Electroboy

by Andy Behrman

  Each day, when you are outside Esmor, you are required to make two “contact calls,” one between 10:00 A.M. and 2:00 P.M. and the second between 4:00 P.M. and 8:00 P.M. They’re fifteen-second calls—all you are required to do is to state your name and your location. A silly technicality, but sometimes it slips your mind. When you leave in the morning and when you return in the evening you have to sign in and out in three different places. My signature becomes abbreviated, and I even drop the loop in the D in my middle name because I have to sign it so many times.

  The first night I come to Esmor I call my friend Lucy and tell her that I’m on work release; can she help me find a job? She calls her friend Susan, who has just opened a new, upscale café in the Village. This phone call establishes a pattern between Lucy and me—we speak every night I am at Esmor, sometimes a couple of times a night, and she visits me several times a week, constantly reassuring me that there will be an end to this five-month sentence. I make an appointment with Susan at the Cake Bar and Cafe and have my meeting approved by the staff. I’ve never worked as a busboy before, and I guess thirty-two isn’t too late to start. I fill Susan in on my status and she seems somewhat amused; I promise that I will be an incredible worker and a tremendous asset. Susan is a lawyer by training, and it was her dream to open this café. She’s very understanding and certain things will work out just fine. From my first day, I become obsessed with clearing dirty plates and lipstick-smudged cups and glasses off tables and wiping them down like an automaton. I am proud when I’m promoted to the position of waiter, and I excel at serving my customers. It’s a pretty simple job, but I manage to turn it into a rather complicated one in my mind and make it a challenge—I give myself ridiculous goals related to clearing plates and glasses: I estimate that it will take three trips to the kitchen to clear off six tables, or I can carry everything in one hand from three tables. It keeps me occupied. My attitude is always friendly, probably because it feels like a volunteer job, but I’m efficient and move quickly. A young couple comes in and orders carrot cake and cappuccino, and I can tell that they’re in a rush. I hold my other orders and get to theirs right away. The first day, I wait on chef David Bouley. This makes me slightly nervous. No problems. Good tipper. $5 on $20. During the day, in this world of chocolate-mousse pies, banana rhum tarts, cappuccino and espresso, I’m a totally free man—except from my obsessions—but when the kitchen closes, I’m forced to return to the world of urine tests, shakedowns, and confinement. Since I have to give 25% of my earnings to Esmor and I have taxes to pay, I’m not earning too much—about $150 per week—so I decide that I’m going to have to come up with some freelance public relations work to do so I can put aside some money for my release. Since most of my PR work is done on the telephone anyway, I figure it shouldn’t be a problem for me to handle two or three clients from prison.

  The smell of disinfectant in the cafeteria is so strong that it’s almost impossible for me to eat without getting nauseated. Beef stew and rice that smell like ammonia are hard to stomach. It doesn’t seem to bother anybody else, so I don’t say anything, I just don’t eat. I buy most of my meals at places like Burger King and Wendy’s in transit from my job, or I settle for Oreos or Lay’s potato chips from the vending machines in the lounge. Today in the cafeteria I push the food away, go upstairs, and take a cool shower—it’s like an oven in this building—then sit in front of the television and ask Pippo if he minds if I watch Melrose Place. He looks confused. He’s obviously never seen it or heard of it, but he’s hooked after the first show. He thinks Amanda’s a big bitch. We watch Party of Five next. I don’t bother trying to explain this to Pippo. I don’t think he gets it. Sometimes when there’s nothing on television, Pippo puts a tape in his boom box and dances around the room while I’m reading a magazine or writing in my journal. He pretends to be dancing with a partner and makes snapping and hissing noises with his tongue. I can’t imagine this happy dancing man transporting kilos of cocaine across the border, and I stay away from the exact reason that he is here.

  One evening Pippo isn’t feeling well and can hardly move in bed. He is sweating and cursing in English and Spanish, and finally I go downstairs to get help. He is taken away in an ambulance, and I never see him again. The rumor is that Pippo has spinal meningitis, so for weeks I’m obsessed that I, too, have contracted this fatal disease and am going to die in this shithole. Mr. Hughes replaces Pippo immediately with a new resident, Tony, who has served a long sentence for some type of business fraud that we never actually discuss. Tony comes from a tough Italian family. He finds a job at Williams-Sonoma, doing cooking demonstrations. They make him wear an apron on the sales floor, which really humiliates him. I wish I could see him wearing it just once. He is lonely and desperate to go home, and all he wants to do is talk about the injustice of his trial and how his co-conspirator walked away without having to serve any time. We hang around in the lounge together playing “What’s His Crime?,” a game in which you pick out a resident and guess his crime and then find out why he’s really here. The closest guess wins a Pepsi.

