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Je Pay

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VINCE

I’ve been reading “Always Looking Up” by Michael J. Fox for a day or so during my short periods of free time. I’ve always been interested in reading about him. He was a good part of my entertainment when I was young, on Family Ties, and in movies such as Back to the Future. I don’t believe he’s acted since 2000, so when I saw his face on a book in our small library I picked it up.

He and I have a lot in common. He’s a famous actor with Parkinson’s Disease, and I’m a prisoner that takes medication for Parkinson’s Disease. It’s like we’re twins.

Anyhow, I don’t really have anything more to say on that subject, except that I was just mentioning it’s a good book so far. Inspirational is the word I think I’m supposed to use.

[ANNE: A few updates:

Someone from the Department of Corrections called and asked if I was indeed Anne Maertz, if I was willing to house Vince upon his release, if I owned my home. I said yes and yes and yes. Then she said, “I need to confirm that you have no firearms or alcohol in your home.” I stifled a laugh because I have learned that DOC people don’t like it when you laugh. “You mean when Vince comes to live with me, right? Not as of this moment?” She said yes and I confirmed that I don’t have any firearms and my house will be alcohol free when Vince is released. But I could not resist saying, “You realize there are 50 bars and liquor stores within walking distance of where I live, right?” She said she did realize that but that this was their policy.

When I’m not feeling contrary, I can see the logic of the policy. Most suicides are committed with firearms found in the home. Without instant access, many suicides could be prevented. Same for chemical dependency relapses. Say Vince is feeling despondent at 3am. If there’s beer in the fridge, it would be so easy for him to walk 10 feet down the hall and medicate himself. But with nothing in the house and no bars or liquor stores open at that time, he would be forced to deal with his feelings and cravings until morning, and as the AA slogan goes, “Each day a new beginning.”

My other interaction was with the prison industrial complex. As I wrote a couple weeks ago, the Minnesota DOC has switched email vendors. This sent me into a tizzy because email is the one cheap, dependable system that actually had worked for us to communicate. I finally found time to set up an account with the new vendor. They asked for my address, phone number, credit card number, and date of birth. That last one seemed unnecessarily intrusive.

The new vendor, J Pay, has a slick website with photos of people who look like they are having the time of their lives.

It calls account credit “stamps.” Is that so you don’t realize it’s money? After multiple failed attempts, I was able to buy $2.00 worth of “stamps,” which is the maximum one can purchase at a time.

It costs .40 per “stamp.”  The emails you can send are only about 1/3 as long–it’s difficult to tell before you hit “send.”  Most people are not going to do the math, but I am not most people. The old system worked out to about 10 cents per page, while this one will be 40 cents per page. I would say, cynically, that they count on people being too overwhelmed or math-impaired to figure this out, but actually it doesn’t matter – we are prisoners to J Pay and other such legal scams. The only other option is to send only postal mail. If I am realistic, that’s just not going to happen. I like to send Vince newspaper articles about baseball, and those are not allowed to be mailed to prisoners. Don’t ask me why.

At the bottom of the J Pay website were the usual social media buttons—“Like us on Facebook!” they implored. Right! As if J Pay is some sort of uber cool product I want to give free PR.

Funny Money

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VINCE

Less than a week until the one year mark.  I think that a year ago today was the day I was robbed at knife point.  Man, prison is way better than that.

I had a different kind of scare about a month before that.  I was very nearly arrested for the federal crime of passing counterfeit money.  It was very scary.

I had made a transaction through a friend of a friend.  As a drug dealer, you don’t want to be seen or known, so I set it up so there was a “package” sitting on a car seat.  Later, when I walked by, there was a similar “package” with money in it (we commonly used empty cigarette packages).  Done deal.

