The Prison Inside Me

by Gilbert Brown

  The chair sent George over to the offices of Trout Lake’s Child Protective Services, where he met the head of the agency and had a nice, long talk and coffee with him. CPS needed someone; the salary scale was fixed but acceptable. If Susan could come over in the next few days for an interview, she could be the one the agency was looking for. George immediately called Susan at her office. An interview date was set. Susan got the job a few days later. The die was now cast on their move to Trout Lake.

  When they moved to Trout Lake in the late summer, they found a small but expensive apartment in an upscale neighborhood. Life began anew, with new jobs and lots of stories to tell each other each night over martinis. George was animated with his work. He was again at that enjoyable challenge of bringing mathematics to life for those who had always had trouble with it. His first performance assessment with the department chair after thirty days on the job was glowing. George was asked to conduct a short workshop at the next department meeting about techniques he was using to animate and motivate his students. Just as the chair had promised, much private tutoring at high hourly rate was sent his way. He and Susan bought a second car so that he could get from teaching at the college to his many tutoring appointments on time. The money was more than they expected, and their savings and investments were growing with each passing month.

  Susan was also happy with her work. There were so many children in need. The county had funds to assist children having difficulty in school through the hiring of private tutors. The hourly rate was lower than George could expect from his private clients, but Susan sent many young children to her husband. He cleverly started tutoring groups of three or four students, billing the county for each one separately and thus bringing this hourly rate up to his private clients. His success rate with his charges, both private and county recommended, was phenomenal. Parents praised him for what he had done for their children and how he had effected a turnaround in their schoolwork beyond their expectations. The Trout Lake Herald even did a small feature in one Sunday’s magazine section under the headline “The Miracle Math Man.” More students appeared. He was spending as much time in tutoring as he was teaching his four courses at the college. He loved every minute of being overworked.

  However, their love life continued to be very strange to Susan. His interest waned, except, as Susan expected, when he took a manila file folder into the bathroom on occasion and then reappeared to be the ardent lover she so desired. Susan had very definite desires in this part of their relationship. She often had difficulty in getting George to be as needy as she. He often drifted off to sleep, leaving her with deep feelings of dissatisfaction after he turned from her, seemingly exhausted from a long day of teaching and tutoring. She often laughed at herself that perhaps that folder contained their financial records. When he saw how well they were doing and how their accounts were growing, it would get him as excited as she wished he would always be.

  Tutoring was now taking so much of his time that they discussed incorporating a tutoring service, leaving all other employment behind, and trying to make it as independent businesspeople. George had been hired by a local tutoring service that prepared students for the math section of college entrance examinations. One evening over their usual drinks, he said to Susan, “I’m the one who’s bringing in these high school kids. It’s my name, my success. Yes, I am paid well, but I know what these kids are paying for this course. All that could be mine.”

  He and Susan discussed this at length, deciding that the risk was too great, he was earning so much now, she would have to leave her job to run the business while he tutored, and they couldn’t hire anyone else to teach as George’s talents allowed only him to do.

  One Sunday, in their second summer in Trout Lake, they went out for a drive in the country. They didn’t have to go very far. Just outside of town, they saw a “For Sale” sign on a large house. They stopped and walked onto the grounds, noting that the house was right on the lake, with a small boathouse and a dock where a rowboat and a canoe were tied up. No one was home. They walked around the house, noting its size.

  As they drove off, Susan turned to George, “George, park the car in that side road. I want to talk to you about an idea I have. It will require your full attention. I don’t want you driving while we discuss this.”

  “So serious, eh?” George joked as he pulled over. “OK, I’m all ears.”

  “Darling, you have a real talent rarely found among others. You can bring mathematics to life for anyone, making even the weakest and disinterested student love it as much as you do. I think you love your work even more than you love me! That’s why you’re so good at it. This is a talent you were born with. It could become not only the professional expression it is at the moment, but it could be a means to a great financial future for us and the family we will have one day.”

  “Ah, yes,” George smiled, modifying his serious attention to his wife, injecting a little humor, “you think with all this skill I can figure out the next winning lottery numbers!”

  “George,” she chided, “I’m serious. Listen. With that large house we just saw, on the lake and all, we could open a combined tutoring center and a kind of a camp for kids who are having trouble in school with math, and other subjects. We could have a weekend camp where you could tutor and I could take the kids for swimming, boating, whatever. In the summer we could do the same thing on a more extensive basis, maybe weeklong or even two weeklong sessions. You wouldn’t have to give up your teaching at the college, or even your afternoon tutoring during the week. I’m sure that house is big enough to have a reasonable dormitory for campers to sleep in, with a place to eat, some gang-style bathrooms, a classroom or two, and even a private office for you. I’ll bet that you can do your college prep math course there for high school kids during the week at night, too.”

  George stared as his wife, overcome by her vision of the potential to expand his outreach to students, his mind racing as to the many other possibilities this large house could provide. “I’ll bet it would be big enough to give us a decent living arrangement, too. I wouldn’t have to travel far to get home each night from my tutoring.”

  He started the motor, turned the car around, and drove back to the house by the lake for another look.

