A surprise visit from Antonio Battle’s parole officer
I finally heard from Antonio last night, after he’d been off my radar since his voicemail last week. This has been finals week at my college, and I celebrated my last final by joining my entire family in the ranks of the physically unwell. I was sitting last night with a pounding sinus headache feeling like some internal pipes had burst when I answered his call.
He’s now at a place he calls Kingsboro Medical Rehab Center, which I know no more about than a quick Google search. I’m pretty sure it’s actually the Kingsboro Addiction Treatment Center, which doesn’t sound like too pleasant a place. He told me, though, that they’d put him in an intense treatment on the condition that after three weeks they would get him transferred to steady housing and also get him copies of his social security card, birth certificate, and photo ID, none of which are currently in his possession. He said he’s not allowed to make or take phone calls, that he was only calling now because he’d talked a nighttime admin into letting him use his cell phone. “I know you probably thought I was runnin’ the streets,” he said. “But Ima make my way out this time. I’m a survivor.”
Because I’m so incapacitated with whatever it is that got ahold of me, I didn’t go to Rikers today. I was sitting in my living room rotating between chapters of Stephen King’s On Writing and episodes of the Sopranos when I heard a knock on the window next to our side door. I knew it had to be the landlord or the super, since no one else can get in through the gate without calling. It was the super, with four people in DOC vests.
Three of the officers, all black women, stood at the bottom of our steps. The other one , a middle-aged man with a bushy moustache and a nervous but kind demeanor, extended his hand, which was trembling. “I’m Officer [REDACTED], working for the office of parole. I’m here to inquire about the whereabouts of Antonio Battle. Do you know him?”
I shook his hand, which I realized was trembling from some neural condition, not because he was nervous. I don’t know if it was the shaking hand or his general demeanor, but I trusted this man. “Yes, I know Antonio,” I said. Our super was looking at me and the four officers gathered on our side steps with something between curiosity and incredulity. “It’s ok, Peter,” I said, and retrieved my notes from the previous night’s conversation as Antonio’s parole officer told he had to take out a warrant on him because he hadn’t reported his whereabouts in the past week.
His face lit up as I showed him my notes. “This is exactly what we were trying to find out. Mr. Battle is very bad at conveying this information himself.”
I invited the four officers in. “May I ask how you know Mr. Battle?” one of the female officers asked, as our Chihuahua began barking at the crew standing in our kitchen.
Picking up our Chihuahua, I explained that I run a writing and self-advocacy workshop at Rikers Island, and that I end up advocating for some of the men I work with on their reentry.
“He’s very lucky to have you,” the head parole officer said. “I’ll follow up with the facility from here, and assuming it checks out I’ll recommend to my supervisor that his warrant be revoked.”
“Can I ask you something?” one of the other officers asked. “What is that?” She was pointing at our hanging hydroponic herb garden at our window, which is essentially ten plastic bottles hanging upside down, connected to each other with those little clay pellets in each bottle. “You use that to feed the dog?”
Once I explained it, she and the rest of them asked if I made it myself. “Yes, but I’m not that handy,” I said. “My wife got me the supplies and a do-it-yourself manual off the internet.” I then looked around, and realized that probably many things about our apartment—our children’s toys, the tomato plants in a milk crate my colleague had just sent home with my wife—put these officers at ease and personalized me to them, and hopefully did the same for Antonio by proxy. After we’d chatted for a bit more, I told all the officers that I gave Antonio’s information to them in the spirit of cooperation: to keep Antonio on his reentry path, not to take him off it, and that I would be disappointed if the information was used otherwise. They assured me their intentions were the same as mine—to keep Antonio out of jail, not in it.
After they’d left, I called my super and apologize if that was a scene. “It’s ok,” he told me. “I told them when they was at the gate that you a family man, living there with your wife and kids. They told me it had nothing to do with you, just that you might know they guy they was looking for. I knew if I let them in to see you, you’d settle things out.”
So we have a remarkable series of coincidences—my illness, the parole officer’s willingness to try to find Antonio, my landlord’s kindness and trust in letting them in—to thank for the fact that Antonio is not in jail yet again for a technical parole violation. If any of these three things hadn’t happened, he would be back at the Tombs by the time they found him, probably by this evening. I’m not sure whether to declare this small victory or point to its extreme unlikeliness.
Perhaps I’ll just do both.
Re/Creation is now running a fundraiser from July 12-31 with limited edition t-shirts and coffee mugs featuring Antonio Battle’s work. Please considering buying one (or more!). All funds will go to Antonio as he continues to struggle and strive in his work and in his reentry.