Electroboy (28 page)

It’s nearly 95 degrees. He nods at me to follow. He offers me a cigarette again and lights it. I’m wearing a pair of khakis, a white Ralph Lauren Polo shirt, and a pair of loafers. My pants are sticking to my legs, and my shirt is clinging to my back. The shower curtain is clear vinyl with a seashell print. The floor tiles are loose and some are missing. The sink is cracked. I’m trying to explain my crime to Pippo. Looking for key words. Art. Fraud. Counterfeiting. Japan. Inhale deep. I’m choking on smoke. He starts laughing, so I start laughing. Soon we’re both laughing. I’m still choking on smoke. I don’t know if he’s laughing at my crime or because I’m choking, but I keep laughing with him and then he starts mumbling in Spanish and laughing even harder.

Esmor is run by Mr. Hughes, a cruel black man in his midforties who manages a staff of resident supervisors—a group of young social workers who are poorly trained and command little respect from the residents—and a pathetic and nasty employment counselor, Mr. Gordon, who picks his nose and advises me to apply for a job at a nearby toy factory. He is the target of hatred and the butt of residents’ jokes since he treats us like animals. He is known for meting out harsh punishments for ridiculous infractions, like weekend lockup for five-minute lateness. The second Sunday I’m there, all of us residents assemble in the cafeteria for an hourlong meeting with Mr. Hughes, in which he begins by discussing policy and the past week’s violations. He talks about the importance of curfew, keeping a neat and orderly room, and respecting the staff. “Respect. Respect is key,” he says. He paces in front of us, telling us we’re lucky to be in a place like this and that we all belong in the “big house” and he has the power to send us back there. Then he starts screaming insults and demeaning random
residents in the group. “If you hadn’t had such blatant disrespect for the law, you wouldn’t find yourself here, so I have no pity for you,” he says to a dark-skinned young Muslim wearing a skullcap. The man stands up and lunges for Hughes, starts choking him, pulls him to the floor, and sits on his chest. The resident supervisors finally pull him off, and the police arrive in about ten minutes to take him away. The meeting is quickly disbanded.

There are about one hundred men and women confined to this facility. A majority of the residents are transitioning—they’ve spent time in “real” prison serving longer sentences, mostly for drug-related crimes. The majority are Hispanic or African-American, although there is one Orthodox Jew in for diamond fraud. I definitely stick out in the crowd; residents are constantly stopping to ask me questions as if I work here or asking me to sign passes for them. I feel like a fool.

I am prepared for my stay at Esmor with a month’s supply of medication, which I am able to administer myself. I am taking lithium, Depakote, Risperdal, and Ambien to sleep at night. I’ve been committed to keeping a consistent regimen, taking my medications at the right dosages and the right times. In my dresser drawer they’re easily accessible to anyone, but I’m never concerned that any of the residents are going to steal my medication, although sometimes I do double-check to see if any are missing. On my first day—I introduce myself to as many of the residents as I can—it feels like freshman orientation again. I feel a huge surge of energy as I sit drinking a Diet Pepsi (unfortunately they don’t have Diet Coke here) in the smoking lounge after dinner with a few new friends. It’s almost 10:00
P.M.
, time for lights out, and everybody starts returning to their rooms. It’s ridiculously hot and I get into bed in my underwear and lie flat on the three-inch mattress. Pippo opens his top drawer and pulls out a flag, the flag of Puerto Rico. He gets into his bed and covers himself with the flag. The resident supervisor comes into our room for the head count and calls out my name. I answer “here” and thank him, and he slams the door shut. For the next twenty minutes I hear doors slamming. I can’t stand the noise. I feel like I’m being locked in my
cage. And I’m petrified of falling asleep next to this scary guy underneath his flag of Puerto Rico—I feel like he’s lying in his coffin.

Each day, when you are outside Esmor, you are required to make two “contact calls,” one between 10:00
A.M.
and 2:00
P.M.
and the second between 4:00
P.M.
and 8:00
P.M.
They’re fifteen-second calls—all you are required to do is to state your name and your location. A silly technicality, but sometimes it slips your mind. When you leave in the morning and when you return in the evening you have to sign in and out in three different places. My signature becomes abbreviated, and I even drop the loop in the
D
in my middle name because I have to sign it so many times.

