KILLING LITTLE TIMMY:
THE EXPENDITURES OF INNOCENCE
"God throws a pebble; then he throws a brick." Oprah
"You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Genesis 50:20)
Before launching into this part of my story, I want to point out that in recovery through God's Grace, we can get our innocence back. It's the Real Innocence Project. We are More Than Our Mugshot.
PEEBLES & BRICKS
I stole a vehicle at 16 years of age and landed in the Minnesota Lino Lakes juvenile correctional center for youth. Since I was a habitual "joyrider" (driving around in stolen cars), had a drug problem, and drank copious amounts of alcohol at every opportunity, I not so episodically became acquainted with law enforcement professionals. I was actually on the Frequent Flyer Plan, "Life on the Installment Plan."
Today, as an adult in recovery, I gratefully refer to those cops as my 'Personal Intervention Team,' tasked to save me from me. Perhaps I was their job security, but I bet they would rather I'd been happy, joyous, and free.
While in Lino Lakes, I spent the majority of my time in "Seg" (Segregation) from the rest of Gen Pop (General Population), as I was High Maintenance (always getting into trouble). Shortly before reaching my 18th birthday, legal majority, and probable subsequent release from Lino, I sat down at a meeting with Institutional Staff. In this meeting, the juvenile correctional authorities predicted I would soon be free to explore and appreciate adult consequences for my behavior. I became angry to hear their allegation that I had learned nothing while in their graces. "You'll be back!" but you will go to adult facilities next time. I rashly and unquestionably retorted that they were irrational to think I would EVER get in trouble again. I said I hated having others running my life. I meant it, but unfortunately, my fervent sincerity was irrelevant. I wasn't done selling my freedom for a drink or a drug yet. My rationalization argument of 'therefore, future incarceration was intolerable to my conscience' didn't hold any water.
The Clues were in the Custard. Per said prediction, I was re-arrested only two weeks after my 18th birthday and release from Lino Lakes. The State of Minnesota charged me with using other people's cars without their permission (AKA, UUMV, Unauthorized Use of a Motor Vehicle). Getting a conviction for UUMV requires less evidence than for Car Theft.
My crime was for trying to steal a BMW in a "police sting" maneuver in Edina, a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The police disengaged the transmission linkage. I could start and operate or "use" the vehicle in Reverse, but not forward. After my arrest and during interrogation, a police detective informed me that I had raised the crime rate in Edina by 80% over the last two weeks.
Secretly, my self-image swelled with pride at his words. The detective believed I was part of an auto-theft ring and demanded I reveal the identities of my cohorts in crime. To think I had single-handedly perpetrated this rise in a city's crime rate was quite a feat in my egoic mind! I feigned remorse for my crime and assured him I was working alone. My proclivity for illegality on any given day was habitual. Most people get up and shower, eat breakfast, and ready themselves for an honest day's work, whereas I would get up in the morning, steal cars one after another until I either get tired and quit for the day or until arrested, whichever came first.
Many years later (1991), when I finally went to a therapist, I was honest with her. She thought my behavior might have been, at least in part, a cry for help; she thought perhaps I was recreating the time when the police took me away from my mother at a very young age. Better hated than ignored?
So, the authorities in Lino Lakes were right. The "adult consequences" the judge sentenced me to was one year in the Minneapolis Workhouse. I was "back" with adult consequences.
While serving time in the workhouse, everyone is assigned a Counselor. My counselor asked me if I wanted to go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, pointing out that my offenses typically included drinking, suggesting in so many words that there might be a connection between drinking and criminality in my life.
SAY WHAT? I laughed out loud at the idea. I was nowhere near humble enough to consider such an idea. When I informed her I was not an Alcoholic, she accepted my decision without argument, expectation, or trying to force solutions. Wise woman. Remember the saying, "Denial ain't a river in Egypt"? Besides, I wasn't an Alcoholic BECAUSE I literally pictured in my mind's eye that an Alcoholic was an older, decrepit white guy lying in a gutter with puke stuck in his long brown beard. I have no idea where that idea was born. Maybe a movie somewhere.
Poignantly, the Alcoholic is usually the last one to know they're an Alcoholic. You can always tell an alcoholic, but you can't tell 'em much. Alcoholism always looks different on the outside, but inside, it's identical. LOSS OF CONTROL is the red flag Alcoholics wave at the bull. Everyone around the Alcoholic can see the problems, but when drinking, alcohol impairs the brain of the Alcoholic. They consider the truth a lie and the lie the truth. Perception becomes diseased for the Alcoholic, and they do things they would never do while sober, such as driving drunk and killing someone. The #1 killer of children who die in drunk driving crashes is the ones who love these children THE MOST: their parents. Alcohol is cunning, baffling, and powerful. Parents will generally do anything, even lay their lives down to protect their children. But they won't set the drink or drug down.
I spent more than half of my workhouse sentence in segregation, par for the course because I fought everybody and everything. One particular textbook in recovery, known as The Big Book, describes what sober people identified as a key to recovery, i.e., that "…we quit fighting everybody and everything…", but I still had my perception glasses on bass-ackwards.
Having lost all of my 'Good Time' (time off for good behavior), I "flattened out" my sentence (did every last day of incarceration permitted by law). Upon my release from the workhouse, the guard dressing me out said, "You'll be back! You ain't learned nothing". Knowing he could not lock me up for being a smart alec, I cussed him out. I even talked bad about his mama to anger him, but he just laughed, threw me pants that were 20 inches too big for me, pulled a shoelace from a boot when I asked for a belt, and threw that at me, too. I didn't complain because that would let him know he could piss me off. Sure, I hated being locked down and having people tell me what I could or couldn't do and when I could do it, but like they say, "If nothing changes, nothing changes." Just like the authorities predicted in Lino, this guard's forecast turned out to be correct, too. I was a slow learner, to be sure.
