Phase Two-Week Two

As I said last week, I'm a dreamer. I never imagined what Ron's release to a halfway house would actually mean. He's still under the control of the BOP (Bureau of Prisons), which tells you immediately that there will be a million rules and forms involved. The population at the halfway house totals about 100. The term "house" is a misnomer. It's a warehouse. There are about 90 young Histpanic men, most between 18-30, about 8 Blacks, all ages, and 2 Whites. (Ron and a 73 year old guy). There is so much misbehavior there, but no one seems to care, as long as no one gets hurt. Everyone has been extremely nice and helpful to Ron, from the residents to the director of the halfway house. Ron got a lucky break last week, and met the nice young man who runs the facility. It was obvious to him that Ron didn't belong there, and he has done everything he can to expedite his return to home confinement. The first order of business was to get his job approved (again). The director took care of this immediately, and Ron was approved for work beginning August 1. This would mean that I would pick him up at 8am, take him home, let him do the paperwork associated with his job, then drive him around all day, and back to the halfway house before 7pm. Whew. That was tiring. The next most important thing was to get his car approved, so that he could drive back and forth to the halfway house rather than my doing all the driving, which was totaling around 250 miles per day. They had to inspect the car to make sure it was in working order, then he was approved for driving. This process took about 5 days.

The final step was to get approved for home confinement. This had already been approved months ago, but somehow everything has to be done twice. (just like every other job in America). The director is an extremely busy man, but he took an interest in Ron and got this done by the end of the week. What a relief. There is still a huge amount of paperwork and reporting that has to be done daily, but now that he's home things are much easier. When he was in the halfway house, Ron was required to fill out a request for every pass, from doctors, to dinner, to shopping. Last week he went to his psychologist, and had to bring a note from the doctor saying he had been there. They are trying to keep the men accountable.

Ron called one evening to tell me that all men were required to take a 9 week course, once a week, on life skills, anger management, etc. He was told he would have to do this even when he went home. Fortunately, the director realized that this is something Ron does not need to attend, and he will be getting him excused.

Most of the men at the halfway house have a bleak future. If they haven't yet been to jail, most of them soon will. They are young, uneducated, unskilled, and most of them have no interest in a life that doesn't include risk. It's a sorry situation.

Whoever said things would get right back to normal when Ron came home sees things very differently than I do. Ron thinks alot about the friends he left behind. Many people told him as soon as he walked out the doors of Taft he would forget those that are still inside. Maybe that's true for some, but Ron thinks about a few of them often, talks about them, and even though I barely know them, I find myself thinking about them too. It makes me so sad to think about their future.

One funny thing that happened this week involves eating. Food was something Ron thought about all the time while he was at Taft. How he missed his burgers, pizza, licorice, etc. Saturday night we went to Tommy V's Urban Kitchen for Happy Hour, which Ron absolutely loved. We ordered several items, much too much, but took a lot of it home. He did not overeat at dinner, but afterwards we went to Trader Joe's to stock up on some junk food. Ron bought chocolate covered raisins, chocolate covered orange peel, licorice scotties, ice cream bars, and butter cookies, among other things. He came home and proceed to mindlessly eat way too much throughout the evening. At 4:30am he woke up with the worst acid reflux he's ever had. He immediately took a Prilosec, but it was so bad he had to get up. That was the end of sleep for the night, and he vowed never to overeat like that again. I hopes he remembers how he felt and won't do that again.

For us, things are beginning to seem more normal, now that we're not spending all our time driving. Emotions for both of us are a bit of a roller coaster, but I think that will even out as time progresses. Ron's comings and goings are quite restrictive right now, but compared to where he was, he's just soooo happy. We've got about 8 more weeks of restriction, and then he comes and goes without asking permission. More next week.