A Force for Good

Five years ago, I strolled across the prison yard of the Sterling Correctional Facility eager to find my assigned classroom. I was there as a volunteer facilitator in a prison book discussion program. The books we read included Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Adam Johnson’s Orphan Master’s Son, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and Toni Morrison’s Beloved and they were ripe fodder for discussion among a small group of 12 men.

It was in this program where I met Tom.

Tom was a highly experienced dog trainer in the strong and lifesaving canine program at Sterling that benefits both the dogs and the men. He became a steadfast participant in the book discussion group while always being involved with one dog or another during their stay at the prison.

At one point, my beloved golden retriever died and the men in my group began fiercely lobbying to connect me with a dog up for adoption.

Tom offered up his trainee, Sandy. The size of a sourdough loaf, Sandy was caramel-colored, bristly, of no discernable breed, and trailed after Tom with one eye missing and a tail like a tiny whip. Named after Sandy Duncan, the flying Peter Pan actress, they both shared lost sight and had their natural but useless eye still intact.

Tom cared for her without judgment, promoted her strengths, and graciously, though reluctantly, accepted my rejection of his panting companion.

There had always been signs of goodness in Tom.

Over the course of our many book discussions, I came to learn a lot about Tom. Any novel with a father figure seemed to ignite rage. Happy childhood anecdotes were clear triggers yet made him sit up in his chair and engage. His understanding of the characters populating the literature he devoured allowed his goodness to show; he defended the underdogs and often expressed disdain for the heroes even if the rest of the class felt differently.

Through our conversations, his story began to emerge. A disturbingly familiar story; one of anger, loss, addiction, and criminal behavior.

After his mom died unexpectedly, at the age of eleven, Tom was wandering the streets of Golden, Colorado, alone. Family friends fed him, he recalls. His needs were met.

“My dad didn’t neglect our physical needs, but there was no emotional connection. I was on my own. It was up to me to figure it out. I didn’t do a very good job,” he said.

He left school for good in seventh grade. He wanted to make money.

In the early ’90s, he fell in with a crack addict. He committed armed robbery in multiple counties. He had a parole violation, and when he was caught working in the oilfields in Monahans, Texas, he was tired of running. Then came the life sentence.

Incarceration had its ups and downs. Once, after overdosing on heroin, Tom awakened to discover blood splattered across his chest. By the time his cellie brought him to Medline he was hanging by a thread. Surviving was a real-life, down and dirty wake-up call.

Survival meant quitting heroin and finding his faith to replace his fury and contempt. It’s played a significant role ever since the overdose.

Sometime later, he entered my book discussion program.

Tom was quiet to begin with but insists that in our group, he learned to talk.

“I was the most antisocial person imaginable. But I began to share a few memories and open up,” he said. “It’s where I discovered how to have a conversation. It’s a skill I value today.”

Inevitably, some changes occurred within the prison system and our ability to converse within the program changed. There was a six-month period when I lost touch with Tom. I had no idea that Tom would eventually be relocated to a lower security facility in preparation for release.

I’d been working at Four Mile Correctional with a new book group for a few months when a stocky man walking a chunky beagle with a green cap on his head called out to me from the yard.

It was Tom, smiling big and laughing at my shock at running into him. “What’s happened? For God’s sake, how did you get here?” I asked.

Cautiously chatting I saw the disapproving gaze of the idle C.O.’s watching us from their concrete post and kept walking, slowly, so as to not be reprimanded.

“My case got thrown out,” he explained, and I listened closely — for along with unicorns, world peace, and sugar becoming healthy, beating a life sentence is a fantasy.

Tom explained the Pro Se argument he had submitted, providing the defendant with a fair trial, albeit a quarter of a century after the fact.

Tom had waited endlessly for a response. Reportedly, his paperwork had been deep-sixed until Phil Weiser became Colorado’s Attorney General, and upon clearing his desk and piles of cases, he expedited Tom’s request.

“They decided that I was right, and they were wrong,” said Tom. “It sure doesn’t happen every day.”

Able to express himself, make eye contact, and express genuine emotion, he was met favorably by the Parole Board. He was going to be let out.

On a blistering June evening, we are meeting for dinner at a restaurant, despite COVID-19 restrictions. Tom waves, approaching me from one end of the parking lot as unexpected tears spring to my eyes.

He’s wearing a mask, but I can see that he’s smiling. I give him a hug. In five years, I hadn’t so much as high-fived him. He’s laughing again, tan, hair grown out and slicked back with a fragrant product. He smells like he’s just had a shower — nothing I’d ever smelled in any prison classroom, more familiar with the tang of apple cider vinegar spray bottles used for correcting poorly-mannered dogs.

Once seated, he masters the digital menu, finding the restaurant’s QR code on his $700 cell phone long before I sort it out. Adapting to the free world, he is heavier, healthier, and clearly happier than ever before. Ruddy cheeks and the look of one who’s put in a long day of physical labor, he speaks of his good fortune at finding a lucrative job.

The guys on his crew, the ones laying sewer pipe and working under the surface of the ground, are tough and can be difficult. “They piss me off sometimes, but I know how to talk to them now,” he says.

After 25 years of incarceration, he recalls others who were flummoxed by choices offered up by life outside. “I’m managing,” he says, biting into a juicy cheeseburger with a side of fries.

I ask him if he is afraid of tight spaces, a legendary issue for those who have inhabited a cell for decades. “Nah,” he assures me, “I’ve got my own apartment now. I go out on my deck and can see Pikes Peak.”

More news: “I’ve been cleared to go back into Sterling as a volunteer,” he shares, “I’m going to continue training service dogs, too.”

One might describe goodness as the quality of being morally good, the very opposite of the ne’er-do-well lawbreaker. Certainly, the duality of good and evil play out in Tom’s story.

He attributes his own transformation to God but if that was the case, I would have lost interest long ago. His hard-won second chance seems driven by self-esteem over shame, the bootstraps being pulled up where a person never really had any.

“I had a lot of anger,” he says. “I had to let it go.”

On the day of his release, Walt, a formerly incarcerated associate came to pick him up. Walt told the officers, “I’ve come to get my friend.” Leaving the prison van and stepping into Walt’s Mercedes, Tom cried.

He didn’t sleep the first few nights his friend put him up. It was too quiet. “There weren’t any toilets flushing,” he says.

He credits his friends for helping him get settled. There’s a driver’s license in his wallet. He waited three months to date his girlfriend. “That’s pretty restrained for a guy whose been in prison for 25 years,” he laughs. He’s taking it slow and weighing decisions carefully.

That was six months ago.

Today he’s working, saving for a house, tries to help whomever he can. It’s amazing what a force for good Tom’s become.

We agree to meet for a second time. For years he wore a frayed grey sweatshirt and state-issued baggy green pants, reciting his DOC number during count and traveling only with robotic, scheduled movement. It’s a shock to witness the longer stride, new Carhartt pants, and the wider personal space that defines freedom when we meet again at another restaurant.

We sit down at the booth and I start to peruse the menu. Tom, however, with the conviction of a good man given a new lease on life doesn’t need time to decide.

“I know what I’m having,” he says, seizing the moment because he can, “the pork chops.”

Dedicated to Nathan Ybanez