Within two weeks of my release from the workhouse, I reoffended by stealing a car. Every day of those two weeks of "freedom," I was abusing alcohol or drugs (usually both). Due to this new offense, the judge said I could go to prison or treatment. The judge said I was free to 'pick one.' I didn't want to go to therapy. But I also didn't want to go to the Minnesota Correction Facility "Reformatory" in Saint Cloud, AKA "Gladiator School." 'I was court-ordered to undergo an intensive treatment program for drug and alcohol abuse.
With the help that "A Nudge from the Judge" in Hennepin County, the treatment center I agreed to enter was called Nexus. It was the adolescent counterpart to Eden House. Eden House accepted only hard-core convicts with extensive crime and substance abuse histories. At Nexus, we would all pack up and visit Eden House on Friday evenings. It was like a "Scared Straight" program in the 'Free World.' For those unfamiliar with Scared Straight, it's a program where young offenders visit prisons, and adult prisoners try to scare them, so they don't offend as adults.
At Eden House, we would see grown men wearing diapers and signs around their necks that read "I'm a baby" or other humbling words. Maybe even having a pacifier in their mouth purportedly served as a psychological tool to confront their having acted like a baby. I thought I would instead go to prison than wear a sign and diapers.
My memory is unclear now, but I believe they used Synanon Therapy, which has long since gone out of favor due to the illegality and corruption of leadership (drug relapse) and a general rejection of the therapy as demeaning. Some people may still like it, I'm not sure.
After being in Nexus for about one month, I climbed out of a window at 3:30 am and absconded. Aristotle said, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." I doubt Aristotle meant to run away. Who in their right mind would sanction perpetual flight from responsibility (and full flight from reality) when life got hard? Well, I guess I got soft, per the saying, 'Soft head, hard butt. Soft butt, hard head'. "When the student is ready, the teacher appears," but I was not ready.
By absconding from Nexus, I violated the conditions of my probation; I became a "wanted" man, a fugitive. I find it satirical that America's arguably least wanted is called America's Most Wanted.
Because law enforcement in Minnesota had me on their "Wanted" list, I sought to be as far away from Minnesota as possible, so I elected The Great State of Texas as the lucky recipient of my wayfaring presence.
One of the benefits of my tenure at Nexus was that I took a closer look at my life. They suggested in certain terms that patients take a personal moral inventory of what went wrong in my life, and why. I connected the dots as to what abusing drugs or alcohol in my life meant. While I wasn't convinced that drinking itself was immoral, I took stock of the fact that when I drank, I behaved immorally. Having been in treatment, although I was in flight from the law (and reality), in the shallow soil of my mind, a spiritual seed sprouted. Yes, conceivably, I had a drug and alcohol problem. I was not a blackout drinker; I remembered nearly every disgusting thing I ever did while drunk. When I imbibe, I "lose things' like morality and freedom. Indeed, I 'sold my freedom for a drink' more times than I can count. In fact, having reviewed my alcoholic pattern of behavior through the lens of the Nexus lens, it became difficult to pretend to myself that I was not an alcoholic.
When I ran away from treatment, I believed my willpower and newfound self-knowledge and education could keep me clean and sober. But self-knowledge never goes far enough.
Because I no longer had a group of peers to rely upon for help, nor a counselor to 'run things by' for feedback, and I was isolated from all means of sober support, I relapsed within one month. My resolution for sobriety dissolved like clay in water, and I started drinking heavily again.
When drinking, I would steal anything not nailed down and use the money for alcohol or drugs. As was my life blueprint, I never stayed out of legal trouble for longer than 90 days from the first drink. First, the man takes the drink, then the drink takes the drink, then the drink takes the man. My likelihood of being arrested for a felony was an inescapable reality.
1) My Drug of Choice was alcohol.
2) My Crime of Choice was stealing cars, =
3) I drove them under the influence of alcohol.
THE PEBBLE ("First, God throws a pebble…")
In May of 1977, I was "On the Lam" (slang for 'on the run') from Minnesota and illegally employed by a carnival in Fort Worth, Texas. After work, I would spend the night drinking, and sometimes steal a car so I could barhop. One night, a police officer pulled me over before I got blitzed. I attempted to hoodwink him with my youth, Stetson cowboy hat, and the "I'm so innocent" Broadway Act, and thus avoid arrest. I suspect police were less savvy in those days, depending on where you were in the country. Young and seasoned alcoholics can be accomplished liars if nothing else. The cop said, "You seem like a really nice kid. Just go home and sleep it off". He at no time asked for my I.D.
As the officer drove off in one direction and I in the other, I remember rationalizing that I had outsmarted that "chump." He was a decent human being trying to do me a "solid," but I had no respect for him nor the law.
Reasonable 'normal' people that get such a break from a cop appreciate it a lot and work hard not to do it again. But not me in 1977. These days, any alcohol detected on any driver will warrant a field sobriety test. Impaired driving has gotten so bad that almost everyone understands the change in societal attitudes about it.
