ANNE:

Dear Vince:

I am looking through old photos of you—having a water fight with your auntie in grandma’s backyard, at the lake, at your Montessori preschool, you and your little friends in that subsidized housing project we living in that had a million kids your age, me spinning you on one of those twirling rides at a playground, birthday parties with my terrible lumpy cakes (but I did try!), a seder at the Levine’s, religious school (and you are smiling!), camping, birthday pinatas, your Big Brother, weddings, playing in the snow, doing your homework, you doing your volunteer dog walking at the humane society, at Paul Bunyan Land feeding a tame deer, another birthday cake decorated like a baseball (by me, the least sporty person I know!), Halloween costumes, you feeding your new cousin a bottle, our trips to Chicago and New York and Seattle, pet cats, Disney World, posing with your uncle for Boy Scouts, your aunt dressed in a gorilla suit for your 15^th birthday surprise party.

And then the photos stop, until you came back from Hazelden and Florida when you were … 21?

You would think I would just stop caring by now, or as grandma says, “Just don’t think about it.” She’s always said that, about anything unpleasant, not necessarily about you. I wish I could.

I think I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t ask myself, “What was I missing in all those photos?” He looks healthy. He’s smiling in a lot of them. Should I have seen some signs—gotten him to a shrink? Should I have been more strict? Less strict? Was it because we were broke for so long and lived on ramen and went to foodshelves? Was it because I was depressed for so many years—would a child take that as neglect and think it was is fault? Was it the whole awful chapter with [abusive alcoholic but filthy rich ex boyfriend I’ll call Kermit]? I take complete responsibility, being desperate to get married and have more kids, at the expense of exposing you to domestic abuse and all sorts of inappropriate shit? Was it how I stupidly told you about the brother you didn’t know you had, thinking it would cheer you up, which backfired? God, what an idiot I was!

Maybe I should have never told you how I smoked pot and drank in high school, trying to warn you against them. Again, my parenting backfired, when later you told me you took that as a sign that you could drink and smoke, since I had turned out ok. (Ha!)

I know you’ve said you were “over” not having a father but maybe you really aren’t? I think you tell me what you think I want to hear.

Or is your addiction mostly genetics? Me passing down my alcoholic/addict father’s genes to you, loaded with your father’s alcoholic/addict genes?

Do you really have Bipolar Disorder, as Hazelden diagnosed you? Are the drugs and booze medication?

I can hear you saying, “Oh, mom.” You’ve rarely talked to me about any of this, so I don’t know if you’ve ever given it a thought or if you even think you have a problem.

I hope it is not too awful there. I hope you’ll take advantage of whatever resources they offer. I hope you know that I love you, no matter what—always will, always have. You have dug your way out of some very deep pits and you’ll do it again. You probably don’t feel young anymore but from my perspective you are so you’ve got time to rebuild.

I Love you,

Mom

VINCE:

I talked to an investigator for the Olmsted County Public Defenders Office last week.  Now that I have been sentenced, Katie and I are no longer banned from communicating with each other.  Part of my plan. This also means that I am allowed to testify on her behalf during her trial.  D.A. didn’t see me coming!  I plead down to 2nd degree possession, which means technically that I’m not a drug dealer,.  Since she is charged with the same crimes as me, and double jeapardy can’t apply to me, I can finally take the rap for all of the dope.  Something I probably should have done back in December, but, we don’t talk to cops.  If they want to put people away, make ’em work for it.

COPS, technically an acronym, Constable on Patrol.  I don’t know if cop has become an actual word in the English language yet.

—

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!

“Katie ____, open up!  R.P.D!”

Katie and I stare at each other with blank expressions.  She’s not ready.  But there’s little choice.  She has a D.O.C. warrant.  She has to go if I stand a change.  We say our good-byes.  She opens the door and shuts it behind her.  Two minutes later, more knocking.

Pissed off, I open the door.  I say, “What?”

“Can you step outside and talk with me, please?” says the officer.  I should have said no.  I don’t know why I did a lot of things the way I did that night.  But I stepped out.  Big mistake.  With my back turned, Katie asks if she can go in the room and get her purse.  A cop says, “yeah.”  Flashlight searching high and low for the purse on the bed, a cop spots a tiny bag of weed on the floor I had dropped earlier.  Fuck!  The other cop comes out and asks for my consent to search the room.  And for whatever reason I will never know, I say, “Go ahead and search.”  Ugh.

