. “Hey,” she says. “You didn’t say that you were visiting that inmate.”
I’m not sure what to say. “I guess you didn’t ask.”
“My husband says he’s a great guy, really polite and friendly. He told me that on Cameron’s first day the entire facility stood outside waiting for his prison bus to arrive. Every
one was staring at him, my husband said, but he was really unassuming, just went to the library to get a book and then went to his bunk to read it.”
Cameron has never described to me the circumstances of his arrival, but this sounds like how it might be. “I don’t know how he takes all of that attention in a place like this,” I say. “It would drive me crazy.”
“Me, too,” she says. “When his dad came earlier this month, everyone was all over him. He was so nice, shaking everyone’s hands. But I always try to keep a respectful space. I am really here to see my husband.” She points over to him, and he waves.
It’s jarring to me that she knows so much about Cameron and his visits. I’m already acquainted with Cameron Douglas’s father’s hand-shaking abilities, so I change the subject. “You guys seem really happy,” I say as I look over at her husband. “He’s really lucky to have you.”
“Aww, that’s sweet. You guys are a really cute couple, too.”
Though we aren’t really a couple, I don’t feel like correcting her. As kind as she is, she already knows too much. “Thanks,” I say.
The microwave announces the arrival of my heated sandwich, and so I tell Cherry Red I will see her later. I stop by the condiments table and decide that mayonnaise could serve as an important buffer. I grab two packets.
When I make my way back to the picnic table, Cameron asks me, “What were you two talking about?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Just my sandwich.”
Cameron has made his way through the first sub and has started on the second. After applying liberal amounts of mayonnaise to both sides of the cutlet, I’m pleasantly surprised that my sandwich is not just edible, but actually kind of good. I’m enjoying it enough that Cameron notices and requests a bite.
As he leans over to take a bite of my sandwich, it occurs to me that this presents the first time that he and I have ever eaten a meal together. The fact that we are breaking bread in a federal correctional facility, that our supper has come from a Bureau of Prisons–owned-and-operated vending machine, somehow seems fitting. Criminal justice is the glue that holds us together.
Criminal That I Am Page 16