  In the months preceding my admission to Esmor, I was still actively pursuing new PR clients. I’m not quite sure what I was thinking I was going to do when the time came for me to turn myself in and be cut off from the rest of the world. But I do have the telephone. The telephone has always been my most important tool. I prefer it to the press release, the press kit, the memo, and the letter. It is quick and efficient. There is one pay phone per floor, calls are limited to ten minutes per call, and the lines for the phone usually have ten people waiting. So I get on line one night to use the pay phone, and there are about four or five guys ahead of me, each speaking loudly in Spanish and for much longer than the allotted ten minutes. I just need to make a quick call to an artist to confirm an appointment to meet at the café tomorrow. He knows about my situation and is actually quite comfortable with it. I get him on the phone, and he tells me that he’s decided to go ahead and use me. He asks where he can drop off a check quietly, and I tell him to do it at the café, because I can’t receive money while at Esmor. I make a call to a couples therapist who has been referred to me by another client; she is interested in doing national television appearances. We talk briefly, and the whole time I’m frightened there’s going to be a fire drill or someone is going to scream something out in Spanish.

  September 18, 1994.

  It’s Sunday morning. Sundays we’re allowed out for two hours for religious worship. I decide to go to St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, since it’s only twenty blocks from Esmor and I can easily take a bus there. Since I’m Jewish, I have really only been to church for weddings and funerals, so I’m not really sure what to expect. When I go in the Fifth Avenue entrance along with a large group of tourists, I’m overwhelmed by the size of the cathedral. I follow a young tourist in shorts and dip my fingers into the holy water and pretend to cross myself, then take a seat in the back. I’m engulfed with loneliness, but at the same time I feel surrounded and supported by so many people in the church. I feel like I’ve found refuge and there is no reason to return to Esmor. I pray that my incarceration will be over soon. An elderly woman attached to an oxygen tank is sitting a few rows in front of me. This makes me feel fortunate. But praying at St. Patrick’s doesn’t make the sentence go any quicker. Soon I realize that the Tivoli Diner on Third Avenue is closer to Esmor and I can pray there just as easily and have a toasted corn muffin and read the Sunday Times all in the same two hours.

  September 30, 1994.

  I scrub the shower so that we’ll pass inspection today. Yesterday Rodriguez, one of the resident supervisors, wrote us up for “too many hairs.” I figure I’ll scrub the toilet and sink again. It’s almost impossible to make this bathroom look decent—it’s such a vile pit. I’m a pro when it comes to disinfecting. Tony is still asleep, and I don’t want to disturb him. He’ll be relieved not to have to do any of the cleaning when he wakes up. I think he expects me to do it. He’s ser
ved four years already, so I think he has seniority. The room is like an oven—well, at least a toaster oven. It’s dark and dingy and it smells like the Chinese restaurant behind the building. I go into my dresser to pull out some clothes. I’m shocked. Everything is missing. Jeans, khakis, polo shirts, button-downs—gone. I look all over the room, which takes all of five seconds. I start looking in Tony’s dresser, and he sits up quickly. Like he has some type of automatic alarm system connected to his property. I tell him all my clothes are missing. He laughs and tells me we’re living among criminals. What do you expect? At dinner I see Alvarez, a big guy with a Latin Kings tattoo on his knuckles, dressed in my Ralph Lauren striped button-down shirt. Tony tells me to keep my mouth shut.

  October 21, 1994.

  We got an incident report for “too many hairs” again this morning. Getting an incident report here feels like being convicted of another felony because you’re the defendant again. It’s like going to court. I’m fighting this one with Ms. Black. I tell her that this is a ridiculous charge and that Rodriguez is obviously doing this to fill his quota and that I’m not going to accept the punishment for it this time—scraping the wax off the cafeteria floors. She tells me that she’ll look into it. I come face-to-face with Rodriguez, who tells me in front of Black about the big clump of hair he found in the drain. She sends me and Tony to the cafeteria for the punishment, where we get down on our hands and knees in front of a crowd of residents and start scraping off the wax.

  November 7, 1994.

  In my journal I keep track of the days as they pass. I break my sentence down into all different types of units—weeks, months, percent of sentence served, blocks of ten-day units, anything to make things seem to move faster. I track the change in seasons by the holiday displays at the Duane Reade drugstore on the corner. These are motivational because they run so far in advance of the actual celebration: pumpkins, witches, and goblins start appearing the first week in September; snowmen, reindeer, and Santa Claus the first week in November. The street vendors are hawking their wares on the street—“Nintendo games for Christmas” in November. I’m thrilled that December is right around the corner. I’ll be out of here in January!

  November 10, 1994.

  I am approaching the halfway mark of my time at Esmor—two and a half months—and I write to Judge Nickerson asking him to consider releasing me early so that I can begin my community service and put the remaining two and a half months on the house-arrest side of my sentence. In my letter I tell him that “I feel as though I have been adequately punished.” I mail it off and patiently wait for a response.

  November 15, 1994.

