Doc: A Memoir (24 page)

My three-month stint at HealthCare Connection—ninety days of tested sobriety—had gone well. I was settling back into my life as a husband and a father. The older kids were coming to visit again. I was glad I hadn’t gone back to work for George. He wouldn’t have liked what happened next. I was about to wash away all my progress with what I rationalized as a few harmless Budweisers.

In March 2006, Ariel, Ashley, Devin, and Darren spent a weekend with Monique, Dylan, and me. It was a blast having them all together. Driving home Sunday night after I dropped the four older kids back at their mother’s place, I started feeling sorry for myself. I knew I wouldn’t see them again for another couple of weeks. And when I did, they would soon be leaving again. They didn’t live far from me. But I hated that they were doing so much of their growing up without me.

As I thought about where my life was and what I could do about it, for some reason a can of beer sounded like the answer to me. I’d been taught to call my sponsor when I felt that way. Call someone! But I wasn’t a very good student. So I didn’t.

I pulled into a convenience store and bought a can of Bud. Just one. That was all I would be having, I convinced myself. I sat in my car in the parking lot and—
pffft!
—cracked open the can of beer. Christ, it tasted good. Cold. Crisp. Sliding down my throat so smoothly. Leaving a perfectly balanced aftertaste.

I crumpled the can, got out of my car, and walked it over to the garbage can. See, I told myself. I knew I could handle that. In fact, I handled it so well, I went right back into the store and bought another can of Bud. My tolerance was low after abstaining so long, I didn’t feel a thing after one beer. Midway through the second beer, I had nice buzz going.

The beer buzz, of course, ushered in a predictable craving. And it wasn’t for another beer.

The familiar old feelings resurfaced in the time it took me to down the second sixteen-ounce can. You could set a clock by my patterns. They’re that predictable. My defenses washed away, I put in a call to my old coke dealer, whose cell number I had conveniently forgotten to delete. He didn’t answer. I decided to buy one more beer, drink it in the parking lot, and see whether he’d call back. He didn’t.

At that point, I decided to just go home. If the dealer didn’t return my call, I’d do the right thing. I’d go inside and go to bed.

By the time I made it to my house, my dealer still hadn’t called. But the parking lot pact I’d made with myself was already losing out to weakness. So instead of going to bed, I decided to drive by his house, just to see if his car was there. If it wasn’t, then I’d go home and go to bed. That seemed like a better deal.

I drove by his house. His car wasn’t parked there. I decided to drive by one other place I knew he sometimes went to. If he wasn’t there, then I’d go home and go to bed. For real.

By the time I got there, he finally texted me. He said he’d just gotten home. So I drove back to his house and bought some coke from him. I sampled some in the car. On my way home, I picked up a couple of more beers.

When I finally walked in the door, Monique took one look at me and could see I wasn’t right. She told me so. I told her she was crazy. The argument gave me a reason to storm away and finish the rest of my coke. I stayed out all night getting high, coming back home at dawn when the coke had worn off. Now I was even more depressed than when the kids had left. Monique had already packed her bags to leave.

“I’m going back to Maryland,” she said. “I can’t have Dylan here.”

That hurt, as it was meant to.

Here I was, depressed I couldn’t have my kids with me. And Monique was taking my youngest son nine hundred miles away. Only then did I call one of my counselors from HealthCare Connection.

“I relapsed,” I said.

“That’s okay,” he told me. He actually sounded upbeat. “It’s good that you recognize the situation. Why don’t you come back in for a few days, and we’ll evaluate you and see where you’re at?”

“That’s a good idea,” I said.

In the light of day, I knew what had triggered the relapse. But I’d caught myself quickly, and I was feeling good about that. I even called my probation officer and filled her in.

Her tone was slightly different from the counselor’s. “You relapsed?” she asked. “What’s that?” I guess she thought she was being funny.

“I used drugs,” I said. “I’m going to go back into treatment though. I didn’t want to be hiding. I wanted you to know. I’m being aggressive about it.”

“What exactly did you use?”

Why the interrogation? I was coming clean with her like I was supposed to. And all she wanted were the details of my slip-up. But I told her the truth.

“Cocaine,” I said. “It’s over now. It was just a mistake.”

