I've been asked to write a letter for a friend of mine, who is coming up for his first shot at parole in May.
I'm equal parts scared, honored, nervous and excited and am wholly filled with ideas. It could be the best thing I've ever written - not because of writing style, but because of the effects it could have - and it could be dismissed useless just as easily, as quickly as he's ushered back to his block.
He called last night and we had a good chat, which ended with him having to go to bedtime roll call. I heard the metal clangs and echoes behind him, which might have been a guard shutting the lights on a whole block, and various shouts. "I have to go so they don?t think I've escaped," he said. It's a high-security medium level prison, just below max, and it's a hair's breadth from Canada, on a road called Devil's Den. It was 15 degrees below outside when he called. "Springtime weather," he joked.
I interviewed him about his life before the accident, his life after, what he goes through now, why he thinks he's ready to get out, and so on. In the next few months I'll be interviewing people from our neighborhood, people who miss him, people who remember what a credit he was to his society before that day.
It was an accident. He made a huge mistake, and learned his lesson at the moment of impact. Two and a half years in prison have given that lesson breadth and depth - the first shock of what he had done has expanded to take in all the ramifications. A wife is without her husband, a child without her father - he feels the pain of that. My friend had one drink too many. It was horrible, a tragedy everywhere, and if there is one person on earth for whom the prison system has worked, it is him - sadly less because it's a good system and more because of his willingness to let it work.
And now it's one shot in May to be released, and odds say he'll be sent back to a cell even though a reviewer told him that if there is anyone for whom the odds will bend, it's him. He's been a model prisoner. He's written to guidance programs, tried to apply to get a nurse's license, has already pre-enrolled at college for his return, has plans on speaking at high schools - he wants to tell people how it's not cliche, how life does turn at the blink of an eye. How he'll be regretting that one decision for the rest of his life, and doesn't know if he'll ever make up for it but wants to try.
And so what does one say? The worst thing to say, I'm told, is that he's a good person. They hear that about everyone, rapists and murderers included. "They pretty much think if you've done something to get in here you're not so good a person," he said. "It's just a rule of thumb."
But the problem here is that he is, and I can say that definitively, having known him since kindergarten, when he gave me a small, silver ring with a turquoise "#1" on it. I found it a few months ago, while cleaning.
He's good person who made a big mistake, as people make big mistakes all the time. His cost a man his life, nearly cost him his own, and landed him in jail. I know - I know in my bones - being in jail does not benefit him anymore. It has done its job. Maybe different people would agree on how much time he deserves - I'm even wavering on this one, since a life was lost - but I do know that society is better with him outside the Devil's Den than in it.
Now I have to convince the parole board.
