It was only luck which found me a job while in the halfway house.  All my attempts to locate one on my own had failed.  I’d filled out applications anywhere I could think of, tried to get a job at the propane company next door to the halfway house (who often hired clients, but we’re getting tired of the process), and even asked if I could get a job at Goodwill (who was considered the “employer of last resort”).  None of those avenues were successful.  Heather had faxed my resume to about 100 places, none of whom seemed interested (or if they were, the messages never reached me).  Joe’s Crab Shack in the West End of Dallas had many clients working as servers, but they stopped hiring all of a sudden just as I was going to apply; a month later that location shut down, which explained the change.  Who knew it was so hard for a convicted felon to get a job?  I mean, besides as Mayor of Washington D.C.

It was my stepmother (I dislike using that term with Barbara, but I use it here just to differentiate from my birth mother) who indirectly hooked me up.  She found the phone number for the first boss I’d had after High School, a friend of my father named Vincent.  We’d moved to Dallas together to go work at the same firm, and while I’d lost touch with him, he was still in the area.  As it turned out, nobody had ever told him about my father’s passing, which he was sad to hear.  He did know all about my imprisonment, and in fact had heard the full story directly from the gentleman who had been my boss at the time of the incident; so Vince understood what I’d done, and how it had spun out of control.  He told Barbara he’d love to have me come work for him doing computer and IT work, and helping him with writing and editing (I’d helped edit his first book, and basically wrote much of his second myself, taking his ideas and turning them into chapters).  It looked like some luck had finally come my way.

Two days later I was sitting in one of his two offices, shaking hands and feeling like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders.  He offered me a modest salary, with a promise to give me a raise once I was out of the halfway house if my work was up to par.  I explained the approval process, and that the halfway house would be calling him to confirm this job was real and not some sham set up by a buddy.  I spent so long there that I realized I was going to miss my train back, and had to break the rules and get a ride to the station instead of taking the bus.

At the halfway house, I filled out the proper paperwork and turned it in to Miss Fosse for approval.  She called Vince, confirmed the job, and then handed me the paperwork back.  “You will just need to bring this to Mr. Korn for final approval.”  Mr. Korn was the head of the halfway house, and a very dry and corporate-inefficiency-type fellow.  I brought in the paperwork, and he started asking me questions about the company and Vince’s other business interests which I’d listed on the form.

“I don’t understand what kind of company you’ll be working for.  What does this company actually do?”

I tried to explain that this was an intellectual property company, which designed turnkey solutions for corporate clients and for some of his other companies.  My actual job would be the hardware and software IT stuff, writing and editing of letters and papers, and checking data and spreadsheet work by other people for inaccuracy and for illogical comparisons.

“But you say here that he owns part of a company which deals in commodity trading?”

Yes, I told him.  But that company was in another location, and I would not be working for them.

“You’re sentencing says you can’t do that kind of work.”

I left like I was talking to a bureaucrat from some huge government agency.  I pointed out that a) like I had just told him, I wasn’t working for that company; b) it was in another location (another city, actually); and c) technically I was not restricted from that work by the guidelines of my sentencing.  On that count he was simply wrong.

“Oh, yes you are!”  My. Korn pulled out my file and looked.  When he realized he was wrong, he took the next logical step for any mindless bureaucrat: he started using other roadblocks to get his way.

“You’d have access to the internet.  That isn’t allowed.”

I pointed out that more than half a dozen clients worked for a company in Plano which dispatched tow trucks, and their entire job required the use of the internet.

“You might gain access to personal financial information of other people.”

Again, between that Plano towing company, restaurants, car dealerships, and just about every other job, clients were doing everything from physical handling of credit cards to pulling up accounts on computer systems.

It was clear that for whatever reason, he just did not want to admit to being wrong, and did not want me to have this job.  I hadn’t forgotten: this was their house.  So I wasn’t about to fight him on this, or bring it to a higher level.  It wouldn’t be worth it, and I didn’t have the time to mess around.  This was the one point that he and I seemed to agree on, as he played his final card in this minor skirmish.

