Or Was That Just Some Sort of Neurologic Event? (Copy)
Gene Gilchrist
Louisville, Kentucky
“When the lights came on, I woke up and knew the sequence from there. The door at one end of the corridor would open with a metallic click and close heavily because the officer had a tray full of coffee in her other hand. I heard the other “guests” stirring. The policewoman reached my cell and told me to reach through the bars to take a coffee. I was going to joke “one cream, two sugars” but I knew better. This was not my first visit as an overnight guest of the city of Syracuse. No sense to risk her taking it wrong or her having had a bad morning or whatever. She wasn’t going to be my friend, but she could make things harder or easier. Like I said, it was not my first visit. She announced that it was forty-five minutes until court.
I wondered if I had been in this cell before. The cells were in a row separated by some kind of hard block material, and all faced a wall made of the same material. I assumed there was a similar set up somewhere for the men. Although these walls and floors were all hard surfaces, the city seemed to have paid the electric bill because it was comfortably warm, at least in my cell. Well, it is not important if I had been in this particular cell before I guessed.
As noted, forty-five minutes later the same guard came and opened the cells one at a time and directed us toward the other end of the hall from where she had come. We walked single file, silently, out the door at that end which entered into the court room and next to the docket where we would all wait to be called. I recall that I was rather nonchalant about all of this. As I said, it wasn’t my first time. Too, I was putting on the professional “street” face to signify my superiority at all this. Amazing, I was feeling superior among a group of people who had spent the night in city jail. All bad smells, bed hair, some dirty clothes, a few black eyes. I was queen of the hop for sure.
Although the jail was in the city center, my peers in the docket seemed to come from across the city rather than downtown neighborhoods. The ethnic tilt built into law enforcement even back then was on display, but there seemed to be more drunks and junkies and street walkers than thieves and murderers. I recognized a couple of the women certainly. I don’t think I knew any of the guys which was a little surprising given who I used to drink and get high with.
I noticed Father Dunne in the observer seats. That made me somewhere between embarrassed and angry. Dunne was an inner city priest who had opened an overnight place where street folks found their way some nights especially cold and snowy, winter nights. Dunne was some kind of self-fashioned street missionary. He had visited me at work in my office once where he was a Chaplin, although I never knew who sent him to me. I was a little embarrassed as I knew he saw me there and not in my best light. On the other hand, I also resented his holier than thou attitude and conviction that Jesus would save me. “If Jesus saves, he better save himself”. Thank you, Ian Anderson.
I wasn’t first out of the docket, so I tried to act patiently. Not a good idea to anger the judge or the staff. Judge Dougherty took a piece of paper from the pile, called people out of the docket. Mr. Jones, Ms. Smith and so on. I tried to get a sense of his mood that morning hoping he would be generous although I couldn’t remember what I had done to land here.
“Sharon”. Well being on a first name basis with the Judge is not a good sign, but I tried to walk directly, steadily, respectfully to the place below and in front of Dougherty. He read me the charges. Apparently, I had left the bar pretty drunk, drove into a couple of parked cars, kept going, did not stop right away when the police officers who watched it all turned on the sirens. Apparently, I might have chosen my words with the arresting officers a bit more appropriately too. Again, this was not my first stop, I had always gotten off before, maybe a couple hundred dollars for a lawyer. It would work out.
Then Dougherty’s mood changed. He looked up at me, he sighed, waited a minute or two for the drama. “Sharon, until now it has been about you. This court has hoped you would get a handle on all this. But I am elected by the people and at some point I have to protect them from you. Now you are doing damage to property, and it is only a matter of time before you damage life and limb. There is a gentleman at the end of the seats to my left. He is with Probation and Parole. You will meet with him for an assessment. I will base my sentence on his recommendation. You should know, right now, that if nothing changes, I will sentence you to one year in Onondaga County Corrections for Women. You are dismissed on your own recognizance but be certain to be here next week and be sober.”
It wasn’t clear if Dougherty was being extra dramatic for effect, or he was seriously sick and tired of me standing in front of him. Or was this just honest; I was causing damage to other people and not just street people anymore.
I could feel the blood rush from my head. I was clammy, I assumed that I had become pale, I had to focus so I did not pass out. I pulled it together long enough to mouth a subdued “thank you Judge”. For the first time maybe ever, I was afraid. My sense was that women’s prison wasn’t like it was for the guys with all the violence and rape. But it started to creep into my awareness that I could be a convicted felon. Bad outcomes for future education, jobs, driver’s licenses, where I could live and even just the shame. How had this happened? I came from a solidly middle class family, good high school student, college graduate, had a couple of good jobs. Now here I was - - 28, maybe a convicted felon, a year in jail.
I started to get my feet under me and walked over to the Probation and Parole guy. He seemed like a good enough guy, well groomed, attractive, dressed OK. These people don’t make a lot of money to have their own haberdasher I thought. I was eager to make a good impression.
