TOUCHING THE MOON

When confronted with his misconduct the psychopath has enough false sincerity and apparent remorse that he renews hope and trust among his accusers. However, after several repetitions, his convincing show is finally recognized for what it is—a show.


Nearly every type of treatment method has been tried with the psychopath. In general, the treatment . . . has not been rewarding or enlightening.

—Richard M. Suinn, “Fundamentals of Behavior Pathology”


In my world, regardless of the circumstances—whether it is a monumental task such as landing on the moon or something more routine such as tying shoelaces—failure will always be an option. I see it every day in the sunken eyes of murderers, rapists, and thieves, their transparent faces, those masks of invincibility, worse than any dollar-store panty hose they may have pulled over their heads.

After they’ve told me what they can do, I sit back and wait and in no time at all I feel the ripple effect caused from the blame-game. “It’s your fault I didn’t succeed,” or something of that nature. As if I deliberately stuck a defective rocket booster under their asses.

But don’t think you’ll clear up any misunderstandings, don’t think for a second you’ll be able to say, “You learn with your ears and not with your mouth.” Such canned statements are devoid of passion; they will spurn arguments faster than any blast-off ever would; besides, my ears are backed-up and my throat is unbearably sore—sure signs of weakness, of a communication breakdown.

Truth be told, I haven’t been to work in three days because I’m sick as hell. I’m sure I’ll hear about it from the inmates when I return, especially since a coworker informed me that only thirteen out of thirty-one students passed their GED Exams. But for now I need my rest … and a doctor’s note. Cause of illness: Wife forgot to give me a dollop of Purell after I touched the moon.

SOME THINGS YOU JUST CAN'T LEAVE BEHIND

I’m not going to turn this into a “what I did on my vacation” slideshow, where I stand in front of a lectern and give play-by-play accounts of the indoor garden and museums my wife and I visited. I’m sure you’re not interested in that anyway, and even if you were, without getting downright mean, let me just say, “None of it should matter.”

Instead, I’m going to swallow two teaspoons of codeine-laced cough syrup (yes, a double dose) and engage in a little bit of writing before checking in for the night.

It’s back to my daily routine: teaching Michigan prisoners in an environment I’ve tried my damnedest to forget about while visiting friends in Houston. True to my word, I stayed away from blogging for fear of writing about my job, yet, when my wife saw the true-crime novel I pulled out of my carry-on luggage, I might as well have confessed for having brought Michigan’s cold miserable weather all the way to Texas.

During our flight, I managed to read a considerable amount of “The Blooding” by Joseph Wambaugh, a former Los Angeles policeman; The book covered the first murder case to use genetic fingerprinting. Interestingly enough, the police had decided to get blood samples from as many men in town as possible. Is there a better way to weed out the innocent? Of course, the guilty party, a sicko, conniving-rapist-killer by the name of Colin Pitchfork, persuaded an acquaintance to give blood in his name after switching the picture on his passport.

By now you’re probably wondering why I’m steering you away from what happened on my vacation. Believe me, there’s an eerie tie-in here; It has to do with a sketch of Baby Grace I witnessed on my friend’s television for the very first time. They informed me about numerous parents and grandparents calling from all over the United States willing to give DNA samples to see if Baby Grace belonged to them. For those of you who may not know, Baby Grace’s badly decomposed body turned up in the Galveston Bay stuffed in a utility box. One grandmother, like many more before and after her, thought the sketch looked similar to her granddaughter, who she hadn’t seen since her ex-daughter-in-law left Ohio. To make matters worse, once located, the ex-daughter-in-law refused to give a DNA sample—a sure sign of guilt.

I swear to God, as my wife and I and our friends traveled to Moody Gardens in Galveston, I tried to find comfort in the cold drizzling rain of Texas. What bothered me, really really bothered me, had been the unraveling of the Baby Grace case.

When I finished my book, I learned that it wasn’t genetic fingerprinting that led to Colin Pitchfork’s arrest for murder, it was a conversation amongst coworkers in a pub a few years after the killings, an off-hand remark of “filling-in” for Colin on a simple blood test. As for the little girl discovered in Galveston Bay, the well-publicized sketch not only led to her killers, but also heightened awareness about many other missing children.

