Dan Wolfman comes to see me again. What a feeling to be visited. There are no rooms assigned because it is an impromptu visit, so we sit at the unoccupied end of one of the metal tables. We smile at each other. I can see the young red headed missionary he was thirty years ago. When all of this was a promise, not a threat. Considering the life of any officials outside these walls is hard; it is hard to imagine them in comfortable apartments or houses with good lighting and more than the functional bare minimum. It’s impossible to me that they have friends or family. Let’s just say that to do this work must compel a degree of personal asceticism. Of moral sacrifice. It seems to be the way I keep them in mind as not entirely bad guys, this fantasy that they go home to lives as sparse and empty, by choice, as those we pursue here in their custody. Modern monkdom certainly suits Dan. My vision of his prolonged bachelorhood allows me to picture his bare and barely visited utilitarian apartment somewhere very close by in Portland. I see folding furniture that matches the khaki tone of his pants and his shirt, I see undecorated walls, an old white dog sleeping his way into death. A single place setting facing the kitchen sink. White faced Formica cabinets.
This fantasy is not entirely uncharitable on the part of my subconscious. I have always nurtured a fascination with the bare minimum as a lifestyle. It’s one of the reasons I’m coping so well with jail. I romanticize limitation.
I feel mean. I should want good things for Dan Wolfmann. I should want a life bristling with growth and daisy gardens and long, storied friendships and the elastic grip of a healthy, compassionate spouse and offspring. I should see him on blue windowpane percale sheets, I should envision a tiled bathroom inset with mica splash backs and a Venetian bathtub. Replace the aged Datsun doubling as a file cabinet with a Subaru 4X4 in an unexpectedly robust shade.
How rapidly and wholly my mind fills that dreadful gap created by uncertain anticipation. Whole lives are lived; homes won and lost.
Maybe Dan burns incense at home. Maybe his decor goes soft and red at the corners with flags, with tapestry. Maybe all the walls are bare barn wood. Maybe he uses cushions instead of chairs. Buddhas and Shivas in copper and turquoise.
He opens my file. It is one of several but it’s right on top.
He wants to know how I’m doing, and when I say I’m doing pretty well, he says it looks that way. He’s glad I’m working in the kitchens and wants to know what I think about that. It’s hard, I say, but it’s good to be working. It’s good just to get off the tier every day. He asks if I’m making friends and I tell him how much I like and admire the women I’ve met in here. How I watch them and listen to them. How clear it is to me they’re all trying to do what’s right. That there’s a commonality here I would not have expected. Am I feeling better physically? I seem to be healing up, yes. Am I getting enough to eat? The food is terrible, I say, but there’s plenty of it, and anyway the kitchen helps with that. Am I getting my medication? Yes, no problems. We talk about the AA meting for a while. I say I’d never been to one before. “What did you think?”
“I really liked it,” I say. “It’s a useful system even if you’re not actively an addict.”
“Do you feel that you’re out of your addiction now?”
“I mean, I don’t know if I think you’re ever out of it,” I say. “But I don’t want to go after any of those things again. I don’t feel the desire to have them. They’re not what I’m thinking about doing when I get out of here. Except the cigarettes,” I add. “I really want a cigarette.”
Dan and his tremor scuffle for control of his smile, and Dan wins. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I’m sorry to say it.”
“Well, this sounds good,” Dan says. Annoyed by its recent defeat, his tremor conspires to make realigning the papers in my file a major challenge and Dan simply lays his heavy hand slowly over the cover, which is just such an effective feint. I admire how subtly he compensates for his disease and it strikes me that he must want to keep working without comment for as long as he can.
“Well, I wanted to let you know that I was able to present that release you signed to Property the other day”
Don’t hope, it’s not good news, it’s never good news. Be mature be graceful it’s not his fault it didn’t work he tried be thankful be grateful.
“It didn’t go so smoothly. Quite a bit harder than I thought it would be. The guard I talked to was not helpful.”
“I’m so thankful to you for trying” Plan B: call my shrink. Plan C: have him call Katherine. Plan D: wait for Maine Pretrial. Plan E: Keep working in the kitchens. Try to make Double Trustee if such a position exists. Maybe shave my head next time the razor comes through. Start working on a design I can tattoo with a Bic inside my thigh late at night.
“So I went back when the shift changed,” Dan continues. “And the next person I talked to was. Helpful.” His hand has been traveling slowly towards his shirt pocket and now it carefully levers out from the flocked plaid a yellow Post It square. “I also copied her number into your paperwork,” he says, lightly nudging the folder under his other hand. “So she’s on the books here now as your emergency contact.”
I muffle my sob automatically. She knows I’m here. Someone who knows me knows I’m here.
“I was able to reach her this morning.” Dan glows, whether from his own internal satisfaction or reflecting my unmistakable glee, I’m not sure. He tells me she thinks she will be able to help me. He tells me she’s already been in touch with Patrice Nickerson and they are working on the details of my bail and bail conditions. She’s prepared for me to give her a call whenever I can. OF course I can stay with them. She doesn’t need to talk to me about it first. “She wasn’t alarmed at all,” Dan notes. “She’s very even keeled. I can see why you like her so much.”
How can I keep from leaping? I don’t know how to thank him enough. I don’t know what to say. I say that. Dan Wolfmann looks incredibly happy as he hands me the Post It. I immediately borrow a Bic pen from him and copy the phone numbers onto my forearm, which makes him chuckle. “You’ve got a very good friend in her.”
“I think I’ve got a very good friend in you.” If I were ever going to see him I wouldn’t be able to say it so baldly, and an awareness of this fact lays a sad mist just above our heads. Dan, being taller, is closer to it than I am. “I’m very happy to be able to help, Jennifer.” I can never get people to keep calling me Jen when my full name is on official forms. “It doesn’t often work out this way.”
We shake hands even though I want so much to hug him and he wants so much to hug me. “I’m doing rounds again in two days, but I don’t think you’ll still be here.”
“Well, if I am, can I look forward to seeing you then?” I ask.
“Absolutely.” Dan Wolfmann rises, unsteady but practiced, scraping the files he totes off the table and into the crook of his wrist.
I imagine for him a self-driving car. I imagine a light house equipped with an elevator and bars all around. I imagine monogrammed gates through which he drives every day. I imagine a roster of elegant, confident, compassionate women alphabetized in the pages of a well-tended black book.
What I learn about winning is that right has very little to do with it. I don’t win because I deserve to have Katherine’s phone number, or my phone call, or to get out of here. I win because I’m relentless in my pursuit of these ends. I repeat my story over and over again to as many audiences as I can. The more I tell my story, the more I edit out extraneous bits. I let the reader fill in details about my feelings and the judgments to be made. I don’t say, I shouldn’t be in here. I present and represent my story until it says that for me.
I look forward to reading more.