Farewell to the Old Jail

Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then do it.

—Ann Landers

My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them. 

—Jack Kerouac

Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.

—Coco Chanel

* 1993 *

          

          We were living at 5th and Independence Avenue in a second-floor apartment that was split by the common stairway used by the third floor tenants. Some mornings, Gary would forget and iron a shirt with the kitchen door open—in his underwear. The girls feigned their shock. For, in those days, two types of boys climbed the stairs to the third floor: ones with promise and ones only for a night's loving, their faces irreconcilable as hot and cold taps.
          My mother had begun her 12-year approach to death, and there were terrible calls from the hospital. But a vascular bypass suddenly gave her a handful of pain-free years, and she wanted to go back to Maine for a week. I was to accompany her.

          Gary and I had only just started our life in Washington together, and in the bedroom of that apartment (the door on the right as you ascended the stairs) he had slept on the candy-apple-red leather sofa only once after a fight. I didn't especially want to leave our exposed brick, high-ceilinged nest with its Queen Anne mantlepiece and gaudy chandelier. It was an easy walk to the Capitol or, in the other direction, to Eastern Market, with its banks of refrigerated display cases of chickens and pints of cream and hand-made tortellini. Built in 1873, its main hall felt like a Gothic cathedral with fresh sausages and brioche instead of pews. 

          I still have an ultramarine clay vase Gary bought me from one of the potters active in the studios in a wing at the northern end of the building that were like discovered rooms in a castle tower.

          The embers still glowed from my first dreamy weekend with Gary more than a year earlier.

          But, finally, my mother's alternating threats and tears wore me down, and I packed a thick novel and an old French clarinet against the inevitable boredom of a week with my mother in rural Maine.

* * *

          My mother's birth state had been pretty much limited in my childhood memories to an inflatable lobster and a trip on the ferry Blue Nose from Bar Harbor to Yarmouth. On one early trip up from Pennsylvania, we stopped overnight in Sturbridge Massachusetts. Evidently, my mother had only been able to get a single room, and I had to sleep on the floor. My mother took the bed, along with her boyfriend at the time, and I remember her whispering that I'd be asleep soon—subjecting him to what must have been an agonizing wait.

          On another, earlier visit, a (different) boyfriend glamorously flew his own plane up, while my mother and I went by car. The stiff old Kodachrome prints document him as tall and chic in his Polaroid sunglasses, truly a catch. In snapshots taken back home, he is a barefoot movie star, sprawled on my mother's cedar lounge chair with an afternoon cocktail at his elbow while she negotiates a folding aluminum chair beside him, obsequantly. I was pulled from a wading pool for the shot, and—always expressive with her body language—she leans away from me dramatically.

          I also remember live lobsters crawling across my aunt's kitchen floor, but that's about it.

          Now, at 34, I was socializing with my aunt and uncle as if for the first time, and the focus of the week's visit quickly became what seemed to them the bizarre, regressive parental authority my mother breezily took with me: she spoke to me as if to a duller-than-usual child, or a pet dog. They found great humor in the pattern of my habitual, unconscious responses—half fear, half desire simply to shut her up. At 65, no trace of my mother's beauty remained, and only her always-perfect fashion sense kept her from appearing prematurely, irrevocably geriatric.

          That week, there were a couple of day trips to a bookstore (an old chicken barn) and an antique store in Bangor; clearly her half-brother and half-sister knew nothing about my mother and her abhorrence of anything old. She could barely contain her annoyance.

          But in the unscheduled hours after breakfast or just before suppertime, walking south on Grant Street and stopping—as you could do, 30 years ago—at the ends of the wooded granite points that overlooked Leonard Lake, either from high above it or just level with the water lapping gently at the rock, I marveled at the September sun's reflection blazing off its surface in jeweled cupfuls. I heard the loons' melancholy calls, sourceless yet intimate, and I took pictures of the white clapboard cottages that faced the water, winter after winter longer than anyone alive—their Kelly green window shutters not merely functional but essential when the house was shut tight against the storms of March. 

