Miracles: rare, fine, and everyday
by Rob Kaniuk
Dedicated to Thomas Macaluso
Walking into Macaluso’s Rare and Fine Books, I was immediately hit with the musk of ancient paper. It smelled like a typewriter. I remembered Howard Carter’s words when he peeked into Tut’s tomb, “I see wonderful things.”
“Good afternoon, have you been here before?” The old man spoke gently, as if talking to a mouse that wandered into his workshop.
“No, first time here.” I was clinging to new-found sobriety, six months clean. I hadn’t been in a bookstore in nearly a decade.
“Welcome, my name is Thomas. We have some things on sale, we have some that aren’t. I won’t bother you while you look, but please ask if I can help you find something.”
He had white hair pulled back into a neat ponytail. Curiosity and kindness were fixed into deep lines on his face. Wiry tufts erupted from the ridge of his brow. What he didn't have room for there poked out of his ears. The last of the founding fathers, running a bookstore.
“I’m looking for Whitman,” I said.
“Whitman, yes, we have Whitman,” he said with a smile. “Most folks in Philadelphia nowadays think Walt Whitman is just an ugly bridge that costs them five dollars to get home from Jersey.” And with a glint in his eye, a secret to share, he walked over to an antique glass case. “Here we have a very rare, Deathbed Edition of Leaves of Grass. Whitman was forever revising what was already a finished masterpiece, all the way up to his death. Damn poets insist on ruining their work with revisions.”
The old man went on to give history of Whitman’s time in Camden and subsequent death. I could have listened to him all day but he yielded the floor to me with a look above the spectacles clinging to the edge of his nose that said, ‘I'm done. Now how can I help you?’
“That's a beautiful book, and I hope to be a collector some day, but today I’m looking for something that wouldn’t mind being tossed in the backseat and brought to the river with me. Something that won't mind being read often.”
“All books are meant to be read. But I think I know what you’re looking for. Right this way.”
I followed him across the heaving floors, around the stacks, to a nook at the bottom of a staircase. A handwritten sign, Poetry.
“Less costly, with a history all its own,” he said as he searched the rack with hand and eye. “Ah, here it is. Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman, a reprint of the original, unrevised edition.”
He took it from the shelf, opened and inspected it.
“We acquired this copy from the estate of famed historian Philip Curtain. Complete with his notes in the margins. Still, don't toss it, but place it in the backseat if you must.”
My worn copy of ‘Leaves’ came everywhere with me for the next few months. I had just gotten over a ten year love-affair with opiods and needed to keep my head occupied. Walt helped with that. He spoke to me like few others had. Walt was Bob Dylan 110 years before the songwriter took the stage and shocked the Folk scene with the electrified Maggie’s Farm. Walt Whitman was unlike anything I’d ever read.
“I sailed through the storm, I was refreshed by the storm.” Lines like these spoke directly to me. They helped me to stay clean for the first time in my life.
In recovery it is said we need to get a day, just one day clean: today. To get that day, we need to surrender to our addiction and admit defeat. When we give up fighting, we can get help. Only when we are beaten can we recover. In Song of Myself (18), Whitman says:
With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums,
I play not for accepted victors only, I play marches
For conquer’d and slain persons.
Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?
I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit
In which they are won.
Vivas to those who have fail’d!
And those whose war-vessels sank in the sea!
And to those themselves who sank in the sea!
I took this to mean it was okay to celebrate my defeat and use it as a stepping stone for my recovery. I could be proud of one day. And that my powerlessness was nothing to be ashamed of.
Whitman allowed me to interpret his language from 1855 to a language I was just learning: recovery, staying clean, spiritual principles. Whitman spoke in universal truths. As he did, again, in Song of myself, “I exist as I am, that is enough.” It made sense. I always thought I needed to be something else, someone else; or, only with the help of a chemical would I have the confidence to engage the world. Whitman comforted me when I was scared I would go back to drugs and lose everything.
I couldn't call some of my oldest friends to discuss these matters. Scotty and James were still using hard at the time. Jordan didn’t understand that I had to stop, why I couldn’t just have a few drinks, smoke a joint now and then. Even my family couldn’t understand the pain of feeling alone in a room full of loved ones at Thanksgiving dinner. Some of my other friends weren’t as lucky. They didn’t make it out alive. I could always count on Walt. He always answered my calls. “I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,… I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, but I shall be good health to you nevertheless, and filter and fiber your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.” He understood my doubts, my loneliness, my grief, my contradictions, my multitudes. He put words on paper, all those years before, for me. He was under my boot-soles. Walt Whitman stopped at a little bookstore in Kennett Square, nestled in amongst the maps and lithographs, with Sandburg and Emerson, and waited for me.
