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Outside Magazine July 2003

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Run For It (Cont.)


	The view from his bunk (Jake Chessum)

FOUR DAYS AFTER MY VISIT to South Fork and Eugene, I'm feeling pretty optimistic about Gill. He and Brown are right. They can pull this off. And then, within 24 hours, my feelings are thrown in reverse, and I'm reminded that I'm dealing with a troubled soul who can't always be trusted.

Gill calls in the late afternoon. I usually enjoy our conversations, because once you get past the heady dream-speak, he's downright affable and eager to talk about anything from the Detroit Lions to Copernicus. But today he's no fun at all.

"It's snowing," he gripes. "We got dumped on yesterday, and it's still coming down. If I drop the hammer out there and get hurt, I'll be pretty pissed." The bleak conditions also remind him of a hurdle he can't quite clear. Despite months of inquiries, he hasn't heard anything from South Fork's officers about his request to transfer to Santiam Correctional Institution. Located down south in Salem, Santiam offers warmer weather and a 300-meter track. It's also close to Brown's home, in Eugene. For Brown, visiting Gill at South Fork is a six-hour schlep that he's managed only three times.

Gill takes the delay personally. "They don't want to help me with my dream," he says. "They want to see me fail."

So, as I would later learn, Gill decides that if he can't transfer, he'll make South Fork more livable by bartering to satisfy his constant hunger. He and two other convicts will arrange for a "drop"—an illegal acquisition of contraband that he can trade to inmates for extra canteen food.

Gill makes plans to have an old acquaintance from Portland drive out and leave a stash of chewing tobacco in the woods beyond the South Fork boundaries. But before an accomplice can sneak out and grab it, someone snitches.

This infraction costs Gill 30 days in the hole at the medium-security Oregon State Correctional Institution (OSCI), in Salem. While serving the sentence, he keeps on with his routines. He runs barefoot in a small pen and does push-ups in his cell. He grabs a dictionary of Latin words off the prison book cart and mines it for sayings.

"I can't dwell on how I could have avoided this," he writes from OSCI. "Instead, this is my last monastery before my steadfast drive to the Olympics...This is my time to work on my shortcomings and tone down my Cool Hand Luke defiance."

He signs the letter, "Dum spiro spero (While I breathe, I hope), Jonathan."

Though Gill's act was unbelievably stupid, his resolve gnaws at me. He has admitted weakness, which he seldom does, and continues to train. The botched crime might actually help Gill, since it's a wake-up call. It also defines him as a risky inmate at South Fork, which, oddly, could work to his advantage. After leaving solitary, he will ultimately be sent to a different minimum-security facility. Maybe he'll land somewhere with a decent track.

I call Brown, who says he's just about had enough. "If this happens one more time," he says, "I'll consider that Jonathan has given up."

The bleakness lifts around the time spring arrives. A month after Gill gets out of the hole, in April 2002, he calls me with an update. "Aloha, Andrew," he says happily. There's a long pause, and I think we've been cut off. But Gill is just savoring the moment. "I just got transferred to Santiam." Dum spiro spero. Damned if one of his wishes hasn't come true.

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