Tag Archives: boundaries

Long Ago in a Land of Spandex

Greetings from St. Louis. One more day of the road trip, and one more guest post from Vince.

It’s Friday again, my favorite day of the week. I like my job, but I like weekends more, and at this very moment it’s the longest possible time before more work. This will be the seventh post now on the topic of my career. Or careers. Or lack thereof, uh, yeah. I have no career; I have held many jobs over the years.

At this moment, I’m taking a break from packing my few belongings for the big move. I finally threw away all of my stuff from prison and boot camp. I was never going to use any of it, so I’m happy to toss it out. Alright then, on with it.

After leaving Rochester and finding temporary shelter with a friend of a friend in Fountain, Minnesota, I was given a job as a line cook at Pedal Pusher’s Café in nearby Lanesboro. The owners were a couple with three kids and they all lived upstairs of the restaurant. Looking back, it really sucks to see how things went down. They were kind, generous people who went out of their way to help me when I was down. They even let me sleep in their camper for a while after things went sour in Fountain, and while I waited to find an apartment of my own which they also loaned me the money for.

Lanesboro is a bustling little city full of B&B’s, bike trails, trout fishing, tourists, and spandex, It has a few restaurants too, and they were very busy in the summer. I hadn’t been on a line in some years when I started there, but I picked things back up pretty quickly. Time flew by, I worked hard, and started drinking hard. I also met a new friend that would play a major role in my life for many years to come: gambling.

In the form of pull tabs, I whittled away my pay checks one dollar at a time for months. Eventually, I started taking advances on my pay checks, and very shortly after I started doing that, I started taking advances without their knowledge. This may come as a shock to some people with whom I have not been entirely honest over the years, but I’m letting it all out now. I felt like a lowlife piece of shit, but unfortunately, I just did not care. It didn’t take them long to catch on to me and I was eventually fired for stealing.

Unable to get unemployment benefits, I became withdrawn and moved in with an unenthusiastic friend and his soon to be wife. I sat in that room for a month, maybe two. I wore the same clothes, I ate ramen out of the package, and I cried every day. I was too proud to ask for help. I couldn’t take care of myself, I couldn’t find a job (because I absolutely was not looking), and I was about as close to having a suicidal urge as I’ve ever come. Auspiciously, a very good friend of mine got me out of that trance and back into Fountain where I held a few more jobs.

About two weeks ago, I sent a letter to the owners of Pedal Pusher’s. I told them a lot of what has been going on with me, but more importantly, what was going on with me back then. I asked them to give me a chance to repair the damage I have created, and I included a small token of my sincerity in the form of money. I haven’t heard back from them and I don’t know that I ever will. But I have done my part. At the very least, I have tried to open an avenue of communication with them so that I may fix what has been broken for so long. It was the first of many letters to many people, and with each one, I hope to feel a little more human again.

Time to Make a Move

Leave a reply

Greetings from Oxford, Mississippi! This is a post written by Vince about his move. It will be bittersweet to come home to an empty house.

Time to Make a Move

Just shy of seven months as a free man, I am happy to report that, as a 37-year-old, I am moving out of my mother’s home. Again. Maybe for the fourth time in my life, and hopefully for the last.

I alluded to this in my last post but not before because I didn’t want to get overexcited about it until it was actually approved by my agents. Now it is official, and I can proudly relate this information to you: I AM MOVING! Just two short days from now.

I have written about this move before, but as a failed attempt at leaving the nest possibly too early. I’m moving into a house with two sober guys from the program, one of which I was in prison with, and I’ve worked with for some time. He no longer works with me, but we remain friends. I don’t know the other guy, but he’s sober, and that counts for a lot.

I’ve been to see the house once. It’s small as you can see in the picture, but I’ll have my own room, so it isn’t like a sober house environment. There isn’t a house manager that watches over us, or anybody to give us random shakedowns and breathalyzers. I have my agents for that. This is a step forward.

It couldn’t come at a better time, in my opinion, as I will be moving on to the next phase of Intensive Supervised Release program soon after. That will open up a lot more time that I can spend doing things I want to do like go to more meetings, and spending more time with my family. I am also finishing the last three hours of my community service this week.

