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Jan 14th, 2008 - 18:17:02
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Voices of Spencer Creek
Norm's Notebook: Bill Bottoms Out
Bill is another Measure 11 victim: in the effort to get "tough on crime," innocent people sometimes get trapped.
By Norm Maxwell
Posted on Jan 14, 2008 |
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My friend Bill had dropped off the map for the past few years. He had been given the choice to cop to being a child molester for four years or roll the dice for 30 with no possibility of parole thanks to Measure 11. Stuck with an unmotivated public defender, Bill copped. He went to prison for three years and got put back on the street where the first thing he did was race into the nearest 7/11 store and buy cigarettes.
He got a bottom rung job at a lumber mill and stayed there for several years. He jumped through all the hoops with his parole officer who eventually came to realize that Bill didn't do anything that required her attention. You could almost make the case that Bill didn't do anything, period. When not actually responding to demands made upon him by society in the form of his PO, Bill sits and smokes home rolled cigarettes as he watches TV.
I finally tracked him down to his old garret apartment in Springfield. Amazingly, he lives right around the corner from another old friend of mine. When I looked at the old house that had been cut into three apartments, I saw no signs of life. The bottom floor looked uninhabited. The whole building looked condemned. I parked my junky Dakota and trudged up the rickety wooden steps added to the back of the ancient house and knocked on the door.
After a minute, Bill opened the door and blinked in the winter light. Compressed cigarette smoke rushed out the door. It was visible. Bill smiled and then his face fell and he invited me. The old apartment looked like the inside of a dumpster. Clothes and crap lay everywhere except for a small clear spot on the couch in front of the TV. Heaping ashtrays perched on piles of paper on tables and on the floor.
There was nothing new in Bill's life. He had quit his job after asking for a meager raise and being told to go away. He had asked for work at the various surveying companies around Eugene/Springfield but hadn't gotten anywhere. At least part of the problem is his lack of a driver's license. Almost any line of work requires you to drive a motor vehicle from time to time these days.
I looked around the wasted room. "You need to pick up the pace a little, Bill," I advised. When I feel moved to render policy guidance to someone, you can be assured that they must need it. Normally, I don't feel that my own program is so squared away that I have room to tell other people that they need to change their lives. Bill agreed.
At least he has his family of two cats for company. I couldn't tell him anything he didn't realize for himself. He needs a job but most people are reluctant to hire a convicted child molester. His PO doesn't make it any easier by restricting him to graveyard shift, presumably under the theory that fewer children will be out and about in the wee hours.
Bill reminds me of an inverted Joe Btfsplk, the L'il Abner character who walks down the street with safes falling (or bolts of lightning striking) from high buildings on anyone near him. Only in Bill's case, everything happens to him. As a mutual friend of ours said, "Shit happens to Bill." Much of it is self-inflicted on one level or another. He wears an invisible KICK ME sign on his back that all the world senses and lines up to fulfill.
I looked at his one page job resume that he had put together. I just can't imagine listing prison time as part of your job experience. I took a copy and promised I'd try to tune it up a little bit. I said good bye and stepped out into the fresh air with my eyes burning from the tobacco smoke. Douglas squirrels live in the eaves of his little porch. I drove around the block and visited with Mike in his little shop where we swapped lies and reloaded ammunition. The contrast was striking.
Norm
Copyright © 2008 by Norm Maxwell
Norm Maxwell is the Lorane, Oregon author of a novel in progress, Banjo Lane, a comic tragedy about meth users in Lane County. He is a regular contributor to West By Northwest.org. Norm Maxwell received the 2004 Best of West By Northwest award for his article, The Fire of South Canyon: Remembering Storm King. Tens of thousands of readers have "voted" with their mouse by their selection of this story. Visit Norm Maxwell's other pieces about land use, firefighting and life in the country and more at West By Northwest.org.
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(Editor's note–Norm's "Dead Cars" story inspired a feature story in the Register Guard, "Heaps of trouble in the woods.")
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Mentoring Military Style
Three Dollar Hammer
Remember Fire Road
Home, Home on Fire Road and more.
© Copyright 2000-2006 by West By Northwest.org
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