Wasted: An Alcoholic Therapist's Fight for Recovery in a Tragically Flawed Treatment System (32 page)

Finally, the cell door clicks. I get up and slip out onto the mezzanine, down the staircase to the range, and spot Norman making coffee—real coffee. This smell is not chicory.
If I close my eyes, I’m in Starbucks.

“First night in
FRCC
,” says Norm. “How’d you sleep? Without my cannabis, I can’t.”

“Nelson is a serious snorer. I wanted to murder him in his sleep.”

“You fit right in here, then. You going on work detail today?” Norm hands me a mug of coffee.

“Didn’t know I was supposed to.” I sip my coffee.

“Talk to the guard over
there. Tell him you want to start working today. You make $2.75 a day. $13.75 a week. Makes the time go quicker.”

The work crew is led down the elevator to the main floor at the back of the institution, where big bay doors accommodate shipping and receiving. One at a time, we strip and get searched and file into a change room. The room is stocked with orange overalls, bulky waterproof
winter coats and work boots. I’m wearing my thermals. Two corrections officers shepherd us through the secure yard to a large white warehouse. A guy in civvies flies around the yard in a forklift, moving stacks of wooden pallets. There are ten workstations set up throughout the warehouse. Everywhere you look, wooden pallets are piled to the rafters.

A guard says, “Pond, you work with Tremblay.
His work partner got released yesterday. He’ll show you what to do.”

I can see my breath in the fluorescent-lit warehouse air. Tremblay hands me a pair of work gloves. With a thick French- Canadian accent he says, “You will need these. In an hour and a half or so, we will take a break and sit under those big heaters and have coffee.” He points his gloved finger to the far end of the building.
“My name is René.”

René demonstrates how to assemble the pallets by arranging the boards in a pattern. We stand facing each other on either side of the pallet form, which sits about waist high. We each hold a pneumatic nail gun. I grab my Makita, one of the best you can buy. René assembles the frame, laying pre-cut two-by-fours into the form. In tandem, we space one-by-fours and fire nails
in quick succession. We flip the fledgling pallet over and finish it off with three one-by-fours along the bottom. Because I’m a greener, the job is clumsy at first. But within fifteen minutes, René and I are in sync and assembled pallets fly off the worktable.

An hour and a half in, René says, “We got more than twice as many made than I did with the other guy. He was here three days.
Got busted making brew in his cell. Shipped to maximum this morning. Let’s go have a coffee.”

Despite the fast pace, I’m still chilled. The chicory coffee is hot. With lots of sugar and whitener, it’s closer to okay. I don’t care. The work has helped me get out of my head, and the time passes more quickly.

Back at the workbench, I pull on my gloves and snug the orange toque over
my ears. I reach for my nail gun and bang a three-incher into the wood. The nail head still sticks out of the one-by-four. I slam it down again harder—same results. Three more rapid tries.

“What the hell!”

René keeps his head down, taking over where my nails failed. I notice the nail gun in my hand—it’s a yellow Bostitch, a lesser-quality gun.

“Hey! Where’s my Makita?”

Without looking up, René’s eyeballs roll sideways across the warehouse to land on another workstation. Norm and another guy in a toque, with his back to me, bang away at a pallet.

I pop the Bostitch off the air hose, about-face and march over with it hanging against my thigh. Buddy wearing the toque has my gun. He looks up and stops nailing. It’s Raj, the East Indian gangster whose
seat I took at dinner. He glances at his gun in my hand, then our eyes lock. His are black and unwavering.

Come on, Cassius Clay. Let’s go, Sonny Liston. Keep those elbows in. Body shots will kill a man. My old man’s voice fuels my fool’s courage. I will not back down.

As Norm cringes and steps back, I step forward. “That’s my gun.” I feel the pulse pounding in my neck. The fight-or-flight
response fully activated, I stand my ground.

“Fuck you, old man! It’s mine.” Raj is huge, with a blue-black tear tattooed on his left cheekbone. I am told this signifies that he has killed a person. He fires off a few more nails into his pallet.

“I’ve been using it all day. I’m not leaving till I get it back.”

Norm’s head swivels back and forth. Raj, then me. Me, then Raj.

On the periphery, several men stop what they’re doing. The bang and buzz of the warehouse slows and dies off. Two guards standing outside the office glance over and stop their conversation.

