The buildup to my release day was excruciating. I gave away all my worldly possessions. I had a nice collection of jailhouse accoutrements: shelves with books, a radio, a lamp, a fan, and a racquetball paddle. It was a veritable king’s ransom acquired over the few years I was there. I had gotten word that the parole board was going to grant me an early release. My clean prison record and all the programs and classes I had participated in demonstrated that I had worked hard to change for the better and had earned parole. I was happy with this development.
As it turned out, one of the case managers, an old-time Bureau of Prisons hand, liked me and convinced the board that one of the charges on my record was irrelevant. I think it was the “open alcohol in a motor vehicle” from back in the MC5 days in San Francisco, or the “noise disturbance (loud band)” charge. The manager’s intervention allowed me to qualify for an earlier release date.
The hardest times for me during my incarceration were the first three months and the last three months. In between, I was just living my life in the institution. “Jailing” is what we called it. My concerns were prison concerns, not street concerns. My life was in here, not out there. But when my time started getting short, I started getting anxious: “What’s it going to be like? Am I going to be able to make a living? What about Sam?” I was facing an abyss. “Where will I live? How will I survive? Will anyone remember me?” These thoughts chilled me to my bones.
I didn’t sleep much the night before my release. I made the rounds at breakfast saying goodbye to my friends. At 9:00 AM, I walked out the front gate of FCI Lexington. My crime partner, Tim, was waiting at the gate. He was on study release, and he was going into town to attend college classes that day. We had grown further apart when I got an earlier parole date than he did. He blamed me for his getting into trouble in the first place.
This had always bugged me because I didn’t force him to do what we did together. We had even discussed the fact that if we were busted dealing cocaine, we would both be going to prison. I felt bad that he blamed me, but there was nothing I could do about his attitude. I just hoped that one day, down the line, we could be friends again.
“Have a nice life,” he said as I left. I wished him well, and took a cab to the bus station in town. I was numb. I couldn’t feel my feet touching the ground. It was like I was dreaming. Floating along. An overload of emotion was flooding through me. It was all I could do just to keep moving forward.
I was 29 years old. I had served two-and-a-half years in federal prison, and was now facing 22 months on parole, as well as an additional three-year special parole term for drug offenders.
I had my release money: $200. I was supposed to buy a bus ticket to Detroit and check into the halfway house within 24 hours, but taking the bus was out of the question. My friend, saxophonist Jim Watts, met me at the bus station in his superfine, beautifully restored ’57 Chevy coupe. We pulled out of the station and hit the freeway north. He had some superb reefer, and we got a nice buzz on for the five-hour drive back to the Motor City. Jim was anxious to talk about music and what I might want to do, but I was incapable of putting any thought into the subject. I was too overwhelmed.
He dropped me off at my girlfriend Sam’s parents’ house on the east side. She and one of her girlfriends were just heading out for work. She casually gave me a peck on the cheek and said that maybe we’d hang out later. She was high as a kite, laughing like a hyena with her pal about something I wasn’t privy to. I thought, Hang out later? What the fuck is going on here? I just got home from prison! I’ve been away for two-and-a-half years, and I get a peck on the cheek and “Maybe we’ll hang out later?”
I was dizzy with confusion. I was furious with her and her brassy pal who were shaking their asses and pouting like porno queens. I didn’t get it. The sweet, gentle, loving, soulful reunion that I had dreamt of wasn’t turning out as planned.
I had to check into the Federal Community Treatment Center (CTC), or halfway house, which was in a converted hotel downtown. They explained the rules to me: Curfew was 11:00 PM weeknights and 3:00 AM weekends. You must get a job. You must have a bank account, and show the on-duty officer your bankbook and balance every Friday. You must submit to random urine testing. No violence, no threats. You will not be granted weekend passes without a job and a $200 minimum bank balance.
A lot of guys from prisons all over the federal system were there. Some had just finished long bits: 10, 15, 20 years. Having been away for a long time, they were pretty tentative about everything.
My roommate was my friend and coworker from the prison newspaper. Big Darryl Gilbert was a 6′5″ career criminal and lifelong drug addict. He had been in and out of prisons all his life, and he was comfortable with it all. He was a very cerebral brother, and a player in the Detroit dope underworld. He was already managing some dope holes out on Eight Mile Road, and he’d acquired a heroin habit while still in the halfway house. He used to shoot up between his toes every morning before he left for “work.”
