We move through our lives as if the next moment will be just as we expect, marching through our days without a clue that any moment, the plans we have made are about to get blown into the air. We are ill-prepared for it.
My wife and I have been making plans for a year to visit the Holy Land with a group of priests, deacons, nuns, and fellow parishioners. We both have been yearning to visit the Holy Land for years, and the time had finally arrived. We would walk the same steps Jesus did, renewing our wedding vows of forty-nine years at Cana, where Jesus worked his first miracle at a wedding celebration.
It was time to go, and we were as excited and exuberant as we could be. We were embarking on a pilgrimage of a lifetime
Atlanta International
It was early in the morning, and the Atlanta International Airport was vibrant and bustling. Travelers were squeezing in their summer trips before school started. We were all at the gate waiting to board a flight bound for Israel.
Our plane’s arrival time changed three times, but it had finally landed, and we were preparing to board. As I was chatting with our fellow pilgrims, getting to know many of them for the first time, I heard my name called to the desk. My first thought was, “I’ll bet my frequent miles have earned me a seat upgrade.”
I walked to the desk with my wife behind me. There behind the desk stood two uniformed police officers. I identified myself, and one of the officers said;
“Mr. Toohey, you need to come with us.”
I replied, “What’s the matter?”
He said, “You have an outstanding warrant, and we need to take you downstairs and sort this out.”
My mind went immediately into warp speed. “What could this be about? I hadn’t been in trouble since I quit drinking almost twenty -three years ago. It couldn’t be about that—or could it?”
My wife started to follow, but they ordered her to stay there. I looked at her and tried my best to look calm and assured, saying to her, “Don’t worry, it’s a mistake. I’ll be back in a minute.” I wasn’t. I left her there standing alone, as the priests and deacons and nuns and fellow parishioners looked on in the background.
In the basement of the Atlanta International Airport is a small police substation for detaining suspected criminals for transport. Another group of officers met me there and demanded I empty my pockets. Again, I asked, “What is this all about?” The one who seemed in charge said, “We are arresting you as a fugitive from prosecution.” I replied, “What is the charge?” He replied, “You have a charge as a fugitive from justice in the state of Alabama for the year 2000.”
I said, “How can that be? That was almost twenty -three years ago. I have traveled all over the United States and the world since then. I know nothing about this. I am supposed to board a plane with my wife right now for a Pilgrimage to Israel.”
His short response was, “You have a DUI charge from January 11th, 2000. You won’t be getting on that plane or any other plane today.”
That was the day of my last drink of alcohol – over twenty-three years ago. Since that time, I have been actively engaged in 12 -step recovery, helping countless other men get and stay sober by sharing my personal experience of staying sober.
I never received notice to appear. My attorney told me at that time not to worry about it if I did not get one. I was baffled, though, at why, with all of my traveling for the past twenty-three years, just as we were boarding our plane to Israel, I was thrust into a whole other world.
They allowed me to call my wife, and I told her they had arrested me and to go on without me. “I‘ll be OK,” I said. “It is some kind of mistake that may take some time to work out. I love You”. I did believe I would be OK. I had come through the scourge of alcoholism and learned that no matter how dark the situation seemed, a loving power watched over me. What I did not suspect was how dark it was going to get.
My wife went on to Israel, and I went into a cell. Thus began my pilgrimage of an entirely different sort.
Booked into Clayton County Jail
An officer shoved me into a holding cell with a metal chair and a sink. Two officers came in and frisked me, vigorously patting down every inch of my body.
For the next thirty minutes, I sat in that small room alone, unable to contact anyone. My wife would never know what was going on. No one would for some days.
My thoughts were singular. I repeated almost involuntarily, like a mantra, “How could this be happening? How could I be locked in this holding cell while my wife is boarding a plane to Israel?” I went from an excited pilgrim to an arrested criminal in a flash. Neither my thoughts nor my emotions could keep up with the speed of what was happening. I thought only of how alone and afraid my wife must be. I noticed I was shivering uncontrollably, and I don’t think from the cold.
Finally, a large deputy sheriff came to transport me to the Georgia Clayton County Jail outside of Atlanta, which had jurisdiction over the Atlanta airport. I would later learn that it was one of the most notorious jails in the country. He handcuffed me behind my back and led me through the main body of the airport, past the ticket counters and the happy travelers, as many of them stopped, children staring at me, and whispered to those around them. I thought of my seven grandchildren as I passed them, and that they would surely react the same.