One week after the cop let me go, I managed to get totally drunk one night. Having stolen another vehicle, I veered all over a busy causeway, endangering others and myself. Motorists swerved out of my path, blaring their horns in anger or dismay, and flashed their lights at me. I was trying to avoid hitting oncoming traffic by steering toward the shoulder of the road. Hitting gravel on the side of the road, I tried to compensate by turning back into my lane but instead crossed the centerline toward traffic again, and again, and again. Finally, a police car got behind me and turned on his lights and siren. My heart sank to think of the pain of getting in trouble again. The police officer approached the car with his revolver holstered, which told me he was unaware I was driving a stolen car.
I hoped to reconstruct the same Broadway act I did a week prior. However, standing near the vehicle, looking down at me was who? Maybe you guessed it; it was the same cop! He wasn't drunk! I remember thinking that I had some seriously bad luck. Indeed, my appalling behavior had nothing to do with meeting the Intervention Team…again.
Seeing I was inebriated, the officer searched me for weapons, handcuffed me, and informed me that he was arresting me for drunk driving; he then told me my civil rights. He placed me in the back of his police cruiser and proceeded to drive me to the Tarrant County Jail. When the officer learned from police dispatch that the car was hot, he was a little bit angry with me. He said, "You're the same little snot-nosed punk I pulled over last week, aren't you?" I knew better than to the lip-off to him. I also knew my right to remain silent was a good idea, so I did that.
The officer transported me to the Tarrant County Jail. Before booking, jailers left me alone in the holding cell, allowing me time to frantically chew on all of my fingerprints in an effort to alter them. During the booking process, I gave authorities a false name. After they printed me, they ran my fingerprints and did not discover my identity. They asked who my parents were and with the most pathetic voice I could muster, I told them that my parents had died in a car crash in Wisconsin. They asked if I had any siblings, and I whimpered, "I'm an only child." I'm sure they didn't believe my story, and they knew I had altered my fingerprints. I was in jail for three months, and the jailers must have fingerprinted me at least ten times. They would try to surprise me and print me at odd times. On a few occasions, the jail staff even came to get me for printing in the middle of the night. Every day I would religiously chew on my fingerprints in precisely the same place. They never did discover my identity (reader, this has been long since resolved, so no need to call John Walsh of America's Most Wanted).
NIGHTMARE & REALITY (Prelude to "The Brick")
After being in Tarrant County jail for about two months, I had a horrible nightmare. I awoke, terrified, and even questioned my sanity. I did not dare tell anyone in the jail about the dream; I feared their thinking I had flipped my wig. As I write this story today, I feel that dream was a visionary or prophetic one, albeit one I did not comprehend at the time.
THE NIGHTMARE
"The sky is darkening like a stain, something is going to fall like rain, and it won't be flowers. " WH Auden
I had some awful dreams in jail before, but this one was different. The nightmare started with my awareness of a field of thick white mist forming before me. Then I could see nothing through it. As I peered ahead of me into the fog, a conduit slowly started to clear. At the end of the conduit, I viewed with horror a starkly clear image of a baby dangling dead, motionless, with a noose around his neck.
The image of the dead baby disappeared; the next part of the dream had me again peering into the white mist. Another conduit opened. This time, I saw a crystal-clear image of a clock within a steeple. Its dial arms read 10:45. I awoke from that nightmare deeply disconcerted. I could not figure out why I would have such an awful dream. It did not make any sense. For three days, this ordeal weighed heavily me. I was finally able to dismiss it as a mere dream and eventually did not think about it.
About one month after having the nightmare, I went to court and pled guilty to the Unauthorized Use of a Motor vehicle. A judge sentenced me to three years probation and released me from
custody. Upon release, I at once absconded from probation and returned to my home state of Minnesota. However, I could not stay in Minnesota, because I had violated the conditions of probation there, too.
DECISIONS DETERMINE DESTINY
"When God decided to invent everything he took one
breath bigger than a circus tent and everything began.
when man decided to destroy himself he picked the was
of shall and finding only why smashed it into because.”
ee cummings
I was only in Minnesota for a few days before making the Einsteinian decision to steal another car. I intended to drive to Florida and work at Disney World. I hoped I could hide out in Disney World as I did at the carnival. I hoped and deceived myself into thinking I could drink and get high without penalty and live a completely carefree and happy life. Perhaps you have heard of this particularly useful definition of insanity: "To do the same things over and over again and expecting different results. By that definition, I was insane. Even though law enforcement wanted me in two states, and the FBI wanted me for Interstate Flight to Avoid Prosecution, my booze-colored glasses never saved me from myself. I still didn't have a clue. If nothing changes, nothing changes, and I was not ready to turn my life around. Alcohol anesthetized me to the problems in my life, and I was ill-prepared for the brick to come. "Be not deceived; you reap what you sow" was apropos here.
THE BRICK ("…then He throws a brick")
(August 15th, 1977, 7:10 pm, Marshall, Missouri)
"But did thee feel the earth move?" Ernest Hemingway
A couple of days after leaving Minnesota, bound for Disney World, I was driving through the State of Missouri. I saw a friendly-looking young man hitchhiking on the freeway. I pulled over to offer him a ride, which he gladly accepted. He introduced himself as "Jeff" (we are now friends on Facebook) and accepted my apology for what transpired on this dreadful day). He proved how 'friendly' he was by reaching into his jacket, pulling out a can of Budweiser, and asking me if I wanted it. Well, to me, that was the stupid question of the year. Yes, of course, I wanted that beer! After all, I was driving. I am not saying that to be dismissive or to say that it is OK to drink and drive because it is not. There used to be a couple of things I enjoyed back in those days. I derived great pleasure, even euphoria, when I drank alcohol. Nothing felt better than having alcohol coursing through my veins. I also loved the taste of beer; I enjoyed the glorious sensation of liquor blessing my esophagus. I loved how wonderfully alcohol warmed my stomach when it arrived there. But I'm not an alcoholic?
