American Outlaw - Jesse James [145]
I heard from Sandy, too. But it wasn’t good news. She would be divorcing me. I was devastated, of course, especially since I felt that I was making so much progress. But in spite of it hurting, I stayed focused on getting better. I had to persevere and fix what was broken.
Somewhere around the midpoint of my time at Sierra Tucson, I assumed a kind of informal leadership role. It wasn’t anything that I’d planned on doing, but as I grew more comfortable, I just naturally started to step up. Our general lodge meetings after dinner were often pretty chaotic and disorganized, so I decided to take control of them, reading the minutes, organizing the agenda, telling funny stories to get the ball rolling.
“Okay, you guys, I don’t have the crazy drug stories that most of you do, but damn, I want to tell you about something even worse: it’s called working for Donald Trump . . .”
My whole life, I’d been a leader, from captaining football teams to running a business with more than a hundred employees. I just couldn’t not step up and take charge.
It was great, too. People really appreciated my go-to attitude, and the more I saw I could help people out a little bit by cheering them up, the more I wanted to do that. There were people there who were so wadded up, it looked like they hadn’t smiled in about five years. My heart went out to them. I considered it a personal challenge and responsibility to get them out of their shell a little bit.
“Hey, how’s it going?” That was all it took, sometimes. “Hey, can I give you a hug?” There was one woman there who’d seen all her kids die in a car accident. She’d done every kind of self-medicating known to man, and she just looked crushed, wrinkled. The day I got her to grin, to finally engage in a real conversation with me, that felt as good to me as winning a race. Better.
I was figuring out that I had the power to help people. Not just to hire them, or sell bikes to them, but to really be part of their healing. And on the other side of that coin, I was seeing that I needed people, too. It might sound kind of contrived or whatever, but for the first time in my life, I was beginning to see that, sometimes, I needed to ask for what I wanted.
“With Sandy, or Janine, or Karla,” I told Dr. Thomas, “I’d want to be touched, or taken care of sometimes, but I’d never say it out loud.”
“And? What would happen?”
“I’d get all pissed,” I said. “I’d resent them for not being able to read my mind, and that’d lead me to go off and do whatever.”
Finally, I was starting to get it: fuck, if you want affection, you gotta tell her. I vowed that the next time I had a relationship, I’d do better at asking for what I needed.
I didn’t feel fixed. I don’t think letting go of your past can really happen in a month. I’d gained valuable insight, that was for sure. But none of it was going to alter the fact that I had run my life like an abused kid for so long. My entire adult life, my attitude had been, hey, if you’ve wronged me, then I’m gonna break your jaw. You can sue me, but you’re going to do it with a broken jaw . . .
Everything was going to have to change when I got out. I knew that. And the fact was, I was going to have to deal with the paparazzi circus all over again. On my morning walks, I gradually began to see more and more cars parked on the road outside the gates. They had found me, and they would be waiting for me when I got out.
And as my release date loomed closer and closer, I started to get a little frightened of the future.
“I feel safe here,” I said. “I like everyone. They like me. I feel valued.”
“Well, your real challenge, Jesse,” Dr. Thomas said, “is to take that feeling out into the world. You’re going to have to keep in mind just why the people here seem to like you so much.”
“I’m . . . scared to do that,” I admitted. “I’ve always kind of