When morning came, I made a trip to the gas station.  I gave the clerk a $50 bill.  He used one of those pens and it turned black.  Uh-oh.  He said, “We have to call the police.”  This would be bad.  I was out on bail, my pockets were full of meth, pills, weed, cash, and baggies.  Running would make me look guilty.  I couldn’t empty my pockets in a public place, too risky to lose the $3,000 worth of everything I had (funny we won’t ditch something that could imprison us for years).  All I could do was stand there like I was confused, and be honest (lie like crazy).

I went into the bathroom and ditched all of the small baggies in the toilet.  Then I told the employee I was going out for a smoke.  He didn’t entirely believe me so he told me to write my info down.  Somehow I knew this could help me later on.  I wrote down my real info.

I went out to my truck and I frantically emptied my pockets onto the seats.  The windows were tinted so it would be difficult to make anything out from the outside.

That’s when two squad cars pulled up.  They had been given a description of my vehicle so one came right up to me.  The other officer went into the store.  Officer 1 asked me for my info and I gave him the same as I had given the clerk so when Officer 2 came out, it would match.  Establishing honesty.

Officer 1 asked how I got the bill.  On the spot, I made up a story about drinking with someone I didn’t know at a bar, him winning some money on pull tabs and giving me a $50 bill.  He asked which bar, and I started to choke up a bit, and Officer 2 came up behind me.

He saved the day.  He told Officer 1 what info I had given the clerk, giving me time to think of a bar where I knew a customer of mine who bartended.  So my story was believable enough.  My info checked out.  Then Officer 1 went to the truck and looked through the window.  He cupped his hand to block out the light.  At least four felonies right on the seat.  And one still in my pocket that I had just remembered.

He backed away from the truck, turned toward us, and said he wanted to have a word with the other officer before deciding what to do.

They left me standing in the sun.  So many thoughts: Why am I so stupid?  Why me?  I’m gonna go to prison forever!

I was trying not tremble.  They walked back to me and said that because I was honest with them, they weren’t even going to fill out a report.  I was free to go.  I just stood there, in shock, then turned around and opened the door to the truck, so I could just barely get in, blocking any view of the inside, got in, and drove away.

That incident was scarier to me than any time I was ever arrested.  I’ve been pulled over many times holding substantial amounts of drugs but I always had a good poker face, remained calm, and never got even a ticket.

After a close call, I always began to shake, adrenaline pumping.  Ready to do it all again.  I will not miss those moments.

Super Best Friends

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VINCE

When I was arrested in December of ’13, my dog Willie wound up living with my friends in the Fillmore County area.  He has spent over half of his life there and his dog friends are there, so I know he’s happy, and that soothes me.

The people that are taking care of him I miss just as much.  They were not just a part of my life, but they were my life, for years.  And although we were all pretty good at drinking, we bonded with each other, and I stayed out of legal trouble for many years.  Then, of course, I made a quick decision one night to use meth, and it took only a few months for me to separate from the pack, then leave altogether.

I miss you guys.  I think of you daily.  Not just you, but your families, who were all good to me.

Seth, our trip to Florida to watch [the Minnesota Twins] baseball spring training games was comparable to me to the best vacations I’ve been on.  We had more fun in seven days than most people have in a year.  It was “the crippie.”

Curt, you and I have had conversations that have not, and will never again, happen in this world.  I cherish every minute we spent together.

Sara.  You are a free spirit and a true friend to everybody you encounter.  You taught me how to ride a horse.  I failed to learn.  But that’s because your horses are stupid.

Those three plus me.  We were the “Super Best Friends Group” for years.  I abandoned them like I abandoned the rest.  They belong to the short list of the people I feel worst about.  I write to all of them constantly.  Some reply, some don’t.  But I keep writing.

Vince n Pals

Seth, Vince, and Sara at a baseball game.  It was about 101 degrees.

[ANNE: I made an effort to travel with Vince before he left home.  I considered it an important part of his education—travel itself, different people and places.  We went to Seattle, New York City, and Washington DC, among other destinations.  We mostly got along well when we traveled.

