Shards (28 page)

Compared to Washington, prison was amazing. Almost empowering, which sounds insane. Since my sentencing, I had come to realize that I had survived Washington and achieved sobriety by choice, not by circumstance. After the magnitude of my actions, my addiction, and the circumstances that followed, I couldn't believe I was still breathing. Some days I woke up unable to comprehend that I was in prison—
prison!
—but the fact that I even woke up was amazing.

Nights were a different story. That was when the PTSD struck. I lived and breathed my nights, and sometimes they were unbearable. During the day I still had flashbacks where I was paralyzed by fear, but I couldn't explain to the guard, “I can't do this task because I'm hallucinating a drug dealer coming after me.” I had to function and live through them, and that seemed to make me stronger.

Drugs were not an issue for me in prison. It is very difficult to smuggle contraband into federal prison. Cell phones and cigarettes, yes, but because the others looked at me as a narc, if there were drugs, I never knew about them.

I did find myself wanting to use in prison, but not meth. I wanted drugs to help me sleep, to make me not feel or think, to numb me out. Something like heroin. It would have been a nightmare to be on tweaker time in a prison cell.

After six months of incarceration, I was made head orderly of the unit, which meant I got paid the most next to the commissary girls. I ran the daily functions and maintenance of the unit, everything from roster assignments to the unit orderlies' payroll.

I was grateful for my job. All inmates wore the same color, but the girls called me the “boss.” When I politely told them, “I'm not the boss. I only take care of unit sanitation,” they responded, “Okay, boss.”

How I got myself in this position in six months I had no idea.
The head orderlies in the men's units? They were the biggest badass drug dealers in Hawaii. They ran shit and had a massive amount of power even while incarcerated. I was so far from that.

But I did fill a void in our unit. I made the girls laugh initially, and then I gained their trust by keeping my mouth shut and my ears open. They entrusted me with their letters to judges, their communications with lawyers.

In prison, my thoughts turned to Keawe more than I would like to confess. I knew I could never contact him again, though I did think about it. I composed letters to him in my head all the time. Every song related to him, every conversation triggered a memory I had forgotten during my drug abuse. Despite all that, I regretted that we were ever together. It had been nearly two years since I'd seen him, but since the day I arrived at the dealer's house for the last time, I felt as though time had stopped. My love for Keawe, my anger, regret, despair, and grief—all these emotions were fresh to me, and I clung to them because I knew Keawe would be the last man I could love. I hated men now, raged against them in my thoughts, plotted to kill them in my dreams.

I wasn't in touch with Keawe in prison, but he had friends who were prison guards, and once a guard came up to me and told me Keawe was worried about me. Did I need anything? he asked. Could he get me anything? I was so paranoid about being set up by the guards that I just walked away. Some guards were dirty, but others guards would just test you to see if you would accept contraband. I didn't want to take that chance either way.

In prison I felt safe enough to rage at Washington. I wanted to torture the dealer. I wanted to burn down that house. I found myself dreaming about how I would take my vengeance against the man.

I also had a few using dreams. I almost welcomed them; they
were a break from the nightmares and PTSD, though almost as traumatic. I always woke up terrified that I had relapsed, and for a brief moment I found solace in the fact that I was in prison in a controlled environment.

Prison is a violent place, and loud and cold, but my responsibilities were lined out for me there. It was easy to follow the rules. And in some ways, prison is cushy. We had pillows, TV, books, and a gym. There was MTV. Zumba classes. Email. You could have ramen noodles and coffee at the commissary. Yet when your cell door closed, you remembered what got you there.

My body ached from sleeping on steel, but the structure and control kept me safe enough to confront my past. In my awakening, I felt I could not move forward in my life without telling my story. I needed to expel my past before I could construct some sort of future.

I served my full twelve
months at the FDC and was released at the end of October.

Keawe emailed me the day I got out. He wanted to meet me, but I ignored his email. My mom quit her job in New Mexico once again and flew to be with me in Oahu while I petitioned to serve my five years probation in New Mexico. The two of us stayed in a hotel room waiting for my parole to be transferred. I couldn't wait to get out of the state of Hawaii.

It was time to go home.

I moved back to Albuquerque in early December, when everything in New Mexico was brown and scrubby and ugly. These dead winters were one of the main reasons I had fled to Maui in the first place, but now the lush and green island would never be my home again. I intended never to go back.

I moved into Mimi's back house with my mom and started
working for the parents of one of my mom's friends. As a convicted felon, I found it hard to get a regular job, so I was grateful for a full-time position with a couple in their eighties. I cooked their meals, did their shopping, and drove them to appointments and social engagements.

Being a full-time caretaker taught me patience and forced me into public situations that I would have avoided if given a choice. I began to learn compassion. I learned to help someone else. I had fucked up so badly that all I wanted to do was help others.

Once I was safely in New Mexico, I returned Keawe's email. He emailed me back, but by then I had started seeing my therapist and opted to delete his email from my inbox before reading it. I also blocked his email address. After all the hurt our relationship caused, I couldn't believe either of us was willing to be in contact. I needed to make it stop. He would remain, like my father, a man in my life who couldn't, or wouldn't, love me enough.

My life stayed very small, again by choice. I saw my family and the family of the couple I worked for. My sister had kept her distance for a long time, but we slowly began to communicate again. My heart thrilled every time I got a text message from her; I lived for Skype conversations with my little nieces. I had not seen them since leaving Washington, and I had not seen my sister since rehab. I could not go to Washington, but my hope was that they would one day decide to visit us in New Mexico.

In my free time, which by choice was not much, I tried to learn how to play guitar. However, the meth had messed with my brain and my retention was pretty poor. I often found myself just trying to make pretty sounds.