It’s all lining up. Everything is going well in so many ways. So I need to be really careful. For somebody like me, good news can be all I need to trick myself into thinking I deserve a reward. Maybe I can go out and celebrate with just one drink, or just a little crack (“A little” crack doesn’t actually exist. It’s an all or nothing drug. For more information, go here). I mean, at this point I’ve built myself a pretty good network of people that I can reach out to if the urge hits me, but it’s always good to layer on the protection.

This disease of mine can also be described as an allergy. When I drink or do drugs, things just go haywire. My body responds differently to them than normal people. Also, my allergy in particular is a little more severe than say, a gluten allergy. Oh, also I don’t believe that’s a real allergy, but I’m not a Doctor. Anyhow, let’s say that somebody with a gluten allergy accidentally ingests some flour. Well, maybe an hour or so later, they fart a little and that causes some slight discomfort or embarrassment. Well, when I ingest a little alcohol, or maybe some meth, my world flips upside down. I can no longer take care of myself financially, mentally, or physically. And this allergy affects others, too. For example, if I smoke crack, you may no longer have a television, and some of your smaller valuables may go missing as well.

Simply put, chemicals make me not give a fuck about you or me. And I’d really like to avoid all of that so that’s why I’ve immersed myself in this program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I’m not worried about relapsing because of my new place and my new freedoms, I’m excited to see what I can do with them. And I’m really happy to be able to share this with you people. For you that are new to this blog, I encourage you to see where it all started almost two years ago with just five pieces of writing paper and a 3” flexible safety pen behind the unforgiving bars at St. Cloud Men’s Reformatory/State Prison.

Telling It

Leave a reply

It’s always difficult to transition back to current life after writing a series like the last one about camping in Wales and Mini extravaganza.

I love traveling, and then I love coming home—so I can start planning the next trip. When you read this, I will be in Chicago on my way to New Orleans from Minneapolis/St. Paul. Live blogging a road trip sounds good, but I really just want to be there, in the moment. My friends are coming all the way from Scotland, Oxford, and Wisconsin—I think it would be rude and weird to say, “Sorry guys, I’ve got to rush back to the hotel to write a blog post.”

But it’ll be fun to write about afterwards; travel writing is a way to enjoy the trip again.

—

A few updates, and back to the other theme of Breaking Free, my road trip with my son through the worlds of mass incarceration, addiction, and redemption.

I saw a notice for a lecture at the U of MN by Dr. Christopher Uggen, Martindale Chair and Distinguished McKnight Professor of Sociology and Law. It quoted him, “We think of probation as a humane alternative to incarceration. It’s not.” This is a concept I can’t emphasize often enough—just because you’re out of prison now, doesn’t mean you’re “over it.”

So I was a little concerned about Vince talking with Jewish Community Action, a local group advocating for prison reforms. I had shared the blog with them, and they invited Vince and me to meet with them, which we did a few days ago. It happened to be in the same building as Vince’s probation agents. Would he be “triggered” by rehashing his story? He still seemed uncomfortable in social situations sometimes.

We met with a young woman named Angela, who listened intently, asked questions, and filled us in on their plans. She talked about the changes they want made to sentencing, and Vince had some insights she hadn’t been aware of. I can’t explain what he said, but the depth of knowledge you gain about these things by actually being inside is like a mini master’s degree program.

She talked about how they are trying to block the privatization of the prison in Appleton, Minnesota, which has been closed for years. It wasn’t true, she said, that it would create a lot of jobs, or that conditions are better in private prisons.

“Word is,” Vince said, “among the prison population, that conditions are much better in the private prisons. Better food, better paying work, more activities.”

This took her, and me, by surprise. “I wonder if there’s a marketing campaign to spread that idea,” I suggested. “After my experience with paying for phone time and email, I know those companies are good at promoting themselves.” But how could anyone get access to the population inside? I was Vince’s mom, and it had been maddeningly hard for me to communicate with him.

Vince talked about prison drugs (common) and rape (uncommon), MyPillow and Bob Barker products, not being able to vote, and his terms of probation. It was very relaxed, and I give a lot of credit to Angela—turns out she was a former social worker.

Vince had told us he had to be home at 6:30. Suddenly Angela said, “I just remembered that clock is slow …” It was 6:21. Vince jumped up, ran down the hall and waved at his agent, then bolted out the door.

Later, at home, he said, “I could have talked for hours.” I was so proud of him. He’s doing so well.

—

He’s doing so well, in fact, that he announced he may move out soon. Another ex offender lives in a three-bedroom house that has an opening. The landlord is accepting of ex offenders.

