A Life Wasted

The Next Arrest

As is the case with some of the "between event" times, I'm not real clear on what led up to what I'm about to describe. I am sure that we had been in a constant financial struggle since our return from Alaska. I couldn't find work, no matter how hard I tried. The two years that we were in Alaska had been enough to break all of my contacts and to my surprise, much had changed in the computer world in those two years. Not too much had changed that I couldn't do a programming job and figure the new stuff out as I went, but I was behind enough that it showed as I attempted to pick up a contract. It also showed that I was desperate, and I grew more desperate by the day. It didn't help that I was attempting to sell my executive recruiter software as my potential customers were pros at reading a person. I may have been able to hide the old pickup truck I was driving from their view, maybe I was even able to hide the fact that I was sleeping in the old truck and showering and shaving at truck stops before our meeting, but I am sure I couldn't hide my desperation from them.

You might by a car or house from someone desperate to sell it, but no one was going to buy a custom written software package from someone desperate to sell it. The software required a long term commitment. It required the customer's trust in me. For the first time in my life I was unable to gain that trust. I had never been so desperate, which I know these professionals could read, so I didn't make a single sale.

As I said, I can't remember a lot about what happened during this time other than driving to demos in that old truck and attempting to do demos to the sharpest group of people I'd ever dealt with. I remember driving the truck, being tired, dirty, hungry and miserable from sleeping in the cab. I remember cleaning up in truck stop bath rooms and trying to make my only suit look presentable. I remember the potential customer's reaction to my having to load my software on their computer to show it to them. I had a story about why I preferred to use their computer, but I am sure they all knew it was because I was so broke I didn't have my own. This tactic might have worked in another industry, but not with executive recruiters. These people are professionals at reading people. I am sure my body language reeked as bad as my truck smelled.

It was during this time that I made a terrible mistake and was arrested for robbery. If you've been paying attention I don't make excuses for my actions. I believe in taking responsibility for what I did, so I don't make excuses. In what I am about to describe I am going to set a scene that will sound suspiciously like I am making an excuse for what I did. In my mind I am "setting the stage" by explaining the circumstances surrounding the event. You'll have to decide if I'm making an excuse or not.

Things at home were bad. We still lived in the house in Blue Ridge. We didn't feel safe there after someone attempted to kidnap Kelly, but we were flat broke and unable to move. Mary was scared to let the kids play in the yard or to leave them alone for a minute. She hated the idea of spending another night in Blue Ridge for fear of something horrific happening to one of our children. If you've learned anything about my wife, you should know she is a seriously protective mama bear. Mary made clear to me that we had to leave Blue Ridge, but she was careful not to push me too hard on this issue. My wife knew me very well by this point. She knew that if I believed our family was in danger I would do anything to protect them. Mary understood that for me, "anything" meant more than it did for most men. My wife knew too well that I was perfectly capable and willing to break the law if I believed it was necessary. So in her effort to keep me from doing something illegal, she attempted to down play things around me. She tried to act like she would be fine until we could afford to move. But I knew better. She was terrified for our children and so was I.

As I traveled to demos I managed to set on the phone, the pressure of moving my family weighed heavily on me. As anyone reading this story will have figured out by now I was ready to do something illegal to get the money to do so. I thought about what I could do, even scoped a few things out as I went about my failed efforts to sell software. A few times I was very tempted to do something, but I always changed my mind. It's difficult to explain why I didn't do something right away because I am not real clear on the reason myself. I didn't want to do something illegal for several reasons, but the biggest was that I didn't want to let Mary and my children down again. I just didn't think I could face Mary from behind bars another time. I even reasoned out that as little good as I was doing them now, I'd be doing even less for them in prison. Plus, to a lesser extent, I didn't want to commit a crime because it was wrong.

This might have been the first time in my life that I actually thought things through. It is the first time I'd considered the consequences on my family and it was the first time I'd considered that stealing something was wrong. I recall thinking that I wasn't going to commit a crime because it was wrong, and that I wouldn't do that ever again. Mary would say that this was God healing me, and perhaps it was. At the time I just thought I was beginning to mature and accept the responsibility of being a husband and father. After all I was thirty-five years old, had been married for fifteen years and had eight children. It was about time I grew up.

It was during this time that Larry McDivette died. We received a call from his wife Linda at night. Larry had died of a heart attack. It didn't seem possible that Larry could die. He'd been my pastor and the only man outside of family I considered a friend. Larry had moved to Alaska after we did and there his family experienced the tragic death of their youngest daughter in a traffic accident, and now Larry had died. His death hit me hard, and it tore me up that I couldn't afford to fly to Anchorage to be with his family.

It was under this setting that I screwed up. The excuse that I mentioned earlier is that I was sleep deprived and utterly exhausted. Where it not for those two factors and the back-drop of the financial pressure, I never would have done the stupid thing that landed me back in prison.

I don't recall if I was going our coming or where I was headed. It really is all a blur. What I recall is that I had slept on my old pickup truck's bench seat for more days than I could remember and that I'd been forgoing food to put gas in the thing. I'd driven most of the night then in the early morning hours, when I could no longer stay awake to drive, I parked in a truck stop parking lot and slept in short fits of restfulness. I woke early, dirty, tired, and hungry. To top all that off I had a killer headache which was likely from too much coffee the night before.

With my shaving kit in hand I went into the truck stop and followed the signs to the trucker's lounge. Walking down a hallway towards the showers I noticed an open door to my right, in it a desk and on the desk stacks of cash. The cash drew my attention, but what really caught my interest was that no one was in the room. Acting without thought I entered the room and started stashing the piles of cash in my open shaving kit. In the middle of this a woman entered the room through an adjoining door and asked me what I was doing. I turned and ran and heard her shouting for someone to stop me. Not a good thing to have a woman shouting about you in a truck stop.

I managed to get out of the truck stop without getting beat up, but had gone through a door leading away from my truck. I kept running until I was out of the truck stop and into a wooded area. For the time I got away. I probably would have got away completely except I really wasn't' thinking right. The adrenalin rush of what had happened made me alert for about ten minutes, then when I came off it I was more exhausted than I was before. Roughly two hours later I came out of the woods and walked into an old junkyard. A deputy sheriff was in the parking lot asking around about a stranger on foot when he spotted me. I was arrested and it started all over again.