“OK, Sharon, let’s talk a minute here. The Judge seems serious to me. He thinks you have become a menace. I have the sheet here and it seems you have given him some cause.” He had the arrest record already. Had he and Daugherty staged all this for my benefit? “Have you ever been to AA, Sharon?” I told him that I had been to a few meetings. Relatives had insisted, after visiting Dougherty before. “Would you consider rehab? Do you have insurance?”
Obvious now that this guy and the Judge had talked and that they had this routine down. But I was in no position to do anything but comply. I was scared, sure, but the rational thing to do, the “street smart” thing to do, was to go along feigning as much sincerity as possible. I didn’t know where this was going, where I was going, but this nice fellow had a lot of power at the moment. Maybe I could flip the script but not right now.
“Do you live at this address,” he asked pointing to the sheet in his hand. “Does anyone live with you,”? I told him that was my address and that Tom, the guy I was living with, owned the apartment. It was in a nearby suburb so I thought that might help a little. “OK, I will visit there Friday at 10:00. If you want this gentleman there that’s fine but not necessary”. “Look, Sharon,” he started with a serious tone, “this is probably your last chance.” “I hope you make a meeting or two before Friday. Regardless, I am telling you, no matter what you think, that your drinking and drug use is out of control. If I find you drunk, or heaven forbid, Judge Dougherty sees you drunk here again, it will be a quick trip to Onondaga. There won’t be another chance. You are free to go now”.
OK, I thought, I got through that. Seemed it went OK, and I still had “position”. What is the next task? I collected my wallet and keys, checked that everything was still there. I walked outside just to get out of that stifling air. It was a cold, crisp, bright winter day in western New York. I started to make a plan. I needed to get my car from impound. I checked and saw that I had my credit card. I knew the way to impound and decided I could walk. I started to think about the last lie I told Tom and what lie would work with that. Same with work; again. I really needed the job. I needed Tom to let me stay. Sex wasn’t going to get it done anymore; it all came down to if he really cared.
And then, unexpectedly, without warning, everything changed. It wasn’t like a light switch went on or anything, but it was sudden like that. I didn’t notice the cold. I wasn’t concerned about the Probation guy, I wasn’t worried about Dougherty, I wasn’t worried about Tom. At least I wasn’t worried about how to try and manage all of that. The brightness dimmed somehow. My sense of time changed somehow, for just an instant, I guess. Above all, and for some reason I could not define, I knew that the truth was what I needed to tell all of those men and lots of other people. I needed to tell myself the truth too. This was all out of my control. My life had become unmanageable as they say. It was time to let go. And then, just as suddenly, I knew that I didn’t have to, wouldn’t drink or use again. “
********
Sharon looked up, making eye contact with the fifteen ladies sitting in a circle with her. She had returned from the memory outside the jail. “That was thirty-four years ago today,” she said to them. “It hasn’t been one joyous day after the next of course,” she continued now talking in the present, “but almost every day sober has been better than the best day drinking.”. “I made meetings every day I could, reached out to Janine here to make a connection with someone who had some time together. Mostly, I did what I was told. Turned my will over. I’m not much of a God person so for me the first three steps were “I can’t do it, looks like you folks can, I’ll do what you’re doing”. I made coffee, kept the few bucks we collect, paid some rent as we could to the church for the room we use. I practiced the steps. I stayed close to Janine. Eventually I was asked to sponsor someone, then another.”
“The shame, guilt, regret was very, very difficult. None of us get here without doing some pretty awful stuff and having some pretty awful stuff done to us. And it is not just the degrading, physical stuff but the stealing, lying, abusing other people”, she continued. “Tom was very good to me, but that relationship didn’t last after a while. I was assigned probation but kept my job at the clinic. My driver’s license was revoked but I made it to work every day and a meeting every night for those six months. Later on I met and married a physician, a nice guy, and we have been married twenty-nine years now.” “I am a very, very fortunate woman.”
“I remember the story attributed to Bill Wilson. He was in “Townes Hospital” restrained I think, in a padded cell. You get the picture,” she was looking off in a distance as she related this story. “As I recall the story, he became aware of something real but metaphysical in the room with him. Before he could get his bearings on this thing it overwhelmed him, and in that moment, he knew he didn’t have to drink again”. “That’s what happened to me too,” Sharon went on.
“Over the years I have heard variations on this story many, many times from many, many of our sisters and brothers,” she started again. “You know that I am not religious and that I wonder about a deity. Opiate of the masses and so on. But what’s going on? Did Bill Wilson, Sharon, and all those others experience some kind of shared neurologic event? Is this experience a shared form of withdrawal for some of us? Or, as Alicent over there once admonished me, how many times should I ignore the hand of God,” she said sharing a knowing smile with Alicent.
“I don’t know. Certainly, I have had a spiritual awakening as the result of the steps as they say,” she said. “I have become more involved in the ethical, right living side of my life and how that spiritual side of living enhances my life. That doesn’t need to religious or in any way at the hand of a God. Regardless I am grateful. And I don’t need to know today or maybe ever,” she went on.
“But, I do often wonder.”
February 2025
