Criminal That I Am (26 page)

For all of my resentment of Cameron as of late, I feel real sympathy for him. I think back to his three-day stint in the SHU, how hard it was for him to cope. I think, too, about how the mere suggestion of his cooperation would make him sick. I imagine that taking the stand
has left him resorting to whatever will help him forget. I also can't help but have the self-serving thought that had MCC actually treated his anxiety, he probably would not have felt the need to resort to drug use.

After I read about what's happened, I can't sleep. I am upset enough to e-mail Best Friend at five a.m. about the development.

I guess they are making an example of him
, I type. I hypothesize that the drug use and his crazy bra testimony are somehow related.
Maybe he said that because he was high.
And then, before I sign off, I add:
Why didn't I just say no?

After I hit send, I feel angry. Angry at my sympathy for Cameron. Angry at Cameron for not just going away quietly. Angry at the sinking feeling that despite my insistence to the contrary, I feel emotionally intertwined with Cameron, with his fate.

Over time, I try to focus on other things. And yet, when I read that Cameron will be sentenced a few days before Christmas, I find myself marking it on my calendar.

I
try to distract myself from reminders of my crimes by trying to discover what is left of my virtuousness. Given my abundant free time and lack of professional direction, I decide to do some volunteer work.

On a recent visit to my parents', I encountered a stray cat wheezing with disease, the hind portion of its mangy coat covered in tumors. The sight was so upsetting that I decide to dedicate time to giving strays a quality of life more akin to that of my spoiled, crotch-loving cat. Also, by volunteering with animals, I needn't worry that they will pepper me with questions about what I plan to do with my life. Animals are wonderful in that way.

I sign up for a volunteer training session at an animal shelter not far from my apartment. When I arrive, I'm shown to a small conference room where a dozen other prospective volunteers are seated. Our volunteer coordinator is exceedingly organized. She stands before us in a perfect pantsuit and a perfect bob and delivers a perfect PowerPoint presentation. She runs the volunteer program with the detail and authority that a lawyer does a case, and for this reason I immediately take to her.

The training outlines the duties and responsibilities of the volun
teer. Volunteers are required to come in the same time every week. Volunteers must balance out the animal interactive tasks—dog walking, cat playing—with those that are more feces-based. Volunteers must make a commitment to participate for six months.

At a break in the training, the volunteer coordinator and I make small talk. As per usual, she asks me what I do. I sort of shrug my shoulders.

“I'm a lawyer by training,” I say. “But not really as of late.”

“You are?” she says. “You know, you're more than welcome to help out with our legal work. It might be more interesting to you than cleaning out kennel cages.”

“I appreciate that,” I say. “But quite honestly, I'd rather spend my time with the animals.”

As the training draws to a close, the volunteer coordinator asks us to sign up for an additional session during which we will take a tour of the premises and become acquainted with the shelter's procedures. I sign up for a session the following week and mark it on my otherwise empty calendar.

Before we disperse, the volunteer coordinator distributes forms for our signature. As these are passed around, she explains that we have to fill out a form providing our contact information. We also have to fill out an emergency contact form. Finally, we have to sign a form consenting to a criminal background check.

When she describes this last form, I swallow.

She explains that the shelter often does events with children—they take some of the particularly well-behaved cats and dogs to kindergarten classrooms and school libraries to promote the shelter's mission. The background check is to weed out anyone who might pose a threat to the children, sex offenders, or those with a history of violence.

This is a sound policy. Still, after I sign the consent form, I erase the second training date from my calendar.

As I leave, the volunteer coordinator says she will see me next week. I nod and force a smile. On the walk home to my apartment, my eyes well with tears.

In the days that follow, I want to forget that any of this has happened. I try not to think about the fact that my crimes possibly preclude
me from even cleaning up cat shit. The day of the second training session comes and goes, and I pretend not to notice.

A few days later, I receive a voice mail from the volunteer coordinator. Her voice is kind, almost conciliatory. “We missed you at our session last Saturday,” she says. I think I hear her hesitate. “I wanted to let you know that you passed our criminal background check and that there are other sessions next week and the week after.”

She begins to recite dates and times, but I cut her off by deleting the message. I do not call back. I do not return to the shelter. Gracious as she is, the volunteer coordinator does not understand. I did not skip the training session because I thought I would necessarily fail the background check. I skip the training session, and abandon the idea of volunteering altogether, because I do not want anyone to know who I really am.

M
y crimes loom large even in the safety of my own home. I realize this when a hefty manila envelope arrives from my law school that is said to contain the contents of my old faculty inbox.

I am confused by the size and weight of the envelope. Even when I was teaching I barely used my inbox. Perhaps it's something other than mail. I curl my fingers over the envelope's bulge, but feel nothing other than paper.

I rip it open and approximately two dozen letter-sized envelopes fall to the floor. When I realize what they are, my eyes widen.

Prison mail.

I'm at first bewildered as to how I have been found. I remember after a moment that the
Post
article named my law school. Since its address is publicly available, it turns out that I am easily tracked down.

When I take a seat on the hardwood floor to open the envelopes, I am wondering why so many people I don't know would want to reach out to me. Predictably, many are interested in legal assistance. I am uninterested in giving any. I note a slight feeling of distaste whenever the writer proclaims his innocence. Though he may very well be a man wrongly accused, because I consider my circumstances to stem from someone's refusal to accept responsibility, I am unmoved.

One letter reads:

Please find it in your heart to allow me to demonstrate that I did not commit this crime. I hope you will wish to hear my whole story.

