First Day Out of Prison

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There were two dorms in the prison, a little more than 200 men on each side—wall-to-wall bunk beds for as far as the eye could see. At 6:30 every morning, the officer on duty turned on the overhead lights. The morning I said goodbye was no different. When the noisy fluorescents lit up the room, I was still sitting next to my bunk, hyperconscious of my being—wanting to appear neither too nervous nor too cool. That morning I simply wanted to be until I could become, as so many others had before me, a memory.

One by one, my old friends stopped by the bunk to wish me well and send me on my way. We hugged and exchanged quick anecdotes. The emotion was familiar to me, having said goodbye to hundreds of guys over the years. That morning, however, it was my turn to be the one walking out the door, all the while knowing that as happy as so many were for me they also wanted to be in my shoes—those flimsy blue bus shoes.

One by one, my old friends stopped by the bunk to wish me well and send me on my way. The emotion was familiar to me, having said goodbye to hundreds of guys over the years.

Exit Stage Left.

On the coldest day of winter, I left the building in which I lived for four-and-a-half years, and walked a couple of hundred yards to R&D—receiving and delivering, in order to be officially discharged. I shivered in the tiny waiting area, as I waited for the officers to deliver the box of clothes my family mailed to the prison more than two weeks prior to that morning. Had the adrenaline not flowed throughout my body in such a torrent, I might have felt the effects of the heatless room even more.

A little more than an hour and a half elapsed before my package of clothes was brought over by a couple of corrections officers. They were kind, made a couple of jokes at which I did not laugh; my nerves were still frazzled. I brought the bag of clothes into an adjacent bathroom and breathed a sigh of relief upon realizing that they did, indeed, fit me. The two officers who delivered my clothes were also the officers who escorted me to the SUV that awaited me in the parking lot.

“Good luck,” they said, almost in unison.

Did they practice that? I wondered.

“Thanks.”

My manager jumped out of the vehicle and gave me an enormous bear hug.

“We were worried,” she said, teary-eyed, motioning for me to enter the truck. “We’ve been here for more than two hours. Waiting.”

“Ah,” I reminded her, “’tis the nature of a bureaucracy. Everything is a process.”

The driver pulled out of the parking lot and we all sat in silence. I wanted to believe that I was really leaving, that it was not a dream, or some cruel (un)practical joke. There was no need to express that sentiment. Everyone in the slow-moving vehicle felt something similar. The morning air contributed to the mood, which complemented the RPMs of the motor and the sound of heat pushing through the vents. VRRRRRM followed by SHHHHHH and again unto VRRRRRRRM.

It was not until we reached the highway that my manager handed me a bag of treats.

“The contents,” she instructed, “vary from what you might need to what you might want.” Gadgets!

I left the “free world” prior to BlackBerry addiction and iPod accessorizing. I learned how to use that multifunctional phone in the car ride, dialing a half-dozen people who fought tirelessly in my defense over the years. The calls were all similar in words, yet unique with each connection.

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