Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in Man's Prison (52 page)

This was my last night behind bars.

The next morning, on May 3, 1982, I walked out of prison for the last time. And as I left there-I left as a man.

On June 1, 1984, I was discharged from parole. To date, the only run-ins I've had with the law have been minor traffic tickets. (I paid both fines immediately.)

My dad quit drinking for ten years. Sharon said they were the best years they ever spent together. They currently split their time between their home in Michigan and Texas, where they bought a trailer and retreat to in winter.

A year or so after my release, I came home for the holidays with a boyfriend. This was my first trip home with a guy and the first time my family had to face my sexuality head-on. To my surprise and delight, it was Sharon who stood up and said that anyone who had a problem with me-would have to deal with her.

In April, 2001, my brother Rick died from a drug overdose. He was fortyfive and on parole at the time.

My stepbrother Bobby served nine years for the armed robbery he and my brother Rick committed together. He now lives in Michigan.

Claudia, my ex-girlfriend, had a miscarriage. I never heard from her again.

Slide Step is still in prison. His discharge date is 2021. I never asked him about what Paul had said. If he had set up my initial rape-I didn't want to know it.

The Oracle won an national penal press award. None of the original inmates who worked on the newspaper, upon their release, have returned to prison.

Warden Handlon retired from the Department of Corrections. He died a few years later, and the Michigan Training Unit was renamed The Richard A. Handlon Training Unit.

Sherry Burt made warden after thirteen years in the department. We've kept in touch, and she plans to retire soon.

When Paul was sentenced for escape, burglary, armed robbery, and car theft, his victim appeared in court. She asked the judge for leniency, citing how polite and apologetic Paul had been to her. Nonetheless, the Judge gave Paul ten additional years, to be served consecutively to his original sentence.

In the fall of 2002, while I began work on this book, I discovered sadly that Paul was still in prison. I wrote to him the following letter:

December 5, 2002

Dear Paul:

So here it is, almost twenty-five years later and you're finally hearing from me. I imagine this letter will come as quite a surprise. Yet even after all this time, I've never stopped thinking about you.

I tried to visit a few years back, but they had changed the rules and I couldn't get in to see you. I was all checked-in and it wasn't until the woman at the front desk told me to place my all my belongings in a locker that she noticed I wasn't on your list of approved visitors. I had stayed in a hotel the night before and was so nervous about seeing you again that I hardly slept.

I'm not sure why I didn't write to you after that. Perhaps I wasn't ready to deal with whatever feelings may have come up as a result. I was also a little afraid you might not remember me. Though you played a major role in my life, I realize you've been down a long time and I may not have been as significant in your life as you were in mine.

I assumed you were released after that, and I had no clue how to find you. I located you this time on the Internet. The Dept. of Corrections has a tracking system that's open to the public. It even has a nice digital picture. You've aged some since we last parted.

Enclosed is a picture of my family and me. As you can see, I look older as well. I'm the one in the middle with the (premature) gray hair. I've lost some weight since thenbut I'm still a lot heavier than I was at seventeen. The good-looking folks next to me are my partner Tom and our daughter, Annie. We've raised her since she was in the 2nd grade; and we adopted her a few years later. She's fifteen now and growing up fast.

We live in a small village on the east end of Long Island. It's a remarkable place. Tom and I are openly gay and we're very active in our community. In fact, Tom ran for school board last spring and came within 16 votes of winning. He was up against three tough incumbents. It's wild how different life is from the Midwest and the 1970s. Our Mayor is a lesbian, but it's never been an issue. No one really cares. Unfortunately, I think she's a lousy Mayor.

I retired recently from the software industry. I got into computers when I moved to New York in 1982. I went to college at night and got my bachelor's degree in computer science and marketing. I rode a couple of waves in the software business and was in the epicenter of the dot.COM bubble burst in 2000. It was a lot of fun and I did well, but it also aged me. I was running U.S. Operations for an Israeli software company until this past summer, when they started to insist I travel to Israel a little more often than I wanted to. The last trip I made was in August, when a bus bombing occurred within a mile of my hotel. That was it for me. I decided there's more to life than living on airplanes.