For fuck sake, who ever would look up in a light fixture when looking for dope?  Everybody.  Especially the cops.  Out in the lobby I am casually chatting with officer Lou, who had pulled me over the week before for speeding and let me go, and the officers come out and say, “Who want to go to jail?”  I raise my hand.  The cuffs go on.  Booked in for 1st degree sale of methamphetamine.  [Editor’s…er, mom’s note: actually it was 4 felony charges for possession of meth, heroin, marijuana, and cocaine.]

Only murder is higher up in our state as far as sentencing.  That’s right.  Selling more than 10 grams of meth within 90 days in the State of Minnesota is punishable by up to 30 years in prison.  Most first-time sex offenders are given probation.  Granted, 30 years is for the most extreme meth cases, but all 1st degree controlled substance crimes carry mandatory minimum sentences. Fuck my life.

VINCE:

August 3, 2014, 8:40 p.m.

My roommate has aspirations to become a M.M.A. fighter.  Would you like to know how I can tell?  Well.  Yesterday after a short flag, he came back in the cell and yelled, “You call that a workout?!” and promptly punched the wall.  Then the poor towel.

He’s an angry man.  Every time he hears someone breathing heavily on the weights that are just below us on the bottom tier, he rushes the 6 feet over to the bars to see what’s going on.  Always shirtless, he picks them apart.  Much like I’m doing right now, to avoid talking about my problems.  Yep, he’s a fuckin’ douche bag.

[A “Flag” is prison-speak for time outside the cell–to make phone calls, shower, or talk to a guard about some official business–usually 10-15 minutes.]

9:30 p.m.

Another weekend of boredom done.  With minimal staff, we have no work, no school, recreation, or activities.  Plenty of church available, though!  So I spend my weekends reading.  I have read quite a lot since I arrived in St. Cloud.  I have not gone much further than Tim Dorsey and Dean Koontz, but that is much broader a selection for me than before I got to prison.  I am almost to an average of a book a day at an average of 300 pages.  I think that’s pretty damn good.

VINCE:

December 19, 2013, sometime just before midnight

As evidenced by the fact that Katie had called for a ride from a boyfriend, I came to the conclusion that she still had no desire to sleep with me.  What I didn’t know, was how her ride would change everything in our lives forever.

December 20, 2013, just after midnight

Katie says her ride is outside the hotel.  We say good-bye.  Thirty seconds later, pounding on my door.  She’s back.  The car and occupants that came to pick her up are surrounded by police, she tells me.  I turn on the police scanner I have downloaded on my phone.  First thing I hear is, “…at the Super 8 South.”  Shit, that was here.  I knew I had all the shite hidden from view but that was all I remember thinking about.

Katie gets a call.  It’s her ride. He says he’s been pulled over.  What we don’t know is that he had told the officers that Katie had a D.O.C. warrant, was in Room 141, and she had meth.

Five minutes pass.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!

VINCE:

December 2013

I had just come into contact with an old acquaintance I’ll call Katie after several years of no communication.  We used to get high together back when she was still in high school.  That and the fact that her father is/was a priest always made me smile.

Although we were never romantically involved, I spent time with her, teaching her the proper ways of my little-known side job.  There used to be only two ways to do things.  The right way, or the way that could get you killed by Mexicans or bikers.  I taught her the right way.  Little did I know that would all come into play 8 years later.

Katie had recently cut off her ankle bracelet and become a fugitive.  My kind of girl.  We hooked up on Facebook and started talking on the phone.  I wasn’t interested in hiring at the time so I kept my business hidden, but she was fun to get high with.

I was bouncing around from hotel to hotel because I could afford to, and because it wasn’t safe to stay in one place more than 2 nights.

[ANNE: I did the math and reckoned Katie was around 10 years younger than Vince. No saint, but I hoped I’d never run into her parents. Not for the first time, I counted myself lucky to not have a daughter, because she probably would have turned out like Katie, with all the additional perils that came with being a young woman.]

VINCE:

Day 1. Nearly 13 days after my pronounced sentence of 50 months is handed down to me, I am finally chained up, put into an Olmsted County Sherriff’s van, and driven through Shakopee to St. Cloud.  About a 4-hour trip (stopped to drop of female prisoners at Shakopee Correctional Facility).