I felt sad. I know it’s normal for a 37-year-old man to want to live on his own, and I fully support that. It was really rocky in the beginning when he came to live here. We had been separated by miles and drugs and prison for so many years. Now we get along fine. I enjoy having him around. He could do more cleaning, but no one’s perfect.

Two Birds in Paradise

Leave a reply

This is the fourth post in a series on studying Spanish in Mexico that starts here.

My host mother and I had been tossed around in the back of the mini bus for 20 minutes when she jumped up and exclaimed what I could only guess meant, “We’re here!”

The combi slowed to a roll but didn’t actually stop as we stepped off in front of an office.

Mirta led me to the locked gate to the right—the one with graffiti scrawled on it, handed me a key, and showed me how to use it.

Now that we were here—now that I had made it from the airport to the hotel, taken a bus to Cuernavaca, seen the school, and successfully managed to keep up with Mirta, my tension drained away and I suddenly “got” a word: llave—key.

I felt joy. I could do this! I could get around in a foreign country, meet exciting new people, and learn a foreign language! I only had to memorize about 10,000 more words and learn how to conjugate 500 verbs.

—

If you live in Los Angeles or Miami, Mirta’s house would be unremarkable. It was a walled compound with a main house, another smaller house, and a garden with a pool.

Mirta walked me into the kitchen of the main house, wagging her finger to indicate that the rest of the place was off limits. Darn, I wouldn’t be able to relax on that plastic-covered couch under the oil painting of The Last Supper I caught a glimpse of from the kitchen.

She also made clear that the fridge was off limits. She demonstrated how to use the five-gallon water bottle which was to be my only source of water. She laid down the times for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was amazing how much she could communicate with charades-like gestures.

A young woman entered with a toddler. I assumed this was Mirta’s daughter and grandson until she picked up a mop and started swabbing the floor. From what I could gather, her name was Ella.

I followed Mirta like a duckling to the smaller house where I would spend the week. Everything was covered in green tile except the ceiling. It would have felt like an asylum except that the window looked out on the garden full of Birds of Paradise. Those are run-of-the-mill in Mexico—like daisies in Minnesota—but to me they were spectacular and I would later amuse Mirta by taking endless photos of them.

Mirta pointed to the bare bulb in the middle of the sitting room ceiling and made clear that I was not to waste electricity. She oriented me to the bathroom, showing me eight fingers to indicate how many minutes of hot water were available to shower each day. There was a drain in the floor with a plate over it and a brick on top of the plate. Do not remove, I was warned, with some scary faces. In Minnesota, we get rats coming up from the river through the sewers into people’s basement toilets. I wondered if that was the foe here, or something else?

Mirta opened the bedroom door to reveal two twin beds. A young woman was hunched over on one of them, holding a blow dryer and looking dejected.

“Hi, I’m Zoe,” she said, in a North American accent. I had known I would share my quarters with another student, and this was her. Mirta showcased the one-drawer night stand next to my bed, then exited with a reminder about meal times.

“My blow dryer won’t work!” Zoe exclaimed. She started to whimper quietly. “I forgot to bring an adapter. Do you have one?”

When I said no she wondered out loud, “I wonder if Mirta has a blow dryer she would let me use?” I thought that was highly unlikely, given we weren’t allowed beyond the kitchen or even to open the refrigerator. Zoe really started to cry. “And I can’t call my parents! My cell doesn’t work and Mirta won’t let me make a long-distance call on her phone!”

I was afraid Zoe was destined to be an example of a Yerkes-Dodson Law fail.

The Fox and the Hen House

Leave a reply

This is the second in a series of posts about a road trip to South Dakota that starts here.

When you think about it, South Dakota makes sense. It’s a very rural state where people have a hard time getting to an ER or clinic. Therefore the largest provider of telemedicine in the world is in South Dakota. We’ll also visit a guy who is the CEO of the country’s largest ethanol producer, and his wife, who have an interest in east Africa.

Then we’ll visit the Helmsley Trust, which is named for the late Leona Helmsley. One of Leona Helmsley’s grandsons lives in South Dakota, and I imagine that’s why the trust is in Sioux Falls. Leona, originally named Lena Rosenthal, was the daughter of Polish Jewish immigrants and became a hotel tycoon in New York City. Sadly she spent time in prison for income tax evasion and was controversial for being demanding. I’m sure she was demanding. You don’t get to be a billionaire by being meek. But when Donald Trump is demanding, no one thinks twice about it.