There’s not much I can say. In fact I’m speechless; it has nothing to do with a very sore throat. As for those friendly Texans that welcomed us into their home, they mentioned the death penalty in their state, and in the case of two-year old Riley Ann Sawyers, I’m beginning to think it’s not such a bad idea for the perpetrators. If it weren’t for the codeine, I’d probably go into a tirade over what the mother and her boyfriend did to an innocent child. As for me, it’s back to work dealing with Michigan criminals who must serve their times for a variety of offenses, including child abuse.

SUMMER OF 1972

Sometimes we lose sight of what’s important in life, the daily grind of work robbing us of precious moments spent with family and friends. Not so in the summer of 1972. My parents and grandparents packed their campers and we headed out West to see wild buffalo, prairie dogs, the Bad Lands, Mount Rushmore, and Yellowstone National Park, among other things.

It’s hard to imagine where thirty-five years have gone. I can still feel the warm breeze on my face as my brother maneuvers a miniature milk truck in a dusty parking lot. I was the loyal passenger, a nine-year old boy, waving to Dad while he filmed us; My brother making ever widening turns, our circles becoming larger and larger, as if we had known our freedom wouldn’t last forever.

It’s the silly things in life we cherish the most—like staying at a Flintstone themed park or enjoying the built-in swimming pool with mammoth slide (hey, that’s how I remember it). I may have chickened-out at going down the damn thing—I’d hear about it and regret it whenever Dad set up the projector and ran the film—but it didn’t traumatize me too much; I've learned to laugh at myself. And to see our late grandfather heading for the luxury showers with a towel in hand made us all smile.

Unfortunately, as I tried to duplicate my brother’s feat of feeding a fawn, I got a little extra something that I hadn’t bargained for. Seems to be the story of my life.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. I’m leaving for Texas and promised not to blog while on vacation. See you when I get back.

IF I ONLY KNEW THE MAKE & MODEL

There will come a time when I run out of childhood pictures, those grainy snapshots that have more meaning than any current digital photographs will ever have. I say to myself, “What will I do? How will I be able to recall past events without these visual clues?” Let me be honest here: my memory isn’t as keen as it once was. I need something to kick-start the ol’ noggin.

I’ve tried to peel those black and white pictures from the discolored pages of photo albums, some with success, others to no avail, their backs fused onto the sticky page. I’ve found more depth and more substance in those old black and whites where my brother and I pose in front of an old car or motorcycle, evidence of the time period we had once lived in, knowing mom or dad captured that specific moment with the best of intentions, with dreams of improving our family status.

In this shot, my brother and I are standing in our driveway off of 23 Mile, a two-lane road. Immediately behind us is dad’s Ford Falcon (or is it a Fairlane?). I have difficulty identifying the make, especially since I’m ninety-nine percent certain that the automobile in my last post, the one on the beach, was a Falcon, and this car, although similar, is not the same. Back then, our dad purchased a new American made automobile every two or three years. With less choices in styles and models, you would think that I’d be able to recall the specifics. I do know this: the picture was taken in 1968.

Or was it 1969?

GETTING PULLED OVER

A prisoner detail, otherwise known as an itinerary, otherwise known as a daily schedule, is the equivalent of a driver’s license. Each inmate is supposed to carry it on their person in case they get pulled over; it lists where they should be, where they need to go. Once in awhile I’ll hear an older prisoner, someone who has been to more places than the few blocks in his neighborhood, refer to it as a passport.

Today is just another day in the dime store, collecting identification cards for pencils, calculators, dictionaries, thesauruses, World Book Encyclopedias, staplers, headphones, toilet paper (yes, it's a precious commodity), anything not nailed down that can be concealed under clothing. Ironically, the prisoners will be the first to tell you, “I’m not a thief.” Funny thing is: objects disappear all the time; they grow legs, run away.

Me, accusation: “Where’s my pencils and paper?”

Inmate at my desk: “How would I know?”

Me: “Because you’re an opportunist.”

Inmate: “You better pump your brakes.”

Me: “No, you better pump YOUR brakes.”

So I change my approach. Get friendly. Chitchat with him after class. The normal small talk—the latest episode of “Prison Break” or “House.” Make him feel comfortable. Get him to let his guard down. Soon we’re near the officer’s podium. I step back and point. “This prisoner needs to be shaken down.”

The school officer: “What for?”

I list a half-dozen classroom items. Out they come from his jacket, his shirt, his pants, his sock. A routine traffic stop.

This is too easy. I write a theft ticket and drop him from enrollment. He can no longer travel to school.

WHAT'S MISSING?