Tom and Annie are glad to have me home and I'm enjoying not traveling as much. I've taken up writing and I've gotten involved with a human rights group. I want to spend the next chapter of my life working on something more meaningful than selling software. I'm currently writing a book about my first love and some of the darker days of my youth. I was doing research for this when I found you on the web.

It saddened me deeply to see how much of your life has been spent inside, Paul. My heart broke for you, all over again. It seems only a moment ago that you were that eighteen-year-old kid who slipped inside my life and taught me how to celebrate who I am. I miss that kid, that friend, that lover and mentor who made such a difference in my life.

It's hard to try to put into words all that I'd like to say. There are so many ways in which some of the things you taught me, I have been able to work in my life in positive ways. Thank you for that, Paul. I want to tell you how sorry I am that you are still there. But I don't want to press your bit either. I can't imagine what that must feel like.

Please understand that I'm very happy in my life and with my family. I would not change a thing. I recognize that who you and I were, twenty-five years ago, is a world and a lifetime away from where we're each at in our lives today. But I wanted to take a moment to say hello and to honor what we shared together.

Whenever the song "Always and Forever" cones on the radio, no matter where I'm at or what I am doing, I stop and think of you. I remember when you sent me those lyrics shortly after you escaped. I think about what you meant to me and about that wonderful period when I fell in love for the first time. I think about how you helped me put aside my shame and rejoice in who I am. It was the first time that I no longer felt alone in the world. And though I've enjoyed a few successes since, there has never been another experience like that time and space that you occupied in my heart.

I came across two fragments of poems that best express these thoughts:

Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage; If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul am free, Angels alone that soar above enjoy such liberty.

But though my wings are closely bound, my heart's at liberty; My prison walls cannot control, the flight, the freedom of the soul.

In spite of our circumstances and the repressive world we were confined to; you helped free my spirit and liberate me. I hope you can see this in yourself and that in some small way this may help you. You're a wonderful man Paul, and life has not been kind to you. I pray that better times lie ahead. And above all else, I wish for you to know how much you have lived freely and joyously in my heart these last twenty-five years. This will never be contained, subdued, or silenced by anyone and anything.

Always and Forever,

Tim

I didn't know if I'd ever hear from Paul or even if he received my letter. But contrary to his warning that I'd forget about him, I never have. It's been twenty-five years since I had last seen him, yet the pain and memory of those experiences are as vivid to me now as they were back then. The thought occurred to me that the only difference between Paul and me was that he didn't come knocking on my window the night he escaped.

My Dear Tim:

I wish I could explain how much you brightened my life today. There have been very few truly exciting moments in my life, since I last saw you, but opening that letter and reading your beautiful words has been very special.

I'm in the prison hospital right now. I had a quadruple by-pass on December 6th. I am very tender all over but getting stronger each day. I am not as articulate as you are, but I hope I'm able to express how truly proud I am of you. I have thought of you many times over the years, and I never once doubted that you would do good things in your life.

I could never forget you Tim. I remember that wild curly hair that you could not keep out of your eyes and the quick intelligence that always made me proud of being your friend. I remember so clearly when we first met, you were being pursued by (Slide Step) and I lusted after you each time I saw you. Then we went to MTU and fell in love. You are the only man I have ever loved and that is OK with me.

A lot has happened in my life since I escaped on March 3rd, 1979. They gave me 10 to 20 for that escape and burglary and stacked it on top of the 10 to 20 I was already serving. In 1983 I got caught with a knife and they added another 2 to 5 year sentence.

I did get paroled in August 2000; I was out until September 12, 2001. I'm now back on a parole violation because I stopped reporting to my agent; dumb move on my part. I'm on my second 12-month flop. I've been on the street for one year since 1975. I'm not complaining just counting the years. My own actions are the cause of my prison stay.