The deputy’s vehicle was parked in front of a bench, where a family of four sat—a mom and dad and their two young daughters. I could see the eyes of the two little girls grow large as they watched this old, handcuffed man being shoved into the back seat of a sheriff’s car and handcuffed to the door handle. The parents abruptly got up and moved their girls to a bench farther down.
Minute by minute, my mind was slowly accepting the reality of what was happening. To the world I was entering, I was no longer a husband, father, and grandfather on the way to a spiritual pilgrimage to Israel. Instead, I was a fugitive from the law who had been trapped and apprehended at the Atlanta airport after twenty-two years of brilliantly evading U.S. law enforcement. Really?
As we approached the County Prison, I gazed at the circled razor wire atop the eight-foot chain link fence. As I was brought into the main lobby of the prison, I stood on a large circle of embedded mosaic tiles on the that said, “This is the Hillton -Sheriff Victor Hills ‘ House- My House- My Rules.”
This jail system is widely considered as Georgia’s most brutal Para-Military Jail. From what I could see, there must be a size requirement to be a deputy, guard, or even an intake officer. They were all well over six feet tall. Broad and muscular, intimidating to even look at with their black uniforms, high leather boots, vests, pistols, and handcuffs hanging from their thick belts.
In 2020, the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, Southern Center for Human Rights, and the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit against Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill and members of the CCSO staff. The class action complaint alleges the Clayton County jail is understaffed, unsanitary, undersupplied, and is failing to respond “reasonably to the known risk of a COVID-19 outbreak in the Clayton County jail.”
I would learn after my release that the State of Georgia convicted Sheriff Victor Hill in 2022 for violating the constitutional rights of seven Clayton County jail inmates by forcing them into restraint chairs for hours at a time with little provocation. “Hill told the jury he did it to maintain order in the jail.” (“Victor Hill federal trial | Juror provides insight on verdict | 11alive.com”)
The jury found suspended Sheriff Hill guilty on all but one count of federal civil rights charges. Hill, who styled himself a “Batman” style crime fighter in Clayton County and had been one of the most towering local political figures anywhere in metro Atlanta, was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison in March 2023, followed by six years of supervised release and 100 hours of community service, for violating the civil rights of pre-trial detainees. I would later learn of several deaths of inmates within months of the time I was there.
This is my new home. For how long, I had no idea.
An intake officer booked me into the Jail. He fingerprinted me, took my mug shot, and took me to the showers, where I was frisked once more and ordered to shower. They then issued me an orange jumpsuit I barely squeezed into and a pair of plastic flip-flops that were so small they cut into my feet with every step I took.
Unlike other inmates I was being processed with, ( processed, like a block of cheese) the officer did not issue me a pillow, blanket, toilet paper, or toothbrush. When I asked about it, the intake guard said, “Sorry, Budd, but the prison is overcrowded. You’ll get it when we get it.” I never would.
Very soon, I learned that life in the Clayton County Prison was a matter of meekly doing whatever you were told immediately. While the officer led me down the jail corridor to my cell unit, I passed by several non-prisoners (anyone not in an orange jumpsuit). An officer abruptly came within inches of my face and shouted at the top of his lungs, “get your f_ _ _ en a_ _ against the wall when someone passes you!” That’s how I learned what to do. There was no orientation—I would learn what to do and how to do it only when aggressively reprimanded for what I did wrong.
It did not matter to anyone here that I was a successful safety professional, a long-time husband, a poet, a spiritual retreat leader, a mentor of some two dozen men in recovery from addictions, or a father of five and grandfather of seven. I was just one more convict in an orange jumpsuit and flip-flops who deserved everything coming to me.
In time, my sense of who I am began to fade, and I would absorb a new identity. This may be necessary for me to endure. Seeing myself as the same as all the other inmates kept my balance during the sudden changes, inconsistencies, and angry inmate and guard outbursts. Like all the other inmates, I had no rights. It would serve me well to be grateful for any small thing.