          Above the narrow road, pine woods stretched back for miles. They seemed to belong to no one—dark as night on a sunny day and redolent of turpentine and peat. In between, open meadows of tall New England asters, just flowering like little purple umbrellas, and striations of goldenrod nodding in the sun looked like an Impressionist landscape—its paint still wet. 

          On these first walks, some embryonic passion was stealing up on me, unexpected, not described to me by anyone else—a northern aesthetic that was completely unfamiliar to me, clear, brash in its odors and the scale of its sky and woodlands—that kept me from touching my book or clarinet the whole of that week, in the autumn of 1993.

* * *

          My uncle turned out to be gay. He was immediately interested in me, and we developed a friendship—based on our mutual capacity for a slightly adolescent humor and his own unobstructed emotional immediacy—that lasted until I reached my mid-forties, when his enjoyment of me petered out. Skipping only a couple of years, for the next decade and a half I visited him in Ellsworth every September, sometimes making a second trip up in May.

          I enjoyed my time with him, giggling together on long car trips up the coast to Cutler, Eastport, and onto Campobello, or walking the carriage roads of Acadia National Park, farting then feigning a cough in a comic attempt to disguise it.

          "That was a FART!"

          He always maintained the tone of indignation—essential to the pantomime.

          His thick hair was the color of freshly fallen snow. His voice could achieve a frightening baritone that projected like a preacher out of a Nathaniel Hawthorne tale.

          In fact, he was deeply ambitious and had racked up achievements that—because of the narrow field of my intellectual vision, an inheritance from my mother—remained outside of our conversations. Nevertheless, as a lifelong school teacher he made my Maine education his responsibility, and I had a tedious afternoon in the museums and government buildings of Augusta (where he had been a state representative). Another whole day was spent driving to a historic village in New Brunswick, where everybody wore 19th century clothing and made candles or manufactured flour.

          The meat pie in the dining hall was unforgettable, and I think of it still today.

          Deale had been the founding president of the town's historical society. Their headquarters was an abandoned brick jail in the center of town built in 1886, and one afternoon—after an especially long nature walk—he took me inside for the first time. The sheriff's residence was the street-facing part of the builing, and the jail cells were behind it, but contiguous. Several metal discs—one in the wall of the master bedroom—could be swung aside to allow the sheriff to communicate with guards or investigate a disturbance.

          I was devastated from my long walk—the sort of exhaustion that seems to slacken all of the body's cantilevers and springs—a hypoglycemic, bone tiredness, and I was fussy and short-tempered as an infant that day. Attic to cellar, I was hearing all the old jail's stories for the first time: Susie the Indian, who could be found drunk on the lonely roads running out of town just so she could be arrested and have a place to sleep and eat for the winter months; the celebrity art thief who broke out with a soap gun blackened with shoe polish; and of the atrocities of the building itself, with its medieval granite-block cells, its trap door into the lightless air above the cell block, and the macabre toilet in the basement that had to be raised—there were steps leading up to it—to the level of the sewer pipes leading (in early days) out to the river behind. A rusted, abandoned radio room in the basement had paint peeling from the walls the size of writing paper.

          All was stillness—the decades of silence broken only by the pointless decorations and scattered bibelots the historians had cheerfully, anachronistically strewn around the rooms of the sheriff's residence. Hand-drawn placards and photocopies tacked to the wall attempted to educate visitors. The small attic rooms had been stuffed with racks of costumes from the local Gilbert & Sullivan troupe, and sets of 50-year-old encyclopedias, Christmas decorations, and boxes of old tools from a physician's office made the floors impassable. 

          Walking out into the Indian summer afternoon, I could smell the place in my clothing, and the mold ached in my nostrils. 

          Deale locked the exterior doors with his habitual fussiness yet seemed reluctant to end the history lesson, chattering on, as we drove to Bar Harbor for dinner, about the impressive city-wide campaign in 1977 to save the building from demolition. Evidently the historical society members had surmounted more serious opposition than shag carpeting and knob-and-tube wiring to create the dark, cluttered rooms of their museum, and the achievement—for all its parochialism—was a source of pride.