My best friend, Jeremy, was in prison when I found Whitman. I mailed him a copy of ‘Leaves.’ We would send letters back and forth about our favorite lines, compare notes. His favorite line was ‘My slow, rude muscle’ - Jeremy could find a dick joke anywhere. Walt allowed him to escape the walls, find peace, for a few moments every day.
A letter from Jeremy I found inside my copy of ‘Leaves’ while writing this essay said:
2-29-12
Brother,
By the time you get this, you’ll be home from Arizona. I love the postcard, man. All the Tombstone boys used to frequent The Palace Saloon? That kind of stuff is right up your alley. I miss you so bad and it hurts worse knowing you had to go back behind bars. I wish I could have done that time for you. So, I’ve been reading a lot of Walt lately. My new fave is ‘The Body Electric.’ He sure does have a way with words. Some people in here don't get his poems, but I do. I may have to read them a few times but that ain’t the point. Ya know, to marinate on a certain line or part of the poem? I find myself getting lost in his writing sometimes. As much as I want to take this book home with me in a few months, you’re right, it has to stay here. I can get another copy when I get out. Somebody in here might need this someday. Thanks so much for the books, brother!
ONLY 8 MORE MONTHS AND I’LL BE HOME!!
Give the girls a big ‘ol hug for me. Write back.
-Love, your brother, Jerm
P.S. Send some more pics of us fishing at Longwood. I know you have some laying around.
**************
I stayed clean, but I still had to pay for my misdeeds. A few months after discovering Whitman, I had to travel back to Arizona from Philly just to go to jail. I had violated my probation sentence from a few years back. My punishment for violating probation was to do fifteen days in Yavapai County Jail, the original location of my arrest in 2008. I’d fly myself back to Phoenix, hire a car to take me 90 miles to Prescott, then report to jail.
From the bench where I was sitting, the Yavapai County courthouse looked familiar. Not just because I had been there before–observing early municipal architecture isn’t exactly your top priority when you’re shackled at the hands and feet, coming down from Oxycontin with felonies pending. This visit was different. I was clean. My eyes were open. Something felt familiar about the structure that just I couldn't reach.
I called for the car service to pick me up from the easiest landmark I knew, the courthouse. Then I called my sponsor before my ride to jail.
“Yo, Rob. How you doin, you nervous?”
“You know, Art, I’m not. I might be once I get there, but right now I’m just ready to get it over with.”
“Okay–that’s good. I mean, you’re doing the right thing and I’m proud of you for going into this with a positive attitude.”
“I’m tired, ya know? I can’t run anymore. It’s just easier this way.”
Art said some more things about prayer and never being alone, things an NA sponsor would say but I wasn’t into the God thing, so I shut off. I waited for him to finish his spiel while I stared at the courthouse. The lean marble stairs. The stoic columns. The clock. That was it, the clock.
“Marty McFly, 1.21 gigawatts, 88 miles an hour!” I blurted.
“What in the hell are you talking about, Rob? Are you even listening?”
“Sorry, Art. I been trying to figure out why the courthouse here looks so familiar. It reminds me of the clocktower in ‘Back To The Future.’”
“Well, did they save the clock?”
“Yea, they saved it––Hey, listen, I gotta make another call. Thanks for everything. I couldn't have done this without you. I’ll give you a shout in about two weeks.”
“Two weeks–piece of cake, Rob. You got this.”
“Piece of cake. Thanks, Art.”
My final call was to my wife, Betty. My years of abusing prescription opioids and lying about it had turned her reserved, Midwestern tendencies into pure, East-coast skepticism. Four years prior to the call I was about to make, I was arrested only hours into our cross-country honeymoon trip that was meant to take us from California to our home in Philadelphia. She was Tammy Wynette to my George Jones. She stood by her man, and cried the whole time. I’m lucky she wasn’t singing Tammy’s other song, ‘D-I-V-O-R-C-E.’ After my sentence was given of five years probation, for smuggling 308 grams of hash over state lines with intent to distribute, I learned to cheat the monthly drug tests while I kept getting high. Suspicion of my using and the looming stress of my re-arrest had given Betty streaks of gray in her once auburn hair. She was thin when we met but worry made her skinny. The sweet young lady with an appetite for chicken pot pie and pierogies was now drinking ensure to keep her weight above 115 lbs.
