Orange Is the New Black

adolescent fascination with the underbelly of society, my involvement in international drug trafficking, or my impending incarceration.
    By now more than five years had passed since I had been indicted. Larry thought it was important to tell his parents what was happening. We decided to practice on some other people, a tactic Larry described as “tell the truth and run.” Reactions were pretty consistent—our friends would laugh uproariously, then have to be persuaded of the truth, then be horrified and worried for me. Despite our friends’ responses, I was deeply frightened that my luck would run out with my future in-laws.
    Larry called his parents and told them there was something important we needed to discuss with them in person. We drove down on an August evening, arrived late, and ate a classic summer dinner—steak, corn on the cob, big juicy Jersey tomatoes, delicious peach cobbler. Larry and I sat opposite each other at their kitchen table. Carol and Lou looked far more than nervous but not quite terrified. I think they assumed it was about me and not about Larry. Finally Larry said, “Bad news, but it’s not cancer.”
    The story spilled out of me, with interruptions from Larry, not entirely coherent, but at least it was out, like a splinter.
    Carol was sitting next to me and she took my hand, squeezed it hard, and said, “You were young!”
    Lou tried to organize this radical new information in his head by switching into lawyer mode, asking about my indictment, my lawyer, the court in question, and what he could do to help. And was I a heroin addict?
    The beautiful irony of Larry’s family was that when something minor was amiss, it was as if the
Titanic
were going down, but when a real disaster struck, they were the people you wanted in your life raft. I had expected an explosion of recrimination and rejection and instead got a big hug.
    U LTIMATELY B RITAIN declined to extradite the kingpin Alaji to America and instead set him free. My lawyer explained that as a Nigerian, he was a citizen of the British Commonwealth and enjoyed certain protections under British law. A little bit of Web research revealed that he was a wealthy and powerful businessman-gangster in Africa, and I could certainly imagine that he might have connections that could make pesky things like extradition treaties go away.
    Finally, the U.S. Attorney in Chicago was willing to move forward with my case. To prepare for my sentencing, I wrote a personal statement to the court and broke my silence with more friends and coworkers, asking them to write letters vouching for my character and asking the judge for leniency. It was an incredibly humbling and difficult experience to approach people Ihad known for years, confess my situation, and ask for their help. Their collective response was devastating; I had steeled myself for rejection, knowing that it would be perfectly reasonable for someone to decline on any number of grounds. Instead, I was overwhelmed by kindness and concern and cried over every letter, whether it described my childhood, my friendships, or my work ethic. Each person strived to convey what they thought was important and great about me, which flew in the face of how I felt: profoundly unworthy.
    One of my dearest friends from college, Kate, wrote this to the judge:
    I believe that her decision to enter into criminal activity was partially motivated by a sense that she was alone in the world and had to look out for herself. Since the time that she made those decisions, her relationships with others have changedand deepened. I believe that she now knows that her life is entwined with those of people who love her…
    Finally my sentencing date drew near. While the cliché “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” had been echoing in my brain over the almost six years of waiting, I had to consider the truth it offers, like most hoary, oft-repeated ideas. I had dealt myself the cards of deceit, exposure, shame, near-bankruptcy, and self-imposed isolation. It was a pretty crappy hand to try to play. And yet somehow I was not alone at this stage of the game. My family, my friends, my coworkers—these good people had all refused to abandon me despite my rotten, wild, reckless behavior all those years ago and my I-am-an-island-fortress method of dealing with my problems. Maybe, because all these good people loved me enough to help me, maybe I wasn’t quite as bad as I felt. Maybe there was a part of me that was