In a romantic comedy that my friend and I rent, the protagonist tells his love interest: “I am currently unemployed; I’ll soon run out of money; and I am the target of a federal investigation.”
A television doctor discusses the possible dangers of Xanax.
These are just dumb coincidences, I think. But in the weeks and months following my exodus from The Couch, I notice a pattern. The more I tell others that I’m standing on solid ground, the more events transpire to shake my foundation, and in turn the more I fear that my crimes have come to define my life.
I first begin to realize that these are not coincidences when a news article is brought to my attention about Mother Goose, Cameron’s heroin house arrest accomplice and head of the gaggle. In addition to creating a drug-laden electronic toothbrush, Mother Goose also had some involvement in the underlying drug conspiracy and thus has appeared as a government witness against David Escalera. She testifies to falsifying a UPS account that allowed for cross-country shipment of drugs, picking up cash from drug sales, and packaging drugs for shipment. She also admits that when she was confronted with the toothbrush debacle, she lied to DEA agents about what she had done.
While none of this is particularly upstanding, it should be noted that all of this took place while Mother Goose was high in the sky. I meet her after she has cleaned herself up and have a difficult time picturing her doing any of it. She is smart and accomplished—she attended college on a basketball scholarship—and personable. After she is released from a seven-month stint in prison in March 2010, I interact with her frequently over the phone and find her to be engaging and kind.
When I peruse the article—replete with a photo of Mother Goose smiling as she enters the courthouse sporting a lime green shrug—I see that it does not discuss her testimony against David Escalera. The article is about her testimony regarding me.
The article, entitled “Douglas Girl Falls For ‘Con,’” relates that Mother Goose is asked on cross-examination if she ever knew about my relationship with Cameron. This evidence has some relevance because in her testimony she has described herself as Cameron’s girlfriend. She apparently avers that she did not know about the “admitted jail relationship” but that she remains committed to Cameron, writing him a letter for each day he is in prison.
When I first read the article, I scrunch my face in annoyance. I’m galled at the suggestion that I have disrupted some unassailable union. Mother Goose has always been a featured member of the gaggle, a fact confirmed not only by my repeated interactions with the other geese, but also by Mother Goose herself, who more than once during the case would call me to subtly inquire as to the identity of other women who have been asking after Cameron.
It’s not my problem that Mother Goose has chosen to cast her connection to Cameron as something that it is not, I think angrily. I don’t owe this woman anything. She should apologize to me for making me out to be a home wrecker when I most certainly am not. I’m the victim here.
But then, a few days after reading the article, I begin to sort of feel bad.
I at first attribute the small guilt I feel to what I suppose was a lack of candor. In all the times I speak to her during Cameron’s case, I never mention my own developing feelings for Cameron or his invitations to me to visit him at his facility. I suppose these omissions are significant enough to constitute dishonesty. Actually, as I think about it more over the months that pass, I start to think it might have been fairly disgusting.
The feeling becomes strong enough that a few months after the article is published, in late 2011, I feel compelled to dig out her cell phone number and text her to say that I’ve been thinking about her and I hope she is well.
really, she texts back, cuz u r a fuckin whore.
I don’t expect this. I expect to be called a fuckin [sic] liar, or perhaps a fuckin [sic] phony. I don’t think of myself as a fuckin [sic] whore, but I suppose no one ever does. Either way, the message makes me feel relieved, as though in opening myself up to this response I don’t have to feel bad about my dishonesty.
But even after this, something still feels out of place. It doesn’t rankle me daily, but every time I encounter someone who looks like Mother Goose or, oddly enough, is wearing a shrug, I feel a twinge of mysterious discomfort. Each time, I cannot determine what sin of mine remains in need of atonement.
I don’t fully realize the exact nature of my transgression until more than a year later. It presents itself in a vivid dream. I dream that Mother Goose approaches me, carrying a baby. She tells me that this is her son, that Cameron is his father. I look down at the baby. He looks exactly like Cameron but with Mother Goose’s brunette coloring.
Mother Goose asks me if I could watch the baby for her. I say yes. She hands him to me, and he is an absolute delight. I feed him and change him and play with him, and he giggles and smiles at every turn. I am completely enamored.
Mother Goose comes back at some point to retrieve the baby. As I hand him back to her, the baby starts to wail. He does not want to go. He clings to me, grabbing my shirt with his small hands. He cries so much that I begin crying, too. I decide that I am not going to give back the baby. I am going to keep him for myself.
I inform Mother Goose that I will be keeping her baby. Her face is frozen, almost indifferent. She does not say or do anything.
But somehow my brother shows up. “Give back the baby,” he tells me in no uncertain terms.
“No,” I insist. “I want the baby,” I tell him. “And the baby wants me.”
My brother is unmoved. “That doesn’t matter,” he says. “That baby does not belong to you.”
This realization causes me to sob, so much so that I actually wake up crying. But before I do, I place the baby into Mother Goose’s arms. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. Her face remains expressionless, and so I explain. “He isn’t mine,” I say. “He should not be with me.”