I was finally re-arrested and only then was Betty able to sleep at night, knowing I was safe. She had become an unwilling participant to the legal ins and outs of Pennsylvania State Probation and Parole, lawyers and bail bondsmen, rehab facilities and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. My girl with the innocent, trusting eyes, little ears that flopped outward at the top, was now jaded, stoic. Her father worked as a carpenter at the state prison in her hometown, Jacksonville, IL and now her husband, a carpenter, was an inmate at another facility. I promised her that I’d get help, and I did. Rehab, meetings, work everyday. I got better and so did she. The trust would have to be rebuilt along the way. Going through with this punishment would be a big step toward earning it back.
“Hey, hon. How is it there?”
“Not as bad as I remember it. It’s actually pretty nice.”
“You didn't really set the bar high on your last visit.”
“No, you're absolutely right, I did not.”
“What time are you due?”
“Three o’clock. I'm waiting on the limo to pick me up.”
“Funny.”
“You gonna write me a letter for my birthday?”
“I can, I guess.”
“I won't have any good books in there–you wanna copy me something from Leaves? Something short.”
“Am I supposed to know what that is?”
“Whitman, babe. Leaves of Grass. You don't have to, but it’d be nice having a line to read when I can't take the Philistine conversation any longer.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Thanks, babe. I’ll call you in 15 days if you're not remarried by then.”
“Trust me, I would've left your ass by now if I was going to.”
“I know.”
“I’m just waiting for the right man to sweep me up.”
“He’ll be back in a couple weeks. So much.”
“So much more, ya jerk.”
I lit another cigarette and waited for my ride. A desert-worn minivan pulled up with a Branch-Davidian at the helm. I got in. No smoking sticker on the dash. I tossed my cigarette out. No radio. Biblical quotations abounded. I couldn't wait to get to jail.
*************
I walked through the beige doors of Yavapai County Detention Center with an overnight bag and followed the signs to Booking. A man was sitting behind fireproof glass that was papered with instructions: “No Cell Phones; All Visitors Subject To Search Of PROPERTY and PERSON.” Bald dome but for a few wispy strands floating about. A body that wouldn't pass the physical standards test he took to get the job. And the expression of a man that has played thousands of games of solitaire with an incomplete deck of cards. He looked like the embodiment of middle-aged defeat.
“How can I do you for?”
This moron, I thought, couldn't even butcher that line correctly.
“I'm here to turn myself in.”
That seemed to cheer him up.
“Name?”
“Kaniuk. K-A-N-I––”
“Whoa whoa–slow down, soldier. What kind of name is that?”
“Kaniuk, it's a surname, sir.”
“Surna––just spell your last name, please.”
I said it loud and slow as he searched for each letter on the keyboard then pecked it with a single digit, “K-A-N-I-U-K.”
“Nothing here. You're not on my list.”
“Well, sir, I’m not leaving until the judge learns I spent 15 days in a cell.”
“I been doing this for a while and– hang on a minute, let me get my boss.” The swivel-chair let out a death cry as he leaned back to yell around the doorway. “Hey Sarge, get over here. You gotta hear this!”
Sarge was a rare specimen of a woman. She looked like her day job was scaring middle school children into doing calisthenics––the love child of Joan Lunden and R. Lee Ermey.
“What’s up?” she barked.
“This guy said he’s here to turn himself in. He ain’t in the system––and he ain’t leaving until he does fifteen days, he says.”
“You here on a violation?” like she knew.
“Yea, they told me to report today no later than 3pm.”
“Okay, you’re on time, let’s see.” She checked the computer to see if Softbody misspelled my name.
“I called ahead and spoke to my supervising officer. She assured me that this was non-negotiable. Here’s the paperwork.”
“Well, you seem prepared. We don't get that a lot here.” She read the paperwork and confirmed the date and location were correct. “Let’s get you booked, then, Robert.”
The clattering buzz of a jailhouse door being unlocked made me cringe. My fifteen days were about to start. I walked through to fill out paperwork and hand over my personals. Sarge did a double-take.
“Woah, did you pack a bag for jail? This ain’t the Ramada, kid. We can't receive personals that large. It’ll have to be shipped to Flagstaff for storage.”
“What do you mean, Flagstaff? I flew here from Philly and had to spend a night in a hotel. When I'm released I’ll have another day to kill in Phoenix before my flight home. I had to pack a bag.”
“You flew all the way here to do 15 days? What’s the point? Why not do it there?”
“I tried. Judge said it had to be here.”
She turned and mumbled to Softbody, “Fucking judges––”
“Listen, at this point, I showed up to do 15 days–and I had to convince you of that. I’m not even in your system and you're allowing me to, essentially, do a sentence of my own choosing. You can let me go home and just tell the judge I was here the whole time. I won’t tell a soul.”