I can’t seem to clear my mind of dismemberment—yes, human body parts—ever since reading Harry Hunsicker’s short story “Vivian and Bobby Ray” in the second issue of Murdaland. Bobby Ray’s a rogue cop who entrusts local business owners to show him their latest security measures. Little do they know, Bobby Ray’s casing their joint, desperately seeking funds for his girlfriend’s sick desire to have a perfectly normal leg amputated. She seems to think losing part of herself will make herself whole.

So I started thinking: What is it I hate about myself that I could stand to lose?

Later in the week I hear about a 2-year-old girl from Bangalore, India, with a surplus of limbs. Four arms and four legs to be exact. Surgeons removed the extras. They claimed to have given her a chance at a normal life. I wonder: Just how normal can she be?

Last night, compliments of Detroit’s Channel 4 news, I learned about some teenagers who severed the head of a 26-year-old man just for the thrill of it. I discovered that the victim was once a registered sex offender. Why wasn’t he hanging out with people his own age? Then I realize: losing something means gaining something—or vice versa—even if it’s ill-begotten recognition, dead or alive.

IT'S WORTH THE EFFORT

When the fishing’s rotten, after spending a fraction of my day casting and recasting my line, I reach into my five-gallon bucket of oxygen-depleted water and pick out a floater. By floater I mean that single fish, that pathetic looking mercury-laden perch dumb enough to swallow the hook on my initial cast some four or five hours ago. I’m thinking about throwing him back, about grabbing a late dinner.

A buggy eye stares back at me, and before I tighten my grip, in a desperate attempt to free itself from further torture, that faking-I’m-dead perch flaps itself out of my bare hand and onto the dock. I catch it under my boot, lean into it a little. The buggy eye bulges.

I see seagulls hovering above. I call them garbage birds, rat birds. I reattach the perch to the end of my line and cast it into the lake as far as it’ll go. I slacken my line. Somewhere out there, in the mesmerizing waves, my catch drifts away. It doesn’t take long: the seagulls glide above in diminishing circles. It doesn’t take long: my pathetic perch flies into the sunset.

I tighten my line. The startled seagull lets go. I cast my line again, not because I’m interested in catching birds, but because the fish aren’t biting. I have to do something.

***

I’d like to thank the editors of GlassFire Magazine for having faith in me. If you haven’t checked out their Fall issue, now may be as good a time as any (click here).

I’ve read their nonfiction pieces and can proudly claim that I’m in good company. In Mary Whitsell’s “On The Wrong Side of The Tracks,” she tells us about her sleepless nights in Tokyo with Keiko and Hatsue, two lesbians, friends of a friend, who agree to let her stay at their pet-filled apartment near a mass transit system. In “Love in the Time of Salmonella,” Stephanie Johnson reenacts her anger over a piece of raw chicken caught between the dish basin and the garbage disposal. Her live-in beau, Ben, a former professional chef, is sure to blame. Fortunately, her grandmother offers her some timely advice about finding the right man.

Enjoy the read and don’t forget to celebrate Veteran’s Day.

I'M NO SUPERMAN

With two new teachers aboard and endless routine questions lobbed my way, I’ve come to the realization that I’m one of those seasoned correctional employees oozing negativity. Don’t misunderstand me, my intent is to assist my peers in every way imaginable, it’s just that I’ve been involved in so many scenarios that my advice, perhaps the delivery of it, becomes somewhat simple and somewhat dull.

“How do I kick an inmate out of class?” one teacher asks me. He has a stack of student files in his arms, a sure sign of those he’d like to ditch.

“Show them the door,” I answer.

He points to the post-it-note on the top file. “I was told to see you as far as what procedures I need to take.”

First, I explain what “I” would do. Then I give him the flowchart, step-by-step version of drop kicking someone from the school roster. This includes CSJ-126 “Waiver of Rights” forms, which a majority of prisoners refuse to sign anyway. This leads to more questions, and once again, I explain what “I” would do.

A day earlier, the school corrections officer making rounds asks me to step into the hallway so I can look into another classroom. “Remember when you were that eager to teach?” he remarks.

I notice motivational posters on the walls and classroom rules on the bulletin board. We both laugh. He knows I’m unfazed by his observation. In prison it’s not so much about teaching inmates; it’s about their desire to learn. I see myself as a facilitator, a referee, giving them options, and if they make the right choices, they’re rewarded with a useless high school equivalency diploma, which I’m sure those who were victimized could care less about anyway.