I throw this aside.

I'm also unmoved by letters, and there are a few, that malign Cameron as a rat. For all of the damage and unpleasantness his cooperation has served up, he has at least taken responsibility for what he has done. And so when I read a letter that says:

I am aware how you was abused by that (“creep rat”) Cameron Douglas. But I ain't nothing like him.

I throw this aside, too.

For as many letters seeking something case-related, the same number appear to seek human connection. There are letters requesting life advice:

I am seeking to make an investment. I have some money saved. I need to know from you what you know about real estate?

Many, many letters proclaiming love:

I am also single and open to explore opportunities that correspond with my comfort zone.

One thing is for sure. I am a man who is not afraid or feel intimidated by a woman of prestigious influence.

I am seeking after being incarcerated for three decades a special friend (smile). “Someone Adventurous.”

Oh, my.

One letter includes a photograph of the author with his adult niece, her smile so big that I find myself smiling back.

Some writers introduce themselves and say something along the lines of
Jennifer, please feel free to respond to me.
One even anticipates any fear I might have in receiving a letter from an inmate I have never met.
Essentially, so that you know,
it reads,
under no circumstances will I put you in jeopardy.

That is certainly a relief.

I look over the envelopes for quite some time. I am struck by the sadness underlying each letter, the apparent isolation that has propelled these men to reach out to someone they do not know. It makes me uncomfortable that their isolation feels familiar. It makes me uncomfortable that these men are possibly writing to me with such familiarity because they consider our predicaments to be similar. It makes me uncomfortable that they are probably right.

I rifle through all of the letters until one piece of correspondence remains. Contained in a bright red envelope, I open it to find a holiday card bearing a palm tree adorned with Christmas lights. It is a generous gesture, an overpriced holiday card paid for with an inmate's meager resources. On the inside of the card, the oversized lettering of the author's note confirms what I have most feared. Still, I can't help but smile when I read his note, if only for its unabashed enthusiasm:

Jennifer,
it reads.
You are my kind of woman!

A
few weeks later, another piece of prison mail arrives. Unlike the others, it is mailed to my home. The return address, written in familiar scrawl, bears the address of a maximum-security federal prison in New York City. The inmate number is one that I have memorized from entering it so many times in the attorney log.

Four pages in length and contrite in its tone, there is apparently a lot to say about what has happened. When I read it, which I do approximately half a dozen times, I am neither happy nor sad. I do nothing other than cry, over what I am not entirely sure.

I love you
, it begins,
and I'm sorry.

I
t is almost Christmas. At the start of December, I begin to count down the days until Christmas Day by placing an “X” on each day of my dry-erase calendar.

These “X”s do not only count off the days until Christmas; they also necessarily count down the days until Cameron's sentencing on December 21. I have circled that date in red marker, not once, but over and over again, until it looks like a precarious vortex into which I must not fall.

My reasons for taking note of Cameron's sentencing are mostly self-serving. I do not wish upon him additional jail time. But I especially do not wish upon myself further humiliation. This remains a distinct possibility given that a sentencing judge can take into account all of his prior misconduct. While Cameron has received immunity for his part in our crimes, what he did—what we did—can still be used to assess this sentence and any others.

I'm still making halfhearted efforts to pretend my life is normal. On the day of sentencing, I have a series of holiday-related plans downtown. I consider forgoing these in favor of waiting to hear of any news but then think better of it. I should not attribute so much importance to myself, I think.

I keep checking my phone for any updates. I am running errands when I see on my phone that for simple contraband drug possession, the trial judge has sentenced Cameron to four and a half additional years. His original sentence has essentially been doubled.

A sour feeling in the pit of my stomach indicates to me that there is more to this sentence than Cameron's possession of drugs. I excuse myself from the rest of my plans and head home to my computer to investigate.

When I ultimately look at the hearing transcript, my fears are confirmed. Our crime consumes much of the judge's decision. He is not pleased. And he is not restrained in his displeasure.

One would expect that the judge would mention me by name, spelling it into the record lest someone mistake me for someone else. One might also expect that he would mention my bra: by this time I have come to realize that when given the opportunity to reference a
woman's undergarments, everyone, regardless of status or stature, will seize it.

I expected, too, that no one would bother to point out to the judge the circumstances surrounding my end of our crime—the diagnosed condition, the prescription made on the judge's own recommendation, MCC's refusal to provide a medication appearing on its own formulary. Because Cameron did not use the medication for its intended purpose, these facts have no relevance to him.

What is less expected is for the judge to state his disappointment that he did not get his hands on my case:

The government and the defense, although in my view this was a serious matter, they agreed and decided that it was in the public interest to dismiss the complaint against Ms. Ridha[.]

That case was never presented to me until it was over which surprises me somewhat.

It being Cameron's sentencing, he does not single me out. He also feels as though he should have been able to weigh in on Cameron's punishment as well:

There is no record of Douglas having been cited or sanctioned, as I say, by BOP for possessing the Xanax pills.

I am constrained to say, sorry to say that this incident seems to me was swept under the rug both by the government and the defense.

It is odd to hear a judge put in a request to hear a certain case, mostly because the process does not allow for judges to handpick their caseload. Each criminal case is randomly assigned to a judge by use of a wooden wheel that when spun generates a judge's name. The government, presumably wanting to demonstrate that nothing was swept under the rug, gently reminds the judge of this procedure:

It also, Judge, would not be normal—in the normal course her case wouldn't have been brought here anyway. [The judge in her case] might be Your Honor, it might be some other judge in the Court.