My Friend the Parolee

Since the middle of August we’ve been sharing our house and our table with an Iranian-born Shi’a Muslim who spent the last thirty-three years in prison. (I’ll call him “K” as a deliberate nod to Franz Kafka’s masterwork, The Trial, because that’s what his life feels like.)

K is a charming man, 74 years old, deeply religious, and very used to keeping to himself, so even in our small house, he’s a pretty unobtrusive guest. During these seven months, he has learned how to use a computer and an iPhone, and he has had knee replacement surgery and several other medical needs met. He has entered the 21st century, in other words — with hours of guidance and transportation from my wife (who used to visit him in prison two or three times a year for about nine years) and me (who never met him until he crossed our threshold).

Everyone asks us what heinous crime K was in for, and all we say is that he has claimed innocence for the entirety of his ordeal — including in year six, when he was offered release for time served if he would just plead guilty. K refused, which further meant that he was turned down for parole eight times, because if you say you’re innocent, you’re not repenting for your crime, so you won’t be paroled.

We truly believe he’s innocent — but innocent or not, he served thirty-three years, a long enough punishment (that’s all that prisons provide) for nearly anything.

K was naturalized as an American citizen in 1985. However, after being shut out of life for three-plus decades, he has none of his original documentation. This means that he is unable to claim his Social Security and Medicare, or to obtain a driver’s license or a passport. We did manage to obtain a copy of his naturalization document from USCIS (the federal immigration bureaucracy), but he needs a certified copy to obtain any of these benefits. Nu, we have helped him apply for that (he had to pay a $550 application fee), and we asked our Congressional Representative’s office to request expedition of his application (which otherwise takes nearly a year to process!), and it’s now been four months, and USCIS has now replied by asking K to produce a document showing that he’s divorced (he was married at the time of naturalization) and asking why his middle name doesn’t appear on his original naturalization document.

How can K obtain new documents when he has no current i.d. documents with which to prove his identity? Even the picture i.d. that the prison system provided last August has expired, and NOBODY can offer him a replacement — not the Motor Vehicle Bureau, not the County Sheriff’s Department or the County Executive, not our Congressman, not K’s parole officer, not after hours and hours and hours of telephoning and waiting on hold, telephoning and waiting on hold, usually with my wife at his side to help explain his situation.

Thank God K has Medicaid! But go ahead and try to find an orthopedic surgeon, or an eye doctor, or an endodontist, or an audiologist, who takes Medicaid — not within a radius of 75 miles of my house. For the knee replacement, I had to drive him back and forth to the Bronx (100 miles each way) two times to Montefiore-Einstein, where a fantastic Chilean-born surgeon hurried K into surgery before his Medicaid ran out.

And why is his Medicaid running out? Because, despite his inability to obtain his Social Security benefits, he is lucky enough to have a bit too much cash in the bank (from his previous life as a New York restaurateur) to qualify for renewal of his Medicaid. So at the end of May, he’ll also be without health insurance — at age 74.

Why am I writing about this? Because life with K has drawn back the curtain, for me, on what life is going to be like for more and more of our country as the Trump/Musk fascists crush our government services, privatize whatever is left, refuse uplift to discriminated-against minorities, and turn the U.S. into the heartbreak hotel. More and more, people without money will be like felons, left adrift. We all know that in a decent society, there should be not only “a chicken in every pot” but a social worker on every corner. But our society knows neither how to prevent misfortune, nor how to heal it.

K will soon be moving into an apartment that another compassionate person in our community is providing for him — and I will certainly cherish getting my privacy back (although until K gets his certified naturalization document, he’ll need us constantly for transportation and support). But I am grateful to have a friend who has given me hands-on experience with this cruel, cruel, heedless system of ours, which not only mangles lives through its criminal justice system, but neglects to do anything that might help those lives get straightened out.

O my America.