Beloved Son Returns Home
By Kerry Bickford and Luke Schmaltz
It is 8:30 AM on a Tuesday, and Charles Curtis is on a city bus, en route to one of the two jobs he works between overnight stays at a Boston halfway house.
At the first job, Curtis will assist early morning members of a local gym. A role which allows him to draw upon his natural athletic talents which helped him excel at sports in high school. At the second job, he will serve meals and drinks to customers at a restaurant in the Prudential Center, a position which helps him re-learn how to relate with people in the “normal” world versus “life on the inside.”
Curtis is undergoing a recovery of sorts, one of gradually reclaiming his freedom while enduring the extensive process of paying his debt to society for breaking the law. As he rebuilds his life one step at a time, he must process the grief of having lost years, friends, closeness to his family, and an innate sense of self.
Walk the Line
While his reintegration into society is a welcome change from the Massachusetts Department of Corrections, Curtis still lives in a heavily regimented world. The slightest slip in protocol can send him straight back to jail. “The past 18 years of my life, I’ve been in prison and in and out of jail,” he explains.
At the age of 15, Curtis started experimenting with substances. “Marijuana is a gateway drug – not only to using drugs but to selling them,” he begins. “That’s pretty much where it all started. Then when I was 16, I started selling coke. Everyone in high school and people I was in sports with were into drugs. Everyone was doing pills and coke at parties and one thing led to the next. Fast forward to years later, a lot of those kids are dead now or incarcerated but thank God for the ones who turned their lives around,” he says.
Curtis’ situation is unique. Although he sold drugs, he was never afflicted with SUD (substance use disorder). Regardless, his circumstances are the result of facilitating the destructive habits of others. “Even though I never used hard drugs myself, it seemed like those who did were the type of people I was comfortable with,” he says. “At the time, my thought process was that there was nothing wrong with it [selling drugs]. If I don’t sell them, someone else will,” he explains. But, as I got older, I started losing people I care about to drugs and it started affecting me more.”
Close to Home
This realization hits Curtis like a punch in the gut, as he explains the loss of a close friend. “My childhood best friend since the third grade passed away [from SUD]. His name was Nathan. Once that happened, it really opened my eyes that I am contributing to that negativity and not thinking about anyone but myself. He died a few months after my last incarceration. It’s hard not to get emotional whenever I think or speak of him.”
Meanwhile, Nathan’s mother maintains close contact with Curtis. “(Charles Curtis) grew up down the street and was a frequent guest in our home,” she begins. “He is the youngest son of a police sergeant and a high school language teacher. Both were devoted to and proud of Charles. He was a talented athlete, an easy-going and happy kid. But his father, now in his 80s, is in a nursing home, and his mother has been left with the responsibility of caring for her husband, spending time with Charles' daughters who have grown up without him and visiting Charles and keeping his spirits up. She has done all of this while grieving the absence of her beloved son and her ailing husband while watching Charles’ friends die, one after another,” she says.
“This weighs heavily on Charles' heart,” Nathan’s mother continues, “He grieves all of these losses – yet he commits himself to making a difference this time around as he re-enters the world he struggled in before. The disease of addiction claims more victims than the ones who die.”
Inside Information
Curtis further explains how dealing with grief while incarcerated, especially in the event of his best friend’s death, was extremely difficult. “It’s really hard to get alone time,” he begins. “You don’t have any privacy – there’s no privacy anywhere inside. You try to think about it, and you want to break down, but you really have to try and separate the [prison] lifestyle with what is going on in the streets. That helped me to get through it easier, but obviously there’s times when it comes into my head and I have to contain it,” he explains.
Curtis estimates he has lost “at least 25 to 30 friends from my previous life” to SUD. That doesn’t include acquaintances and friends of friends, in which case the number is “closer to 50,” he says. “It’s almost a weekly or monthly occurrence where you hear about someone overdosing. It’s just crazy how normalized it has become.”
“I have a lot of knowledge I want to pass on,” Curtis continues. “I want to help other people learn from my mistakes because it’s crazy how early kids are getting into drugs nowadays, especially opiates.”
Curtis’ knowledge of the opioid crisis, especially the current fentanyl epidemic, demonstrates how he has taken time to study and understand the world of SUD. Concerning the hidden presence of fentanyl in many different types of street drugs, he explains where, within the supply chain, this takes place and why it is so deadly. “A lot of mid-level and low-level dealers may not know what’s in the drugs,” he begins. “They may not have malicious intent; they are just trying to get money to support their families. Although it’s a negative way to get money, it’s the lifestyle that many people become addicted to. Just like some people are addicted to the drugs the [dealers] become addicted to the money,” he explains.
Tomorrow Awaits
Curtis is focused on the big picture, however, fully committed to completing his parole without incident. Eventually, he plans to harness his entrepreneurial drive to start his own business and has also set his sights on playing a more significant and steadier role in the lives of his children. Currently, his circumstances allow only minimal interaction, but by mid-November he will be out of the halfway house and, as he hopes and prays, back into his children’s lives.
As he anticipates moving back to the Cape, Curtis is mindful of avoiding his previous patterns and relationships which landed him in trouble in the first place. Instead, he looks forward to his new role in the community, “Mainly, I want to be a role model for my kids instead of someone they are embarrassed by,” he says. “I want [them] to see me as the good person I am with the big heart I have. I have to change [their] view of me and everyone else that I miss,” he says.
Nathan's mother echoes that sentiment, saying, “I can’t wait to see what Charles is going to do with his life this time around. He has a huge heart and watching him gives me hope. I have a vision of Nathan walking with him through this next chapter, inspiring him to be strong.”