“I think that, in order to approve this job, I’d need to speak to Vince and do some investigation of my own.  With my workload here, that could take some time, a few weeks.  I’m afraid you simply don’t have the time left for me to do that properly, so it would be wasted effort.”

In other words, he had the power, he was going to win, and I should just accept it.  Which I did, in the most diplomatic way possible: “I understand and respect your concerns Mr. Korn, and I know you’re just doing your job.  I guess I’ll keep looking and find something else.  Thanks for your time.”

I called Vince back and let him know the situation.  He was pissed, especially since he’d gotten all excited after our meeting and was piling up work he wanted me to start on right away.  Vince is very anti-government-intrusion, and he started telling me to go back and make this argument and that argument.  I had to break it down for him: it wasn’t about right and wrong, this was simply the way it was.  The end.

“I’ll try to think of something,” he told me.  “Call me on Monday.”

My stomach pains were growing worse every night, as I felt the clock ticking.  How was it that all these other clients found work so easily?  In retrospect I realize that some of it was through personal connections, some were fake jobs they scammed past the process, and some was simply because the clients had very little legitimate work experience.  When you’re not qualified for better jobs, companies are more willing to hire you for menial positions, because they don’t need to worry about you quitting when something better comes along.  A guy like me?  Aside from the fact that I had been convicted of a crime of “moral turpitude” (fraud, meaning I was probably untrustworthy in many people’s eyes), I had a long history of solid and technical work experience.  Why should the grocery store train me to work at the deli counter when I was qualified to do so much more?  Catch-22 strikes again…they were everywhere!  In my mind I was already making

When I called Vince on Monday, he had big news.  “I found you a job!”  He’d been to the boutique in Uptown Dallas where he bought his suits, and mentioned my plight.  The owner there, an African gentleman named Nana, had suggested he could hire me for at least a while.  Nana was working this location of the boutique chain by himself (they had two other locations in north Dallas, and were opening another at the DFW airport’s international terminal).  They sold only very high-end Italian clothes and suits: Brioni, Ravazzolo, Belvest, Stefano Ricci, and the like.  If I was there, I could help clean the place up, straighten out the stock, offer customers beverages, pack up orders, cover the store for him when he stepped out for a few minutes, things like that.  And if he liked my work, he would train me to sell and let me work there as a salesperson.  He understood the limitations of my availability, and said he was willing to put up with the hassles involved: leaving early two days a week to go to mandatory counseling, phone calls from the halfway house to make sure I was at work when I said I was, and occasional visits from Miss Fosse to have him sign forms confirming I was performing my duties in a satisfactory manner.  I offered to work on Saturdays too, which he readily accepted (they were closed on Sunday) and took as a sign that I might be a hard worker.  There wasn’t any real interview process: Nana said he was taking me on as a favor to Vince (one of his better customers), and there was little risk on his part; if I didn’t show up, or didn’t work hard, he could fire me.  There was no real training involved; cleaning and organizing was simple, and he’d be directing me anyway.  I was just a body for now.  And that was fine with me.

Back at the halfway house, this job sailed through approval, and I was ready to go.  More than ever, this had made me believe that in so many cases, it isn’t what you know, it’s who you know.  It was dumb luck, a loving mother, a former boss, and a favor called in that found me a job.  I knew I could do the work, so my only major obstacle to making it through the halfway house process was now effectively overcome.  If I did what I was supposed to, I’d get two and four hour passes, then a weekend pass, and then eventually be moved to home confinement: sleeping in my own bed with Heather in my arms every night.

It felt so odd to be on the side of good fortune for a change, but I wasn’t about to second guess or question it.  I was willing to let good things happen, despite my eternal negative nature.  I think having such a wonderful woman in love with me and supporting me had changed my attitude on life enough to the point that I had started to believe in myself in little ways.  If nothing else, it was a start!