When he turned 30 he seemed to be doing so well—as was I—that I offered to take him on a “big trip” somewhere.  He had heard me talk about my friends who lived in a stately home (below) in the Scottish highlands, and said he’d be interested in going there.  I think he was attracted to the hunting and fishing, the six dogs and two cats, the meat-laden diet, and of course the whiskey.  It was a wild, manly, rural place.  I thought Vince and my friend Lynn’s husband would get on well together.  Maybe Richard would even inspire Vince to aspire to be more.

C2C1

Before I sunk thousands into a trip, I thought I should make sure he was serious about going, so I told him to get his own passport.  I mailed him the form.  It would have cost $75.  I realize that may seem like a lot when you’re a cook making minimum wage.  He said he would do it, then didn’t.  So the trip never happened.  I was disappointed, but relieved that I hadn’t forced it to happen if he didn’t really want to go.

A few years later he asked me if my offer of a birthday trip was still valid.  He wanted to go to watch spring training baseball games in Florida in February with his friend Seth.  I said yes.  I feel strongly that getting out of your comfort zone is vital to personal growth, and Vince had barely stepped foot out of rural Minnesota in years.  Besides, I had enough frequent flyer miles that it didn’t cost me much.  So he and Seth went, and apparently had a good time.  Don’t ask me what a “crippie” is.]

The One I Love

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VINCE

I passed a drug test and breathalyzer. I knew I would, but I did get a little nervous. Well, nothing to fret over now.

—

I remember a lot of good from Aspen Glen [the subsidized housing complex where we lived until Dr. Wonderful came into our lives]. Twenty plus years later, I still think about my daycare family—Duane and Mary and their three kids James, Shawna, and Michael. I spent years with them after school and playing with the kids on weekends. Even after we moved I stayed in touch for years. I really do miss them. I wonder if they wonder about me.

I also remember fondly my years at Bel-Air School. Years later I drove by it, and was surprised at how small it was. Everything is big when you’re a kid.

I remember when the suburb of New Brighton itself was small. Woods everywhere. Again, driving through years later, it looked commercialized. The town I grew up in, plastered with big city names. Big City businesses. I remember when the employees at the Red Owl grocery knew me. That was the first place I ever stole from. I got caught the first time. Oh, how things change.

—

I went out on another RJWC this week (Restorative Justice Work Crew). We spent five hours at a nursing home in Moose Lake. We cleaned all the exterior windows of the facility, then picked at the never-ending supply of weeds in the various gardens. I found quite a few agates in the landscaping. We’re not allowed to keep them so we put them in a bird bath for all the residents to enjoy. They always look nice underwater.

Agate

One of the hundreds of agates Vince collected before he was incarcerated.

—

So far, it’s been raining all day. This is the first time that it’s a rained on a Saturday while I’ve been at boot camp.

If it’s raining, we don’t have to go out and do work crew stuff. I don’t mind working, I never have, but this is a good opportunity to catch up on a lot of things, including writing.

One of my friends sent me a picture of my dog Willie. I instantly became sad. I miss him so much. It’s amazing how close we can get to an animal. He has been through so much with me. He’s about 12 years old now. I can’t wait to see him again.

Who knows how or what dogs think about. Somehow, I know he misses me, and we will both be just as excited to see each other, only I will have tears in my eyes.

79 days and a wake up, and I will have the ability to start figuring out how to get him back in my life.

[ANNE: At first read I thought these passages of Vince’s were not very interesting. After typing them and re-reading them, several things struck me.  1) He is capable of reviewing the past and remembering both good and bad things.  Most of us need to live more in the now, but addicts need to be able to reflect back on the past before they can move forward.  2)  He has at least one hobby, agate collecting.  Hobbies will be important diversions for him once he’s released.  3) He has someone (his dog) he misses; he can’t wait to be reunited.  Someone to miss, and who misses you–I would hope that’d be an strong deterrent to ever being locked up again.  I hope Willie lives a very long time.]