“Why don’t you come down here so we can talk?” the probation officer said. Now her voice sounded genuinely concerned. I don’t know why I was so trusting of her. For years, my paranoia had protected me from that kind of trap. It turned out her only real concern was catching me. One dirty test later, my conditional release was violated. I was back in the Hillsborough County Circuit Court, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, standing before Judge Daniel Perry. I knew I’d screwed up. When the judge asked if I had anything to say, I was honest.

“I have a problem, sir, with cocaine,” I said. “I had a cocaine relapse.”

But the judge didn’t seem too moved by my comments. He said I had a choice to make.

The judge could reinstate the five-year probation I’d violated.

Or I could do a year and a day in prison.

If I took the probation and I screwed up even once, my lawyer, David
Stamps, explained, I’d be looking at five years in a Florida state prison.

“But if you take the year and a day,” the lawyer said, “you won’t really do a year in jail.” He said he was confident I’d be sent to a treatment facility instead. That’s what the judge had often done in similar cases.

“The choice is yours,” the lawyer said. “Totally up to you.”

My mother was sitting in the front row of the courtroom. I turned around and looked at her. I hoped she could give me some guidance. She looked terrible.

“What do think, Mom?” I whispered. “What do you think I should do?”

“Dwight,” my mother said quietly with the flattest, saddest tone I’d ever heard in her voice, “I can’t make that decision for you.” After years of moral guidance, she sounded exhausted, spent, just through. She looked as defeated as I felt, maybe more.

I rolled it over in my head. If I took the five years’ probation, could I really stay out of trouble that long? I had never done that. There was always something derailing me before. I was living in Tampa. Wouldn’t the police find something on me? Then I’d definitely spend five years behind bars.

If I took the other option, Dave kept assuring me, I was a shoo-in for extended rehab. “The rehab might do you some good.”

I had to make a decision. The judge was waiting to hear.

“I’ll take the year and a day,” I said.

The judge looked stunned. “Did you hear me correctly?” he asked. He repeated the options.

“Yes,” I replied confidently. “I’ll take the year and a day.”

“A year and a day it is,” the judge said. “Custody of the Florida Department of Corrections.”

I turned around and looked at my mother. She was sitting perfectly upright, like she was always. But it was like the life was passing out of her, she looked so old. Right in front of my eyes, she seemed to age ten
years. If there was a bottom for me outside the graveyard, that was the bottom right there.

I wanted to go over and hug her and tell her everything would be okay. I wanted to tell her that I loved her and I wouldn’t really be locked away. I was going to get help. I’d do well in treatment. I’d get better. I’d get cured. But with a bang of the gavel, I was taken immediately from the courtroom and back to my cell.

I didn’t hear anything at all for a couple of days. The wait was taking longer than I expected. My lawyer was also waiting. But when he saw me, he said he didn’t have any news. Not yet. Then, a cop I knew was making his way through the lockup. He stopped at my cell.

“How ya doin’?” he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

“As good as can be expected,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “That was a strange decision. I guess you know what’s best.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. He didn’t seem to know the plan, how taking the sentence was really just a way of getting treatment. What did he know? “I’m going to rehab, and when I’m done, I won’t be on probation anymore. My record will be wiped clean.”

“I don’t think so,” he answered. I could tell he thought I was confused or misinformed. “I saw your file, Doc. You’re going to prison. Nobody told you that?”

I was stunned. “What?”

“You’re going to prison for a year and a day,” he said with a shrug.

“I gotta talk to my lawyer,” I told him, truly panicking for the first time. All the times I’d stepped in front of a judge up to now, they had shown such understanding. They seemed to know I wasn’t a criminal. I was an addict. Or they had stars in their eyes from my baseball career. Why would that have changed? I didn’t even want to wait for my lawyer to fix it. I was getting scared. “We’ve got to get the judge to switch this around. I want the probation!”

“That’s gonna be tough, Doc,” my cop friend explained. “You don’t
get any do-overs, my friend.” He shook his head. “I’m really sorry, Bud.”

I had to do my time. And I did.

After a few days in the county jail, I was put on a modified gray school bus with grates on the windows and driven to the Department of Corrections’ Central Florida Reception Center outside Orlando. I wouldn’t call the reception hospitable. I was a rookie again in a whole new ball game.

“You’re Gooden?” one of the guards on the intake unit said as I stood with a dozen new prisoners in a large, open room.