Leona Helmsley left $12 million to her dog in her will, and the Helmsley Trust, which has around $5.4 billion in assets, was originally mandated to only benefit dogs.

—

By the time you read this I’ll be back from this exciting trip and will let you know how it went. I don’t expect anyone to write us a big check. Fund raising—or development as it’s called in the US, is a long-term process of relationship building.

—

Here are a few prison-related updates.

Close to home, Vince got the final word on his punishment for not answering the phone when a probation agent called. He’ll be on lockdown for a total of a month and have an extra month added to his probation. I told a friend about it; she works for the St. Paul City Council and was an admin at the St. Paul Police Department before that so she is no stranger to bureaucracies and the sometimes difficult people who work in them.

“I always figure the guy had a fight with his wife,” was her assessment. “If he hadn’t, or if Vince had a different agent that day,” Vince’d still be on track to finish his probation on time.”

“Are they trying to goad him into doing something that’ll send him back to prison?” I wondered. “He also got two parking tickets that day—one was for parking more than 12 inches from the curb. Do you think they could be in cahoots with the police?”

“No,” she laughed. “They’re not that organized. It’s just random.”

—

On the prison reform front, the New York Times ran an editorial, “Holding Sentence Reform Hostage.” The pending legislation would “reduce absurdly long mandatory minimum sentences for many nonviolent drug crimes, give judges more control over the terms of punishment and provide inmates with more opportunities to get out early by participating in rehabilitation programs.”

Some Republicans are scaremongering, Willy Horton style. At least that sort of makes sense.

But some Republicans say they won’t approve the bill unless it includes a change in federal law that would make corporations and their executives harder to prosecute for environmental or financial crimes. This has nothing to do with prison reform but is a standard tactic used by politicians to get what they want without having to work hard for it. I know, it’s hard to believe they could be much lazier.

In my opinion, this is evil. I don’t like to call people evil, I really don’t. But making it easier for companies like BP or Goldman Sachs to get off the hook?

In related but also absurd-news category, there’s this item: Former Tyco CEO, Who Served Time in Prison, Appointed Chair of Prisoner-Assistance Nonprofit.

Dennis Kozlowski, who did six years for stealing millions of dollars from his own company, is now in charge of the Fortune Society, a nonprofit that helps former prisoners find jobs, housing, health care, and education. What a great idea: putting an old, white, rich man–a former thief–in charge of a nonprofit with $10.8 million in assets. How nice for him. What could possibly go wrong?

Housespotting

Leave a reply

Today is my last day housesitting for my friend. It’s been two glorious weeks of having a place to myself. It isn’t that Vince is a terrible roommate. The timing has worked out well, because Vince has been on lockdown for the whole time, meaning he cannot leave the house except for work and a couple AA meetings. I hope he has enjoyed having the place to himself; I think I get on his nerves.

My friend is a psychotherapist and her husband is a retired computer-something from the university. So they’re middle class but combined they can afford this four-bedroom house in the most sought-after neighborhood of St. Paul, St. Anthony Park. The house has at least twice as much space as my condo, and it’s got 25 windows vs. eight in my place, so it’s flooded with light. That means a lot during a Minnesota winter. I could never, ever afford to buy a house like it on my own, so I’m enjoying it while I can.

St. Anthony Park is near the university’s very large St. Paul campus, which is focused on agriculture, so there are lots of open fields—probably sown with GMO crops—but they look pretty even in the winter. And there’s a great collection of mid-Century modern homes nearby, so I’ve been enjoying walks among them.

Another reason I’m enjoying this stint in St. Anthony is that I just like change, in general. I like having to travel a different route to the gym, cooking in a new kitchen, perusing other people’s bookshelves, and even just figuring out how to use unfamiliar appliances.

My commute to work from the condo isn’t long—15-20 minutes—but this house is only 5 minutes away, so I’ve been a happy commuter for two weeks.

Those are the obvious reasons I am enjoying my house sitting gig, but most of all, I like being alone. And I feel like I have to justify that somehow, because our society frowns on that.

Think about it: The police catch a serial killer. The TV news interviews his next door neighbor. What does she always say? “He kept to himself.” As if that explains why he murdered people.

I happened to catch a TV show about eccentric people in Minnesota. They were interviewing the sister of Francis Johnson maker of the world’s largest twine ball. When asked what she though motivated her brother to undertake such an endeavor, her answer was, “Well you know, he never did marry.”