Expectation hangs in the air. I feel all the blood drain from my head and flood into my arms and legs. My fists clench. All good sense evaporates. I won’t throw the first punch—but I’ll deliver
a powerful second. And then I’ll get killed. But what a way to go. There’s some dignity in standing up for yourself as opposed to falling down drunk.

A few more seconds of loaded silence pass. Raj’s face softens and something resembling respect appears in it. He removes the Makita from the air hose and tosses it on his worktable in front of me. Wordlessly I walk over and hand him the Bostitch.

Walking back to my workstation, I fight the impulse to look back.

“You’ve got balls, old man,” Raj hollers after me.

Maybe, but right now they’re up in my throat.

“You’re fuckin’ crazy,” René finally breathes.

That night at dinner, Raj invites me to his table. I smile, thank him and graciously decline.

Work in the pallet plant picks up the pace. Hour
after hour, day after day served. Now I’m at thirteen days—only one week to go. I ease my mind by thinking like the professional I once was. Most mental health professionals believe that treating addiction with incarceration is pure idiocy, the worst of public policy and a colossal waste of hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars. But rarely is that belief ever reinforced by first-hand experience.
If there is to be a gift, a lesson learned from my twenty days at the Fraser Regional Correctional Centre, this is it: incarceration only makes things worse.

The convict addicts obsessively find ways to smoke in a tobacco-free government environment, sneaking behind pallets to puff. Sometimes I join the men in their tobacco rendezvous. I hate smoke, but I crave camaraderie and conversation.

Cut-up fingers from rubber gloves litter the ground. Hooping is happening here. But I shut my mouth. Do your own time, Mike. Keep your nose clean. Mind your own business.

• 32 •

DECEMBER 24, 2009.
Christmas Eve. Five days to go. I have two calls left on my account. I will make one to Rhonda’s parents and one to my mother. My mother cries every time I call. How did her son, the little man-child she’d leaned on the most, end up in prison at Christmas? I feel her anguish through the phone. She tries hard to be supportive, but I hear depression
and numbness in her voice.

“Just hang in there, Michael,” she says. “You’ll be out soon. Remember, you have a place and a job to go to when you get out.”

I hang on to the knowledge that I have a home when I am released. Roy and his girlfriend will rent me their suite. And, miraculously, I have my job at the hospital waiting for me.

I call Rhonda’s parents. They want to
come and visit, but I say no. I don’t want anyone to see me in this place. I look down at the garb I wear. Normally, red is my favourite colour. Not anymore.

Two of my sons are at their grandparents’ for Christmas. Their ladies are with them. I haven’t even met Taylor’s yet. They have been together for a year. Rhonda is there with her new partner. They are a stone’s throw away from
FRCC
in Pitt Meadows. They might as well be a million miles away.

CHRISTMAS DAY, ONLY
four more days to go. Many of the men receive visitors. I don’t want any. There are two inmate phones attached to pillars at each end of the open range. I use the one closest to my cell most times. I call my youngest son, Jonny at his grandparents’ home. No privacy. Men mill about continually. Swearing. Laughing.

“How’s it going, Dad?” Jonny’s voice is flat.

“It’s going okay, Jon. A few more days and I’ll be out. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Dad. I’ll meet you at the McDonald’s in Maple Ridge for a bit when you get out on the twenty-ninth.”

“I would really like that, Jon. I haven’t seen you since you and Brennan visited in May. How about Taylor?”

“Naw. He’s
not going to come. I asked him again today. Grandma and Grandpa tried to talk to him, but you know Taylor.”

“It’s okay, Jon. I know it’s hard for him. It’s hard for all of you. I’ll call you when I get to McDonald’s. It’ll be mid-morning sometime.”

I go back to my cell and lie there, willing the seconds, hours and minutes of an intolerable day away.

Just a few more days
to go. I keep my nose clean, do my own time. A group of is being escorted to the gym, when I’m called back to the doctor for a checkup.

I wait at the elevator. The doors open. A guy lies prostrate on the floor, blood gushing from his mouth, as three other men huff and puff and shove past me off the elevator. I rush to tend the collapsed man. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fuckin’ all
right,” he gasps. “Leave me alone.” He gets up and hauls himself away.

DECEMBER 29, 2009,
release day. The usual fitful night. I confirmed on the phone last night that three of my
AA
friends, Pete, Roy and Grant, will pick me up. All I can think about is seeing Jonny.