I was also a euphoria-seeking adrenalin-junkie. I prized the 'rush' feeling I would get from stealing cars. I relished the feeling of power and control that I experienced with the acceleration pedal beneath my foot, and the window rolled down with the wind blowing through my hair. I felt powerful and free. I was combining one euphoria with another; it made perfect sense to me. Why wouldn't I want to do that? It was an Alcoholic's Arithmetic! Euphoric Logic was my way of life. So yes, of course, I wanted the beer that Jeff offered me!
Jeff only had two beers with him. When I tendered the idea of stopping at a liquor store and splitting the cost of a six-pack, he did so without knowing that he was in the car with an alcoholic car thief. We were both too young to buy alcohol legally in Missouri (I was 20 years old at this time); the proprietor of a liquor store sold us a six-pack anyway. Before taking our money, the proprietor looked around to see if anyone would see him selling to minors. He kept the change and told us to scram, which we gratefully did. I sometimes wonder if he got wind of what happened later that day with the alcohol-impaired 'baby killer' (driver/me) in Marshall. I wonder if he said to himself, "I remember that kid. I'm the one that sold him the alcohol".
The police officers submitted their various reports by 9:00 pm on August 15th, 1977. They all agreed that I was under the influence of alcohol. I admitted drinking 3 to 4 beers. Having eaten little in a couple of days, I was drinking on an empty stomach, so the alcohol more readily rushed to my brain. I've heard that the liver works to filter alcohol because it is toxic, but the veins in the stomach absorb some of the alcohol before the liver can process it.
After arriving in the small Missouri town that the hitchhiker asked to be dropped off in, I asked him to enter a store with me so I could steal some wooden pop cases. I asked him to distract the store clerk while I did this, which he tried to do.
After taking the pop crates, we left through the 'employee only' back door and ran to the car. Looking out of the back door, the store clerk saw me carrying pop crates to the vehicle and quickly disappeared back inside the store, presumably to alert the police.
In my rush to leave the store's parking lot, the car slid out of control on the loose gravel. I ran into a large wooden election sign for the sheriff of that town. The election sign with the sheriff's face collapsed toward the windshield, then landed on the car's hood. The impact caused Jeff to fly forward. His elbow hit the door, removing skin. He was in pain, bleeding, and started to cry. I backed away from the sign and then exited the parking lot.
As I sped from the scene, Jeff begged me to stop somewhere so he could make a phone call to an Episcopalian minister friend of his. He said his friend would be willing to pick us up and give us a ride somewhere. We stopped at a random house on a corner. The man who owned the house nervously allowed us to use his home telephone to call for help. Jeff called Pastor Emerson, who arrived within five minutes of the phone call.
When he arrived, Jeff started crying and fell to the ground. His friend rushed from his station wagon to help him. I ran to the pastor's car to steal it, just as a police squad approached. The officer exited his squad car near the intersection. The pastor yelled, pointing, "He's stealing my car!" Without shouting a warning, the officer promptly shot at the car several times. I punched the accelerator in fear, ducked my head down low, and sped away.
For a short time, I saw no police anywhere. I drove around at ordinary speed to avoid drawing attention, looking for a way out of town. I took a left-hand turn in a residential area, and it was there that a lot of lives began to change forever. I saw two young white females walking toward me diagonally, crossing the street, perhaps a third of a block away.
As soon as I saw them, I realized I had to do something fast, lest I hit them. My first reaction was to drive into the yard on my right, then back onto the street, and miss them. However, I saw a small tree in the yard and ruled that idea out quickly, as I knew it would mean hitting the tree and being apprehended by the police.
I then made an alcohol-impaired decision, one I am sure not to have made were I sober. I quickly thought of another idea: I could turn the wheel more to the left and drive behind these women and miss hitting them. But when I tried this, the car fish-tailed and the vehicle started sliding sideways, taking up most of the street. With horror, I realized I was now more likely to hit them, so I fought desperately with the car to straighten it out, thus trying not to take up the whole street, thinking it would make it less likely I would hit them. I don't know how I did it in such a short period, but I did straighten the car out. I had my foot buried hard on the brake as I approached the women.
TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE
"There is an immeasurable distance between late and too late." Og Mandino
Internally, I cried out a short and desperate prayer, "God, please don't let me hit them!" But my prayer was too late. One woman ran to safety, but the other woman didn't. Instead, she stopped and faced me. We looked directly into each other's eyes. I remember thinking before impact, "Why in the 'F_" doesn't she get out of the way?" Then I hit her. I struck her with the right front part of the car, impacting her left hip. She went up in the air, and while in the air, I heard a rough, loud, gravely crunching sound beneath the vehicle. I assumed it was the muffler.
When the car was sliding sideways, it shook violently, and I believed the muffler had shook off and made the noise. The police reports concurred that the muffler and the entire exhaust line had dislodged, but tragically, that's not all I was hearing.
After hitting this woman, I drove to the next intersection, took another left-hand turn, and pulled over in someone's yard. I pulled out of sight from where I had hit this woman for a couple of reasons. I didn't want to see her down on the ground in pain because of me, and I dreaded that someone would hurt me for hurting her. Selfish as I was, it never crossed my mind to help her. Many recovered Alcoholics realize that selfishness is our real problem. We didn't have a drinking problem. We had a thinking problem, and drinking was just a symptom.