          Back home, I wrote an early essay about the building—quite a few years before any of my vivid autobiographical pieces started to appear.

* * *

          "Bring your camera."

          Just before one of my visits in May, Deale told me I needed to set aside a couple of days to take pictures for a book he was writing on Ellsworth. I packed the ancient digital camera, with its old-fashioned viewfinder and 72 dpi output, and accompanied him around town as he described the shots he wanted—pointing and waving his arms like a movie director.

          I never saw my uncle bored, or less than enthusiastic about something. There seemed to be no darkness to his personality, and even his anger had at its resolution the goal of a better understanding between individuals or an end to some minor injustice.

          Downtown, I crouched into the side window of the old five-and-dime store and snapped a picture of my reflection as I followed my uncle to the next subject. 

          All my jobs had been in big-city publishing, and I was a little dubious that Deale had a genuine, professional agreement. But that fall, he told cheerful stories about Tammy, his editor, and before long my copy of the attractive, 8 ¼ x 11 ¼ clothbound book with its bright aerial view of the city on the dust jacket arrived. Deale's handwritten inscription read: To William P. Fogle, my Photographer, my Nephew, and, most importantly, My friend. Thanks Nephew. With an Uncle's Love. Deale B. Salisbury.

          When he died five years later, a display case was created by a local carpenter that held a photo of Deale, a copy of his book, and a clipping of his (substantial) obituary. It was brought to the Old Jail in the back of a pick-up—me and a young friend of Deale's hugging it for the entire ride to protect the glass.

          But when we got to the jail, suddenly I couldn't go in. To enter would have been to acknowledge Deale's death, to physically shift into a future that did not include him. The building was synonymous with my uncle, and to enter it would feel like walking on his grave. I sat on the front steps for about 20 minutes as the others worked inside then walked back to where we were staying.

          Leaving Maine that summer, I never expected to return. 

          I sobbed as we turned onto the interstate in Brewer.

* 2017 *

          It had been necessary for us to refinance our home three times to afford two new roofs, two furnaces, two hot water heaters, replacement windows, and a concealed central air system that sent out whispers of cold air through circular holes in the wall the size of a trombone mouthpiece.

          Gary and I had settled into a flawed communication style, so that it took me a couple of years to understand that his retirement the following summer meant we would no longer be able to afford our mortgage. Either he was incapable of bluntness or I listened only with the ears of my presuppositions—one of which was that this was our home for the rest of our lives.

          Another was that our relationship would last until our deaths.

          We spent the first six months of 2016 on realtor.com, flopping down at the PC after work every night to compare our finds of the day and firm up our list of possibilities. Like the planchette of an ouija board, our budget guided our house search. From the first, the old clapboard houses of Hancock and Washington counties in Maine became a possibility.

          To this day I am uncertain whether that came about because of a desire on my part or simply that the listing prices seemed absurdly low for the square footage and the charm.

          There were many of what can only be described as infatuations—in both Pennsylvania and Maine—before we settled on a house in Ellsworth.

         The sheer ghostliness of this unanticipated outcome, its poetic rhyme—the John Steinbeck quality—remains with me still. I have interpreted it at different times as benevolent fate, as an hereditary challenge, and as black humor on the part of God. My mother, aunt, and uncle had been dead for years, and I returned to a city that held only memories of the generations of my family.

          But the memory was warm and full of respect, and the people I met after we moved into the house on Elm Street were invariably impressed—and somewhat incredulous—that Deale or his more popular sister Leah, who had been Vice President of the major bank in town and a sort of social anchor for her generation in Ellsworth, had left behind any family.

          I returned to Ellsworth as leftover royalty, a Romanov who had escaped the firing squad.

* * *

          In the 24 years that had passed since my first adult visit to Maine, I had become an accomplished clarinetist. I had purchased a quality grand piano, had been published three times, owned my first dog, lost and gained back 25 pounds numerous times, and had become a heavy drinker. Thus my first attendance at a meeting of the Ellsworth Historical Society, in August 2017, is not a distinct memory. The meetings were (and still are, as far as I know) held at 7 p.m.—cutting deeply into my wine time.

