A Friend's Bad Decision (s) Part Three

Today is Monday April Fifth Two Thousand Ten. Busy but fun weekend, I was on the North Shore Friday nite, Mid Coast Maine Saturday, and back on the shore last nite. We made the trip in my pop's new boxter and had the top down for most of the trip each way. I was amazed at how protected we were with the top down and how responsive that car is. He let me drive it around town a bit and while I didn't get it out of third gear I can tell that it will be excellent on the highway. Corners like a champ and the transition from first to second is pretty damn smooth. The only problem is that my pop's knees and ankles are starting to fade and the clutch can be a bit stiff. I hope he is able to get ten years out of it before he can't drive a stick and I hate thinking shit like that. When I was growing up my pop was bullet proof and never got tired. I can tell that the last few years have worn on him and I feel a bit responsible for that. In Jan of oh nine his older son was unemployed and I was in rehab. Now my brother is making god knows how much money and I have figured out how to live a sober life.

So, I was approved to visit my friend in prison and woke up early on a saturday morning to make the drive to the jail. It wasn't bad, about forty five minutes from my house in Arlington to the visitor's center. Once they checked my id on the computer I was instructed to remove my shoes, hat, and coat and place it on a conveyor belt to be scanned. Then I walked thru a metal detector and after recovering my shoes I walked down the left side of the hallway and was told to stand by a door. COs are pretty much rude assfuckers for the most part and I guess they thought that since I knew someone in jail I must be guilty of something as well. Anyway I was led thru a series of big burly locked doors and finally was admitted to the visitation room. I'll never forget the feeling in my bones when the first series of doors locked. I was locked in and I only could leave when they allowed me to. I walked into the room and scanned the crowd for my friend.

The visitation room was nothing like you see in the movies, there wasn't a piece of plexi to look at the inmate thru nor was there a phone to speak into. It was just a large room with a bunch of chairs and vending machines on the walls. We were instructed not to wear any clothing that was revealing or the color tan because they didn't want to hype up the inmates and their uniforms were tan. I finally found my friend in the crowd of a hundred and was allowed a quick embrace. He then sat across, not next to me and we started chatting. It was tough at first because how do I know what he was feeling being locked up so we started talking about the Patriots. Before I knew it four hours had passed and he said that he needed to go or else he would miss lunch. Understanding how important food is to a convict I hugged him again and exited the facility.

I ended up visiting my friend at least once a month for his entire time in that place. Some visits were better than others but I am glad I was able to see him during that time. Its very easy to think that everyone has forgotten you and visiting him proved that wasn't the case. Sometimes I'd be with others on the visitation list and other times I went alone. I looked forward to each visit and I would make a bunch of calls before I left to gather as much intel about our friends and social scene as I could. Stuff like who was sleeping with who, acts of drunken idiocy (guilty), and stuff like that. I thought it was important for him to feel connected to our "scene" and would pass along messages from our friends. It was very interesting to people watch as well because there were a couple of high level mob guys and I enjoyed checking out the folks who visited them. Towards the end of his stay I even managed to at least be friendly with some of the COs who by that time knew who I was and who I was there it visit. Still some of the CO's were rude assfuckers but thats the way it goes I guess. Why anyone would want to be a CO is beyond me, failed cops I guess.

He was finally released after serving a little over two and a half years of his three year sentence. In the federal prison system you have to serve something like eighty five percent of your assigned time and there isn't anything like "good time" in there. He passed some courses he needed and was able to be released a few months early. He wasn't able to go home right away because as part of his probation he had to live in a halfway house for six months. The halfway house got a huge percentage of his salary and kept fairly tight control of his comings and goings. As it turned out the house was a ten minute walk from work so I would visit him often and take him out to dinner when I did. When he was finally allowed to go home he had to check in with his probation officer and submit random pee samples whenever the feds wanted it. He was assigned a color and a number and had to call from a land line, every morning to see if he had to go pee in a cup. He really had to stick around the north shore and couldn't go anywhere more than an hour or two from Boston. Not only did he have to drive in all the time to submit pee but he had to see various government agencies to answer questions about how he was doing and what his plans were. The important part was that he was finally home.

My friend wasn't a totally different person when he was released but prison def changed him for awhile. He wouldn't open doors on his own and always needed to be near a door. He didn't like it if you approached him from behind and always wanted to be aware of his surroundings. I wish I could say that he stopped using and dealing drugs but I can't. He started a little here and there and pretty soon he was at the level he was before he went in. He knows that if he gets caught again he will go away for a long time but I guess he just doesn't care about that. His relationship with the mother of his children is over and he rarely speaks to her. He doesn't see his kids that often but since I have not spoken to him since August I don't really know whats going on with that whole deal.

I thought our friendship could withstand anything but apparently I was wrong. He was one of my biggest supporters when I first got sober but now he can't deal with using around me. Due to that he has cut off all contact with me and when I see him at shows he says that we should talk about shit but then never follows up on it. A friend of mine told me that he doesn't want to talk with people who are rational and I think I believe her. It is too bad that a friendship twenty years in the making has to dissolve in this way but my sobriety is more important that his friendship. I was looking thru a bunch of old photos the other day and he was in almost every single one of them. I suppose that maybe we will be friends once again but its clear to me that he needs to work on his own problems before he can even attempt to work on whats wrong between us. I have heard that his family is concerned about what he is doing and perhaps they will be able to get thru to him. I'm not going to say that he needs to stop using but I will say that he needs to stop dealing drugs and get on with his life.