  They called the number on the “For Sale” sign the next day, and an agent took them out to the house. They noted much work to be done, but indeed the house could be divided just as they had imagined. One wing could house a private section for them, complete with dining room, living room, kitchen, and three bedrooms. The other part of the house could be turned into a small dormitory, perhaps with room for ten to twelve children, an office for George, and either one large classroom for up to twenty students or two smaller ones. The limited size of the prospective dormitory would allow only either boys or girls, but not both, to be housed there. George insisted they be boys. When they heard the price, it was far out of the range of their rather successful savings. They investigated the cost of a mortgage, remodeling, and incorporating their new business. The only way they could achieve this would be to borrow from their parents, who were more than happy to extend this interest-free credit to them to help start what sounded like an enterprise that could only increase the well-being of their children and future grandchildren.

  They closed on the house a few weeks later, extending their finances almost to the breaking point. George redoubled his tutoring efforts. Susan left work at the end of each day, rushed out to the lake house, now called their “lodge,” and supervised the architect and the contractors who were remodeling, painting, caring for the grounds, sprucing up the boathouse, and generally remaking the facility so that it would be ready in the fall for the opening. She also worked with the lawyers who were incorporating their projected tutoring business and camp. They decided they liked the name “Recovery Camp” since it described what they, really George, were going to do for the children in need who came there.

&
nbsp; In the spring, the remodeling of the house was completed. They sacrificed the furnishing of their three-bedroom part of the house to extend their credit to the limit furnishing the business part with tables, armchairs, cots, whiteboards, bedding, rugs, and other fixtures that would be needed to make a livable camp and classroom facility.

  They gave up the lease on their small apartment, moving their few pieces of furniture into their living quarters. “Let’s give it a try,” George said one night over the usual martinis. “I am going to suggest to one of my kids’ parents that she let me have him for a weekend for special tutoring. He can sleep in the dormitory and give a test run to our cooking and toilet facilities, maybe even using a boat on the lake between tutoring sessions. I’ll make up some sort of special price for a one-night stay, just Saturday overnight. We’ll see if it works.”

  And indeed it did. Both the boy’s mother and the boy were ecstatic over the prospect of a weekend out in the country, complete with lake, meals, tutoring, and the care of two responsible and skilled adults. The first test run was an immense success. The boy sparked envy among all his classmates at school as he told them the following week about his adventure in the house on the lake. George and Susan’s home phone rang off the hook as other parents called to ask when their children could participate in such a weekend. They recorded names and addresses and told all of them about their plans to extend this first dry run into the summer, when they would hold two-week sleep-away sessions.

  Susan contacted an advertising service in town to draw up a brochure with photos of the facility, indoor and out. She and George spent long hours in determining a financial business plan to establish rates they would have to charge depending on the plan selected—full two weeks, weekend only, just tutoring, etc.—to recover costs of cleaning personnel, cooks, food, and other operating costs, and to make a profit so they could pay off their debts and creditors. They consulted an accountant. The lawyer completed the incorporation of Recovery Camp. They were now set up in a business, an entirely new venture to both of them.

  In the meantime, both continued in their jobs. In George’s case, this was many jobs, with the community college, tutoring, and teaching the college exam preparatory course. He decided that this last burden on his time was excessive for the benefits received. He told the owner of the course that he would be leaving in the fall to pursue other endeavors. When the news of this reached the students in his class, a protest arose among them. “You were great; you can’t leave now; we’ve got friends and classmates who are enrolling next year just because of what you did for us. You can’t let them down.” OK, thought George, I can do this. I can advertise somewhere and add this course to what Recovery Camp will do, maybe two or three nights a week in my own facility. After all, except for the summer, the camp is only going to be used on weekends. I can start my own college prep course during the week at night, just like now. I’ll continue my private tutoring during the afternoon with the younger kids, to whose homes I have to go right now anyway. The lodge is accessible from town; all these grown kids have cars. I can turn an unused portion of my facility into an income source. I have all the space and facilities I need standing vacant. Let’s give it a try.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “George, I don’t want one in the house.” Susan was responding very softly to George’s intention to purchase a gun.

  George protested, “We have kids here almost every day, and nights on the weekend, plus the college prep kids I have each evening. Everyone will feel safer after what happened less than a half mile away. Furthermore, you already know how to handle firearms. You told me what fun you and Elizabeth had with your dad on the range and how much you enjoyed the competition with Elizabeth, especially when you won in marksmanship. This is right up your alley!”

  It had happened the previous night. They were awakened by what sounded to George like fireworks. Susan, who woke with a terrified start, was fully aware that what had awakened her was weapons being discharged in somewhat rapid succession. Both went to their bedroom window in the darkness to see where the shots were coming from. They could see the flashes of the muzzles of the weapons being fired, followed a split second later by the sound of the firing. Just as suddenly as the firing had begun, it ended. Susan turned to George and asked if he had counted the number of shots. He shook his head and took a guess at maybe more than a dozen or so. Susan looked back at their bedroom clock. It indicated 2:27 a.m.