“Yes,” I said quietly.

“No!” the guard exploded. “It’s ‘Yes, sir,’ motherfucker!”

“Yes, sir,” I responded.

“Are you Gooden?” he asked again.

“Yes, sir,” I responded again. This could have been a joke, but I didn’t think he was joking.

“No,” he said this time. “No, you are not Gooden. You’re a number now, All-Star. You’re”—he read from a clipboard—“DOC number T47272. That’s who you are. You’re a number now.”

I looked at the floor and nodded. I could hear the footsteps and shackles of new prisoners joining us. No one else was saying anything. I wasn’t looking for trouble.

“You were a Yankee,” he said. “Right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fucking Steinbrenner,” the guard sneered. “I can’t believe he gave a sack of shit like you a chance.”

I didn’t respond.

“Steinbrenner’s a fucking loser, just like you, right?”

“No,” I said. I quickly corrected myself. “No, sir. He’s an all-right guy.”

“No, he’s a loser,” the guard corrected me. “Tell me he’s a loser.”

There was no way to win this game. I wasn’t saying anything more.

“Helloooo?” the guard pressed on. “Come on, prisoner. Steinbrenner’s a bad guy, right?”

I lowered my eyes and kept my mouth shut. That seemed to agitate him even more. The other prisoners were shifting on their feet. I noticed a couple shaking their heads.

“I can’t hear you. You can’t fucking talk, now? You mute? Tell me Steinbrenner’s a bad guy. It’s the truth, right?”

He had everyone’s attention now. He had shown he wasn’t taking any attitude from any of us. Especially me, it seemed. “Look at me when I am talking to you,” he said.

Just then, a second guard, oblivious to the grilling, materialized. He began calling out numbers of prisoners, sending us one by one to other school buses and, blessedly, away from reception. Next stop for me: the Florida State Prison at Lake Butler. I spent fifteen days at Lake Butler and the rest of the my time at the Gainesville Correctional Institution.

Lake Butler was a maximum-security facility. It had its own death row. Lake Butler had fights and gangs and some scary, violent inmates. These guards had seen it all. But this was where my addiction had taken me.

I tried to follow the advice that I heard. I didn’t join in any teams in prison, not even something as innocuous as softball. I didn’t lend anyone money. I didn’t react at all when a short, muscular guard tried to frighten us like a scene from
Scared Straight!

“Make no mistake,” he shouted at the fresh fish. “There’s no guarantee you’ll even make it out of here! And I ain’t talkin’ about the length of your sentence. The reality is some of you will not make it outta here alive.” I felt pretty safe in my eight-by-eight-foot cell, where I was locked up day and night. But I was cut off from everyone. I couldn’t go to the rec yard. I couldn’t call my lawyer. I had no way of knowing how my kids or my mom were. Suddenly, the Hillsborough County Jail wasn’t looking so awful. My cell had no clock and no windows. I could only guess what time it was by the meals being served. I had nothing to
read. It was just men, the walls, my bed, a steel toilet, and my thoughts, twenty-four hours a day. I did sit-ups and push-ups to wear myself out. I tried to sleep as much as I could.

I thought if I just kept to myself, I would be left alone. Wrong. Four guards showed up at my cell and stood there together, berating me. “You’re a loser.… You fucked up.… Look at you.… Pathetic.” I felt like a member of the visiting team again at Fenway or Wrigley. They went on like that for a good long while until, I guess, they finally just got bored. Then, twenty minutes later, one of them returned with a manila envelope. He pulled out a stack of photos and baseball cards. “I’m a big fan,” he said. “If it’s not too much trouble, do you think I could get you to autograph some stuff? Sorry about that thing before.”

I was relieved when they sent me to Gainesville. The environment there was different from Lake Butler, in a good way. Gainesville was a minimum-security facility, specializing in drug rehabilitation. We lived in open, seventy-two-man dorms that resembled an army barracks with double-decker bunk beds.

It wasn’t quite Smithers or Betty Ford—or even Narcotics Anonymous in St. Petersburg. But at least they were trying, and the counselors seemed to care. We spent six days a week in group meetings, talking about our problems, getting called on our bullshit, revealing ourselves. It was a regimented program with lots of rules. I was impressed this was happening in prison. This was at least a little closer to the deal I thought I was making in court that day.