I’ll skip the intake procedure.  But it is nowhere near as invasive as I thought it would be.

An hour after my arrival I’m in my new home.  A 6×10 foot combo of cold steel and concrete.  I unpack my pillow case which holds everything I need to survive, kind of.

3 pair state-issued stretch pants that resemble blue jeans

6 pair tighty whities

6 pair socks

5 white Ts

3 blue button-up long-sleeve shirts

3 white towels

1 wash cloth

Sheet and blanket

And the following Bob Barker products:

Maximum Security Brand 3-in-1 shampoo, shave, and body wash

My advice: don’t use it for anything I just mentioned.  I can’t believe it doesn’t say, “Made with real pine!”

Deodorant, a size so small I’ve never even seen in it a Dollar Store.  No scent.

A 4.4 ounce tube of something labled Mint Paste.  I’ll assume it’s for teeth because it’s next to the Safety Brush, which is 4 inches long and flexible so you can’t sharpen it and stab somebody, or brush your teeth.  A 3 inch flexible pen.  Take your standard Bic pen.  Throw away everything except the very middle, then cut that in half.  Here we pick paint off the walls and wrap it around that until it becomes useful for writing.

All set up now.  My first move, grab the 3-in-1 and a razor (forgot that) and go to town on my month-old beard.

Half an hour later, my wash cloth is covered in blood and hair.  And I’m not done.  I’ve left a patch of hair on my chin because that’s what all the kids are doing these days.  That’s when it hits me.  I look in the safety mirror and for the first time in my life, I see age.  And I realize how much time I’ve wasted.  I’m not a kid anymore.  I’m a beat up, 35-year-old con, washed up unsuccessful drug dealer and addict.  And I cry.  Fuck my life.

The last time I cried was about 7 months ago.  It happened about a week and a half after I was arrested.  I had slept off the drugs, something struck me funny and I laughed out loud.  And I wondered if I could remember the last time I had done that.  Then everything came flooding out.

ANNE:

When I found out Vince would be going to prison, I thought the obvious way to avoid the dreaded collect calls would be to move to another country.

The calls go like this: An unknown number shows up on my phone. When I answer, a cheery computerized female voice begins, “You have a collect call from…” then my son’s voice would interject his name, “Vince.” Then a different, condemning, shaming voice would say, “…an inmate in the Ramsey County Adult Detention Center,” or “Woodbury Workhouse,” or “Crow Wing County Jail,” or wherever he was.

OK, you might not hear the shaming tone but I do.

The cheerful voice returns and informs me that I will be charged $9.99 for 10 minutes, that the call will be monitored, and that this “service” is provided by Prison Corporation of America. As if it was some patriotic public service, not a scam to rake in billions from a (literally) captive audience and their desperate loved ones. “To accept this call, press 1. To refuse this call, press 2. To permanently block calls from this number, press 3.”

Vince hadn’t been incarcerated for over 10 years, he had reminded me a few months before. While in his late teens and early 20s, he had been locked up multiple times so that’s how I knew what to expect with the phone calls. But the earlier experiences had been short stints for minor offenses, and had come from jails. Now he was looking at up to 11 years in a prison. A prison. That sounded so much worse than a “jail.” My expectations had been steadily going downhill for years, but this was different, big.

He hadn’t been incarcerated for 10 years, but he had hit the skids every couple of years. The last time, about two years earlier, he had lost his job and, since he lived so close to the edge of subsistence, quickly lost his apartment and all his possessions—right down to his underwear and toothbrush.

Fortunately, I had been 9,000 miles away, working for a human rights organization in Nairobi, Kenya. I was concerned about him, but there was nothing I could do—and being surrounded by people who were risking their lives by confronting corrupt police, or organizing LGBT activists, or just trying to avoid being kidnapped by El Shabab on their way home from work, put things in perspective.

So this time, I immediately applied for a job in Turkey with an organization based in Los Angeles. I figured if I played my cards right I could work in Turkey for four years, travel all over Europe and Asia from there and send Vince a lot of cool postcards, then return to work in L.A. I had it all figured out.

So when I got back to my desk after a meeting and saw I had a call from an L.A. number, I thought “Hurrah!” it was them calling for an interview. For a moment I thought things would actually pan out as I had planned. I was floating toward the emergency exit.

But instead it was “You have a collect call from…”