Sticker Trippin’

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ANNE

I thought I would show you some of the envelopes that go back and forth between Vince and me. First, here is the standard return address on a letter from him. Just in case I’ve managed to keep his incarceration private from a few people, the DOC makes sure that the US Postal Service and my fellow neighbors in my apartment building know he’s in prison.

Return Address

I know, I know. I could be a battered woman who wants nothing to do with her abuser, who is locked away in Moose Lake. It just seems like most people are suspicious enough that they would see a letter from someone they don’t want to hear from, a mile off, without the use of MN CORRECTIONAL FACILITY. I mean really—all caps? Who uses those anymore unless they are angry?

On the positive side, here is the standard postcard they send. I like the tree, nice touch.

Postcard

Here is a sample of a letter that was returned to me. Why? Because I used a return address sticker, apparently.

Return to Sender

Again, I understand that every one of these “rules”—I use quotation marks because they are enforced inconsistently—probably originated from some incident. In this case, the myth is that someone tried to send the offender LSD using address stickers. Apparently you might try to send LSD in lipstick, perfume, bubble wrap, white out, or even create a fake stain. It’s true that a lot of criminals are pretty imaginative.

Imaginative, but dumb. If you wanted to get high in prison, and I can understand why you would, would you really want to go on an acid trip? I’ve never dropped acid. If I were going to, I’d want to be in a lovely cottage in the countryside somewhere, where I could safely ponder bunnies and fawns.

Tripping in a prison cell? That’s one of the ways our clients where I work have been tortured. They’re shackled to a bed, forced to ingest acid, then tormented in an endless variety of ways.

Victory Lap

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VINCE

Sitting in my blue plastic chair, here’s what I see.  Three feet in front of me, my bunk mate is sitting in his blue plastic chair, facing me.  He also has folders on his lap, which we call our “desks.”

To my immediate right is our bunk.  My bed is on the bottom, our combined four foot lockers under my bed (not four feet long, four of them).  Blue blankets stretched flat with 45 degree angles on the foot end, our brown blankets stretched over our pillows with a 45 degree angle at the top.

To my left, three feet away, is the same thing.  To my right, the same thing five more times.  Like one of those infinity mirrors where the same scene seems to go on forever and ever.

Everybody is talking in different directions, some talking over others.  It’s louder than one might think.  A Correctional Officer just walked by and dropped somebody down for working on personal letters.  So that’s all for now.

—

Every other morning, well, actually every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I tell myself over and over that I will finish the run.  It’s still kind of tough, but I’ve only dropped out once in this past month.

Today, I struggled.  I really wanted to fall out after the first three laps.  Lap four came and when we were almost to the point where we have to yell, asking for permission to fall out, there was a C.O. walking around the small track, right where I would fall out.  I didn’t want to have to answer a bunch of questions about my motivation so I continued on.

It was very humid out.  I was drenched with sweat, and cramping up in my stomach.  All sorts of reasons to quit.  But I made it through lap six.  Then, the physical trainer leading the run decided to bring us around one more time.  It was the hardest lap of my life, but I did it.  Five miles (4.9, but we call it five).  I’ve felt great ever since.

So.  That’s what I did before 7:00 am.  How about you?

 

 

Willie Be Okay?

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VINCE

Continued from Tweaking is the Best Way to Travel….

The aftermath.

I thought the car was filling up with smoke, but it was some kind of dust from the airbag.  Either way I got out quickly.  That was when I realized that I had my dog with me.  Willie jumped out after me and ran across all four lanes of traffic and the median, somehow avoiding every car, truck, and semi on the road.  He appeared to be uninjured as he disappeared across the road.  More on that later.

A car pulled up behind me, the lady jumped out and said, “Oh my God, I can’t believe you’re alive!”  It turns out she was a nurse at the Mayo Clinic.  I asked her to call 911, she talked with them and said I appeared to be in shock, but otherwise okay.

