The Side Effects of Endorphins

Write about a time when you didn’t take action but wish you had. What would you do differently?

I should not have had that last beer. (Fiction)

You are living in a dream. It is a dream that did not hand out invitations. You find herself amid a trial for a crime that you did not commit. I never pretend to understand how somebody in that situation feels and you certainly do not want to be in that situation. And when it does happen to you you go through the regular stages of grief. There’s denial, there’s anger, but I do not think there’s ever acceptance.

I am a little crazy because I keep repeating the phrase for a crime, where I am innocent. And that was five years ago, when I was sitting in a crowded courtroom, and the judge announced that I was guilty. it was chaos, my mother was crying, my dad wanted to start a fight, and my wife livid. She is still mad about the whole thing. We get along better these days.

 I do not know where I was the night of the robbery. I know I did not rob a grocery store and certainly not with a firearm. I am terrified of guns, and yet they found me guilty of bank robbery. That is why I am living here behind bars and here is where I am going to stay for the next five years. I have already been living here for five years.

The court system in our country certainly allows for an atrocity such as this to happen. Our system is such that those with wealth receive too many get out of free jail cards. The poor are just shit out of luck. I have used all my financial assets to hire a halfway decent lawyer. It is all about giving up everything without a guarantee of winning in the end.

I spent the last year in solitary confinement. Solitary confinement will wear you out and then spit you out into twisted smithereens. How many twisting spiraling generations can the human mind go through? Your thoughts whirl around without anything to bounce off. It gets surreal at times. It gives me ample time to think about where I was that night. Surreal is an understatement. Solitary confinement is a recipe for insanity. There are times you can feel and hear the blood flowing through your veins until it is a faint heartbeat echoing in your ears. I have plenty of time to read in here but reading Poes’s Tale-Tell Heart simply freaked me out. It nearly pushed me over the edge.

I am one of the lucky ones in solitary confinement as I have pencils and paper. I can write down my thoughts and on other occasions I can read what I was thinking days ago. It makes my brain hurt even though I think about the entropy going on here.

I do not know whether each day lasts forever or if that given day flew by. Quizzically, I do not know whether I want time to go by fast or slow. So, I try not to think about time all that often. I have had so many conversations with myself, and they all make sense. Some nights I scream into my pillow. If I had a nervous breakdown here would anyone even know. Woukd it really be a nervous breakdown or mark me as dangerous?

There is a story that keeps me sane every single day. No, it is not a magical verse from the Bible. If there was a God, I would not be here.  It is the story of David Milgaard.

The first time David Milgaard’s mother, Joyce, heard those words, she cried.

It was 1992, and Joyce’s son, who was recently released, from prison after serving 23 years — 8,355 days — for a heinous crime he did not commit. He was just 17 when he was wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of nursing assistant Gail Miller.

It became known as one of the most infamous wrongdoings in the Canadian criminal justice system, to, now studied in law classes across the country. What is amazing about his case is the faith of people surrounding him. They knew him to be innocent, and he carried himself with dignity and honor until his eventual release.

And one day they moved me to an entirely different cell. They allowed me to take my spiral notebooks, a few dull pencils, and a flashlight about which they did not know. It was a special flashlight that allowed me to read at night. In solitary, there is no difference between day and night, so a flashlight comes in handy. I was happy, surprised, and a little bit weary. I do not cause a lot of trouble yet. I feel like the guards and especially the judges despise me. That is what happens when a system turns against you. And who knows what my people skills are like right now. It felt awkward and painful to talk with another human being. What did I have to talk about?

I remember the first time I went to the common cafeteria. I felt triggered, like I was the new kid at school choosing what table to eat my lunch. To be honest, the food was tasty compared to the monotony of Hope Solo. That is how I referred to Solitary Confinement in my journals and sketches.   Yes, I am a soccer fan. I do not think the judge likes me because I am a soccer fan.

I was sitting at a proper table, all by myself, eating oatmeal and toast. Some days I put sugar on my oatmeal and other days I use Tabasco. I like the endorphin buzz I get from the peppery sauce

Time moved neither fast nor slow outside the confines of Hope Solo. I glimpsed the sliver of the moon in the western sky. A week later it was ebbing close to full moon. It would later disappear, and the sliver of moon would be back three weeks later, only at a slightly different angle. The moon gave me an anchor to the true world out there.

One day a man strolled across the highly polished cafeteria, looking much like myself several weeks back. These days I march confidently toward my solo seat in the cafeteria. He was a man in his late forties who spoke in a smoker’s raspy voice.

“Is this seat taken?” Asked the man in the smoking raspy voice.

He did not wait for an answer and slid his olive-green cafeteria tray across from me. He simply started eating with focused attention. He took his time dragging the bread through the starchy gravy.  He looked up and caught me staring. I knew I was pushing the limits on my lunch hour but still I stayed. Hundreds of people walked by me everyday and this is the first person to say hello.

I handed him a packet of ketchup and told him the dish needed some. This may have come across a little needy, but this is the first real conversation I have had in months; I felt less like an ogre and more like the person who entered this institution of rehabilitation. In retrospect this is against the principles of our warped judicial system. By design, you are supposed to appear a changed person, but I am okay with and proud of who I am.

By design I am a changed man despite my resistance to change. I have no idea what to do in social situations. Hope Solo has destroyed my confidence in who I am. The trial is very much the same. Still, me and the man in the raspy voice slowly became friends. He talked a smart game and seemed to know what he was talking about. It took him awhile, but he was in for selling drugs that were now legal in the civilized parts of the United States.

We slowly became friends, meeting at the very same table a few times a week. One was in for a crime he did not do and the other in for doing something no longer illegal. We stayed to ourselves so as not to draw attention. These prisoners had too much time on their hands to make up a juicy story. The prison population was no different then that of those not in prison. Prisons also have people who are bigoted or addicted to drama.

His name was Silviu, and he was one of the best people I have met in my life. He was a professional soccer referee and a part time cab driver the rest of the time. The stories he could tell, he told them with pomp and precision. People liked Silviu and I was lucky enough to ride on his coat tails. Being friends with Silviu gave me a certain cache. I was starting to make a few friends.

One day We were sitting at a different table near the windows. My stature in the community has improved tremendously. A large official looking man walked up to our table and displayed his ID and asked if he could have a private talk with me. I looked at Sylvia, and he gave me a furtive glance and raised his left eyebrow showing I should go.

We did not even leave the room. We both sat down at the very same table where Silvia and I had sat previously. He got directly to the point. He told me that the owner of the grocery store fabricated much of what he said in court. He staged the robbery for insurance purposes. He explained to me that I had gone grocery shopping in an overly inebriated state.

From what I gather, I am going to go free. I had four visitors in all these years, and I think ten of those were reporters. I am trying to remember how to do math. When I married my wife, I loved her for her stubbornness. She is still really pissed off at me for getting drunk that night. Somehow, she always knows where I go and where I was even though I did not.

I walked out these doors and headed to the train station. And that glorious day did come and it was my brother who was there. The drive home was awkward. I wanted to stop at a bar, but how do I just mention that? We drove silently, through rolling hills full of crickets. The angle of the light did not make any sense at all. I did not know what to talk to Danni about. I had no small talk in me so I asked him if we could stop at a bar. That is all I knew to talk about and he miraculously agreed. I had no cash on me, and I did not know where I was going to get some. I have done my time, and they dumped me out in the wild.

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Silviu as a fictional character loosely based on a soccer referee that looks like my father-in-law. He shows up to some of my stories.