  The crazies are coming back. I tell Dr. Fried during our weekly appointment today about my fantasies of committing a mass murder or shooting at Esmor. The target of the murders is usually the staff, but most of the time it doesn’t matter and I think of killing anyone in the building. These feel a lot more like well-thought-out plans than fantasies. Dr. Fried increases my Risperdal, which seems to alleviate some of the problem. I’ve also been walking on the curb to avoid the sidewalk as much as possible because I’m scared of wearing out my heels on the sidewalk and I’m frightened of looking into the eyes of strangers.

  November 18, 1994.

  Judge Nickerson rejects my request for a reduction of my sentence. It was a long shot.

  November 22, 1994.

  Several months before I am to leave, I start looking for a full-time job that pays a real salary that I can begin immediately and continue post release. I interview for a job with a nonprofit organization called the Center for Alternatives to Sentencing and Employment Services (CASES), in a public relations and fund-raising capacity. The organization provides educational and employment opportunities to young people in lieu of serving time. I get the job and work with a dynamic group of dedicated people, including many young lawyers, who feel strongly about the mission. I am forced to leave my waitering position at the Cake Bar.

  November 24, 1994.

  It’s Thanksgiving Day, and I travel with my family to my aunt and uncle’s in Connecticut. The day confuses me, as I’m not confined to either Esmor or the café. It’s entirely strange to be eating a civilized Thanksgiving dinner with linen, silverware, china, and crystal with my family after three months of Salisbury steak and peas on Styrofoam plates. Of course, everybody is curious about this “prison” to which I am confined, and I choose to tell them lighter and funnier anecdotes about residents like Hank, who braids his long silver hair like an Indian chief and walks around with a sullen face, or Georgie, the black transvestite who is obsessed with Diana Ross and has posters of her plastered all over his room and a library of books about her on his dresser.

  November 28, 1994.

  I’m watching CNN and see that Jeffrey Dahmer has been killed in jail today. For some reason I start fantasizing that I’m going to be killed, too.

  December 8, 1994.

  I wait in line for an hour to call home to tell my parents that my sentence is officially two-thirds complete. They’re thrilled.

  December 15, 1994.

  I’ve become popular as the community advocate and letter writer. I help other residents write to their attorneys and judges and do my best to help explain the system. Residents line up outside my room after dinner. I’m paid with cigarettes and Diet Pepsis.

  December 20, 1994.

  I walk up Fifth Avenue to see the big Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. I only have about an hour to get back, but I stand there and watch all of the tourists and the skaters circling the rink, listen to the music, and realize how pathetic my situation is. In the cab ride back, I pass store windows magnificently decorated with gold and silver trimmings, toy soldiers, and Disney characters. I know that I’m not going to be buying any gifts this year or going to any parties this season. When I turn onto Esmor’s block, I think about telling the driver to keep going downtown, but I know that I have to sign in by 7:00 P.M. I walk through the dimly lit lobby with the shabby, musty carpeting and into the smoking lounge. It’s loud and smoky and smells like sweat. They’ve Scotch-taped a torn reindeer to the vending machine.

  The Taste of Freedom

  January 27, 1995.

  I hear on television that it’s the fiftieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. It’s also my release date from Esmor and my thirty-third birthday—such a special one for me. I have packed up my suitcases the night before and stay up all night waiting to go through the release procedures at 6:00 A.M.—signing my name in a hundred different places. When I’m finished, I thank the administrator and walk out the door and down the stairs, feeling perplexed about being officially released. I’m relieved to see my father waiting in his car. That night there’s a very small celebration with just my parents and Lucy, who has been a constant voice of reassurance and support during my confinement at Esmor. I didn’t want a welcome-home party the way I wanted a going-away party. The dinner is at Patria on Park Avenue South, and it’s a peculiar feeling knowing that I’m celebrating blocks away from Esmor. Part of me feels that I need to make some sort of transition—first be fumigated and detoxified and then given two weeks’ rest. Knowing that I’ll be spending the night at the apartment I’ve recently found for myself on the Upper West Side and never having to sleep on that awful mattress again is strange. I haven’t been out to a real restaurant in five months, and it feels odd to be having choices and ordering dinner that doesn’t come with a gift or prize. I’m a bit paranoid, wondering if anyone can tell where I’ve just come from, and the conversation is a little difficult at first for me because I really just want to cry. The theme for the night seems to be liberation. My father makes a toast: “To health, happiness, and the future.” I can’t believe it’s over. I’m looking around the restaurant at all of the smiling patrons eating and drinking, contrasting this scene with what’s going on blocks away. That night, when I return to my new home, I double-lock the door. I’m immediately struck by the quiet. I can only hear the humming
of the refrigerator, which I have filled with Diet Coke, orange juice, cream cheese, milk, butter, and eggs, and the freezer with two pints of Häagen-Dazs ice cream. It’s a start. I line up my pills and take them one by one. I wait for someone to shout out my name. I get into the shower and stand under the hot water for a half hour. My phone starts ringing, and I am talking to Lauren in Denver. I’m thrilled that people can reach me at home now. It seems miraculous. I’m naked on my bed, eating Häagen-Dazs rum raisin ice cream from a pint container and watching television. I am a free man with HBO and Showtime.