Moving Into My Cell
I followed the other new inmates into our POD, which contained four units, with each Unit containing twenty cells. Each cell had two metal platforms that served as bunks. It seemed everyone knew what to do but me. Was I supposed to wait and be assigned a cell? I watched as the other new inmates quickly scoured each cell and claimed one. What was I to do? I had been anxious throughout this whole thing, but now I was terrified. There were no directions, no order. It was indeed every man for himself. I had started shaking from the time I was printed and had not stopped. I thought, at first, I was just cold, but now I realized I was shaking in terror at being snatched from my life and thrust into this foreign world in less than eight hours.
There were only two cells left. The jail’s population is over 100% of its stated capacity, with three people crammed into two-person cells. (The third person sleeps on the floor near an open toilet.)I looked in one cell, where the toilet had leaked across the cell floor, and the sink faucet barely let out a trickle of water. I looked at the last one, and it was the same. The best thing about this cell is no one wanted it. I would come to see that this is how grace shows up; the choice of a urine-soaked floor over sleeping on the floor with two other inmates. I put my plastic pad on the bottom bunk and stepped outside.
There stood a man of about 30 years old, medium height, with a muscular build. He was smiling, standing on the rail outside his cell, carrying on conversations with others down below. Finally, he looked at me and said, “Hey, Old Timer—what are you here for?” “Ole Timer” became my moniker from that moment on.
I could sense a sincere curiosity in his voice. A quick look around my Unit and I estimated that the average age was thirty years and that I was the only caucasian in this Unit. He must have been wondering how this old white guy ended up here. “A twenty-three-year-old DUI charge I didn’t realize I had.” “God Damn!” he replied. “I have heard a few bench warrants catch up with dudes after two or three years— but twenty-three?”
He poked his head in my cell and said, “Man, your cell reeks. You can’t stay in this filth. Come with me, I’ll help you straighten it out”. I followed him downstairs, grateful for my first humane interaction in seven hours. He knew where the one mop & bucket , filled it with water and a little soap, and helped me carry it to my cell. Something about this random act of kindness removed the general terror I had been feeling for the past hours, and I gradually began to come to my senses and remember who I was. His act of service towards me jolted me out of my frightened stupor, and I now had some hope and courage to move through the interminable minutes and hours, hours with no answers, no solutions, and no idea of how long I will be here.
I would watch my “cell neighbor” throughout my time in jail and how he had an unmistakable gift as an informal leader. He was constantly engaging others in raucous conversations about sports and girls. He was always smiling. Other inmates seemed to hang around him, following his lead.
But, if anyone did anything that could get us in trouble with the “Sergeant” officer over our Unit, such as fighting, vandalism, or harassing the prison orderlies, my friend would admonish those involved, letting them know they were putting all of us in hot water with the Sergeant. Then, others would chime in, and order would return. I was living next to the boss!
Clayton Co. Jail Deprivations
Jails aren’t for comfort. They are places to be avoided at all costs by design—except in cases where one is fighting social and moral injustice. I did not expect the “Sherriff Victor Hillton” to be anything like the true “Hilton”. But I thought I would get a toothbrush, Toilet paper, a pillow, and a blanket. I received none of these thing. I brushed my teeth with my fingers, using the hand soap provided with the little trickle of water from the faucet. Since my toilet did not work, I urinated in the sink while in lockdown. I borrowed sheets of toilet paper from fellow inmates. Every time jail orderlies would come for whatever reason, I would appeal for a toothbrush and a blanket, and toilet paper. The answer was always the same—” We’ll get it to you when we get it .” They never did.
Our Unit was in lockdown from eighteen to twenty hours a day. We were allowed an hour at breakfast, noon, and an hour or two in the evening. That is when you use the phones and take a shower. With forty men, six phones, and one shower, it was virtually impossible to use either in that short time.
I had nothing to eat on my first day. I left Birmingham that morning at 3:00 am, had a snack at the airport, but arrived at my jail unit after dinner had been served. So, the next morning I was ready for something to eat.
The orderlies brought in a large cart with forty trays on it. The trays
had four compartments. In one was a pancake the size of my palm, with no syrup, in another, a paper-thin slice of bologna. Then some meal mush I did not recognize. And a dried can biscuit. I was issued a “Spork” with my tray, but they neglected to tell me that I would only receive one spork. I tossed it after breakfast, and for the rest of my time, I ate with my fingers—oatmeal, powdered eggs, beans– just one more humiliation.
All the tables were full except one. A young black man was sitting by himself. I pulled up to the table and said, “Good morning .” With that, the young man got up and moved to stand by an already full table and ate his breakfast standing.
