The Call

“Dad?”

The tone in his voice causes my breath to catch.

For a moment, he is genuine.

For a moment, he is HOPEFUL.

I met him in person a few weeks ago.

When we talk, he‘s a prisoner at a small regional jail one state over.

We sit in a small and sterile room that is the last of a series of rooms designed for these types of meetings. We sit in molded plastic chairs, the kind whose legs will twist underneath of you in an effort to dance themselves into life.

The smells of the room combine the nostalgic, the bleak, and the sick.

On top is the aroma of reheated low-grade frozen food, the unforgettable smell of the elementary school cafeteria, more “comfortable” than “great”. Underneath of the lunchroom is his soap, the artificial scent of sanitization, a stark reminder that nothing in this environment is in accordance with the outside world. In here, there are no trees, no sunlight, no ocean, no blades of grass. In here, there is only control.

Under it all lurks the unmistakable odor of old urine.

This is not a place where the uninitiated would feel comfortable placing food into their mouth. This is not a place where the uninitiated feels clean, feels at peace.

He wears an orange jumpsuit over his wiry frame, a dingy white thermal underneath. The sleeves of the thermal are pushed up to his elbows, bunching around the cuff of his jumpsuit like perverse hydrangeas at the middle of each arm. His arms and neck are peppered with tattoos of varying quality. His skin is pale, greyish, and it seems loose.

His salt and pepper hair is cut close to his head, slightly longer on top and appearing as if it has been several days since its last wash. His face is gaunt and covered by a week’s worth of stubble, the thin scruff struggling in vain to hide the hollows of his cheeks, the premature aging of it all. His dark eyes betray any swagger he tries to muster, shifting and twitching from side to side, his mouth slightly open as he calculates the room. He does not know who we are, or why we are here, and he is very, very nervous.

He is not the hardened tough guy he would like to be, but better suited to the role of the sneak. His best work is done in the shadows, outside of prying eyes, at the back of his adversaries.

He doesn’t deny this.

Among other things, he is part of a ring of thieves that are local to my jurisdiction, the proceeds of his theft coming in the form of cash, drugs, or losing his freedom. He’s always on the cusp of starting a new chapter, but to date has not been able to find the first words to put on the page. As we talk, I wonder if he gets the sense that maybe his time is running out.

He’s currently under lock and key because of a probation violation, and has thus far been unable to post the relatively low bond. I have information that he intentionally gave a very strong dose of fentanyl to an associate of his who had embarrassed him several weeks prior. The fentanyl was purported to be his vengeful solution after he was unable to procure a firearm for the task.

The associate is definitely dead, and most likely of an overdose.

We talk for a little over an hour. He was definitely in the room, was definitely using fentanyl, was definitely the only person in the room who HAD any fentanyl, and definitely saw Associate enter the bathroom where He was later found deceased. He will not admit to giving Associate fentanyl, but if he DID, “it definitely wasn’t meant to hurt him or kill him, and [he] feels bad about that”.

Despite his habit, he has not learned to lie well.

Phone calls made from a jail are normally recorded, and several weeks after our meeting I listen to some of his. Some are to a girlfriend, some to his associates and benefactors.

One is to his father.

After a series of prompts- “collect call from…”, “to accept these charges…”, “an inmate at a detention facility…”, etc.- his call is accepted.

For a moment, there are no words, just the barely audible electronic hum and the coarse rumble of one of them breathing.

“Dad?”

This man was charged with murder thirty years ago, was in a prison gang, has been in and out of detention facilities for most of his adult life. He may have intentionally poisoned his associate.

But here, the guard has dropped. In this single word, all of the pretense is gone, leaving zero trace of the street facade, the survival tactics, the edge.

Here, he is looking for his father, desperately seeking help in whatever form it can be given, but seeming as if it could all be put right for him with a response to his call. In this pivotal scene, and maybe only for a moment, his father may save him with a warm and heartfelt “hello”.

“Don’t ask me for any money.”

That’s the first words his father speaks to him.

The fog returns, the sun’s desperate ray once again banished to the dark miasma of cold reality. The phone call is a month old by the time I hear it, but I can feel it take the air out of Son as sure as if I were in the room with him.

Son’s brother is screaming at him from the background, a feral and high-pitched string of profanities and accusations that are somehow softened by Dad’s calm and disaffected tone. Every 30 seconds or so Dad has his fill, is tired of being interrupted, and calmly tells Brother to “shut up”.

The rest of the conversation is just sad. Dad’s busy, Dad’s had enough of this, Brother knows that Son used Brother’s information to purchase a cell phone contract, Son is sorry, Son’s gonna make it right, Son was on dope, Son is clean now, Dad doesn’t care, Brother shrieks, shut up Brother, sorry Brother, sorry Dad, whatever Son, gotta go Son, I’ve had enough of this shit Son, can I call you later dad?, whatever Son, maybe in a couple of days Son, I’m busy Son.

Dad hangs up without saying goodbye, Brother’s shrill final words fortunately cut short.

I don’t know these people.

I don’t know their motivations, their history, their fears or their dreams.

But I know what I heard, and what I felt when I heard it.

“Dad?”

Despite the hell of his existence, and the monumental failures of his decision-making, he seemed to maintain some shred of hope at the prospect of a loving word from his father. Maybe he hoped that Dad would get him out of this, would offer a path forward, or maybe would just tell him that he loved him and that it would be okay.

What have they been through together for Dad to be able to ignore the plea, to not reciprocate?

“Dad?”

The last ten years of fatherhood flood my consciousness in an instant. Every triumph, every failure, every tear, every laugh, every lesson, and all the of seemingly mundane in between.

The sadness of this moment mixes with one burning thought, a driving force that clarifies in the midst of all the chaos.

My son needs me.

I need my son.

It’s of the utmost importance that I be ready to answer his call, that I prepare to guide him through the best AND the worst that life has to offer. It’s of the utmost importance that I prepare HIM so that I may answer the call long after my mind and body are gone, that the lessons we learn during our time together continue to serve for generations to come.

I don’t judge Dad for his response to Son’s plea. I don’t know nearly enough to do that with a clear conscience. I don’t know if Son really meant it in the way that I felt it.

But I know that it served as a bright reminder of what is important in my life, fuel added to a fire that rages in my heart.

My son needs me.

And I’ll dedicate my life to answering his call.

Thanks for reading.