The first night I come to Esmor I call my friend Lucy and tell her that I’m on work release; can she help me find a job? She calls her friend Susan, who has just opened a new, upscale café in the Village. This phone call establishes a pattern between Lucy and me—we speak every night I am at Esmor, sometimes a couple of times a night, and she visits me several times a week, constantly reassuring me that there will be an end to this five-month sentence. I make an appointment with Susan at the Cake Bar and Cafe and have my meeting approved by the staff. I’ve never worked as a busboy before, and I guess thirty-two isn’t too late to start. I fill Susan in on my status and she seems somewhat amused; I promise that I will be an incredible worker and a tremendous asset. Susan is a lawyer by training, and it was her dream to open this café. She’s very understanding and certain things will work out just fine. From my first day, I become obsessed with clearing dirty plates and lipstick-smudged cups and glasses off tables and wiping them down like an automaton. I am proud when I’m promoted to the position of waiter, and I excel at serving my customers. It’s a pretty simple job, but I manage to turn it into a rather complicated one in my mind and make it a challenge—I give myself ridiculous goals related to clearing plates and glasses: I estimate that it will take three trips to the kitchen to clear off six tables, or I can carry everything in one hand from three tables. It keeps me occupied. My attitude is always friendly,
probably because it feels like a volunteer job, but I’m efficient and move quickly. A young couple comes in and orders carrot cake and cappuccino, and I can tell that they’re in a rush. I hold my other orders and get to theirs right away. The first day, I wait on chef David Bouley. This makes me slightly nervous. No problems. Good tipper. $5 on $20. During the day, in this world of chocolate-mousse pies, banana rhum tarts, cappuccino and espresso, I’m a totally free man—except from my obsessions—but when the kitchen closes, I’m forced to return to the world of urine tests, shakedowns, and confinement. Since I have to give 25% of my earnings to Esmor and I have taxes to pay, I’m not earning too much—about $150 per week—so I decide that I’m going to have to come up with some freelance public relations work to do so I can put aside some money for my release. Since most of my PR work is done on the telephone anyway, I figure it shouldn’t be a problem for me to handle two or three clients from prison.

The smell of disinfectant in the cafeteria is so strong that it’s almost impossible for me to eat without getting nauseated. Beef stew and rice that smell like ammonia are hard to stomach. It doesn’t seem to bother anybody else, so I don’t say anything, I just don’t eat. I buy most of my meals at places like Burger King and Wendy’s in transit from my job, or I settle for Oreos or Lay’s potato chips from the vending machines in the lounge. Today in the cafeteria I push the food away, go upstairs, and take a cool shower—it’s like an oven in this building—then sit in front of the television and ask Pippo if he minds if I watch
Melrose Place
. He looks confused. He’s obviously never seen it or heard of it, but he’s hooked after the first show. He thinks Amanda’s a big bitch. We watch
Party of Five
next. I don’t bother trying to explain this to Pippo. I don’t think he gets it. Sometimes when there’s nothing on television, Pippo puts a tape in his boom box and dances around the room while I’m reading a magazine or writing in my journal. He pretends to be dancing with a partner and makes snapping and hissing noises with his tongue. I can’t imagine this happy dancing man transporting kilos of cocaine across the border, and I stay away from the exact reason that he is here.

One evening Pippo isn’t feeling well and can hardly move in bed. He is sweating and cursing in English and Spanish, and finally I go downstairs to get help. He is taken away in an ambulance, and I never see him again. The rumor is that Pippo has spinal meningitis, so for weeks I’m obsessed that I, too, have contracted this fatal disease and am going to die in this shithole. Mr. Hughes replaces Pippo immediately with a new resident, Tony, who has served a long sentence for some type of business fraud that we never actually discuss. Tony comes from a tough Italian family. He finds a job at Williams-Sonoma, doing cooking demonstrations. They make him wear an apron on the sales floor, which really humiliates him. I wish I could see him wearing it just once. He is lonely and desperate to go home, and all he wants to do is talk about the injustice of his trial and how his co-conspirator walked away without having to serve any time. We hang around in the lounge together playing “What’s His Crime?,” a game in which you pick out a resident and guess his crime and then find out why he’s really here. The closest guess wins a Pepsi.

