The Greatest Story Never Told

Chapter 13 - Divine Intervention

Being in Sing Sing sucked. I was cracked out, frail, and beaten. I needed to recover from the abuse of my body and mind. I began to rest, eat and get back to exercising. A few weeks in, I was feeling much better, I developed some degree of clarity. I didn't want to stay cooped up in my cell, so I started looking for a job. I noticed that inmates were getting into fights a lot because many of them couldn't read, and because they couldn't, they were forced to trust other inmates to read their letters to them. This set the stage for unscrupulous inmates to steal contact information allowing for them to make moves on other inmate's women via mail. I found a way to help that problem. I joined The Literacy Volunteers of America and became a tutor.

I was assigned day classes and helped other men learn how to read and write. It was rewarding to see men making progress and developing skills which enabled them to communicate with their families. There were also other tutors from the outside world who were also committed to join this literacy fight. One day while in class helping out, the head of the program introduced two new outside tutors. A young black male and a white woman in her mid-30's. After the introduction, they looked for a seat to join in. The male sat at a desk with three inmates, and the female took the seat next to me to be a part of our group. She introduced herself to the three inmates seated on the other side of my desk and then she introduced herself to me saying, 'Hi, I'm Carol.'

Carol had beautiful fair skin, a golden curly afro, and tourtise shell green eyes. All of the men in the class including the corrections officer supervising us couldn't keep their eyes off of her. She was beautiful. The day began, and we fell into the task at hand, educating the men. For the first two weeks, Carol and I fell into tutoring, monitoring progress and celebrating the men's milestones. It was great. As time went one, Carol and I began to have short side conversations, and because I'm such a clown, I'd have her laughing out loud in class. After a month, I took a major risk that could have landed me in the box. I wrote her a poem. In it was the longings of a man who had been through 1000 hells, it contained the colors of my soul, and my deepest yearnings. I folded into a little square and I secretly handed it to her under the desk. She shyly pocketed it. Then, class ended for the day. I went back to my cell and Carol went back into the world.

The following day she came back to class as though nothing had happened. We went into our routine. Moments before the class ended, I felt her knee gently bump into mines. I looked down and saw her hand go under the table, in it was a folded paper. She slid it to me and I pocketed it. As everyone was leaving I went into the bathroom and stashed the letter in my underwear praying that I wouldn't get busted or get her into any trouble. I came back out just as she was leaving, and even now, a lifetime later, I remember her turning around like a scene in a fucking movie and her eyes shimmered... Then, she was gone.

I went to my cell unsure of what the message contained. Was this her telling me not to ever write her again? Was she giving me an, I'm sorry, I'm never coming back, good luck message? I was slow in sitting down on my bed before mustering the nerve to open it. I opened it up and it was a poem answering my poem with the same depth and passion! Her desires, hopes and dreams, and the colors of her soul were equally returned. I felt like crying. I kept reading it over and over again. I had to respond. So, I put pen to paper again and poured out more of my being, speaking of my trials and tribulations, what I had become going through the crucible of life. I poured out my soul...

This developed into a mutual exchange of two people who had emptiness in their lives, who realized that they each had the same colors flowing within. During some of our conversations she revealed that she worked on Wall Street, but wanted to give back to the community so she volunteered. She told me she had a lot of friends who were lawyers and accountants and such. She was also Jewish I later found. She was a very interesting woman, with many interests. Soon, the poems transformed into love letters. Her perfume was on some of them and I'd read her words and smell her perfume until I fell alseep living for tomorrow now...

I didn't know it then, but I know it now, either God or Sally sat an angel next to me. I would have been content with what we had as I did my time at Sing Sing, but a miracle would happen. To this day I don't know how this happened to me, but it did. One morning, as I returned to my cell after the breakfast run, I closed my cell gate behind me. When I sat on my bed looking forward to class and seeing Carol an officer came to my cell and said,  'Samuels, pack it up, you're being released.' I wasn't expecting any release, I had a few more months to do ahead of me on my parole violation. But, he was serious when he said it so I packed my shit.

I was processed out and escorted to the front gate. I get emotional as I write this. That giant metal gate opened and I walked out an unexpectedly free man. As I came out the gate I heard a dog barking and Carol was holding it by the leash. She ran into my arms kissing me and hugging me and crying. Carol pulled some strings I later learned, and got me an early release. I'm teary eyed as I write this for it was the sweetest moment of my life. She took my hand and walked me to her Volvo saying, 'You're living with me. I have this all figured out, since you have a criminal record and it's gonna be hard finding a job, you're gonna work for yourself.' She took me home to her condo in White Plains New York and the love we made for hours had to be much like Marc Anthony and Cleopatra... It was epic!

The following day Carol took me to this frozen food company called Great American, where she leased a freezer truck and placed a huge order of frozen food for us to travel and sell throughout Westchester County. She helped me get a driver's license so that I could officially drive the truck so that she could return back to Wall Street. This became my life. Carol had a beautiful condo, and she was an animal lover. Her place was like a mini zoo! She had two sealpoint siamese cats, two sun conures, a grey parrot that talked, her golden retriever, and a big white cockatoo. We were like Tarzan and Jane. 

She went back to her gig while I travelled and sold frozen meats and seafood. I'd cook for her, run her bubble baths, give her massages after her busy day, and the money was just stacking up. I didnt know what to do with it. Money only had one purpose in my previous life, smoking Bazooka. Things were going extremely well, so much so that I brought Carol home to my mother. We'd go on long drives, letting the road take us any and everywhere. But, there was a flaw in our relationship. One was, I was never allowed to visit her on Wall Street. The other was the fact that her family would never accept me as a black man. She loved me despite the family issue, and loved me hard.