Darryl was a knowledgeable music fan and knew his jazz. We went shopping together one day and bought all manner of new pimp clothes for ourselves. We both got pink leopard-print nylon boxer shorts with matching wife-beater undershirts. We also both bought shoes with heels that were half-clear plastic. Pimps to the max. It was the culture of prison and the culture of the street that I embraced.
I bought a couple of pairs of high-waisted, double-knit Eleganza slacks that were flared with bell-bottoms. What did I know? I was completely out of sync with style trends on the street. I’d missed the coming of punk rock. When I went over to England later that year, some of the guys were asking me, “Is that what people are wearing in the States?” I wasn’t with the tight black jeans, spiky hair yet. I still had my blow dry, bad-dude-white-boy-moustache, and polyester Nik Nik shirts.
I wandered the neighborhood around the CTC during my first few days free. It was in the Cass Corridor where I had lived in the early days of the MC5, so I knew the area well. I went into a local bar, The New Miami, ordered a glass of Lambrusco, and overheard the bartender tell his partner that he heard Wayne Kramer just got out of prison. I guess with my moustache and blow-dried hair they didn’t think the dude at the end of the bar just might be the errant guitarist they were gossiping about. It was surreal.
I TRIED TO RECONNECT with Sam. I had been locked up for a fair amount of time, and had obsessed over her. Now I was back, and it was worse than I thought. I knew she was an addict. All the time I was locked up, I sweated her leaving me. I knew she was a wounded bird, and I knew she could not change. She loved dope. When you’re convinced that you’re not as good as others, narcotics are a great equalizer. When she was high, she was a different person: brassy, outgoing, and witty. Sober, she was introverted and painfully shy. I pined over her so much, and convinced myself I could fix everything when I got out. I thought that all she needed was a real man to love her, and I was that man. I wanted desperately to connect with her on an intimate level, not just through sex, but as a human being, a friend and confidante. I needed to be close to someone.
Make no mistake, the sex was important. I’d been locked up a long time, and I was a healthy young man. But it just wasn’t happening. She was go-go dancing and making enough money to support her habit, and that was all she was capable of. Having just finished the most dreadful experience of my young life, I deeply wanted to be held and loved, and to give love in return. This should have been a joyous time. I’m free. I’m back. I’m home, baby! It’s over! But it wasn’t. It was awful.
She would sleep with me when it fit her schedule, but that wasn’t too often because I had to get back to the CTC by curfew. I wanted to be with her, so I would end up in the car when she would drive over to the dope house to cop. Day-in, day-out, I was there watching her turn into the walking dead and then go off to rub guys’ crotches for money.
I was so disoriented from prison that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing most of the time. I was determined not to use dope again, but all I had going for me was willpower. I didn’t know anyone that didn’t get high on something every day. One day she told me, “Baby, I know you don’t want to use right now, but if you change your mind, the shit’s reeeaaal good.” I had more orgasms in prison masturbating. She had a coterie of go-go girlfriends, some of whom were superfine and gave me that come hither look, but I didn’t move on any of them because I was determined to establish a meaningful relationship with Sam.
I re-upped with John Sinclair, and now that I’d done a prison term, too, any bad blood between us was forgiven and forgotten. He had mentored me when I first caught my case and it was looking like I was heading to prison. I valued that. Now that I was out, we seemed to pick up where we left off before he went down.
John and I have never discussed what happened between us. We both have our own perspectives. It was extremely painful for both of us, and I don’t think there is anything to be gained by revisiting that turbulent time again. I don’t need John to come around to my version of history, and he doesn’t need me to embrace his. I’d always loved John, and I was happy to have my old friend back. He was one of the few people in my life who understood what I was talking about.
A GUY CONTACTED ME at the CTC about a job. He led a band and had a regular booking at a local club. His idea was that I would be his band’s special guest, and he would promote it and we’d all make a few bucks. This was just what I needed to get the restrictions lifted from the federales. I went to hear the band, and they were a decent club-rock group. They were very excited about the possibility of me working with them every weekend, so I agreed.
Now that I had a job, the curfew was dropped and I was able to live a little. It also got me weekend passes. As long as I didn’t violate any rules and had clean urine, I was provisionally free.
The fellows in the band were nice cats and decent musicians. We played a variety of current rock and older material, some of the R&B standards I’d played in prison and a few MC5 tunes. It was fun to be playing in a club again in the free world. Musically, I had been playing and studying jazz with Red Rodney, and I missed playing with much higher caliber musicians. But there were fringe benefits to being in the free world that made up for that. I could drink a glass of wine, I could get laid. And within the rules of my parole, I could come and go as I pleased.
