The perpetual debt

Just a few blocks from my place a 57 year old man was found murdered. The guy was an employee of Sunfresh grocery in Westport. He was also an ex con with a fairly ugly track record. With convictions for Attempted Rape and Manslaughter under his belt, it is a little tough to garner much sympathy for the guy, even though he served his time, and seems to have lived within the confines of the law since his release in 2003. In time we may learn that he strayed back to his former criminal ways. His death also may have been as simple as a street robbery gone bad. Either way, it seems his past caught up to him. People who live a violent life, and commit atrocious acts, generally meet a similar end. If you must give it a name call it Karma.



This post isn’t really about the dead grocery store clerk, that story just got me thinking about life after prison. The popular misconception is you serve your time, get out and move on with your life, debt paid. It is more than a little naive to think that someone who has been in prison can ever lead a completely normal life, and even more naive to think the past wont bite that person in the ass on a regular basis. In other words, being released from prison is not the same as being released from your past.



The conscious decision that we make to break the law, to lead a particular lifestyle, is one that will stick with us for the rest of our lives. It will hinder the pursuit of a really good job. It will linger in the minds of people who knew us "Then" and they will always have doubt about our character. So to the people who think that parole means true release, it doesn’t. More importantly , it shouldn’t. For guys like the dead grocery store employee, it is a little hard to move beyond the fact that he was responsible for the loss of a life or attempting to rape a woman. Regardless of how stellar a life he may have led after the fact, his past will always loom over him, as it should.



In my case, I defrauded banks and other financial institutions. Does the fact that my victim was an FDIC insured bank rather than john q Citizen make me a better person than the guy who commits a murder? No it doesn’t. I like to think of myself as a better person than a murderer, not because my crime wasn’t brutal, but because my character wouldn’t allow me to kill someone in the commission of a crime. In the eyes of the law, I am no better or worse than the dead ex-con grocery clerk, I’m just another in a long line of numbers.



So if the debt is never truly paid, if an ex convict is never completely free of his past crimes, what’s the point in going straight. And if he goes straight what is to prevent him from walking around with a huge chip on his shoulder? The first question is easy, you go straight to avoid returning to prison. You can live the life for years and never get caught, but once you get that first conviction under your belt, they got your number. If you re-offend, you will go back to prison. So going straight for most of us that do, is a no brainer, its self preservation, pure and simple. Most people that serve time in prison come out bitter and pissed off. The resentment festers and grows and they spend the rest of their lives angry at a world that had the audacity to punish them only to turn around and tell them that the time they served was just a down payment on a debt that will remain in perpetuity, unpaid in full.



The easy route is the one that is too often taken. You get out, you struggle, you never get free of the past. So you end up angry and bitter at a world that by and large has done nothing to you.



There is no magic bullet for absolution, in fact absolution is unattainable. The best that you can hope for is to make amends, or a close facsimile of amends. My way of doing that is to write about my past. I put my picture up on this blog and I spill my guts for all to see. I don’t sugar coat things or try to soften the edges. I suppose this is my way of doing penance, instead of Hail Mary's, I write and expose myself. Hopefully in the process I reveal the human side of a cross section of society that most people only see in a negative light. Absolution is out of reach, but redemption is mine in the telling. That is why I do this.