I felt embarrassed and spotlighted by this, for it was noticed by the other thirty-eight men. I wanted to connect with someone before facing hours of lockdown again, which seems unusual for a general introvert like me. But I found myself starving for human interaction beyond orders from deputies. I struggled a little to understand why he got up. Was he afraid to associate with the “Old White Guy”? Was he a victim of white racism, and was a symbol of that? I sat there alone and quickly finished my breakfast.
We were given one plastic bag with six slices of white bread, three thin slices of bologna, and three slices of sandwich cheese for lunch and dinner. This would last us until breakfast the next day.
I am in my cell from five pm until seven am every night. Throughout the night, I lay in a fetal position on my mat, trying to stay warm to no avail. Without a blanket, I shivered all night long, yearning for daylight to come through the window and warm up my cell.
I learned on day one that I would not be eligible for bail since I was charged in the State of Alabama and had to wait for the State of Alabama to extradite me. They had thirty days to do so, or Georgia State had to release me. I was sure that the State of Alabama was in no hurry to drive over here to pick me up. So, thirty days at Clayton County Jail, then Tuscaloosa County Jail to post bail. The prospect made me sick.
I wonder over and over how my wife is doing. I hope she is staying strong and her travelers are helping her through what is a test of suffering of her own.
Shakedown:
My Unit had been simmering with anger and unrest for two days. Several more toilets leaked out onto the cell floor. They were short of towels, blankets, and toothbrushes for at least a third of us. Two of the six phones did not work, leaving four for forty inmates. But the simmer was now to the boiling point. Inmates constantly shouted at the orderlies. I felt almost sorry for the orderlies and staff who had to enter our Unit. They were verbally abused, yelled at, and threatened by my Unit’s inmates. The angry shouting was so loud in this wide-open block and metal building that it became a continuous roar, subsiding briefly, then starting up again, over and over again all through day and night.
One afternoon my friend, the informal leader, shouted, “Here comes the Sergeant; everyone shut up.” But, first, a regular officer came through the door and announced, “Up against the wall ass hole’s, your sergeant is entering.”
I watched as all the chest-beating inmates abruptly stopped the chants and lined up with their faces against the wall. Then in came the Sergeant. He was at least six feet four, 240 lbs., all in black with a black vest, gun, billy club, and shiny leather boots up to his knees.
“Men, I sure wish I could treat you like men. I want to treat you like men. But when you act like animals, I have no choice but to treat you like animals. Everyone sit on the floor with your hands behind your back. Don’t you dare look to the right or left, or you will surely regret it.”
At that moment, the Unit went from pandemonium and anarchy to silent submission. His staff then frisked each man as he sat on the floor.
“We are now going to inspect your cell. If it is not in order, you will be in lockdown until tomorrow.” He then led his staff in inspecting each cell. In moments the Unit filled with the noise of his staff throwing mats, pillows, and blankets out of the cells. “You men have turned this Unit into a pigsty. If you want to live like pigs, we will treat you like pigs. Now, I am returning in one hour, and this entire Unit better sparkle, or you will see a side of me no one ever wants to see. Got it? Get to it.”
Everyone got busy like obedient children. The bluster of the inmates gave way to fear, and for the next hour, there was only cleaning and sweeping and scrubbing. But it was to no avail. The Sergeant locked us in until the following day.
Adversity Introduces us To Ourselves
During these hours of lockdown, I began to understand the power of solitary confinement. I have practiced silence, solitude, and contemplative prayer for over twenty-five years. I have sometimes thought I would be just fine if ever I was thrust into solitude without being able to escape. “No problem here,” I thought. How naive. How arrogant. How I wish.
For hours on end, my thoughts would race through my head. At first, they were rational thoughts. “How long will I be here,” “Is anyone working on this for me?”, “How is my wife doing with this while in Israel?”. But, over time, I lost control of my thinking, and random thoughts seemed to appear out of the blue—”How many ceiling tiles are in my cell?”. “If someone makes a movie about me, who will play my role?”. “If I were stranded on a remote Island (or in solitary confinement), what three things would I want?” (A blanket, a toothbrush, and the complete works of Shakespeare). More fantasies, unconnected thoughts, one after another, going nowhere.