          What I can remember is that Darlene Springer, herself an author of an important book about the destructive 1933 fire in Ellsworth, was giving an impromptu slide show and finished with an image of the City Hall frieze I had taken when Deale was writing his book.

          "The author of that photo is with us tonight."

          Thus I was introduced to the tiny group of older people seated around the foldable tables. The meeting was held in an early 1800s farmhouse the Historical Society had been gifted some years earlier. Spacious, sunny, and tatooed with mantle clocks and breakfronts, it quickly became a Victorian dollhouse through the work of the Society's president, for whom the wallpapering and painting—the placement of bone china cups and old radios—became therapy, a back door out of her full-time job and chores at home.

          Sometimes, meetings were held in the large kitchen at a round oak table with chairs upholstered in pumpkin-colored velvet. The board of directors had shrunk down to a handful of the surviving original members, while downtown no donations or grants could outrun the Old Jail's deterioration—a symbol of the aging of the Historical Society itself.

          The Gary of that period, transmogrifying rapidly in those first years following his retirement, still took an interest in my activities. Together we assembled the first really decent newsletter and tossed ideas like skipping stones across the surface of the oak table. As Deale's nephew, eyes turned to me for support and creativity.

          It was a warm homecoming, at first.

* 2019 *

          Judy's mother had died just before Christmas. The daily trips to the hospital, preparing meals for both her parents, and, finally, the universally life-changing loss of the mother caused her to miss meetings. Decorating and preparing treasurer's reports halted, and her confusion and incomprehension at the onset of the winter of the adult orphan—a winter after which no spring follows—frequently reduced her to tears.

          Typically, not long after, her father, always an avuncular presence around the oak table, joined his wife.

          Thus I became president of the Historical Society that May.

          My first task was the writing of the membership renewal letter. As the outgoing president, Judy wrote a letter that was to be included with mine, announcing the change in the executive and detailing her plans to focus on archival work. The letter, almost the length of mine, felt slightly superfluous and—maybe—just a bit arrogant. Rambling, folksy, it reminded me of her lengthly "From the President" piece that was plastered on the front of that first newsletter Gary and I put together. Had I read it more carefully, I might have understood the limitations of the slot that had been created for me.

          Gary and I bought printer labels and—squatting on the living room floor—stuffed, stamped, and sealed 100 envelopes. It never occurred to me to ask for help from the officers or members.

          This was the organization I had inherited from Judy and from my uncle.

          I jumped into this dehydrated, shallow pool with the only gifts I possessed: writing and graphics. I changed the Society's logo. I designed a new website (over Judy's objections about the expense). At Gary's typically intelligent suggestion, I started requisitioning (and giving) presentations. I responded to and became involved with other organizations in town.

          But it wasn't until I hobbled together my first history video—with a personal plea for volunteers and donations at the end, standing with my arms resting on the chipped and peeling "Ellsworth Historical Society" sign on the lawn—that I entered into a brief period of local fame. As Covid raged, I lost 30 pounds, and as it became safe to congregate again, I routinely appeared at board meetings and potlucks in tweed suits. A week after I took a group of students through the Old Jail, I received a card of thanks signed by all of them. One girl wrote "I love your sweater."

          Yet, the room to the right just as you walked into the entrance to the farmhouse still belonged—with its boutique-y Oriental rug and pairs of reading glasses on the computer—to Judy. Piles of papers and artifacts donated to the Society bore her stickies reading "Call Stockbridge" or "For Museum in the Streets." When a collection of about 30 framed photos mysteriously appeared on the table of the meeting room, I pulled up the rug, put one of the piles into my backpack, and wrote a two-page memo to Judy that I copied and mailed to every board member.

          Judy had been the face of history in the town for over a decade, and no office I might attain to would transfer that status to me.