I was very selfish at the time of my life. I didn't care too much if I stole someone's car, made car owners feel unsafe, nor cared if they had to deal with other issues surrounding their stolen vehicles. Still, I decided not to run from the law this time.
Physically harming a fellow human being was quite another story. This consequence never crossed my selfish, uneducated mind. This is where I feel MADD Impact Panels are perfectly suitable for DWI offenders. It's a Wake-up Call and also removes from a judge any reason for letting someone go after they drive drunk again and hurt/kill someone. So I waited for the police to get me.
I could hear sirens and a lot of tumultuous noise around the corner. I could hear many people talking but couldn't understand what they were saying. It seemed to take forever for the police to arrive (in reality, it took the police about 15 minutes to get me).
Finally, an officer came around the corner, saw me, jumped from his vehicle with his service revolver drawn, and ordered me to place my hands on the car, which I did. He searched me for weapons, handcuffed me, and set me in the back of his squad car. As we were driving to the jail, I grasped I was in a lot of trouble, that Minnesota wanted me, and Texas might find out about me, and that now I was in serious trouble in Missouri. All the pebbles rolled together and pressed into a brick. I knew I would not see the free world for a long while, so I tried to soak up my last few minutes of freedom by experiencing every remaining free moment.
The world looks sweeter when one is about to lose freedom. Again, I sold my freedom for a drink. I was looking at the beautiful blue sky, which had only one tiny wisp of cloud in it. Then I looked at the lovely little homes we were driving by; their lawns were so green! I felt mesmerized by a man washing his metallic blue Malibu Super Sport on his short driveway, washing away white suds with a garden hose. The sunlight reflecting on the car was gorgeous!
I was lost in an ocean of metallic sparkling blue when I vaguely sensed that the police car was slowing. The officer turned toward me and uttered words that I'll never forget for the rest of my life. He said, "You know, you just ran over a little baby?"
I turned from looking out of the window as my insulating vestiges of the free world bubble burst. I could think of only one word; I exclaimed, "What?" He then nearly stopped the car, leaned over from his seat, looked me in the eyes, and repeated, "You know, you just ran over a little baby?"
In retrospect, I'm only guessing he was asking a question. I imagine the officer, being a trained observer, was watching me in his rear-view mirror; I probably appeared not to have a care in the world. He didn't know I was soaking up my last few minutes of freedom. No, I did not realize I had run over a little baby in his stroller. That low, gravely, crunching sound I heard beneath the vehicle was a muffler and an exhaust line…and a baby stroller. I'll never forget that hellish noise.
The closest I can describe that sound came to me in a movie theater after I sobered up years later. Do you know the sound in movies when cops are engaged in a car chase, and the car's undercarriages rake asphalt at high speed, and the sparks fly?
Yes, it's only special effects for the average person. Why? Because ordinary people still have their innocence. But for me, those special effects instantly bring back the time and place when I ran over that stroller. I can't relate how many years after I sobered up in 1990 when I saw women pushing baby strollers, I had to pull over because tears made driving impossible.
INNOCENCE
"Innocence tinctures all things with brightest hues." Edward Counsel, Maxims
Yes, I've lost my innocence. Perhaps I'll never again know what it's like to hear that special effect sound and not hear a baby stroller echoing in my tortured conscience. I pray to God that no one else has to experience losing their innocence like this. This chapter will not have been written in vain If but one soul reading this story is moved never to do what I did.
GUILT BRICK
"Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do." Voltaire
It took police so long to come to me because when they rounded the corner after I did, what they observed was a woman surrounded by a score of people from the block. As police approached, they found that this woman had her arms around a baby pressed to her chest. She had blood from her shoulders to her feet, and she was repetitively crying out the words, "He just killed my baby!"
"Silence the pianos and with muffled drum,
Bring out the coffin; let the mourners come." lines from Funeral Blues, by WH Auden
The woman I hit was a mother pushing her six-month-old infant, Little Timmy, in his baby stroller. The 'baby in the stroller was not just a statistic; he had a name. His name was the same as mine. Big Tim ran over Little Tim that day. An hour and a half later, Little Timmy was pronounced dead of wounds he incurred underneath the stolen vehicle that I drove under the influence of alcohol. That day, my mindlessly selfish lifestyle altered many lives forever and in more ways than any individual human can fathom, but here are a few ripple effects.
Sherri, Little Timmy's mother, lives with the permanent stain of losing her son. The police officers and emergency-rescue personnel had human blood and suffering on their clothing and will likely remember this for a lifetime. Sherri's mother & father lived on that block and lost their beautiful grandson. They could do nothing to protect their daughter or fix what happened to Sherri. The neighbors have to live with the sights and sounds of what happened on their block that day.
Sherri had been enjoying an evening walk with her sister. Her sister also has this terrible memory solidly ensconced in her brain. How long was it again before either Sherri or Susan could "go out for a walk" and not dread doing so? Do you think Sherri ever took a baby out for a stroller ride again? Could she see another person pushing a baby stroller without her crying? If so, how many years did it take before she could? How many Christmases, birthdays, and special occasions passed before her grief moved from devastating to debilitating to semi-functional? How many years before she could see a woman cuddling a baby without it racking her soul in sorrow? And what of the angst of Little Timmy's father, and perhaps, rage, over losing his son? To think I set the stage for such sorrow…it nearly killed me hundreds of times to contemplate that reality. Today, Sherri and I are friends, and she said she loves and forgives me; she also told me this was the worst day of her life.
