November 30, 2004
I’ve always loved traveling by train. And isn’t it a damn shame that no American leader of the past 30 years had the courage or the vision to campaign for a United States crisscrossed by bullet trains by the dawn of the 21st century? It’s ridiculous that it took me 9 hours to make it from Salinas to LA yesterday, when the equivalent trip in France would have come in under less than 3 hours. Americans would be a lot more likely to abandon (or not buy) their SUV’s in the first place if they were offered a competitive alternative. Of course, if there was ever a President who believed "What’s good for General Motors (read Halliburton) is good for America" we’ve got him.
It was interesting to read on the way down in a magazine that I was among a whole lot of Blue Staters who were yakking about moving to Canada or Europe. I thought I was being original. I was just being melodramatic. And not too realistic. It seems you need more that just to speak French to move to Montreal. And with the weak-ass dollar I can hardly stretch out my disability income, there or in France. So, go, Euro, go! And stay Marc stay!
Well, in any event I don’t think I’ll stay on disability long when I get to Albuquerque. Work is really important, whatever the work, for the routine and sense of purpose it establishes. It’s hard to have limitless choices every day as far as what you can do, it’s why a lot of people have to take structured, themed vacations. It’s also why, when they get out of jail. a lot of people go back to whatever they were doing that got them into jail in the first place. Dealing drugs, for example, may be dealing drugs, but it is work. And apart from the money, it does give you a sense of purpose, of at least what you have to do that day. Obtain, weigh, deliver, deposit and do it all over again. And again.
It’s terribly true that human beings are largely drawn to the familiar, even when it’s painful. It explains a lot of bad relationships, attachments to destructive situations, and resistance to constructive change. The good news is that it doesn’t take too long to establish a familiar routine, but damn it’s easier when imposed from without. This is why so many men end up going back to prison. Not because they like it, but because they returned to the familiar (doing crime) rather than soldier on through the discomfort of shaping the unfamiliar into the newly familiar by building a new life.
I had only been at Andrea’s for 8 days, but after 4 days at my brother’s, was jonesing to come back to the relative familiarity of her big fluffy bed (which sounds like she’s in it—she’s not—shame on you) and to her computer. I am SO lucky to have friends like her. And so lucky to have other friends who are staying in touch, calling me, wanting to get together.
I was haunted on the ride down by the days spent with my brother. Even though I don’t think he’ll be reading the blog anymore, and most of you don’t know him and will never meet him, he is my brother and I simply can’t write about him as if he was another character in prison. Suffice to say, he evokes no less despair in me than many of the men I met there.
I did have an eerie moment on the train about prison. As we approached San Luis Opisbo, I recognized a sprawling complex at CMC-West. This was the facility I had most hoped to be shipped to, the prison with one of the best reputations in the system, probably because of the temperate climate as much as anything. I had actually managed to conjure up bungalows in my mind, instead of early ugly Projects-like mental-hospital-with-guard-towers buildings that we snaked past on the train.
I was sent to Chino instead of CMC, but my buddy Dick Brewer went there. I had sent out Dick’s story to a friend who never forwarded it to my sister, so I will repeat it now.
Dick was 55, an ex-Arkansan FOB, a funny, avuncular diabetic who was my bunkie in Birch Hall in Chino, the protective custody dorm. (Dick was there because he was over 40 and also refused to engage in any of the racial politics required in the "regular" housing.). I used to massage his feet and he used to bring me back food from the kitchen where he worked. He was one of the most popular men in the dorm.
Prior to incarceration, Dick was a pillar of his Rancho Bernardo community (ironically I first worked in R.B. when I lived San Diego, and my boss and Dick played golf a few times). Dick had a beautiful wife of 30 plus years, and several strapping sons that played in a local softball team—along with several off-duty firemen and cops.
One otherwise harmless Saturday afternoon game, when the beer was flowing (although Dick himself didn’t drink) there was a disputed call. Tempers flared, as things tend to do easily at these booze-fueled sporting events. Dick described a situation in which someone attacked one of his sons, and Dick protectively waded forth, baseball bat in hand. One of the opposing aggressors, according to Dick, was descending from the bleachers, and a gun flashed. Dick, alarmed, swang the bat at the man, aiming for his upper left arm. At that very moment, the man stepped off the last step of the bleacher, the highest step, and Dick’s bat went not against the man’s shoulder, but hit his head.
Dick put an off-duty cop into a coma.
Horrified at what he’d done, Dick fled to Phoenix with his wife, where they had a condo. He kept checking on the status of the man, and when he emerged from the coma out of danger, Dick returned and arranged to turn himself in.
If his victim had not been a peace officer, Dick would probably have gotten probation. Instead he got 8 years at 80%, I think. I know he had 5 years to go when he left me at Birch, "happy" to "land" the relatively "cushy" CMC.
I waved at him from the train, quite uselessly of course, thinking how easily it can all turn, for all of us, in a second. In a second.
MCO 2004
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