          It was an old inferiority that was set off inside of me—my mother spitting into a Kleenex and brusquely wiping my mouth after an ice cream cone, the high school friend who always looked better in Gap cords than me, the small army of lovers whose adoration routinely turned to irritation, the so-so annual job reviews, the smirks of liquor store clerks more depressingly familiar than family.

          My relationship with Judy never recovered, and the couple of years that followed saw shouting board meetings and, increasingly, warnings and reprimands from a trickle of new board members, each of them placed into their positions by me, who never knew—or cared to hear—the story.

          Meanwhile, the freeze-thaw cycle swelled the walls of the Old Jail, spitting bricks like clay teeth.

          Everything was falling apart.

* * *

          I abruptly resigned presidency of the Historical Society in August 2022 after a brief, drunken email to Judy brought the ire of two board members who (unknown to me) had been assigned to deal with my increasingly unpredictable behaviour.

          The silence that followed felt like the cauterization it truly was. There was one phone call and a two-sentence letter from the new president. I kept my eye on news articles involving the Society and received their annual appeal letter. In February 2023 I attended an evening presentation at the farmhouse and netted a couple of tepid greetings and a depressing lack of interest in my presence.

          Yet, I got a hug from Judy.

          Perhaps that rambling, folksy emotional style had its function.

          I walked the three miles home on the snowy sidewalks, too embarrassed to ask any of my old pals for a ride.

          As spring came on, I found myself with a series of freelance assignments from the group, including creation of a successful, widely distributed video about the Old Jail that seemed to almost restore my reputation. As I fell back into the familiar network of emails, I got the chutzpah to ask for an at-large board position; there was no reply.

          One Thursday morning as I was pulling weeds with the local garden club I got a text from a board member, in an urgent tone, asking to speak with me that day. We sat at the round oak table in the farmhouse kitchen as Wayne discussed with me—as if speaking in another language—that the group was requesting I return as vice president.

          This was as unexpected as the young lad who suddenly played footsies with me under the table at a very straight Philadelphia club; as unexpected as Gary's first flirty Christmas card; as unexpected as my mother's death—the news reaching me at work hours after she had died because they could not reach her granddaughter.

          That spitty Kleenex scraping across my face.

          I had served as vice president for 20 months without incident.

          In fall 2024 I was asked to return as president beginning January 2025—much like Donald Trump, I joked to myself.

* Last Night *

          I don't remember the specific content of the emails, which arrived well after the home bar had opened. Something about a young man I disliked returning to the Historical Society to continue his work setting up electronic systems. Just the name James ripped the bandage off of old pain, recalling his freakish height and implacable smirk. 

          I replied with a single sentence that I refused to work with him and received a longish reply—from one of the individuals who had been assigned, years back, to monitor my behavior. I don't particularly remember that email, either. 

          Suddenly I was typing, and halfway through the composition my writing took an unexpected but oddly familiar turn.

          Awaking at 3 a.m., I remembered that I had withdrawn my candidacy for president and resigned my membership on the board.

          There have been—mercifully—no replies.

* * *

          For the second time, I will relinquish my keys to the Old Jail. For the last time, I have slammed the door in the correct fashion (you don't need to turn the key). I'll not again play the little ship's pump organ on the second floor bedroom nor take a group of amazed teenagers through the cell block. 

          I won't have to talk to myself to quell my fear as I yank open the screeching hall door or sit at the bottom of the steps as a TV crew films another in an endless series of 90-second news items ("Old Jail in Trouble!" "Old Jail Undergoing Renovations!").

          And I won't again see the encased image of my uncle smiling back so broadly, so devilishly, in the photo that accompanied his obituary.

          The bricks are clean now, and water will not again permeate the walls or collapse the second floor ceiling tiles. In time, the windows will be replaced and the roof restored. The rooms will hold displays from various historical societies and organizations in both this and neighboring counties. Next year, or maybe the year after that, the Christmas lights will be placed in the windows again, and visitors will have their cookies and cider.

          So we do go forward, no matter how lengthy or costly or difficult it might be, no matter how painful or humiliating—or just boring and lonely. Because we must.

          The buildings are older than us, yet still warmed by lights in the deepest winter.