The Fall

BLISS

Sarah. The lovely Sarah. She had long, beautiful, red hair—the kind of hair you see in shampoo commercials. I was 29, and she was 23. Sarah had beauty and brains—the product of a life spent in private schools. She graduated from Southern Methodist University. She grew up in a beautiful home in Highland Park (Dallas). And for some reason, she was absolutely infatuated with me. The feeling was mutual. I use the word infatuated and not “in love” because the relationship was much too nascent. Unfortunately, the relationship never got the chance to deepen beyond our pheromones—a sad fact that will be explained here shortly. 

One night at dinner after a glass of wine, Sarah blushed bright red and earnestly told me that I was "the perfect guy," "the total package." She thought that she had hit the relationship lottery. It felt like a dream. Sarah was the kind of girl that guys like to hang out with—incredibly cool and easy-going. Sarah awakened an incredibly powerful wave of emotions in me. I can only liken it to my feelings for one other girl—my first love when I was a senior in high school/freshman in college. Sarah had been trying to convince me to travel to Australia with her. She already had her trip planned, but after we met, she wanted to include me. She planned to stay for a year. I was on a mountaintop. I was young (still in my 20s). I had the girl. We could travel and enjoy life.

The world was mine.

Frank Sinatra has a song, I've Got the World on a String:

♪♬♫♩

I’ve got the world on a string.
Got the string around my finger.
What a world, what a life,
I’m in love.
Life is a beatiful thing.

NOW I WASN'T IN LOVE—AS I SAID, THE RELATIONSHIP WAS TOO NEW — BUT THAT'S CERTAINLY WHERE IT WAS HEADED.

Life was grand.

Until it wasn't.

It was not meant to be—not Sarah and me, not Australia, none of it.

Sarah had been in Aspen for a week, and she was eager to come back. She flew back early and met me at a quaint little restaurant/bar in Dallas called Sambucca. The reunion was magical. A week apart felt like a year. The lights were low, her perfume was intoxicating, and we were utterly absorbed in each other such that the rest of the restaurant—and the world, for that matter—melted away. Time ceased to exist. Eye contact with her was better than sex with other girls. Yes, life was, in fact, good. 

And then came the fall.  

 FROM THE MOUNTAINTOP OF BLISS TO THE DEPTHS OF HELL

That was the last time I would ever see Sarah. Just an hour after we parted, I was picked up by the Feds. I was tossed in Dallas County jail for the night. The next morning, I was promptly picked up by two federal agents and taken to Seagoville Federal Detention Center (outside of Dallas). 

I was still wearing everything from the night before. I still smelled like Sarah's perfume. I was immediately stripped of my possessions and given an oversized prison jumpsuit. I was told to put my belongings in a box and to provide an address so that the detention center could ship them home. I then placed my belongings in a box. Surprise—the box never made it to its destination.  

It felt like I was burying Josh and I was entering the afterlife—in particular, hell.

IT WAS THEN THAT I BECOME FEDERAL PRISONER #96054-080.

The world had dangled everything in front of me and cruelly yanked it away before kicking me into a pit. 

The feelings that Sarah and I thought we shared proved to be nothing more than a fleeting sugar-high that dissipates as quickly as it appeared, leaving me drained. 

Sarah was actually really nice and gracious about the whole thing, but we had only known each other for a short period. Those superficial feelings—as strong as they were—never had a chance to stick. Pure bliss was replaced with pure agony and uncertainty and sorrow, which was compounded by how far I had fallen emotionally and was further exacerbated by a razor-sharp sense of loss. It was death by a thousand cuts. Loneliness doesn't even begin to describe the feeling. It was an ineffable dark feeling that soaked into my bones and left a hole in my heart that you could drive a truck through. It was unadulterated misery, relentless waves of it—a tsunami of agony.

No doubt, Sarah's view that I was the "perfect guy," and the "total package" flew right out the window. I became the nightmare guy and an embarrassment to the friends she had touted me to. Now I was reduced to, "the guy in jail."

Walking into the Seagoville Detention Center was a radical contrast to my previous night with Sarah. The detention center is like a big football field. It has two tiers of cells, and there are about 200 or so inmates being housed in each wing.