So, I repeatedly practiced centering prayer, the prayers I had learned in Catholic school, and my recovery literature, thanking God for my teachers and mentors who prodded me to memorize them. Was it for such a time as this, when that is all I had to combat my unruly mind? I even resorted to the rosary, which had never been my devotion of choice. But now, in the endless hours alone in my cell, the repetitive nature of the rosary prayers kept me sane and protected me from my disjointed thoughts. I grew to depend on this devotion during the long nights and days.
Special forces like the Rangers and Delta Force in Black Hawk Down train every day. That is their job when not on a mission. They are always training, doing the same things over and over until it’s no longer training. Then, when the unexpected and unthinkable happens, they may be caught off balance for a moment, but immediately their training and practice kicks in and they just do what they were trained to do—not because they are naturally brave or calm in hard circumstances, but because they have practiced certain things over and over again. They find they can move through calamity sometimes with an eerie, irrational calmness.
In a similar way, years of practice of certain spiritual principles and disciplines prepare us for trouble: Divorce, death of a parent, spouse, or child, job loss, health deterioration, financial setbacks, you fill in the blank. Troubles & calamity test the authenticity of our spirituality and our recovery. It’s one thing to talk about serenity and spirituality when all is well. It’s another thing to experience it in the midst of a storm. This is my own test of how my practices serve me in the midst of serious trouble.
Bill Wilson, founder of Alcoholics Annonymous wrote; “Then perhaps life, as it has a way of doing, suddenly hands us a great big lump that we can’t begin to swallow, let alone digest. We fail to get a worked-for promotion. We lose that good job. Maybe there are serious domestic or romantic difficulties, or perhaps that boy we thought God was looking after becomes a military casualty. What then? Have we alcoholics in A.A. got, or can we get, the resources to meet these calamities which come to so many? These were problems of life which we could never face up to. Can we now, with the help of God as we understand Him, handle them as well and as bravely as our nonalcoholic friends often do? Can we transform these calamities into assets, sources of growth and comfort to ourselves and those about us? Well we can if we are willing to receive that grace of God which can sustain and strengthen us in any catastrophe.”
When trouble comes, the question for me to be asking is not “WHY?”, but “What is my role-what is it I am supposed to be and do at this moment? Another quote from recovery literature: We are in the world to play the role He assigns. Just to the extent that we do as we think he would have, and humbly rely on Him, does he enable us to match calamity with serenity.
I realized while laying on this metal pad and thin plastic mat for hours on end that the discipline of prayer and meditation I had developed over the years was saving me. Alone in this cell, I felt connected to a loving God, and to my family and friends. Even from the moment I was arrested, I never felt utterly alone. In this physical solitude, I prayed for everyone in my family, my friends—I even began praying for those cellmates that I had conversations with and had just a little insight into who they were and why they were here.
This is how I have come to understand spirituality, contemplation, and meditation. Its main object is to connect one with their fellow humans, not to separate oneself from them. In contemplation, we begin to erase all the illusory ways we divide ourselves from each other. And here, in this jail unit with forty men, that, on the surface, I have nothing in common with, this orange Clayton Co. Jail jumpsuit and these flip flops tell me that I have everything in common with them in the ways that truly matter.
We are all suffering, regardless of the front we are putting on. I was putting on my front—the wise old man in an orange jumpsuit. But they were all putting on theirs as well. I watched these young men go from bravado, chest-thumping, one-upmanship to crying on the phone for their wives or girlfriends not to forsake them just or for their parents to help them just one more time.
I was able to reach my wife on the phone twice while confined. Each time was heartbreaking.
My wife, crying, said, “I love you so much and wish you were here with me.”
“ I love you too, and miss you so much. How are you doing?”
“ I’m not very focused on the pilgrimage. I just keep thinking of where you are. But the group has been taking great care of me, checking on me all the time.” I sighed.
I hung up knowing we loved each other and would come out of this stronger and more in love. I doubted that was the experience of many of my fellow inmates. I know from conversations I would have over the next four days that many, if not most, had left a trail of broken relationships. As a result, they were disconnected from the help they needed. There is no one left in their lives willing to help. I know that feeling. I ended up there as an alcoholic.