While I slowly was healed by God's Power, it took me about 25 years sober before I could drive somewhere, see a woman pushing a stroller down the sidewalk or street, and not have to pull over for tears filling my eyes. I used to endure an internal life-and-death struggle, an inner war, not to commit suicide when seeing a woman pushing a stroller down the road.
It took eight years of speaking for Mothers Against Drunk Driving and other organizations before I quit thinking about driving my car into a bridge or a tree after speaking as if killing myself would make it right somehow. I wanted to give my life for the life I took, an eye for an eye, but somehow, I realized that killing myself was not true justice. It's harder to live than to die. For me, suicide would be cowardly.
It was one of the hardest things I've ever done not to kill myself. But if I'm dead, I can't help others through speaking who are in danger of killing someone while driving under the influence. I took a life, but now I'm going to spend the rest of my life doing something about it. Not out of a guilt-shaped hole and self-torment in my heart, but out of love. God is Love.
After reading "The More Loving One" by one of my favorite poets, WH Auden. I determined to be just that to others and myself. Do I still experience anguish over killing Timmy? Every time I speak to audiences about drinking and driving, I share sorrowful memories, but I can't let it ruin my soul. I'm not worth anything to myself or anyone else if I do.
Death and the ensuing grief have many psychological and emotional layers. The angst I experienced from hearing the following poem, as recited by WH Auden himself, nearly killed me in 1992. Nietzsche was right in this context. "It didn't kill me; it made me stronger in due time." I sometimes read this full poem when I speak publicly.
FUNERAL BLUES by W. H. AUDEN
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message
He is dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
To think I put a fellow human being through this…it is impossible to put the feelings I have experienced around this reality in plain words. The pain I have suffered probably pales next to what Sherri experienced that day and afterward. Still, as a friend of mine in Minnesotans for Safe Driving, Sue Kirk, said, "Grief ain't a contest." Thank you, Sue. Sue lost her son to a drunk driver. She is a role model of love in my world, and I am honored to have met her.
BABY KILLER! BABY KILLER! BABY KILLER!
When we arrived at the jail, I was placed naked in a rubber room. The ceiling was about 12 feet high, the walls had padding on them, and the floor was thick polyurethane. Injuring oneself in such a cell would be difficult. They closed the door, and I was in utter darkness, for the door was of solid steel, and the lights were off. After about an hour or so in that cell, a guard opened the chuck-hole in the door and turned on the light. He stared at me for about 15 minutes through that chuck-hole without saying anything. Finally, he made a face and a disgusted noise, then went to the regular cell next to mine and told the guy in that cell, "I want you to know something. The guy I locked in the cell next to you is a baby killer."
I felt a million needles go up and down my body. I knew the words just uttered were a sentence and would get me labeled a "baby killer," In prison, it meant I could be raped, killed (or both), or at least forced to fight every day for the duration of whatever sentence I would serve. Then the guard went to the rest of the cells in the small cell block area and told everyone else, one cell at a time, that I was a baby killer. He returned to my cell and stared at me for a few more minutes, then left. This time, he left the light on and the chuckhole open.
After the guard exited the cellblock, one of the guys on the block started yelling "baby killer!" repeatedly. I immediately dreaded that everyone would start yelling it, but he was the only one. No sooner than feeling relieved he was the only one yelling those words, the inmates, all as if on cue, started chanting the words "baby killer" in unison, over and over. I didn't want them to know how it affected me, as my pain is what they were after, so I tried to keep silent. But my silence seemed impossible.
It felt like I had a basketball in my chest, and it was inflating every time they yelled the words' baby killer'! It felt like I would explode from the pain; from the depths of despair, I cried words deeper than all logic, for indeed, the words were not premeditated. I yelled, "Who do you guys think you are, calling me a baby killer when you are all so drunk, you can barely pronounce the words, baby killer?" They instantly fell silent. I don't know if their hush arose from the utter pain in my voice or the collective sensibility of my cry. But I thanked God they shut up because it was killing me to be called a baby killer. I already felt like the lowest of the low on planet earth.
Objectively reviewing police reports led me to reconsider a few things. Conceivably, maybe the only difference between them and me was that, in their case, they didn't have to decide what to do with a mother pushing a stroller who was right in front of them while they were alcohol-impaired. They didn't have to make that alcohol-impaired decision to avert a tragedy, but I did.
The stolen car didn't make me do it.
The weather didn't make me do it.
Measurement of the skid marks indicated I was not speeding when it happened.
The surface of the road was dry and level.
The primary recurring variable in this and other crimes was that I was under the influence of my DOC (Drug Of Choice), alcohol. That's the brutal truth.
Ironically, the guys in jail were right. I was a baby killer. Not the kind that woke up in the morning and decided to kill a baby, but a baby died, and I was the one that did it.
I didn't mean to, but I also didn't mean NOT to. I was not living a purpose-based life.
That day, I wasn't even drunk. I only had 3 ½ beers. I drank them fast, yes, and I had not eaten in a while. Still, I was not drunk. Those who think one needs to be drunk versus 'buzzed' to kill are gravely mistaken.
THE MORNING AFTER
"I'll tell you a great secret, my friend. Don't wait for the last judgment. It happens every day." Albert Camus
On the morning of August 16th, 1977, a Saline County Deputy Sherriff transported me to the Saline County Courthouse in Marshall, Missouri. I was in the back of the squad car in handcuffs. The purpose of my trip to the courthouse was for arraignment. Arraignment Hearings consist of setting bond and hearing charges read-aloud for the offense for which one is in custody.