A CAN OPENER

Dean Bakopoulos, author of “Please Don’t Come Back From the Moon,” recalling his Detroit prep school days in Mr. Bean’s Honors English Class:



When we finished reading “The Nick Adams Stories,” Mr. Bean gave us the task of finding the “perfect Hemingway sentence,” the one that summed up worldview of this writer that so many of us suddenly wanted to become. If we found it, we’d get an automatic A for the semester.

The next morning, our searches proved fruitless. We went around the room, making our best guesses, all of us wrong. Then Mr. Bean stood up in the center of his room and, in his booming voice, he turned to “Big Two-Hearted River” and read the perfect Hemingway sentence: “He liked to open cans.”

We were baffled. We groaned and complained and said that we’d been had. Seriously? That?

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So here’s Jimmy O, the one-eyed hunter, propped against a tree sound asleep. Like Roy Ferris before him, Jimmy O never wandered far from camp, whereas, those of us who pilfered cans of peaches, beef jerkey and toilet paper eagerly headed for the woods. We dressed in layers, and when nature came a calling, we begrudgingly propped our rifles against trees, peeled off enough clothing, and did our business.

I haven’t hunted in years, but if I decided to join my dad and brother, I’d be sure to pack my own can opener in my Pabst Blue Ribbon hunting box. With each ticking second ... minute ... hour spent in the woods, you never knew when that eight-point buck would come your way. We all wanted that one chance, that one shot, to be successful, to come back and retell our stories of how it all happened. Plus, it would be inexcusable to confiscate that designated can opener from hunting camp—that is, unless you dragged a trophy buck into the clearing.

My brother emailed the following picture below. Seems a buck is walking around with a tin bucket caught on his antlers.

I'LL TAKE WHAT I CAN GET

When you videotape a fawn peacefully walking across your front yard, dub in some heavy artillery followed by a crowd cheering for its successful escape, then post it on YouTube under the title “Ted Nugent Visits My House,” you’re bound to get a few NRA / Hunting Enthusiasts cussing you out. They assume you’re anti-hunting, anti-gun. I sometimes wonder: If I dubbed in a crappy new song by the Motor City Madman would they have given me the benefit of the doubt, that I’m poking fun of the Nuge?

I remember my first year of hunting, my uncle and I slung the hindquarters of a deer on our shoulders and headed back to camp. We explained that it was too difficult to drag the carcass out of the swamp. “We took what we could get,” I said.

My answer seemed plausible, dusk came quickly. However, my brother, not buying it—he never gave up on a potential kill, and a few days later, with ammo flying, made hamburger out of a spiked buck wheezing on the river bank—questioned our story.

We fessed up. It was a doe, like we had mentioned (the story wouldn’t have been plausible if we had imagined an eight-point buck), and we discovered it bloated and dead. My uncle suggested I practice gutting my first deer. When I stuck the knife in I punctured the sack, releasing a rotten egglike stench. We gagged. Then cut.

That night we cooked venison and ate it, hoping the next day would bring better luck.

THE ONE-EYED HUNTERS

The rusted-out husk of broken down Buicks and Farmalls sunk into Roy Ferris’s front lawn; His bygone possessions amongst the jimsonweed, dodder, and dandelion. His clapboard house never felt the bristles of a loaded paintbrush. The quack grass grew undisturbed, swallowing two mower decks—obstacles for feral cats chasing field mice across his postage-stamp lot. My late grandfather, forever the good neighbor (their socio-economic disparity as wide as the cornfield separating their homes) invited Roy to our Kalkaska hunting camp.

Roy Ferris had nothing in common with the well-paid Detroit autoworkers arriving in their new F-150s. Still, he became one of us, the camaraderie natural and unforced. The deer need not worry about Roy’s marksmanship either; he tended the campfire, never wandering too far from the heat in his thin layer of clothing, his glass eye rolling inward, his good eye darting back and forth from smoke and flame to the surrounding forest, waiting for us to reappear from the swamps, waiting for someone to drag a freshly gutted buck into the clearing.

I’m not exactly sure how many times Roy stayed at our camp before his death, but my grandfather soon found someone else to converse with on the ride to and from camp. Enter Jimmy O, another poor chap, a younger version of Roy, collecting disability and working odd jobs whenever the opportunity arose. He had a lisp, his tongue smacking against the back of his upper incisors with more frequency after each swig of Jack Daniels. If my memory serves me well, we only had one one-eyed man per hunting season and not two.