Of the 200 inmates, I was assigned to live with the worst possible one. As I walked with my bedroll up the stairs to my new home, about ten young Black guys began yelling and screaming, "Check that white-ass MothaFu****”; "Check his cracker ass." I guess the prison movies do accurately depict the first day of prison. Hollywood got it right. One of the guys was named Rambo—an 18-year-old kid from the projects of D.C (and, yes, he looked like Rambo). He would be my new roommate. 

I spent the next six months buying prisoner's pills and sleeping 15 hours a day. I gained about 40 pounds. My athletic physique turned doughy. I would really just get up for lunch and dinner and then go back to sleep. I was the walking dead, still in shock six months later, still in denial, and still plagued by the sense of loss and panic. I was utterly overwhelmed by my circumstances.  

My body started reacting to the stress. My face was covered in painful boils. I had debilitating migraines that (literally) blinded me. My blood sugar went haywire, which caused other health problems. I developed a thyroid condition. I was always tired. My spiritual and emotional tanks were bone dry. I was sick with debilitating regret.

AN AWAKENING: BACK FROM THE GRAVE

After about nine months of eating others people’s pills and sleeping, I started reading and studying, and writing.

It was as though I was trying to fill my brain with as much knowledge as possible to fill the hole in my heart. I studied everything, but I lived and breathed the law. There are great writers, good writers, average writers, and poor writers—I was pathetic.

Still, I spent my days and nights studying every facet of federal criminal law and trying to become better at writing. It's been almost 11 years now and I'm still trying. I stayed in the law library from about 8 a.m. until about 8 pm. I devoured the law.

It gave me a sense of purpose.

Then I had a literal library of books in my cell. I would stay up reading and writing until 2 a.m. I clung to learning and reading and writing like a drowning man clings to a life raft. (There's not a lot to do at a pretrial detention center. It's a lot like county jail time—no recreation, no outside, no classes. You just sit in a large room all day.) I had an insatiable hunger to learn.

It was my lifeblood and my lifeline.

MY SAVING GRACE: FRIENDSHIPS

I forged two friendships on the inside—Tommy Quinn and Vince Bazmore. The Wall Street Journal dubbed Tommy as The Last of the Golden Swindlers, claiming that he had made more than $500 million in stock schemes. 

Tommy was an attorney-turned-stock-promoter. In his 40s, he moved to the south of France. There, he had a 20-room mansion overlooking the French Riviera. He was the sharpest 78-year-old man that I've ever met. Watching such an articulate, present, whip-smart 78-year-old man was actually inspiring. And he was in shape. 

Vince looked a lot to Tyler Perry. He was about 6'3”—a big guy. He played football at Ohio State University. And he was a Chess Master. He, too, was off-the-charts smart. Vince oozed charisma. He was in for mail fraud. 

Tommy had the large handicap cell, which became our little clubhouse. We would sit and talk for hours, discussing every possible subject. Both Tommy and Vince had some great stories.  Tommy came out smelling like a rose. He received just six years for a multimillion-dollar stock scheme. Vince received 25 years, but his sentence was reduced dramatically on appeal. Tragically, at 39 and while still in federal prison, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. His saint of a wife fought tooth and nail to get him a compassionate release. Vince spent a month at home before he died.

Vince and I became particularly close and forged a special friendship. He's one of the most charismatic, intelligent, funny, and giving people that I've ever met—hands down. Vince and I got each other intuitively. We spent the next 18 or so months as a team. We helped prisoners file Sentencing Memorandums and articulate objections to their Presentence Investigation Reports. Vince and Tommy got me through.  

I also befriended a guy named Frenchi Collins. They called him Big Brother, from his TV commercials, "If you're in a car wreck, call Big Brother." Frenchi was African-American. He was an Alpha male from the hood. Oddly enough, we clicked. I count Vince and Frenchi among my special bonds.

After spending a few years in the pretrial center, I was eventually sentenced and shipped to a maximum-security U.S. Penitentiary, which made the detention center look like a day spa.

The good news: I had survived the fall. The bad news: I had three decades of prison in front of me.