At some point I began to experience a little of the miracle of awareness. Here I am, in the most brutal jail in maybe the country, deprived of most things that make life tolerable, lying face up on my metal cot after numerous hours alone. Yet, I have this overwhelming sense of gratitude for my life, for my family, for my friends, for my recovery, and above all, for my God. Circumstances notwithstanding, I am, above all men, most fortunate. Alone in my cell, staring up at the ceiling, I realized I have a wealth of help, willing to walk with me in any situation. This is in stark contrast to my fellows here in this Unit and prisons all over the nation.
In this jail, I have been allowed to see if my faith and spirituality are genuine or if I have played some religious game. For, if my faith cannot stand the test of adversity, what good is it? I would never have chosen this for myself, and I am still trying to understand how I arrived here. But I have learned that “Why” is a pointless question to ask when suffering. Rather, I should ask, “Who can I depend on to walk me through this time?” Who among my family and friends can I reach out to? Do I have faith in God who will bear me up?
It makes sense, then, that political and spiritual leaders from Boethius, John of the Cross, and Thomas More to Wittgenstein, Pound, Dostoyevsky, Wilde, Havel, and Martin Luther King Jr. have penned masterpieces from prison. The power of suffering and humiliation to open our eyes is a guiding theme of some of Dostoyevsky’s most powerful works, which is to say, some of the most powerful ever created.
Connections Through Our Stories
Lockdown and solitary time made me realize I possess an instinctive need to connect with other human beings. Even though I am an introvert and often seek solitude on my own, when forced into it for long periods I realize how much I will always need to be connected to others. In our brief “free Time,” I found it natural to sit with strangers at a table and begin a conversation – conversations that amounted to each of us sharing our stories; Stories of a gay man abused all his life by parents and schoolmates. He was encouraged to request movement to the “Gay Block,” where it would be safer. One night I could hear him screaming in terror, never knowing what had happened to him.
Or the story of a young man who broke his father’s car windshield in anger. He could get out if his dad either posted bail or dropped his charges. I told him about my journey of making amends and how that act changed my life. I hope he considers it.
Or the story of a forty-year-old man who, after hearing my own story, said he realized all his trouble in life were the direct or indirect result of drugs and alcohol. He now believes he is an alcoholic and plans to get help.
There was a group of three young men with whom I shared my story of recovery from alcoholism. I told them, “You guys have a lot of life yet to live. What if you turned those years to good by seeking and doing God’s will for your life? Just think of how different your life might be?” They nodded, and I prayed. As Ram Doss has said, “We are all just walking each other home.”
All Criminal arraignments were done on closed caption with the county judge. About twenty of us piled into a small room, where I heard one story after another of drug trafficking, spousal abuse, aggravated assault, murder, grand theft, and on and on. Bail ranged from $125,000.00 down to $5,000.00. I watched men defiant and grandiose as they waited their turn before the judge, reduced to mumbling children.
As we walked out of the closed caption room, I saw an older man sitting against a wall, bleeding from his head and face, his mouth swollen, with two medics passively standing over him. He had just been beaten by another inmate, but no one was talking. That afternoon, a middle-aged man two cells down from me would not get up when required. He lay unresponsive. The inmates shouted for medical help, yet no one came up to check in on him for at least five minutes. Finally, they radioed for a stretcher, which took another ten minutes. We were all astonished and upset at the lack of urgency shown in caring for this man who was having an obvious medical crisis. Finally, they carried him off, and I never saw him again. Two stark illustrations demonstrating how our justice system is failing to protect human rights.
The vital necessity of human connection
The daily threats of reduced “free time” brought deep groans from my Unit. The moment the cell doors were unlocked each morning, the inmates burst forth with a flood of activity and conversation, horsing around, laughter, and in general, the sounds of relief. Even I, who fancied myself a solitary contemplative, looked forward to the morning banter with my fellows. What a stark contrast from that first day when I was terrified to even be in this Unit.
One afternoon during our lockdowns, I thought I heard someone calling me. I noticed a speaker in the corner of my cell, but when I stepped close to it, I knew the sound wasn’t coming from that.
I listened closely to the voice.
“Hey. Old Timer! Look at your wall!”
I looked around at the walls and saw what appeared to be a straw moving back and forth in the wall. I approached it, and my neighbor, who helped me clean up my call on day one, said through the hole in the wall,
“Hey, talk to me, old-timer. I need to know that you’re OK!”
I laughed and said, “I didn’t know where that sound was coming from. Thanks for checking on me. Yeah, I’m OK.”