When we arrived at the courthouse, I stared aghast at the courthouse clock. I was in shock. The clock was staring toward me from its white steeple-like structure, and the time read 10:45. As the memory of the nightmare in that Texas jail flooded my consciousness, words poured out of my mouth, and I told the officer, "I've seen this before!" He looked all around apprehensively and said, "What? What?" I responded, pointing at the clock, "That!" I tipped my head toward the courthouse clock. "I saw that clock in a dream!" In near panic, I quickly told him about the nightmare. The officer said nothing. He looked at me sternly for about five seconds and then escorted me to the courthouse for my Arraignment Hearing.
I learned later that the officer told the judge what I had said about the dream. The judge decided to have me assessed for mental competency. He ordered me committed for psychiatric evaluation at a hospital for the criminally insane. Two days later, police transported me to the Biggs Unit at the state hospital. I was in that hospital for three weeks before they deemed me competent to stand trial.
One night before my transfer to Biggs, a guard came to my cell. He held an extra-large shirt soaked with dried blood all over it. He ordered me to put it on. I said, "I'm not putting this on!" The guard then raised his voice and angrily demanded that I put it on. I put it on. Then a man came in with a large camera on his shoulder, entered the cellblock, and took a photograph of me wearing the shirt. An anonymous source later informed me he saw the picture in a crime magazine. I was the 'baby killer' from Marshall, Missouri.
Bloodiest 47 Acres in America
After my return from the state hospital, despite my desperation to stay there rather than go to prison. I told them many lies to make myself look worthy of treatment, but it didn't work. Instead, I spent the next nine months in the county jail with a plea of innocent to a Manslaughter charge of killing Little Timmy.
I pleaded not guilty because I hoped to get less time in prison with a plea bargain. Impossible as it may seem, I also thought I would wake up some morning to realize, relieved, that it was all just a terrible nightmare. The jail would be gone, men would not yell at each other to borrow a cigarette, and the doors would not be clanging open and shut all the time. But, of course, that never happened. I would open my eyes every morning, and the jail would still be there, and I would be in it.
I finally did plead guilty when my attorney showed me the photographs taken from the scene. When I saw the photos of the baby stroller crushed into a bizarre egg-shaped thing resting on the asphalt, my eyes riveted on it. The u-shaped elongated piece of aluminum one would typically push a stroller with was torn apart and pointed in different directions. The sunlight was refracting from the aluminum stroller but through Little Timmy's blood.
I'm not a psychiatrist and cannot explain it, but when I looked at the photograph, it was as if my ear had relocated to my frontal lobe/cerebral cortex. Do you know what a stove at its hottest point of a self-cleaning cycle looks like, where you can feel its intense heat? The image in the picture was indelibly etched on my' auditory brain'. It literally sounded and felt like a red hot template was branding my brain, like sizzling steak, as long as I looked at it.
I closed my eyes, covered the photograph with my hand, slid it to my lawyer, and said, "Let's get this over with; I'll plead guilty." I immediately, with absolute clarity, knew that it had happened, and I gave up on the delusion that I would wake up, and the jail would be gone. I knew then and there that I could in no way bring Little Timmy's mother into a trial to re-experience losing her son all over again in court. I could not do that to her. Therefore, I pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The court sentenced me to 2-10 years in the Missouri State Penitentiary for men at Jefferson City, AKA "The Bloodiest 47 Acres in America", for which I served five years, 10-months, and one day.
• In my fourth year of incarceration, I learned that my bio-dad drove his Harley under the influence of alcohol and killed his girlfriend. Dad found himself charged with Vehicular Homicide. There are a couple of common denominators between my dad and me:
• 1. we're both Alcoholic (alcoholism has a genetic component),
• 2, we both sold our freedom for a drink.
I sold mine cheap. Three and one-half beers. My brain betrayed me and told me, "All is well." Alcohol distorts perception. That's why many people drink, of course, as distortion is welcome. Alcoholism is 'A Disease of Perception' if you will. Dis-Ease.
Since the Missouri court found out that the authorities wanted me in both Texas and Minnesota, the court sent me to a maximum-security institution. I could not serve my time in Missouri in a lesser secure facility. Both Texas and Minnesota placed an order to hold me. The order meant that I could not do the minimum time permitted (two years) and that after I finished my sentence in Missouri, both states could request that I serve time in their prison systems.
At the end of my sentence in Missouri, Texas dropped its Hold (withdrew its interest in me). Minnesota decided not to drop its Hold. I was paroled to Minnesota, where the court saw fit to place me on probation to run concurrently with my Missouri parole. After putting the cork in the jug (staying sober) for some while because of religion, I eventually started drinking again with an alcoholic friend. Show me your friends, and I'll show you your future. I sold nearly everything I owned to keep drinking and smoking pot. I only had a mattress on my apartment floor, a rickety table near it, and a few pants and shirts within a short time. That's all I had left.
Then I received a letter from a friend in prison. He said he was in trouble with some people. Unless he paid his debt to them, he faced the possibility of rape or murder. Rather than borrowing money to help him, I robbed a store to send him money. I got pretty drunk to kill my fear of doing the robbery, which did not remove the fear anyway.
I didn't get away with the crime. I was arrested and convicted in Minnesota for robbery and served nearly five more years. But before sentencing, I absconded. I stayed on the run for a year before the FBI arrested me in Louisiana for Interstate Flight to Avoid Prosecution.