In the months preceding my admission to Esmor, I was still actively pursuing new PR clients. I’m not quite sure what I was thinking I was going to do when the time came for me to turn myself in and be cut off from the rest of the world. But I do have the telephone. The telephone has always been my most important tool. I prefer it to the press release, the press kit, the memo, and the letter. It is quick and efficient. There is one pay phone per floor, calls are limited to ten minutes per call, and the lines for the phone usually have ten people waiting. So I get on line one night to use the pay phone, and there are about four or five guys ahead of me, each speaking loudly in Spanish and for much longer than the allotted ten minutes. I just need to make a quick call to an artist to confirm an appointment to meet at the café tomorrow. He knows about my situation and is actually quite comfortable with it. I get him on the phone, and he tells me that he’s decided to go ahead and use me. He asks where he can drop off a check quietly, and I tell him to do it at the café, because I can’t receive money while at Esmor. I make a call to a couples therapist who
has been referred to me by another client; she is interested in doing national television appearances. We talk briefly, and the whole time I’m frightened there’s going to be a fire drill or someone is going to scream something out in Spanish.

September 18, 1994
.

It’s Sunday morning. Sundays we’re allowed out for two hours for religious worship. I decide to go to St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, since it’s only twenty blocks from Esmor and I can easily take a bus there. Since I’m Jewish, I have really only been to church for weddings and funerals, so I’m not really sure what to expect. When I go in the Fifth Avenue entrance along with a large group of tourists, I’m overwhelmed by the size of the cathedral. I follow a young tourist in shorts and dip my fingers into the holy water and pretend to cross myself, then take a seat in the back. I’m engulfed with loneliness, but at the same time I feel surrounded and supported by so many people in the church. I feel like I’ve found refuge and there is no reason to return to Esmor. I pray that my incarceration will be over soon. An elderly woman attached to an oxygen tank is sitting a few rows in front of me. This makes me feel fortunate. But praying at St. Patrick’s doesn’t make the sentence go any quicker. Soon I realize that the Tivoli Diner on Third Avenue is closer to Esmor and I can pray there just as easily and have a toasted corn muffin and read the Sunday
Times
all in the same two hours.

September 30, 1994
.

I scrub the shower so that we’ll pass inspection today. Yesterday Rodriguez, one of the resident supervisors, wrote us up for “too many hairs.” I figure I’ll scrub the toilet and sink again. It’s almost impossible to make this bathroom look decent—it’s such a vile pit. I’m a pro when it comes to disinfecting. Tony is still asleep, and I don’t want to disturb him. He’ll be relieved not to have to do any of the cleaning when he wakes up. I think he expects me to do it. He’s served four years already, so I think he has seniority.
The room is like an oven—well, at least a toaster oven. It’s dark and dingy and it smells like the Chinese restaurant behind the building. I go into my dresser to pull out some clothes. I’m shocked. Everything is missing. Jeans, khakis, polo shirts, button-downs—gone. I look all over the room, which takes all of five seconds. I start looking in Tony’s dresser, and he sits up quickly. Like he has some type of automatic alarm system connected to his property. I tell him all my clothes are missing. He laughs and tells me we’re living among criminals. What do you expect? At dinner I see Alvarez, a big guy with a Latin Kings tattoo on his knuckles, dressed in my Ralph Lauren striped button-down shirt. Tony tells me to keep my mouth shut.

October 21, 1994
.

We got an incident report for “too many hairs” again this morning. Getting an incident report here feels like being convicted of another felony because you’re the defendant again. It’s like going to court. I’m fighting this one with Ms. Black. I tell her that this is a ridiculous charge and that Rodriguez is obviously doing this to fill his quota and that I’m not going to accept the punishment for it this time—scraping the wax off the cafeteria floors. She tells me that she’ll look into it. I come face-to-face with Rodriguez, who tells me in front of Black about the big clump of hair he found in the drain. She sends me and Tony to the cafeteria for the punishment, where we get down on our hands and knees in front of a crowd of residents and start scraping off the wax.

November 7, 1994
.