Read Online No Coming Back by Keith Houghton - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Keith Houghton
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Often it’s somebody else’s. Sometimes it’s my own.
Eventually, I wake to find myself on the floor, tangled in damp linens and wedged between the bed and the wall. Disoriented. For a moment I think I hear the wake-up call echoing outside, boots stamping on gray cement, bolts being drawn back, but it’s just the banging of pipes against loosened pins.
I relax in my nest, but only a little.
I can smell Jenna and my heart is racing.
Six months have passed since I got the stamp of approval on my parole. For me, time has stood still. The world I left behind is dead. Friends have moved on. Family has passed away. Trends have come and gone and come around again. While I’ve been resisting change on the inside, the outside world has changed beyond all recognition, almost as though I have emerged from a coma into an alien world.
In some ways reintegration is harder than incarceration.
“No one warns you before you get out,” I’d told Denis Flannigan , my designated parole officer, as I sat in his cluttered office in St. Paul, a day into my newfound freedom.
Flannigan had cigarette-stained fingertips and a missing front tooth. He was a wiry redhead with skin so freckly he looked like an accident in a paint factory.
“So what do you think they should do, Olson,” he’d said in his thick Irish accent, “provide handbooks and the like? Get real, will you? State Corrections is dollar-poor as it is. They got better things to spend their money on other than wiping your miserable backside . So get used to it, brother. You’re institutionalized. It’s going to take time to readjust. Who knows, maybe you never will. The sooner you accept your old life is gone and there’s no going back, the sooner you can start building you a new one. Better than the old. Same as I tell all my boys. You’ve done the hard part. You survived prison. You did good. Congratu-fucking-lations. So now you’ve got to learn to survive out here, too. Stay good. You getti ng me?”
The truth is, psychologically speaking, I was institutionalized within weeks. Fate sealed in a concrete box with no way out.
People think imprisonment takes away choices. It doesn’t. Every day I made decisions, most of which were designed to grease my life and stop the abuse from sticking, but mostly to survive. Choices I would never make on the outside, or ever even contemplate. Prison life is all about adjustment. Those that fail to adapt either die or wish they had. Daily routines help, especially as the weeks drift into months and the months fade into years. They keep you focused, grounded. They denote the passage of time. But nothing prepares the mind for release, for exposure, for the bigger bad world to confirm your insignificance. I came out of Stillwater time-shifted and forgotten, and I haven’t quite caught my breath.
My phone rings on the nightstand. I extricate myself from the tangled linens and pick up, “Hello?”
“How you doing there, sleepy head?”
“Kim? How’d you get my number?”
“Lars. Obviously. I figured you’d be sleeping, so I hung back from calling too soon.”
I rub grit from my eyes. “What time is it?”
“Almost two. It’s the weekend and it’s snowing. We should do something.”
I get to my feet and pull back the drapes, squint at the gleaming world outside. Big flakes are tumbling lazily from a breezeless sky.
“What do you have in mind?”
“Skinny-dipping up at the lake?” She hears my snicker and adds, “Seriously, though, how’d things go with the Luckmans?”
“Better than I expected.”
“Yeah? That’s good, Jake. I’m pleased for you. They’ve been through a rough patch. Now they can move on. So I was wondering about grabbing something to eat. I’m thinking a late breakfast or an early dinner? My treat.”
I almost say “ what’s your agenda, Kim?” but then remind myself she’s just being friendly. The fact of the matter is I’m not used to people being pleasant for no reason. I’m
Eventually, I wake to find myself on the floor, tangled in damp linens and wedged between the bed and the wall. Disoriented. For a moment I think I hear the wake-up call echoing outside, boots stamping on gray cement, bolts being drawn back, but it’s just the banging of pipes against loosened pins.
I relax in my nest, but only a little.
I can smell Jenna and my heart is racing.
Six months have passed since I got the stamp of approval on my parole. For me, time has stood still. The world I left behind is dead. Friends have moved on. Family has passed away. Trends have come and gone and come around again. While I’ve been resisting change on the inside, the outside world has changed beyond all recognition, almost as though I have emerged from a coma into an alien world.
In some ways reintegration is harder than incarceration.
“No one warns you before you get out,” I’d told Denis Flannigan , my designated parole officer, as I sat in his cluttered office in St. Paul, a day into my newfound freedom.
Flannigan had cigarette-stained fingertips and a missing front tooth. He was a wiry redhead with skin so freckly he looked like an accident in a paint factory.
“So what do you think they should do, Olson,” he’d said in his thick Irish accent, “provide handbooks and the like? Get real, will you? State Corrections is dollar-poor as it is. They got better things to spend their money on other than wiping your miserable backside . So get used to it, brother. You’re institutionalized. It’s going to take time to readjust. Who knows, maybe you never will. The sooner you accept your old life is gone and there’s no going back, the sooner you can start building you a new one. Better than the old. Same as I tell all my boys. You’ve done the hard part. You survived prison. You did good. Congratu-fucking-lations. So now you’ve got to learn to survive out here, too. Stay good. You getti ng me?”
The truth is, psychologically speaking, I was institutionalized within weeks. Fate sealed in a concrete box with no way out.
People think imprisonment takes away choices. It doesn’t. Every day I made decisions, most of which were designed to grease my life and stop the abuse from sticking, but mostly to survive. Choices I would never make on the outside, or ever even contemplate. Prison life is all about adjustment. Those that fail to adapt either die or wish they had. Daily routines help, especially as the weeks drift into months and the months fade into years. They keep you focused, grounded. They denote the passage of time. But nothing prepares the mind for release, for exposure, for the bigger bad world to confirm your insignificance. I came out of Stillwater time-shifted and forgotten, and I haven’t quite caught my breath.
My phone rings on the nightstand. I extricate myself from the tangled linens and pick up, “Hello?”
“How you doing there, sleepy head?”
“Kim? How’d you get my number?”
“Lars. Obviously. I figured you’d be sleeping, so I hung back from calling too soon.”
I rub grit from my eyes. “What time is it?”
“Almost two. It’s the weekend and it’s snowing. We should do something.”
I get to my feet and pull back the drapes, squint at the gleaming world outside. Big flakes are tumbling lazily from a breezeless sky.
“What do you have in mind?”
“Skinny-dipping up at the lake?” She hears my snicker and adds, “Seriously, though, how’d things go with the Luckmans?”
“Better than I expected.”
“Yeah? That’s good, Jake. I’m pleased for you. They’ve been through a rough patch. Now they can move on. So I was wondering about grabbing something to eat. I’m thinking a late breakfast or an early dinner? My treat.”
I almost say “ what’s your agenda, Kim?” but then remind myself she’s just being friendly. The fact of the matter is I’m not used to people being pleasant for no reason. I’m
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