Loner, recluse, hermit. I am struggling to come up with a list of similar negative words for extreme extroverts.

—

I just realized that this post will go up on Valentine’s Day. Happy Valentine’s Day to you all! I don’t have a valentine this year, but I never rule out the possibility that I could bump into Mr. Right at the grocery or happy hour or on a plane. It’s been 56 years and it hasn’t happened yet. I would be happy if that happened, but will also be content if it doesn’t.

—

I just sent a valentine to U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, urging him to pass the prison reform bill currently under consideration in Congress. It was easy–please do the same if you are a US citizen. Just watch this video valentine from Alicia Keys, then submit the form that follows it.

Two Lists

2 Replies

The New Orleans trip is beginning to take shape. My English friend Lynn will fly over to St. Paul from Aberdeen, Scotland, where she lives. We’ll hit the road and wend our way south, taking about three days to reach New Orleans. I booked a suite in a B&B. Our friend Christine, an Australian who lives in Oxford but spends much of her time working in Africa or Asia, will fly over to join us, as will my cousin Molly, who turns 50 that week.

So it’ll be four of us all together for French Quarter Festival, then Lynn and I will drive a different route back. My friend Ferruh also lives there with his wife. They’re Turkish. He’s a drummer who used to play in a belly-dancing troupe, then moved to Denmark and then the US, all the while working on his PhD. Now he teaches at Tulane. He’s a great guy and I hope we can all have dinner together.

I alternate between worrying: “What if the car breaks down in rural Tennessee?” and feeling excited about the music, the heat, riding in a swamp boat and feeding marshmallows to alligators, touring a creole plantation and one of New Orleans’ fantastic cemeteries, maybe getting in on a second line, which I was lucky enough to do last time I was there.

My mom’s husband, Jim, is from St. Louis, so I sat down with him and pored over an atlas. He is 86 now and done with road trips, but they took some great ones and they love to talk about them. It must be hard to know that you’ll never drive to St. Louie again, or fly to Phoenix to escape the winter cold.

Jim had drawn up a list of things to do and see in St. Louis and Memphis:

I find these scraps of the folks’ handwriting endearing.

Jim told me about the great Italian neighborhood I had to visit in St. Louis. “We called it Dago Hill when I was a kid,” he said a little sheepishly. “But now it’s just called The Hill.”

—

I also want to write a bit of an update on Vince and how well he is doing despite the challenges he still faces.

When he was put on indefinite lockdown he was phlegmatic about it. “They’re trying to get me to react,” was his take on it. “And I’m not going to. This too shall pass.”

I know it’s called Alcoholics Anonymous, but it’s no secret that Vince is in the program and I think it’s okay to say that he’s really working it—he found a sponsor, who is like a mentor, and they are working on the 12 steps together.

He’s taking care of his health. He hasn’t taken up smoking since being on the outside. Besides just being bad for you in every way except for being an instant stress reliever, smoking is hugely linked to drinking and drugs and can trigger a relapse.

My sister gave him a used Bowflex machine. It’s in our basement, which could win an award for grossest, creepiest basement ever. But he goes down there and uses it. I told him he should feel free to clean the basement up and make it his man cave.

He’s eating decent food. It would be easy for him to buy lunch at the Arby’s that a few blocks from his work, but instead he packs a lunch every day. He even bought lettuce and whole grain bread! We’re talking about bacon sandwiches, just to assure you he hasn’t completely gone around the bend and become a gluten-free, chewy crunchy vegan.

Vince was beginning to meet people and make friends when he was granted more time out of the house. That’s off the table now due to the indefinite lockdown. Thanks to social media, he can still be in touch with the outside world.

Most gratifying of all is Vince’s gratitude—for those who send words of encouragement, read his blog, and in particular to the anonymous person who gave him a new laptop so he no longer has to type his posts with two fingers on his phone.

When Worlds Collide

Leave a reply

I’ve been writing a series of posts about traveling in Cuba that starts here. I am pausing that for a day to write about an unsettling experience where my worlds collided.

I volunteer with the Minnesota International NGO Network, or MINN. MINN is composed of Minnesota companies and nonprofits that work overseas, like my employer, the Center for Victims of Torture (CVT).