I was trying to readjust to life in the free world. It was not an easy time. I felt out of sync with everything. I punched out a few walls and went on crying jags out of sheer frustration. I had no male friends to confide in, and had nowhere to go with my anger, so I stuffed it down.
While I was at the CTC I got a telegram from my friends in England saying they were sending me a $5,000 royalty check from the benefit single. I was humbled and grateful that I would have a cash cushion to ease the transition from jail to the street. It was a hell of a lot more than most guys come home to, which is one reason a lot of people go back to prison so quickly—they come out with exactly what they went in with: nothing.
I thought it was pretty funny when the officer on duty asked to see my bank book, and flipped out when he saw a deposit for that much money. He asked where it came from, and I said, “It was easy. I copped a pound, stepped on it, put it on the street, and cashed out… No, officer, just kidding. I’m actually a recording artist and this is a royalty payment for one of my records.” He didn’t seem to share my sense of humor. The police never do.
After I was released from the CTC, I rented a basement apartment on Chalmers Avenue on Detroit’s near east side. I was frustrated, lonely, angry, disconnected, and no longer under the close control of the prison system. I also had a big pile of cash. So, after going with the girlfriend to cop again and again, finally, but predictably, I said, “Get me a couple, too.” I was well and truly fucked again. The pain-killing properties of opiates were available, and I needed relief.
With the cash from England, I was able to score large amounts and stay high for weeks at a time. I hooked up with some dealers on the West Side, and burned through the money. I overdosed again and was revived by EMS workers. I still had to meet my parole officer once a month, but he was easygoing. I had to give urine samples, but if I had been using, I would just get a bottle of clean piss from a friend and empty it into the collection bottle in the bathroom stall.
Naturally, after the money ran out Sam began paying for most of our drugs. I would pay the rent and expenses from my gigs, but the club she worked in was closed on Sundays and that usually meant I got sick. Keeping it up week in and week out was a nightmare. There was no way to keep up with the relentless cost of two heroin habits. My friend Big Darryl told me he and his girlfriend had joined the methadone maintenance program at Herman Kiefer Hospital, so, after one too many nights of withdrawal sickness, Sam and I decided to join, too.
We fell into an easy routine. We’d get up around 10:00 AM, clean up, and head over to the clinic. Get our medication and go to breakfast. Usually, we would go into downtown Detroit where there were some inexpensive restaurants and we would wait for the methadone to kick in, read the paper, eat, and chat. The Detroit Institute of Arts was a regular spot of ours. We’d goof off the rest of the day, and if it was a working night, we would both go to our jobs and meet up afterward.
This was a realistic lifestyle for me. I wasn’t ready to stop being high, but I couldn’t afford the cost and risk of street drugs.
I found that I really liked the routine of the clinic. I think I missed the regularity of institution life. The prison takes care of you. It’s your concrete mama. You follow the rules and all your needs are met—except for freedom. The methadone clinic was my new surrogate prison; it met my emotional needs. There were rules, and if I followed them, the clinic took care of me with the medication I needed. It was also very social. You would see the same people day in and day out, and we’d all bullshit and gossip about the everyday drama of the dope fiend life. Someone was always getting shot or overdosing; getting arrested or violating parole and going back to prison.
I began having complications with life in general, and relationships in particular. One day I was kicking it with a nurse, and she suggested I talk to one of the counselors. They have counselors here? That appealed to me immediately.
I stopped into Marv’s office and sat down for a talk. This was a completely new concept to me. Here was an older guy, a brother, an ex-offender and ex-addict, who was qualified and available to talk with me about my problems.
He had done the same things that I had done. He’d been there—robbed, shot dope into his veins, gone to the penitentiary—and he was doing better now. He might have some much-needed wisdom that he could impart. I felt that I could talk to him, knowing that he understood me; that we understood each other.
The current issue was detoxing from methadone and the six weeks of lethargy that you go through to get straight after you come down slowly, gradually, from your maintenance dose. In my case, it was 40 milligrams a day. The clinic would lower my dose by 2.5 milligrams every few weeks. This way, the detox is hardly noticeable. Of course, you’re nowhere near as high at 5 or 10 milligrams as you were at 30 or 40, but if you want off, this is how it’s accomplished. It worked pretty well for me right down to zero, but by then I was just low-energy and I had trouble sleeping. Marv asked me, “Why don’t you drink a beer and smoke a joint?” Sober it wasn’t, but it was helpful in an enabling kind of way, and I really appreciated it. We had an enjoyable relationship for a few months until budget cutbacks and he got laid off.