The above photograph shows Jimmy O taking a much-needed rest. The prisoner drawing, aptly titled “The Eye in the Sky,” is a belated tribute to Roy Ferris.

ONE LAST GOOD MEAL

“Isn’t that always the way?” the old pathologist had said, yanking the tray out with Elena’s body on it. “It’s love sickness. A man kills his wife then kills himself. A woman kills her man then does her nails.”

—“Blood Sport” fiction by Thomas Lynch

Thomas J. Kuzmak, wanted for the fatal stabbing of his ex-wife, poured maple syrup on his dollar-size pancakes, chewed and swallowed each forkful slowly, and said, “Yes please,” to the passing waitress when she asked if he’d like a refill on his coffee. At least that’s the way I envision it. He didn’t kill himself like so many others; his weapon of choice had been a knife. Having done time in an Ohio penitentiary, the only trigger he considered pulling was whether he should turn himself in or continue to flee. But not before having one last decent meal. County jails, he must have known, have lousy food, and the prison’s meals aren’t much better.

After that last bite, after that last bit of coffee, Kuzmak stepped up to the cash register to pay his bill and, as a matter of fact, confessed his sin. He was apprehended shortly afterward and is awaiting extradition to Michigan.

The waitress working the register, a woman by the name of Sandy, told the Detroit Free Press that he had the Kings Country Breakfast—pancakes, eggs, home fries, ham and wheat toast—a $10 special at the Kings Family Restaurant in Claysville, Pennsylvania.

There’s always a slight possibility that I’ll see Kuzmak at my facility. I say, “slight,” because there are so many more just like him, living, breathing, taking up bed space. They only view the world as it revolves around themselves, and I, along with my coworkers, am considered their newest enemy. Its unfortunate Kuzmak’s ex-wife never had the opportunity to paint her nails, even if for one last time.

THE ONE-HUNDRED PERCENT MAN

Prisoner Minnifield refers to himself as “The One-Hundred Percent Man,” a nineteen year old kid who will accept nothing less than perfect. He broadcasts his achievements to the others after each checked assignment. “I’m the Hunerd-Percent Man,” he says, regardless of all those cheating accusations hurled his way. When confronted about having answer keys hidden under his folder, he says, “The Hunerd-Percent Man don’t cheat.”

He has completed all his class work on fractions, decimals, and percents. Fifth grade material. There are absolutely no mistakes on his paper; he doesn’t have time to show all the steps.

I ask him, “One half is what percent?”

He answers, “Fiddy-percent.”

“One,” I continue, “is what percent?”

After a slight pause and scratch of his head, he smiles, then says, “One percent.”

The inmate tutors start referring to him as “The One-Percent Man.”

He corrects them.

My shipment of new FX-260 Solar Calculators arrives. I carry the rather small box across the room to my locked storage area.

One-Hundred Percent Man, a.k.a., One-Percent Man, asks me, “What’s in the box?”

“I know what I’d like to put in the box.”

“What’s that?” he asks.

“I’d like to put your brain in it and ship it off for research.”

“You got jokes,” he says.

A tutor adds, “Boss, I’m not sure we have enough packing material.”

I can’t help but agree.

TRAINING OTHERS

When you’ve been dead for far too long, your eyes turn to stone and the new archaeologists studying the lines on your face determine that you’ve become another common fossil, compressed and hardened, as far as you can go.

—Do you ever look up your students’ criminal records?

—I’m not here to judge them. Our judicial system has already done that.

—Have any fights broke out in your classroom?

—Nope.

sigh

I try to be more entertaining. I tell them about the gay convict in my last class, how he giggled and told another student that he was acting like a little schoolgirl.

—What happened? What did the other guy do?

—He said he’d beat his muthaf*^%*ng ass, and I told him to do it on his own time.

silence

—How many years have you been working for the department?

—Too many.

—Do you let them take books back to their cells?

—It depends. If they work in class, I don’t have a problem with it.

I walk around the room, as if I’m truly interested in making my students smarter, as if they’ll some day become productive citizens. I’m trying to show the new teachers what to do.

—Have you ever heard about one of your students paroling and turning his life around?

—No. I only hear about the ones who return.

I’ve piqued their interest. They want to know more about the failures, as if my story, my longevity, doesn’t count. I give them what they want.