Looking at the car I first noticed the front, driver side wheel gone, and the engine resting, smoking, on the ground.  Everything “accordianed.”  And that was really all the damage to me and the car.

When the cop came, I sat in the front seat with him and answered some questions.  I was very nervous because my pockets were full of felonies.  But I’m a good liar and he didn’t suspect a thing.

The car I was in had no insurance so I ended up losing my license for a couple years, but I got it back and still have it now.  End of story.

That was the first of three similar accidents, two of which happened more recently, within the last three years.  All related to dozing off while driving.  I do consider myself lucky to have never hurt anybody.

A week after the accident, after calling around various animal shelters, a friend of mine located Willie at the St. Charles veterinary clinic.  He was just fine, and now up to date on shots!  He was so excited to see me I cried a little bit when I saw him.  End of story, again.

Tweaking is the Best Way to Travel

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VINCE

2005 hours

I got a letter yesterday from an old using friend.  I wrote him about four months ago telling him I had made the decision to be sober when I was released.  He was happy for me, but sad to lose a friend.

The letter I got was very sad.  The day before Easter, he fell asleep while driving (very common among meth users) and flipped his vehicle three times.  He doesn’t remember any of it.  He also didn’t remember being saved by the Jaws of Life, but that’s how he got out.

He was air lifted to the Mayo Clinic where he was in the Intensive Care Unit for 9 days.

His collar bone was spider-web fractured from far left to far right.  Femur shattered at the hip socket.  Three broken ribs, two punctured lungs.  Staples and stiches to hold his fractured skull on.

He said the worst part was waking up several times upside down, stull strapped in his seat, and passing out from the pain.  Ugh.

On the plus side, he says, “I have decided that the Good Lord saved me for a reson (sic).  I will go to my grave straight and sober.”  I hope he does.  It’s amazing what a meth addict can survive and keep using.

—

About 9 years ago, I had left Winona after selling some meth and was nearing the town of St. Charles.  It was early on a Monday morning, during what could be considered rush hour, heading toward the direction of Rochester.

When I woke up, the speedometer said 68 but the road was green.  It took a split second to realize I was in the ditch.  There was no time to react to what was ahead of me.

Out of the culvert I came at a quick pace, but a gradual incline.  I went airborne and cleared the first driveway by about ten feet.  I landed perfectly straight in the next ditch, and up ahead I saw trouble.  I was headed straight toward a 3 foot cement drain pipe.  Speed unknown, I smashed into it, destroyed it, and once again I became airborne, this time I landed on the driveway and stayed there.

During the impact, the airbag deployed which, in tandem with my seatbelt, surely saved me from death and/or serious injury.  If you ever have the opportunity to see an airbag deploy in your face, pass that up.  It’s so quick and loud, it’s like a glitch in an old black and white film.  It wasn’t there, then it was.

To be continued….

All Those Pizzas

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ANNE

The last post, in which Vince and I recalled Aspen Glen, reminded me of a vivid memory from that time.

Vince came rushing in the door from school; I think he was in first grade so he would have been six or seven.  Before I could turn around from whatever I was doing in the kitchen to say hi, he was out the door again.

About an hour later, he came flying back in and flung himself to the floor, crying pitifully like his heart was breaking.  “What on earth is the matter!?” I asked in alarm.  Still prostrated on the floor, he sobbed, “We have to sell pizzas for a school fundraiser, and I went to every house in Aspen Glen and didn’t even sell one!  How am I ever going to sell all these pizzas!?”

I hid my laughter.  Every unit in Aspen Glen had kids, and they all went to his school.  Why would anyone buy a pizza from someone else’s kid, especially since we were all on food stamps?

—

I think about this story when I’m feeling overwhelmed with work or chores (or the demands of this blog).  I say in my head, “How am I ever going to sell all these pizzas!” and chuckle to myself.  It reminds me that nothing is that important that I need to fling myself onto the floor and sob.