  Soon the sirens sounded. Transfixed, they stayed at their window in the darkness. Two police cars arrived with their colored roof lights blazing and their side window spotlights illuminating the road. The distance was too great to see any smaller details of why they had stopped short of a house that was three doors down from their lodge. It was from this house that they fixed the source of the firing. Soon other police cars arrived, also with sirens blazing enough to wake up the entire neighborhood. George left the window to put on his pants, which were hanging over a chair. “You just stay right where you are, young man,” admonished Susan. “You’re not going out there. I’m too young to be made a widow. You stay right here with me. If you’re curious, be curious about how you are going to defend me!”

  Soon they heard another different-sounding siren. An EMS ambulance pulled up, also with its lights blazing. They saw two uniformed men jump out, open the back door, pull out a gurney, and wheel it in front of the police cars, where they were lost from Susan and George’s view. A few moments later, the gurney was wheeled back to the ambulance, one uniformed man holding something high above what appeared to be a human figure on the gurney. The gurney was quickly loaded into the back of the ambulance; one of the men jumped in beside it, along with a police officer, and the other went around the vehicle to drive it away.

  Two of the police vehicles pulled up to the house in front of them, now with their lights out, while the others turned around and silently drove off. George and Susan stayed at the window for another few minutes until these two police cars also drove away. George drew the blinds, turned on the light, and picked up the phone to make a call.

  “George,” Susan begged, “it’s after three. I am sure that Janice and Bob want to get some sleep. We can call them in the morning for the details.”

  George incredulously replied, “Are you kidding? Sleep after all that? And how about us? Do you think we can get back to sleep without knowing what happened? I have to call Bob to see if he is all right, if they want to sleep here tonight, or if we can do anything to help them.” He punched in the numbers, only to get a busy signal. “See?” he said. “They’re on the phone, probably calling their kids.” Janice and Bob were older neighbors whom they had met as they were rebuilding the lodge. He tried again a few moments later.

  This time Bob answered and gave George the details of having been awakened by someone in the house rummaging around downstairs. When he called out for whoever it was to identify themselves, the answer was to go back to bed so he wouldn’t get hurt. Bob had a weapon in the house and told the intruder he was coming downstairs with it, whereupon the intruder fired a shot through the ceiling of the living room and then another up the stairs. When Bob returned the fire, the intruder ran out of the house, Bob after him. “He kept firing at me while he was running away. I guess one of my shots must have hit him somewhere, since he fell in the road. Meantime, Janice was on the line to nine one one and got the police here right away. The guy—at least I think it’s a guy—must have a car around here somewhere; we can find that in the morning. Police got his gun, and they took mine, too, to see if the bullet that hit him was mine or maybe from his own gun. I don’t think he was dead, from the look of the way he was handcuffed on the gurney. I sure don’t know who he, or she, is. Quite a scare, but we’re OK now. And not to worry, I have another gun in the house that I didn’t tell the police about if anyone else shows up tonight!”

  The incident made the early morning TV news shows. The burglar was identified as a habi
tual felon, just out of county jail for breaking and entering. He was wounded in the upper thigh and in the hospital under police guard. The neighbors were all abuzz the next morning, all, like Susan and George, staying within the safety of their homes as the incident was unfolding.

  Susan thought back to her teenage years—the approval she’d had from her father, how much she and Elizabeth enjoyed competing, and especially how much she enjoyed the times she outshot her big sister. She looked back with a smile on the happy moments on the range with the very knowledgeable professional who had taught them both how to use firearms. All those lessons were still inside her mind. If I learned them so well, why shouldn’t George, too?

  “OK, if you insist. But you must promise me you’ll keep it unloaded, always with the safety on, and with the ammunition somewhere else than where we will keep the weapon.” Somehow Susan had assimilated the terminology of using “weapon,” “sidearm,” or “rifle” instead of “gun.”

  George nodded in silent agreement, although he thought of the uselessness of an unloaded weapon with its ammunition in some kitchen cabinet where it couldn’t be reached. “Hey, intruder, can you hold on for a moment? This gun is unloaded. Its bullets are on a shelf downstairs. Can you wait a few moments while I go to the kitchen to load it? What’s that? You also have a gun with which you plan to kill me before I can load mine? Oh, and you plan to kill my wife, too, and all those kids in the dormitory? Darn, I knew I should have kept this thing near my bed with a full load of bullets in it. Well, you live and learn. Or perhaps, you die and learn!” Yeah, OK, Susan, I’ll keep the bullets somewhere else, but the gun that’s going to wind up by my bed or, better, under my pillow, is going to be fully loaded!

  A thought occurred to George. I have a previous conviction on the books somewhere. I can only purchase a gun with a background check to get the license I need. I won’t have an unregistered gun in the house. If that conviction comes up, I may not be able to get the gun we need. Susan had great experience with these weapons on a range when she was a kid. We’ll purchase this weapon in her name, since she is the more experienced one. This way I’ll be able to avoid any trouble. If Susan were to find out through this gun purchase that I have a felony conviction, it would destroy both of us, maybe even our marriage, since I never told her about this incident in my past. I was innocent; I never touched that kid. But will she believe me? Should I tell her now? What for? What’s to be gained? No one ever believed me before. Why should Susan believe me now?