Hope And Sorrow

My brother is no longer in jail. My father and I had visited him during his incarceration. We found the people that work at the new jail near Port Desespoir to run the gamut from competent to surly, rude, and barely distinguishable from the worst inmates. My father found a woman who knew a woman with whom we used to work. All was smiles. After all, we were visitors. There is no particular reason we should be treated as criminals. When we asked questions, we received answers. There was no longer a supercilious disdain or a low, throaty growl.

So on to the visitation area. Did I mention that this jail opened new in 2006? In the visitation area, the guard lead us to an alcove where there was inch thick security glass, on the other side of which sat my brother, wanly smiling. "Thanks," we said to the guard. "Don' mention it." he said. "Talk loud." Ah...hmmm? Did we hear that right? "Talk loud."? Is that some sort of criminological adieu? Something like: we are parting...so sad...our time together ( about 2 minutes) was great, but we must part...since we will be far from each other, TALK LOUD, so that even if I were at the ends of the earth, I could hear your voice and return in the wink of an eye...and so on, and so on, and so on. O.K. If that was it, it was not very interesting. White guys, especially fat, white guys-especially fat, white guys who are prison guards- are always trying to be hip. They fail badly. I did not think that I would soon be saying goodbye to someone and smartly saying, "Talk loud!" (I might, just might, say "Talk loudly!")
So we turn to the object of our visit, giving the old alcove the once over, looking for (a) some sort of grill in the glass through which sound waves could carry, or (b) some sort of telephone connecting us to the other side of the glass, again through which sound waves could carry. There was nothing. I asked my brother, "How do you talk here?". He made one of those hand-as-an-ear-trumpet motions and I think he said "Eh?"  I spoke louder. "How do you talk here? There's no phone." He laughed. "The place's screwed up." 
We managed to fill in the next 30 minutes yelling at each other. My father, who has some lung issues, managed to get himself up to proper volume and bellow his question why my brother had not gotten a haircut yet. And so it went. There were other folks there, just visiting. So there was a constant chorus of Ehs?, Huhs?, Howzats?, Run that by me agains? up and down the halls. We assumed the staff was busily writing down all the secrets being passed back and forth. We thought that perhaps the county could not afford an surveillance eaves-dropping system to spy on any shenanigans that might go on, so they came up with this wheeze.

At the end of the half hour, all the visitors panted to the elevators and shared wondering looks. We would have laughed, but we were out of breath. So now he was out. And what will he do now? Well, this has been a trying transformation for all involved.
However, yesterday I decided to emphasize drinking. I suggested that if he wanted to drink - at which point he demurred, saying it wasn't as much fun as it used to be, and he was thinking of quitting...if you drink, I said, if...try and schedule it a bit better. A which point he gave me the old goggle eye. "What?" So I toke a piece of paper and wrote down two columns, one with 5 and 2 equalling 7, the other with 4 and 3 equalling 7. On the top row that had the 5 and the 4 in, I wrote "Binge Days". On the second row I wrote "Cold Sober Days". I pointed out that we could make a lot more progress in getting him a place and a job if I could count on certain days of sobriety. I suggested he plan it better. Don't just drink. Make the binge days count. Get it out of your system. Rent a movie. Rent two or three movies. Just remember to watch the one you really want to see first. Watching movies on a binge day means the second and third movies become a wee bit disjointed. And so on. He was captivated by the notion and we expanded our talk to other areas. It was rewarding. The hours spent before now- since his decarceration-had not been amusing and amiable. One step at a time...forever.