But I do wonder if this little episode is emblematic of Vince’s personality traits that may have made drugs appealing.  I know, this is called “taking someone’s inventory.”  I am only supposed to take my own inventory.  But still.

Another example: Vince bought a pair of roller blades with his bar mitzvah money.  He laced them up, hobbled outside, and 10 minutes later crawled back into the house, ripped off the skates, and hurled them across the room, screaming, “I’ll never learn how to roller blade!”  Of course he was a master of it within a week, skating backwards and doing pirouettes in the street, which made me shudder.

And he often complained of being bored.  Lots of kids say, “I’m bored!” but he was saying it up until he was arrested, at age 35.

Okay I’ll just say it: I think Vince is impatient and impulsive.  He needs stimulation and instant results or he complains of boredom or finds something to fire him up.  Just a few years ago, he took a dare to eat a tablespoon of dry cinnamon.  Dry cinnamon!  Maybe a tablespoon doesn’t sound like that much to you, but try it some time.  No, don’t.  He was sick for days.  Why would anyone do that, if they weren’t looking for a little excitement and they didn’t care if it was positive or negative?

I am never bored, so it’s hard for me to understand.  I am also a high energy person, up at the crack of dawn, on the move, tackling my to-do list—go, go, go.  That has its own downsides.  But that’s why I’ve never even been tempted to try a drug that would pep me up, like cocaine.  I don’t need to be any more hyper.

If it’s true that Vince’s personality traits feature impatience, a need for constant stimulation, and impulsivity, how will he manage when he’s out, when he has every opportunity to relieve his negative impulses?

A Room with View

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VINCE

Today we watched a movie in treatment called 7 pounds.  (The number is shown in that form in the title so I can’t be faulted for not spelling it out.).  It stars Will Smith.  And it’s one of the better movies I’ve seen in a long time.  It’s really sad.  Funny in the right spots.  And at one point in the beginning he says to a man when asked why he was deserving of his help, “Because you’re a good person, even when you think nobody is looking.”

I liked that.  I want to be like that.

Throughout my life, I have always thought of myself as a good person.  Unfortunately, I haven’t actually acted like one very often.

From dealing drugs to stealing anything that wasn’t nailed down, to abandoning friends and family alike, I’ve done nearly everything possible to be a bad person.

I’ve looked into that a lot over the last two months, done a lot of soul searching, taken my moral inventory.  I can see the harm now in the things I’ve done.  Now I’m starting to build myself back up.  To gain the confidence I never had.  I can be that good person I’ve claimed to be.  I am going to be a good man.

—

Last night at 2100, like every other night, we stood at the POA at our bunks, waiting to be counted.  This time I noticed that it was still light out.  It reminded me of my childhood in Aspen Glen, the suburban subsidized housing complex we lived in until my mom met Kermit.  I remember staring out the window at the other kids still playing outside.  I don’t remember how old I was, or what time I had to go to sleep, but I do remember hours of boredom.

No boredom here.  Today we were allowed to raise our Reebok Step up to ten inches.  Ugh. What a difference.  For 40 minutes, they extra two inches made me sweat like a hog.  (That’s what she said?)  It was a good workout.

[ANNE: I feel myself getting defensive as I read Vince’s memory of Aspen Glen.  There must have been hundreds of kids who lived there.  We moved in when Vince was four.  Maybe he was staring out the window at the other kids because he was four and I actually enforced a bedtime, unlike a lot of the other parents.  There were good parents there, but there were terrible ones too.  And a lot of them, like me, were completely overwhelmed and exhausted with work, school, household chores, and parenting.  Sometimes I couldn’t stay awake past 9:00.  Unlike me, Vince is a night person, so I can imagine he was bored because he couldn’t go out and play and he couldn’t go to sleep.  But it’s not like I kept him locked in his room and slid trays of food under his door—just to be clear.]