“That’s good,” he replied. “Stay strong in there. You’ll get out of here”.
Connections, whether human, a pet, or from some higher power you believe in, are vital to a sane and healthy life. Deprived of this, we become addicts, homeless, convicts, or depressives. All the social ills of our age seem to stem from the inability to form meaningful and effective relationships with our fellow travelers.
Going Home
It was standard procedure at Clayton County Jail to move those inmates who could not make bail up to the general population by day four. I was not eligible for bail since the State of Georgia held me for extradition to the State of Alabama. My conversations with the inmates indicated that you do not want to get elevated to the general population. That is another level of human degradation, violence, and risk. On day four of my stay at the Hill-ton, I watched several inmates I came in with preparing to move. I had just learned that my lawyer had secured approval for my release, but nothing had yet happened. The gears at this jail move slowly, if they move at all. Nothing is sure here; nothing can be counted on, and the clock to move me to general was ticking loud. But I live on a trust not dependent on the workings of the judicial system. So I ready myself for moving up to general. I even half-joked to myself that it would give me more to write about. But as the time got closer, I began to worry I would indeed move up before I could move out.
Late that morning, just hours before the group of us would move up, a guard came to my cell and said, “Toohey—you’re getting out! Grab your mat and follow me.” It took two hours to finally walk out of the Clayton County Jail to where my two daughters waited to drive me home. As we hugged and I got in the car, I felt like an inmate being transported somewhere else. This feeling lingered, even though I had only been in jail for four days. If that environment could condition me like that after only four days, what effect does it have on one who is incarcerated for months or years?
As we drove home, I was humbled and grateful for the network of family I have that met me at every point in my need. I don’t think I have ever depended upon my wife, children, or God as much as I had these past four days. It was a different role for me to play, and I was OK with that.
Epilogue
While my wife was walking the Via Dolorosa in Old Jerusalem– the path Jesus walked, cross on his back, to his execution—I was walking my own pilgrimage— the path of the imprisoned, with jeers, torments, and cruelty. Paradoxically, the Road to calvary and all its suffering led also to the Road to Emmaus, where Christ used his life experience to strengthen and bring hope to others. In these four days, I too experienced physical discomfort, loneliness, terror, sadness, and dejection. But, then, inside my first twenty-four hours in jail, came a sense (from inside or outside myself, I don’t know) that I am never alone, and in some way, I am led towards a purpose, and maybe that purpose was to share my story with others. What happens after that is just none of my business. And that’s OK.
I am back home, going through the steps with a lawyer to get my case dismissed. There are no guarantees. In Alabama, a conviction for felony DUI brings an automatic Year and one day in jail. It is not what I want, but I believe that whatever Road I am given to take, it will be the right one, and for a higher purpose than I will ever know. For the next few months, I needed to pay my lawyer to get the judge’s permission each time I wanted to leave the state of Alabama. One of those times, I got verbal permission just as I was crossing the Tennessee state line to visit my son. Some things take time.
My wife completed her two-week pilgrimage with our friends, although she would tell me it wasn’t until I was released from jail that she could fully enter the experience. Over the next several days after she returned home, she spoke of the beautiful and moving time she had walking and praying where Jesus walked. Curiously, I was not jealous, for somehow, I knew I had had a life-changing experience as well. I had traveled on a pilgrimage not of my choosing. I had lived and slept and ate where I knew He was. I went down into the inferno of fear, discomfort, sadness, and powerlessness without control over anything, even my thoughts. I had entered the Purgatory of the suffering of others. And I had found a safe space in my interior to wait for the Lord while experiencing the elation of finding usefulness in the darkest place.
I am still moving through the justice system. I await whatever lies ahead. But whatever the outcome, this pilgrimage in the Clayton County Jail has taught me more of the meaning of the Thomas Merton prayer than my many previous readings;
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the Road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right Road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
Thomas Merton “Thoughts in Solitude”
Final Note: Three months after my release, I received great news. My Felony DUI case was dismissed.
In the words of the Alabama District Attorney. ” The State lacks sufficient evidence to prosecute the offense as charged. Further prosecution of this case would not be in the best interest of the State or judicial economy. WHEREFORE, these premises considered, the State of Alabama respectfully requests that the Court dismiss the above-styled case.”
So, as my Jewish friends are fond of saying, “Next year in Jerusalem.”
Kind Regards,
Bob
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