I spent a lot of time with my dog Bella and Tater, my brand-new mastiff puppy. Life was simple and quiet and I liked it that way.

On Sundays, my one day off, I developed a ritual with my mom.
In the mornings, we would drive out to a coffee shop on the west side and then take a drive through the gorgeous valley and talk about the week. We would text my sister and compare this Sunday's coffee to the last week's and have a great time. Then we would come home and go our separate ways. I would try to do something productive but would often end up wandering around the house, starting small projects that I would never finish. Later, we would grab Mimi and have a wonderful lunch somewhere, usually at Little Anita's because it was Mimi's favorite. We would talk about the past week, what was new in the art world and with the family, and what was going on in my job.

What I was most proud of was that with my job I was able to support my mom. Since she was able to stay home and work on her artwork full-time, I could finally help her live out her dream. On hard days, the thought that I could give back to my family got me through. I started to find my way back to who I always believed I was in my heart. It was a long journey and not easy.

I started uncovering new layers of emotions in therapy. It was almost easier when I was in prison and when I had just been released because then I was just trying to get through my day, function, do what I had to do to meet my probation requirements. Now, as I worked more on the PTSD, my mind constantly returned to the past. Sometimes I felt my days were just logged hours waiting for the nights.

The guilt at times was crippling, paralyzing, and I spent a lot of time thinking about my friends, wondering what they were doing and how they were doing. Staying busy seemed to be the only thing to combat my racing thoughts while I worked in therapy to ease the guilt and pain of what I had done. The PTSD was wearing. I tried to accept my PTSD for what it was. I found that if I got my hopes up for a little improvement or a new medication, the disappointment
was almost too much to bear. I started focusing mostly on how to live with it. When my therapist introduced me to eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, often used to treat Iraq vets and other victims of PTSD, I got excited at first. I mistakenly thought it erased your memories, but it merely teaches you how to live with them.

Despite the PTSD, I still found myself having meth cravings. They pissed me off more than scared me, but the cravings still haunted me. I could go months without having dreams of using and then suddenly notice how healthy my veins looked. That always led to a craving.

My old thoughts of making amends, of rectifying my past faded a bit. I wanted to apologize to everyone I'd hurt, but I didn't feel I had the right to enter their lives and selfishly apologize. The more I faced my past in therapy, the more I realized my actions inflicted irrevocable pain and damage not only on those I loved but also on myself. Each day, making the right choices, working hard but finding balance, seemed like the only option for me.

I began to feel youthful again. I had felt so old in rehab and in prison, and my bones always hurt, but now I was excited about my future and what it might hold. I was thinking about taking college classes or starting my own business. Under the terms of my parole, I couldn't leave Albuquerque's Bernalillo County for three more years, but after that I was hoping to travel.

Despite my progress, the sacrifices I made for drugs are everlasting. The memories I have of that house are everlasting. If I could have gotten a lobotomy or some sort of procedure to take them away, I would have. But I couldn't. I could only learn to live with them.

What occurred in that house scarred me so deeply that some days breathing seemed impossible. Had I been sober and had any
sort of clarity when I was there, I wouldn't have survived. The mental pain would have eaten my body to death. The meth gave me a false sense of reality, masking the truth and keeping me alive until it almost killed me. The dealer stole my life, tattooed my mind with memories that I could not remove.

I was happy for my second chance. It taught me that everything is a survivable situation. I lost myself fully, yet even now I have a chance at a life.

Still, I miss my life on Maui. I miss my job, the work, my supervisors. I miss the adrenaline, I miss my desk, and I miss composing affidavits and warrants, of all things. I miss the investigation, trying to figure out the drug lines, the imports and exports, where the dope is hidden. I miss the technology and the surveillance. I miss the laughs at the station, the inappropriate dirty jokes and profane emails. I miss feeling at home in an all-male environment, when I didn't despise men and think of lighting them on fire or stabbing them to death. I miss cleaning my firearms, I miss the radio, the constant chatter of the patrolmen working the beat. I miss learning the new laws, the techniques, the slang, and latest narcotics news. I miss the integrity I used to have. I miss the friendships.

I know I threw all these things away the day I did that first line of ice, when I didn't even know that I should smoke it or how to smoke it. And like anyone who has cast their lot in life, who has made choices—by which I guess I mean any human being—I have had to learn to live with them. I've learned to get up each morning, go to work, look forward to Sunday coffees with my mom and walks with my dogs and precious phone conversations with my sister and the particular way the wide New Mexico sky gives me room to move forward in my life.

I often think of the words Sergeant Mankell, my recruit school combat instructor, wrote to me in a letter on the day of graduation:

You have the heart of a lion, and you never quit.

You acknowledged your pain, but did not indulge it.

You are gentle and humble, yet sharp as a sword.

You remained generous in all that I have seen you do.

You are a warrior.

On my best days, I believe those words still apply.

I never intended to be a cop.

I never imagined I'd be an addict.

By thirty years old, I had been both.

Allison Moore

I would like to express my gratitude to the many people who saw me through this book, past to present.

To my aunt Stella Krauss, without whom this book would not have been written: thank you for your endless support, careful attention, and humor.

I'd like to thank Nancy Woodruff, whose patience, hard work, love, and understanding have forever changed my life.

I would also like to thank Jason Anthony and Maria Massie at Lippincott Massie McQuilkin and Stacy Creamer and Miya Kumangai at Touchstone for their help in creating, editing, and publishing this book.

My deepest appreciation goes to Daniel Clothier, Ed Curran, Ti, Dr. Ritchie, Mike, Steve, Shelly, Nicole, and the entire staff at Vista Taos Renewal Center. Without your dedication and commitment, I would not be here today.

To Andrew Martin, Robert Rivera, and Charles Fisher: thank you so much for your help and patience.