I take my last elevator ride in Fraser Regional Correctional Centre. I enter the gate admission area, where I arrived
nineteen days ago. The white-shirt at the desk hands me all my belongings. I feel stupid as I pull on the old suit. The shoes hurt my feet. I sign my release form and the officer hands me an envelope. I open to find my wallet and $17.75 in cash, a week and a half’s wages earned in jail. Thank God for the pallet-plant job.

I scan the parking lot outside. The
AA
guys have not arrived to
pick me up yet.

“Pond, you have fifteen minutes then we release you,” an officer says. “Do you want me to phone you a taxi?”

Two other convicts stand dressed and waiting. A taxi arrives.

“Pond, go with these guys,” says the officer. “Otherwise you’ll be standing out there with no ride into town. Do you need a transit pass?”

I grab the pass and walk out the gate
of
FRCC
for the last time. I am concerned about my ride. Where are they? Maybe Jonny can give me a ride to White Rock.

The two convicts in the taxi chatter about their immediate “discharge plans.” Their “corrections aftercare.” “I’m goin’ straight to my dealer,” says one. The other fingers his release cash.

“I’m picking up a forty-pounder of rye—Crown Royal, dude.”

Funny.
The last thing on my mind is a drink. The taxi pulls up to the bus loop—where the
AA
guys pull up too. I climb into Grant’s van and we head to McDonald’s.

As we drive back toward town, I cherry-pick the most entertaining tales from my experience. The guys shake their heads and laugh. Within minutes, we arrive at the McDonald’s. We go in and I sit by the window, looking west. I stare up
the street. Roy buys me an egg McMuffin meal with coffee.

Where is Jonathan? Finally, thirty-two minutes later, at 10:14, Jonny’s black Ford F-150 pulls into the parking lot.

He gets out and my heart leaps. My throat constricts and I fight back the urge to cry. He hasn’t changed a bit since I saw him over seven months ago. Tree Trunk, Big Jon—he’s short like his dad, but much thicker.
Strong. Sturdy. Solid. And, paradoxically, gentle, kind and compassionate.

He comes in, sees me and smiles cautiously. It’s awkward. I don’t know what to say.

“Hey, Dad. How are ya?” Jonny stands by our table. “You look pretty good. Kinda thin, though.”

I get up and motion Jonny to another table so we can chat alone.

“I’m okay, Jonny.” We sit down. “Just happy to
be outta there. How was Christmas? How’s Grandma and Grandpa?”

“Everybody’s good, Dad. Christmas was fine. I’m going back to work New Year’s Day.”

We chat for half an hour about everything and nothing. His presence is heavy, his sadness a burden almost too much to bear. Who wants to meet their dad coming out of prison at Christmastime?

The
AA
guys interrupt. “We have to
go, Mike,” Grant says gently.

But no, I want more, he’s just gotten here. But no—I don’t think Jonny can hold it together for much longer.

We all walk out to the parking lot together and I give Jonny a hug. I can barely fit my arms around his thick chest and shoulders.

“I love you, son.” I squeeze him harder.

“I love you too, Dad.” Jonny steps back. “I’ll see you
later, okay? I’m not sure when.” He climbs into his truck and pulls out with a quick glance back and a nod.

I grip the handle on Grant’s van to hold myself up. I fight a wave of nausea and the need to collapse. Tears trail down my cheeks. God, what have I done to my boys?

Grant takes the exit and we drive over the Golden Ears Bridge. I gaze west again. I see Pitt Meadows in the
near distance. The grey snow-filled sky obscures the view. I imagine my family having lunch at the big kitchen table, chattering and laughing. I’m sure that’s Jonny’s truck pulling into the driveway now. I can just see it.

• 33 •

JANUARY 1, 2010,
dawns dark and cold and wet and rainy. I’m back in White Rock, in my new attic apartment. My seventy-seven-year-old mother paid half my rent. She wrote the three-hundred-dollar cheque directly to my landlord, to ensure I had somewhere to go after prison and, of course, to make sure I didn’t have the opportunity to drink it.

I paid
the other half with the money I’d saved from my last Surrey Memorial pay cheque back in August.

I return to work as planned. My new program is work, debt repayment and random urinalysis. Every second Friday, Fraser Health Authority deposits anywhere from $1,400 to $2,000 into my bank account, depending on how much overtime I work. All but the $600 for rent goes to pay down my drunk-incurred
debt. One by one, I methodically work through my long list of creditors, paying what I can, negotiating reduced amounts when I can’t.