Apparently, Christmas cheer was not in high supply at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, and many hours (not to mention a full, and I do mean full, body search) later, I finally stepped outside the prison walls, the steel gates snapping closed behind me with a loud buzz. I shielded my eyes against the bright glare of the late-afternoon sun setting over Lower Manhattan.
Humiliation washed over me as I relived the last few hours: the sharp click of the camera as it flashed for my mug shot; the guard who forced my trembling hands down onto the fingerprint card; me begging for my one phone call to a lawyer and any information on where they were holding Adam and what he could have possibly done wrong; the feeling of my body unclenching when the door to my cell finally buzzed open and I was told I was getting released on my own recognizance.
I didn’t know all the details of Adam’s supposed crimes yet, but my lawyer was able to find out that Adam had been named in an elaborate fraud scheme that, in her words, almost put Madoff to shame. Logic and reason were both silenced by the running commentary now looping in my brain.
One voice was calm and soothing, saying all the right things to convince me that this had to be a simple misunderstanding. I mean, this was Adam we were talking about! But the other voice, the one that seemed louder, eliciting a heartier pang of guilt, was viciously repeating over and over the old adage that when something was too good to be true, it probably was. And Adam was too good. He’d always been.
My heart and my head were now locked in a fierce battle, the Adam I’d loved for six years and thought I knew better than anyone versus the stranger I saw being led from the elevator, the one who wouldn’t even look at me as he was pulled from our apartment.
My eyes welled up, stinging as the cold air bit into the moisture on my lashes, and my body grew heavy with exhaustion. The only thought I could manage to squeak in between all the warring voices in my head was getting the hell home.
I tightened my coat around myself, grateful the officer allowed me one at all in the flurry of activity as she shoved me out our apartment door. The thick wool was providing at least a bit of a barrier against the frigid chill now causing my eyes to water like a leaky faucet. I swiped my finger under my lid to catch the tears before they fell but had completely forgotten I still had black ink all over my hands from being fingerprinted.
I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the tinted glass of the prison’s security booth as I passed. My unwashed, bedraggled mop of hair was tied up by a scrunchie holding on for dear life, and now my eyes, thanks to the smudges of ink, looked like I’d gone a few rounds with Muhammad Ali. If it wasn’t so damn tragic, it would have been downright hilarious.
I walked out to the curb to survey the mostly empty street, searching desperately for the car my lawyer had arranged to meet me. But the loading lane remained empty, my car nowhere in sight. Whether the temperature was really dropping or I was just finally descending into Dante’s icy ninth circle of hell, I wasn’t exactly sure, but all I knew was that with each passing minute I was feeling less and less of my feet and working harder and harder to try to turtle myself deeper into my coat. Peeping over the lapels, I scanned the road for a cab instead. But who was I kidding: it was Christmas Day in New York City, and I was in no-man’s-land outside the federal prison. I’d never get a ride without specifically calling for one, and I knew it.
Focused on the full length of the avenue in front of me, I scoured each lane and every intersection as far as I could see for a familiar flash of a yellow cab light, but things were hopelessly desolate. I had decided to try to peer down the next block when I almost tripped over a pair of bare feet peeking out from beneath a threadbare throw and a layer of newspaper. Bare feet? In this weather? Curled in a ball on a subway steam grate was an older woman with a dirt-streaked face and rags for clothes. In spite of the clouds of hot, chemical-scented air emitting from the underground subway tunnels that she used to keep warm, she was trembling on the frost-covered sidewalk.
“Oh! So sorry, ’scuse me,” I said, managing to step over her just in time. The woman barely acknowledged the stir.
I glanced back over my shoulder at her and then up to the street, trying to figure out my next move. And finally, like a shiny beacon of hope, I spotted a taxi with its light on turning the corner in my direction. I jumped out into the street, waving my arms frantically. The car pulled over as the driver lowered his window.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
“Upper East Side?”
“No, sorry, hon. West Side stops only.”
I grabbed the door handle. “Okay, that’s fine. If you can drop me off as high on the West Side as you can, I’ll figure out how to get crosstown.”
The driver eyed me up and down suspiciously, his gaze lingering on my empty hands and disheveled appearance. “Lady, you got any money?”
Shit. “Well, not on me exactly, but I can get you however much you need once I get home. Plus a very generous tip, I promise. Orrr wait, Apple Pay? Or you can give me your Venmo or Zelle.” I reached into my pocket, grabbing for my phone to access a payment app, when my stomach plummeted like a broken elevator falling through an empty shaft.
I fumbled around in every pocket only to turn up a butterscotch candy I was sure had been rolling around in my coat since last Christmas. I didn’t have my phone. The agents had confiscated it as evidence. Dammit.
I sweetened my voice and purred, “C’mon, sir, where’s your holiday spirit? Whatever happened to helpin’ out a fellow man in need? A bit of charity and goodwill for Christmas?”
Between noticing the look of panic on my face at turning up no phone and the unappealing offer of my old, crusty butterscotch, the cabbie peeled away quicker than you could say “Bah humbug!” leaving me coughing in a cloud of the taxi’s exhaust fumes.
“Well, Merry freakin’ Christmas to you too, pal!” I shouted into the rapidly approaching darkness of the December night.
I stepped back onto the sidewalk and could see the homeless woman was now sitting upright, her whole body shaking from the cold. She reached into a tattered paper bag and pulled out a dirty sheet, doing her best to wrap herself in it for warmth.
I decided I should head back in the direction of the prison, hoping to seek some assistance there, but I was frozen in my spot—this time more figuratively than literally, even though I was still freezing my ever-lovin’ ass off. I couldn’t seem to put one foot in front of the other, the reality of my hypocrisy ringing loud and clear if I were to walk away and leave this woman out here to possibly die of exposure.
An overwhelming sense of compassion radiated through me, and though, to quote my favorite children’s book, today had been a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day,” looking at this woman now shifted everything into crystal-clear perspective. Without another thought, I slipped my wool coat from my arms.