I push past the Mother Goose drama only to encounter that of the Escaleras. I learn that a jury has found David Escalera guilty of drug conspiracy, holding him responsible for a drug weight that subjects him to a five-year mandatory minimum. His sentencing is scheduled for the following spring.
I am presented with this news of David Escalera’s conviction as though it is grounds for celebration, or, at a minimum, vengeful relish. But any initial twinge of schadenfreude almost immediately dissolves. My own misfortune looms so large that there is little pleasure to be had in that of someone else. Victimhood is at Level Orange, and I lament becoming what I consider to be a casualty of David Escalera’s poor decision making.
Of greater note to me is that Eduardo Escalera’s trial remains in the distance. Cameron is once again the government’s putative star witness, and I am to prepare myself for more testimony, more press. I feel as though I have already been punched in one eye and am now bracing for a blow to the other.
For a brief moment I consider writing to Cameron at MCC to remind him that his testimony about my bra makes no logical sense. But I quickly abandon the thought, fairly certain that this could be construed as witness tampering. The only thing that I would like less than further public discussion of my underwear is another criminal case, and so I let the matter go.
The trial date of October 24 arrives and nothing happens. The trial is postponed. Then it is postponed again. And then again. The trial judge grants Eduardo Escalera two additional requests for counsel, bringing the total number of court-appointed attorneys assigned to work on his case to five. Then, in February 2012, he is found guilty of drug conspiracy. Like his brother, his sentencing is scheduled for spring.
By the time of his guilty verdict, I have stopped paying attention to Eduardo Escalera. This is because the government has elected to drop Cameron as a cooperating witness. This in turn is because Cameron has violated the terms of his cooperation agreement. This in further turn is because Cameron has committed a new crime, subjecting him to a new charge in
an entirely new criminal case.
My foundation is rocked once again when I learn that shortly after delivering his testimony against David Escalera, Cameron is discovered by an MCC corrections officer to be in possession of narcotics.
At least this is what is reported. Having failed to deactivate the Google Alert bearing his name, I find in my inbox dozens of e-mails announcing that Cameron has agreed to plead guilty to possessing “a user quantity” of “a heroin-like substance” while awaiting Eduardo Escalera’s trial. He is reportedly discovered holding them in his hand. When confronted, he allegedly tells the corrections officer that he serendipitously found the drugs on the floor and picked them up. The corrections officer is (perhaps reasonably) unconvinced, and the matter is referred to the government.
The prosecutors in Cameron’s first drug case announce that they will charge Cameron with contraband drug possession, a felony that will carry a recommended sentence of up to twenty-four months. Their decision to bring charges is somewhat notable because behavior of this kind is often handled internally by the prison. In Cameron’s case, he is punished twice. He pleads guilty to the contraband charge in federal court and while he is awaiting sentencing, the Bureau of Prisons administers its own punishment: Cameron is placed in solitary confinement for twelve months, his personal visits are suspended, his commissary account is closed.
For all of my resentment of Cameron as of late, I feel real sympathy for him. I think back to his three-day stint in the SHU, how hard it was for him to cope. I think, too, about how the mere suggestion of his cooperation would make him sick. I imagine that taking the stand has left him resorting to whatever will help him forget. I also can’t help but have the self-serving thought that had MCC actually treated his anxiety, he probably would not have felt the need to resort to drug use.
After I read about what’s happened, I can’t sleep. I am upset enough to e-mail Best Friend at five a.m. about the development.
I guess they are making an example of him, I type. I hypothesize that the drug use and his crazy bra testimony are somehow related. Maybe he said that because he was high. And then, before I sign off, I add: Why didn’t I just say no?
After I hit send, I feel angry. Angry at my sympathy for Cameron. Angry at Cameron for not just going away quietly. Angry at the sinking feeling that despite my insistence to the contrary, I feel emotionally intertwined with Cameron, with his fate.
Over time, I try to focus on other things. And yet, when I read that Cameron will be sentenced a few days before Christmas, I find myself marking it on my calendar.
I try to distract myself from reminders of my crimes by trying to discover what is left of my virtuousness. Given my abundant free time and lack of professional direction, I decide to do some volunteer work.
On a recent visit to my parents’, I encountered a stray cat wheezing with disease, the hind portion of its mangy coat covered in tumors. The sight was so upsetting that I decide to dedicate time to giving strays a quality of life more akin to that of my spoiled, crotch-loving cat. Also, by volunteering with animals, I needn’t worry that they will pepper me with questions about what I plan to do with my life. Animals are wonderful in that way.
I sign up for a volunteer training session at an animal shelter not far from my apartment. When I arrive, I’m shown to a small conference room where a dozen other prospective volunteers are seated. Our volunteer coordinator is exceedingly organized. She stands before us in a perfect pantsuit and a perfect bob and delivers a perfect PowerPoint presentation. She runs the volunteer program with the detail and authority that a lawyer does a case, and for this reason I immediately take to her.