Last year MINN launched a class called MINNspire, which helps 50-somethings to explore doing something abroad. This could be anything from volunteering with Peace Corps, to teaching English as a second language, to consulting on communications, as I have done. MINN isn’t there to find them placements; we’re there to guide them through the thought process. I led one of the four sessions last year and will do the same this year—I think.

I was excited that we had 18 people registered—about twice the number as last year. It’s kind of a big commitment to come to something after work, in the dark, during the winter.

I walked in and said hi to my friend Carolyn, one of the four facilitators of the class. There were already two students in the room. Carolyn said to me, in a way that told me we might have an “issue”, “Something really interesting happened with registration. I spoke to a Rotary Club that happened to have a lot of members of the DOC, and we’ve got 10 people from the DOC registered for the class.”

The Department of Corrections. The people I never wanted anything to do with, ever again.

—

I had come from work, where I had spent the day writing about Eritrean torture survivors. Eritrea is known as the “North Korea of Africa.” They have forced conscription, which means every young man must join the military or go to prison. In the military, they are worked like slaves and their service is indefinite. If they try to escape, Eritrea throws them into underground prisons where they are tortured. If they make it to Ethiopia, they wind up in refugee camps with no future, and their family back home is persecuted. Sometimes they try fleeing to Israel, the one country that reluctantly takes them in, but often they are caught by—essentially—desert pirates called Rashida who hold them for ransom, torturing them while their families listen helplessly on the other end of the phone.

—

As you might imagine, a lot of Eritrean torture survivors have PTSD, and that is where CVT comes in. We provide trauma therapy and we hope to add physical therapy next year.

So I was writing about this all day and then I stepped into a room of people who had been my and my son’s tormentors for a year and a half.

I am in no way comparing what I went through to what Eritreans have endured. My point is that I know firsthand what a flashback feels like. A surge of adrenaline surged through me. My heart started racing and my palms got sweaty. I felt a powerful urge to bolt.

—

“I figure if I was a prison warden for 20 years, I can do anything!” one of the women exclaimed. The thought of her volunteering in an orphanage made me uneasy.

“My son just finished the boot camp program,” I told them. Might as well get it out there before she said something that would cause me shoot my mouth off. They oohed and ahhed said what a great program that was.

Carolyn knows my back story and has a high EQ. She emailed later:

“I would never imagine that you would come face to face with your oppressor in MINNspire. I mean, last year you were in Palestine, looking for ways to collaborate, professionally, with enemies of the Jewish state and now you come to St Paul and you are asked to teach the people whom you’ve written about for years.

“ I have to shake my head at what the universe is throwing at you. But if anyone can handle it, you can.”

I hope she’s right, because I thought about backing out of the class but I’ve decided to stick it out. I’ll keep you posted.

From AA to LA

Leave a reply

This is the eighth and final post in a series that begins here.

—

Vince went to live with my mother, and I attended outpatient chemical dependency treatment. If you are in the “helping professions”—social work, psychotherapy—or if you even just have common sense and empathy, you won’t be surprised to learn that I wasn’t an alcoholic.

The expectation had been that I would go through pregnancy, birth, and adoption without any support, then go on as though nothing had happened. People seemed surprised that I was sad and angry. They were uncomfortable when I talked about it.

“You signed the papers; it’s over—why keep bringing it up? Just don’t think about it.”

Alcohol is a time-honored stress reliever in such dissonant situations.

—

Sobriety—and a break from being a full-time mother and student—helped clear my head and face my emotions. I spent the month working the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and reading piles of self help books, and doing all the other things people do to get back on track.

After a month Vince came home. What–you were expecting some big drama? Sorry. In Minnesota we don’t like drama. In fact we are all about avoidance of discomfort, or as I call it, “reality.”

I didn’t drink for a couple years. I went to AA, where the members often listened to my story skeptically and said, “I don’t think you’re an alcoholic.” I should have been referred to Alanon, which is for family members and friends of alcoholics. People impacted by alcoholic behavior act just as crazy as their alcoholics, but there’s no rehab for them. In fact I can recall my mother complaining that my dad got to go to “that country club”—Hazelden, a rehab center nestled on a lake with a pool, wooded walking trails, and tennis courts—while she stayed home with the four kids, the house, and the bills.

—

I got a job, moved out of the hi-rise, and started paying back my student loans. Vince began school and, while his grades were never great, he was popular with teachers and students. I made sure he brushed his teeth and washed behind his ears. I took him to baseball practice, religious school, and family functions. We watched Dr. Who together and went on little road trips to Lake Superior to hunt agates. You know, normal life.