“No, I think we’ll just keep you for a while. I like you. We’ll find a spot for that bag.”
I was happy it wasn't going to Flag. Delta Airlines had lost bags for weeks that were on the same plane as me and I had significantly less confidence in Yavapai County Corrections than I did Delta.
I went through another door and did the butt-naked, squat and cough routine as Fatty averted his eyes. I felt cheated on my embarrassment–he didn't even bother to inspect my undercarriage. I could’ve had a carton of Newports duct taped to my grundle.
I changed into my orange prison issue and went through the rest of my intake information. Name, aliases, birth date, SSN, health, criminal history, tattoos, scars, sexual orientation. Sarge came back in with a plate of jail food.
“Looks like shmeat-loaf and potatoes tonight.”
“Sarge, he's going to be celebrating his birthday with us in a few days.”
“Yeah, be sure to stop by for the cake and ice cream,” I said as I pushed the plate of food away, “I think I’ll pass tonight.”
“You sure?” Softbody asked as he slid the plate closer to him for inspection. “Twelve hours ‘til breakfast.”
“Yeah, I had a giant T-bone with mashed potatoes and green beans at Palace Saloon right before I came in.”
“I guess that's one advantage of turning yourself in,” said Sarge.
“Last chance,” the intake officer said. “This is the best thing they serve here.”
“All you. Enjoy.”
He did. I was making friends fast. I wouldn’t mind spending my term with these two, but I was off to the cell block.
**************
Jail sucks. Anybody with any experience will tell you it’s even worse than prison. It’s like the Minor League of corrections facilities. Those who know they’re being called up to the big time, state prison, do as much posturing as they can in jail so that they’re well known to be a bad-ass when they get there. There are also rookies, fresh outta high school. They have something to prove or don't have a clue that they shouldn’t trust the veterans, both equally dangerous positions. The mixed group is a predator-rich environment that is totally unpredictable. In jail, you're either waiting for bail, a verdict, sentencing, serving a short sentence (up to eleven months), or waiting to be sent to the majors. I was none of these. The most dangerous time in jail is your first two weeks and your last two weeks. Virtually my entire stay fell into both of those danger zones. I had to become invisible, fast.
“Fresh meat, boys!”
Those are the first words I heard when I entered the block. I couldn't fight to save my life, but I knew I had to see who had said it and remember their face.
Every action, every word, is calculated in lockup. That's why they’re so damn good at chess. Everyone saw me look at him when he called me fresh meat. Now it was my move and they waited to see where I’d take it. One thing I couldn't do was hide in my cell. That it would be interpreted as fear. Fear is bad news. I didn't want to start a fight by confronting anyone. I wasn’t naive enough to walk over and introduce myself. Instead, I just walked over and sat near the guy who had called me out. By sitting near the guy, it looked like I wasn’t afraid.
“New guy, what’s your name?”
“Rob.”
“Okay, Rob. I’m Alex. East Coast?”
Alex was a lean, muscular twenty-something with tattoos creeping out of the neck of his shirt. He spoke with crisp enunciation and a far-north, almost Canadian accent. He looked Native American so I gave my best guess.
“Yeah, Philly. How about you, South Dakota?”
“Damn, Rob! Close but nah, Michigan. About earlier– fresh meat and all– I gotta test you, ya know?”
I wanted to tell him to use a better line next time, that ‘Fresh meat’ was hack. But I thought better of it.
“All good. I get it.”
“Cool, let me know if you need anything. Commissary forms are due in an hour. Fill one out or you gonna wait a week.”
“Damn, thanks for the heads up.”
Alex went to his cell and grabbed an extra form and I filled it out. Ramen noodles, sticky buns, Cheetos, Doritos, and more Ramen noodles because, forget cash, that is the real currency behind bars.
In the following days, I met a few decent people and found a nice groove. Nobody could believe I came back for a two week sentence, but most had been on the run long enough to respect the decision.
“It’s not like turning yourself in for fifteen years–I’d seriously question you on that one, Rob. Two weeks ain’t shit. I’d do the same thing for some peace with the bulls,” said The Poet.
His actual name was Frasier but he hated it. I went along with the nickname. He wasn't called Poet because he could quote the classics. According to him, his gang named him that because he ‘had a way with words.’ I’m fairly certain he named himself Poet after watching too much Oz on HBO.
Poet was from Fresno and he wanted everyone to know it. He remained shirtless between meals and headcounts so he could advertise the giant Fresno Bulldogs tattoo on his chest. I found it odd for a primarily Latino gang to have Poet, a fair-skinned Ginger, in their fold. I’m sure that was another reason he was so proud of it. And another reason he scared the shit out of me.