The training outlines the duties and responsibilities of the volunteer. Volunteers are required to come in the same time every week. Volunteers must balance out the animal interactive tasks—dog walking, cat playing—with those that are more feces-based. Volunteers must make a commitment to participate for six months.
At a break in the training, the volunteer coordinator and I make small talk. As per usual, she asks me what I do. I sort of shrug my shoulders.
“I’m a lawyer by training,” I say. “But not really as of late.”
“You are?” she says. “You know, you’re more than welcome to help out with our legal work. It might be more interesting to you than cleaning out kennel cages.”
“I appreciate that,” I say. “But quite honestly, I’d rather spend my time with the animals.”
As the training draws to a close, the volunteer coordinator asks us to sign up for an additional session during which we will take a tour of the premises and become acquainted with the shelter’s procedures. I sign up for a session the following week and mark it on my otherwise empty calendar.
Before we disperse, the volunteer coordinator distributes forms for our signature. As these are passed around, she explains that we have to fill out a form providing our contact information. We also have to fill out an emergency contact form. Finally, we have to sign a form consenting to a criminal background check.
When she describes this last form, I swallow.
She explains that the shelter often does events with children—they take some of the particularly well-behaved cats and dogs to kindergarten classrooms and school libraries to promote the shelter’s mission. The background check is to weed out anyone who might pose a threat to the children, sex offenders, or those with a history of violence.
This is a sound policy. Still, after I sign the consent form, I erase the second training date from my calendar.
As I leave, the volunteer coordinator says she will see me next week. I nod and force a smile. On the walk home to my apartment, my eyes well with tears.
In the days that follow, I want to forget that any of this has happened. I try not to think about the fact that my crimes possibly preclude me from even cleaning up cat shit. The day of the second training session comes and goes, and I pretend not to notice.
A few days later, I receive a voice mail from the volunteer coordinator. Her voice is kind, almost conciliatory. “We missed you at our session last Saturday,” she says. I think I hear her hesitate. “I wanted to let you know that you passed our criminal background check and that there are other sessions next week and the week after.”
She begins to recite dates and times, but I cut her off by deleting the message. I do not call back. I do not return to the shelter. Gracious as she is, the volunteer coordinator does not understand. I did not skip the training session because I thought I would necessarily fail the background check. I skip the training session, and abandon the idea of volunteering altogether, because I do not want anyone to know who I really am.
My crimes loom large even in the safety of my own home. I realize this when a hefty manila envelope arrives from my law school that is said to contain the contents of my old faculty inbox.
I am confused by the size and weight of the envelope. Even when I was teaching I barely used my inbox. Perhaps it’s something other than mail. I curl my fingers over the envelope’s bulge, but feel nothing other than paper.
I rip it open and approximately two dozen letter-sized envelopes fall to the floor. When I realize what they are, my eyes widen.
Prison mail.
I’m at first bewildered as to how I have been found. I remember after a moment that the Post article named my law school. Since its address is publicly available, it turns out that I am easily tracked down.
When I take a seat on the hardwood floor to open the envelopes, I am wondering why so many people I don’t know would want to reach out to me. Predictably, many are interested in legal assistance. I am uninterested in giving any. I note a slight feeling of distaste whenever the writer proclaims his innocence. Though he may very well be a man wrongly accused, because I consider my circumstances to stem from someone’s refusal to accept responsibility, I am unmoved.
One letter reads:
Please f
ind it in your heart to allow me to demonstrate that I did not commit this crime. I hope you will wish to hear my whole story.
I throw this aside.
I’m also unmoved by letters, and there are a few, that malign Cameron as a rat. For all of the damage and unpleasantness his cooperation has served up, he has at least taken responsibility for what he has done. And so when I read a letter that says:
I am aware how you was abused by that (“creep rat”) Cameron Douglas. But I ain’t nothing like him.
I throw this aside, too.
For as many letters seeking something case-related, the same number appear to seek human connection. There are letters requesting life advice:
I am seeking to make an investment. I have some money saved. I need to know from you what you know about real estate?
Many, many letters proclaiming love:
I am also single and open to explore opportunities that correspond with my comfort zone.
One thing is for sure. I am a man who is not afraid or feel intimidated by a woman of prestigious influence.
I am seeking after being incarcerated for three decades a special friend (smile). “Someone Adventurous.”
Oh, my.
One letter includes a photograph of the author with his adult niece, her smile so big that I find myself smiling back.
Some writers introduce themselves and say something along the lines of Jennifer, please feel free to respond to me. One even anticipates any fear I might have in receiving a letter from an inmate I have never met. Essentially, so that you know, it reads, under no circumstances will I put you in jeopardy.
That is certainly a relief.
I look over the envelopes for quite some time. I am struck by the sadness underlying each letter, the apparent isolation that has propelled these men to reach out to someone they do not know. It makes me uncomfortable that their isolation feels familiar. It makes me uncomfortable that these men are possibly writing to me with such familiarity because they consider our predicaments to be similar. It makes me uncomfortable that they are probably right.
Criminal That I Am Page 24