—

Every spring I would find myself feeling blue and wonder what was wrong with me. Then it would hit me: Ah ha! Isaac’s birthday is coming up. On Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, I would tear up when they read the story of the sacrifice of Isaac. Every couple of years I would send a letter to be placed in his file, knowing it would probably never be read. When my mother talked about how many grandchildren she had, didn’t count Isaac. Intellectually, I knew this was the whole point—that it remain forever a secret—but to me he was always out there, somewhere.

—

When Vince was 10, I got entangled with an abusive guy and we ended up losing our home. Three times in one year, we had to move and Vince had to change schools. I chose this time to tell him about Isaac. I thought it would comfort him to know he had a brother out there somewhere, assuming he was alive. Clearly I am not a psychotherapist, or I would have known this would backfire. Vince was devastated—it was a loss on top of losses.

He met his brother, eventually, and some day one or both of us will write about that.

—

Did these events have a permanent effect on Vince? They deeply affected me, so why not him, since he was so much younger and couldn’t understand what was happening? If they did affect him, it’s his job now to delve into them and resolve whatever leftover effects may be holding him back, which is what he seems to be doing in AA.

Thanks for reading this series. Several people have commented offline that it’s been emotional to read. I’m ready for a happier subject for the next post: my plans for a road trip to New Orleans!

Labeled

Leave a reply

This is the seventh in a series of posts that starts here.

If you have read all these posts, thank you. They’ve been hard to write but at the same time it’s liberating to tell the story that’s mostly been kept secret for decades.

—

What I have described in this series of posts is a closed adoption. Once parental rights are terminated, the birth parent has no rights, period. Ironically, there was a massive change in adoption laws a year or two after Isaac was born which made open adoption the norm. This is where the birth mother can choose to maintain some level of contact with the child—everything from photos once a year to monthly visits—worked out in cooperation with the adoptive parents. But that didn’t help me, since my case was closed just before the laws changed.

—

As my emotions thawed after terminating my parental rights, my predominant feeling was rage. True, no one had forced me to place Isaac for adoption, but I hadn’t felt I had any other option. All the forces of society had been arrayed against me keeping him.

I thought about Charlie Brown, the doctor who had offered to find me a baby buyer; about Judy, the Catholic Charities social worker who had made light of my concerns; the perverts who had hit on me—a pregnant girl at the bus stop with a baby in a stroller; the mugger who assaulted me; Ronald Reagan, who ensured I would start my career with student loan debt; Dr. G., who invited a dozen strangers to observe me go through one of the most excruciating moments of my life; and the judge, who had asked me pityingly if I understood what I was doing.

I wasn’t angry with The Creep; he would soon go on to father three more children. Vince and I have joked that they could form their own support group, “Adult Children of The Creep.” The guy had dug himself into such a deep hole that I figured the rest of his life would be his punishment.

—

A few weeks after I signed the final papers, it occurred to me that I should have a photo of Isaac. I told myself this was for Vince—when I told him some day. I called Judy and there was a long pause after I said my name, as though she had already forgotten who I was.

“Why didn’t you ask for a photo before the papers were signed?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I stammered, feeling stupid and ashamed. I hated her but I knew I was at her mercy. “I would really, really appreciate it if you would ask the parents.”

She told me I would have to put my request in writing, which I did. Six weeks later she called to say that the parents had denied my request.

“Since you didn’t request a photo before you signed the papers, they’re under no legal obligation to give you one now. They’re concerned you might see the baby in a shopping mall or something … they wouldn’t want any scenes. It’s for the best.

“They want you to know that they love him very much and they gave him a beautiful name. Of course, I can’t tell you what it is.”

Wow, she was really enjoying herself. I added Isaac’s adoptive parents to my hate list.

—

I had lost control with Vince, screamed at him, and shoved him to the floor. I called the county and asked to speak with a child protection worker. She asked a bunch of questions then pronounced, “Based on your family history and your recent drinking behavior, I think it’s clear that you’re an alcoholic.” She recommended I place Vince in foster care so I could go to rehab. “You can say no, but there may be repercussions,” she said ominously.

I didn’t think I was an alcoholic but I placed Vince in foster care and got ready to go to treatment. The next day my mother demanded that I sign Vince over to her, so I did. This time it was only temporary, right?