On Visiting the Lawyer 1 3/22/10

 I got my second pass. Time to see the lawyer.

Being flat broke now (word to the wise, self-employment means just making the rent for the majority), I have a public defender. I try not to be a bother to my lawyer any more than I was to I.C.E..

The lawyer's investigator allows me to smoke - Camels, unfiltered. I find that sex no longer trouble my mind. I cannot tell if this is a self-delusion, or not. Maybe saltpeter in the food? I do think every once in a while about a certain girl. She likes older men, but when I pointed out how old she would be when I got out of prison, the ages made her pause. We got a good laugh out of it.

[This woman was all of 37 or 38, if memory serves. We do not even flirt nowadays.]

I really cannot expect anything of the women that are or might be in my. The soon-to-be-ex verges on a nervous breakdown - would be broken down but for Prozac. CC's health teeters from bad, to not very good. In 15 years, the first will be long gone, burrowed into a new life, with me a dim but unpleasant memory. I doubt CC will be above ground in 2025, any more than I will. 

Odd to think of this, but every woman I know and am romantically interested in would be between 50and 67 (Yes, J, am sorry I did not call. You might have exorcised a few demons). The only online females that interested me would be 36 and 50... Getting together with them would have been an event to savor in our old age or my imprisonment.

Looking at those number, cannot everyone see that I do not see much of a future in this area? Certainly nothing to keep one alive - or for what one might want to stay alive for!

Well, I got some more time with the intake lawyer. Very nice fellow by the name of McKinley. Court called, and he left me with a telephone and articles to read.

Now that my plans have gone off the rails, I find myself bothered by the lack of information. I do not know how it is going getting my remaining clients [replacement counsel]. That was my biggest worry on March 9. I can add to the continuing problems caused by my arrest, and now those problems sound as if they are extending to the youngest.

I write that paragraph and I lash back to my office, to my clients. I miss them. I miss the law. Still, I trembled and shook a bit trying to read the law review article. Nerves - feeling as if I were trespassing on land that once belonged to me. I asked the investigator if I could smoke. I had two cigarettes and chatted with the investigator before I felt able to read on.

I get my opinions confirmed - I am going to be away from the real world for some time. Also, no probation - off to prison and that's it. I could handle that before I started hearing from people. I had not planned for things to get this far. Arrest meant every thing I had constructed and everything constructed around me came falling down. I figured the court would let me go home on bail or on my own recognizance, and I would suicide. I was uncaring about my sentence. Then people started rumbling my resolve.

I call a friend - CC, to be specific - who agrees I am not cut out for doing any real kind of time. I know that the harm caused to the boys eats at me - eats at my ability to endure incarceration.

The attorney comes back. We do the calculations. It looks like 14 plus years is the ballpark number.  

At least I know the law now. I got a handle on how sentences are calculated in federal court. That minor annoyance done with, I feel better on one level.

I speak with the soon-to-be-ex on the telephone. Fill her in on what the sentence looks like. She tells me what she feels. What she says stays in my mind. I have not slept well since then.

I am allowed to walk back to my new home. I smoke as I walk. I suppose a heart attack is conceivable as a way to save federal tax dollars. It does not happen.

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