RECLAIMED INNOCENCE
"Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower safely." Shakespeare
Looking back, I often wondered why I had the nightmare about Little Timmy, especially since I could not interpret the nightmare when I had it. How was I to know how I would hit a female pedestrian and run over her six-month-old little boy three months after the dream? The only thing that makes sense today is that the nightmare can serve as a palpable warning to those who hear it.
Mary Jo Robinson reminded me, 'No matter how far down the scale' (we have descended), we can always help others with our mistakes. Again, as Bill W. often said, "In God's Economy, nothing is wasted."
After my release from the Minnesota prison system on supervised release on August 17th 1990, I did something crazy. I drank on August 18th. But by a miracle, I didn't get arrested. On 8/19/90, I got honest with myself about being an Alcoholic. That honesty made it easy to believe that God could restore me to sanity, and I turned my life and will over to the care of God. I sobered at 3:30 am, but I stayed sober with the help of a 12- Step program, the Fellowship, and a willingness to go to any lengths to stay sober.
Now, I speak to DWI-convicted audiences. I share how drinking and driving affected my life and the lives of others. I also reveal my criminal history to various groups of offenders to warn them about the dangers they face if they continue on the path I chose to take. Why? I want them to keep their innocence and not ruin their lives or someone else's life.
While I hope and pray that a loving God forgives me for what I did, I have lost my innocence, no matter how you cut it in terms of this world. I will never know what it is like to have not killed someone. I hope that by telling my story, audiences will receive an education of the heart and decide to travel in the right direction. But I am forgiven, which means I got my innocence back. Jesus said to be as little children, for such is the Kingdom of God. He wouldn't tell us to do that if we couldn't get our innocence back
GRATITUDE
"For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, ABBA, Father." From Paul in his letter to the Corinthians.
As for my premonitions, perhaps spiritual windows open the future of choice. They often begin within me as dreams (or Night Visions, if you will). Sometimes (rarely), I see the future in a waking dream. I don't know why God works in me this way, but so be it. TODAY is what I care most about, one day at a time. God's Will be done.
Following the shining examples of the many successful people who preceded me, I turned my life and will over to the care of a loving God as I understand God. I now have a deep home of love in my heart for God and live a life of no regrets.
Meister Eckhart said that "Thank You" is the most potent and helpful prayer ever tendered and that one cannot improve upon Thank You. The Holy Bible says we should pray in all things, small and large, and thank God for everything…even our weaknesses.
PRAYERS
"Blessed are the merciful." Jesus
God, please heal Sherri and those around her who had suffered when I killed Little Timmy. Bless Sherri and her husbands' Ministry as they enter prisons to help heal broken lives. Please bring forgiveness, peace, and joy into their lives again. AMEN.
Little Timmy, if you can hear these words, I hope to see you in heaven someday. I want you to know I have been reaching out to others and telling them about you, how sorry I am for my actions, and how it could happen to them if they drink and drive. I speak to spare others this pain and bring more love to Earth School. Little Timmy, I will not let your death be in vain.
ADDENDUM
Earlier in this chapter, I mentioned Sue Kirk's name. I would like to tell you a little bit about her and some other friends I have made since becoming active in our country's battle for safe streets.
Sue lost her son, Brian, when a drunk driver hit him. Sue and her husband, who keened and wailed in grief for Brian, know the real pain of losing their child to a drunken driving tragedy. For us to have become friends is an astonishing testimony to her heart of integrity.
I also became friends with Sharon Berg, the Minnesota Victim Advocate in MADD for the Ramsey/Washington County chapter, the chapter where I first spoke in January of 1991.
Sharon's daughter Chris endured an injury to her face and reproductive organs. She had a grapefruit-sized hemorrhage on her brain, all stemming from someone who hit her while driving under the influence of alcohol. Chris forgot everybody and everything from the point of impact backward. Chris and her family went through hell over this. Chris learned she would never have a child because, in her words, her "female parts" had been too damaged. Today, Chris is doing well, has excelled academically, and succeeded in business. She married a wonderful man and birthed a beautiful miracle daughter.
Chris's daughter and I attended the same church. She has given me hugs, and she is an outstanding daughter of God. I am honored to have all of these people in my life. The night Sharon said in a Mothers Against Drunk Driving Impact Panel that she would trust me with her own life and with her daughter's life, her words left an indelible mark on my life. I never suspected my work with MADD would help victims find forgiveness and peace in their lives.
It has been a long time since I have rested the Holy Bible on my chest and cried myself to sleep in a prison cell. "Thank you, God." You have brought me a mighty long way from parasitic self-loathing to a life of love.
In April of 2011, Sherri contacted Minnesota Mothers Against Drunk Driving, saying she wanted to speak with me. Sherri and I are now friends. I have worked toward and prayed for this day to arrive for years. Like lightning striking twice in the same place (in my life), I am astonishingly privileged to hear two mothers say they love and forgive the person who killed their sons: the first, Mary Jo Robinson, and the second and, more importantly for me, Sherri. Sherri sent me photographs of Little Timmy to use in my speeches, and one day, she even said that I was one of the best things that had ever happened to her in her life. Sherri's daughter is in recovery and will never have to drive under the influence, just like me, from this day forward. For me, the miracle of forgiveness raised me from the dead.
It is not my place to say how human beings contend with their grief, but I've learned that forgiveness doesn't necessarily let others off the hook. People with cold hearts or who have not forgiven themselves might not care if the ones they hurt forgive them or not. But the one who forgives finds peace. Creator, please give us both thy power to bring about Your Kingdom. "Thy will be done." SELAH!
© Timothy G Cameron