After day five, I was crowned Jeopardy champion. There was no fanfare, it was just stated as fact by Alex. Poet agreed. They agreed, so naturally, everyone else agreed with them. The next day there was a new guy who was answering faster than I could. This made Alex mad as hell.
“Yo Professor, you think you smart or something? C’mon, Rob! You gonna let this guy school you?”
“Uh, I’m a teacher, not a professor.”
“Oh, you a fucking teacher!?”
Alex popped up from the metal bench and took his shirt off, his entire chest and back washed in prison tattoos.
“Yea, what did I do wrong? Chill, dude.”
This made Alex go berserk.
“Chill? Who the fuck you telling to chill? You in here for touching little boys? What else would a fucking teacher be in here for?”
“No––What!? No––I got a D.U.I. I’m–I’m not looking for a problem–sorry––I just answered a few Jeopardy questions. I don’t understand.” His air of superiority melted into a quivering mass of cowardice in seconds.
Poet got up to settle Alex down. Thank God, because nobody else was moving a muscle.
“Alex, it's all good, bro. At least wait ‘til after your sentencing to bust this Cho-Mo’s face in.”
“He’s still lookin––You still looking at me, faggot? I’ll kill you, motherfucker!”Alex’s voice was cracking like he was on the verge of tears.
Poet walked him to his cell and told the teacher to “look away before I let him go and you catch a beating!”
A total meltdown over me being dethroned as the resident scholar. I was both flattered and scared shitless at his irrational display. I felt bad for the guy. One second he’s flexing his intelligence, mopping the floor with us in Jeopardy, the next he's fearing for the teeth in his mouth, maybe for his life.
The main door to the cell-block opened and a guard walked in.
“Mail-call! Listen up when I call your name, boys. Hinkle, VanHorn, Ramsey, Kaniuk, Kaniuk, Kaniuk, Kaniuk, Kan––Jesus Christ, Kaniuk, you got–four, five–six letters here.”
The whole block, in a semicircle around the guard, started grumbling at me, “This mother–.”
The guard wasn’t done, though.
“And this one says, ‘happy birthday, Robbie.’ How cute.”
The whole cell-block let out a simultaneous “awwwwww.” Not what I wanted, but still a welcome break from the insanity.
Alex came out of his cell, cooled off a little by now. He called for birthday punches: thirty from each inmate in honor of my thirtieth birthday. Poet argued for pushups: number of letters I received multiplied by my age. I’m sure the new Jeopardy champ had the math all figured out but he wasn’t saying a word.
Everyone, including the guard, laughed and let me receive the mail without payment.
I was embarrassed to get all of my mail in the day-room. Receiving that many letters halfway through a 15 day sentence when some of the guys in there hadn't gotten any mail for months, years, ever… it made me feel like an asshole. Like I deserved birthday punches from all of them. But when I got to my bunk to read the letters, I was proud to have people in my life. People that cared.
One letter from my sister. One from a friend, Jesse, of which I only got the envelope because Jesse had written in something other than black ink, blue ink, or pencil. I found out later that it was printed from a computer–not permitted according to the correspondence guidelines. Two letters came from my friends in the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous. They had taken the time to copy out, by hand, the first two chapters of The Basic Text. Now I had recovery literature to read in a place devoid of principles. Another letter full of misspellings, from my father, Murph, with love. And the one I saved for last, from my loving wife, Betty.
Betty had copied a poem for me. It was one I had never read before. She told me it was picked at random and almost started over when she realize how long it was. I like to think she picked it with a deeper meaning in mind, but I knew Betty wasn’t like that. Melody, not lyrics, were how she rated a song. Deep meanings were pre-inked on Hallmark cards for her. That only made it better–I knew she picked it at random. It remains my favorite Whitman piece to this day.
Miracles
Walt Whitman, 1819 (Long Island, NY) - 1892 (Camden, NJ)
Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the
ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?
I was alive, clean. I had friends, a family, people who loved me. Betty had stayed with me through the whole thing. And my new friend, Walter, introduced to me by a real life wizard from a bookshop in Kennett Square, came to Prescott to celebrate my 30th birthday with me. One of my happiest moments in decades happened right there in a jail cell in the desert of Arizona. What stranger miracles are there?
About the Author: Rob Kaniuk has been described as a high school dropout, a good for nothin junkie, and a washed up plumber. Now he spends his days as a union carpenter and his nights writing his first full length memoir. He attended the Yale Writers Workshop in 2018 and again in 2019. His piece “Through the Keyhole: an addict’s account,” featured in the Schuylkill Valley Journal (Spring 2017), was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.