My father (Clifford Curdgel) died at 1:10am on January 7th, 2024. Cliff was 63 years old. As far as I know, I was his only child, the only son I often joked. He left behind his father (Herbert) and countless siblings (I’m serious. We don’t have a solid number.)

My father (or “Fava” as his Bronx accent would only let him say it) was absent for 25 years of my life due to a prison sentence and jail time, save for occasional visits and letters. Over time, I grew to know a version of my dad we’ll call “My Father, the inmate.” My Father as an inmate was remarkable. He was clean and sober due to both chronic illness and wanting his freedom, I imagine. My Father, the inmate, earned his GED and a College degree. My Father the inmate ran in charity 5k races and Marathons in the yard for a local church affiliated with one of his prisons. Converted to Islam, too.

Inmate Dad followed the rules, and gave a shit when I talked. His advice was often bad (comically so), but he related to my concerns as a young man, I guess. Mentally and developmentally he was still around 21, 22 years old. On our day-long visits, we’d talk for hours while playing chess or cards. I’d try to temper my Dad to what he should expect in the world when he came out. He’d try to temper me about how the world was versus how it is now.

Swapping life stories, Inmate Dad told me about his antics as a kid, his time in Albany, where he came from (Bronx, Albany, Saratoga, Albany, Prison) , some of the dumb stuff he did as a kid, and how. Told me (and showed me when I visited him on one of his frequent hospital visits while still incarcerated) the bullet still lodged in his leg from a kid called “11” who would punch people with his tiny single shot handgun to rob them. According to my Dad, the kid shot him, and in a panic, he ran all the way to where his mom was getting her hair done to tell her and ran right through the glass door in front of the salon and got all cut up. Kept the bullet wound a secret because he didn’t want to be in trouble. Nevermind the glass. That was the kind of shit my Father did his entire life. He’d tell me these stories while we talked about how we’d have to find an empty court so I could beat him in 1 on 1 basketball. He was sure he’d win, and I was sure I’d beat him.

Cliff told me when he was a kid, they’d once figured out how to empty out the arcade and vending machines at a pizza place in the Bronx until the owner found out, and opted to pay my dad half the coins in the machines to make sure people stopped stealing it. His first real hustle. (Hot melted bic pen, mashed into the lock and allowed to cool, then turn. Works on older model pay phones too; you’re welcome.) The hustle was that Dad would let his friends take 1/4th of the coins inside the machines without snitching, then get his half from the owner who didn’t know any better; everybody won. These were the small crimes. There’s too many to remember and list, and a million he never shared. Once he was locked up for something stupid he’d done with his brother (RIP) and missed his mothers funeral. Crime doesn’t and won’t ever pay.

My Father once got us evicted by giving his sister Sunny our rent money (and my mothers mattress, to help her out of some financial trouble instead of paying our rent bill, so we were tossed before we could ever fetch our stuff. The 80’s were a different time. There’s still an illegal handgun in the ductwork of our old apartment in Saratoga, unless somebody found it. (I can’t remember the address and he’s not alive to ask, or I’d probably call somebody.)

Dad would then hustle, deal, and steal to make rent or try to fix the situation, usually creating more problems and more situations he couldn’t get out of without worse crime. Cliff always tried to help somebody (or himself, he was a lifetime criminal after all) and always wound up hurting other people. Cliff used drugs too, he was an addict for his own reasons. It’s how he got HIV in the 80s that turned into AIDS. The drug use and money issues finally caught up. He had a kid now, and he thought he needed to take bigger risks to make a better life for himself, and maybe for me. That’s when my Father got mixed with local organized crime in Albany and got himself an indeterminate life sentence for horrible things he’d done and been associated with. My Father always said he didn’t do it.

He always talked with remorse about his “dumb” crimes and how he “fucked up on alotta stuff”. The man was sure that if he ever got out, he’d turn over a new leaf, stay sober, get a good job, and be the Father “he wished [he’d] could have been.”

I believed him, believed IN him. Hell, I spent 3 months on a nonstop letter writing campaign when he got the chance for parole and early release by 2 years, making and taking phone calls at work when I should have been working. I drove weekly between NJ, Eastern State Correctional Facility, and my house, all to help get letters out, ensure he had clean food to have his strength when he came out if he made parole, and have MODERN clothes to walk out in. (My grandfather beat me to that one and Dad walked out on December 27th looking like an extra from Oliver Twist, but we won’t talk about that.

My Father, the Inmate was released a few days after Christmas, 6 years ago? 7 maybe? It was and still is a blur. The first night “home” he didn’t sleep a wink, he just wandered around my Grandpa’s house looking at things. I imagine I’d have done the same thing. After a couple of days, and time out in the world, I noticed two distinct things and they stuck in the back of my head. While out with me, my Father had a childlike wonder, sometimes talking to me like I was still 13 or 14, or at least how I’d imagined he’d speak to me, excited about a new candy bar he’d never seen, or how long some women's legs were walking down the road. The 80’s were a different time, and I had to tell him often. While excited and amazed at the world he was now sharing with me, he was anxious all the time. Paranoid, seemingly to a fault. (He was and will always be the most anxious man I’ve ever met.)

The second thing, and the most important part of this, is that I noticed is how quickly the amazement would go from his eyes and he’d turn into my Father the Convict. His eyes would go dark, his posture would change, his expressions would shift, it was almost like a different person. Even his laugh was different.

Anyone who’s done any real time inside, or has a close family member/friend will tell you a Convict in prison is a “prisoners prisoner.” They can chop it up with the best of them, hustle, and boast of feats of sinister violence and crime, with the confidence of a Bible preacher in the deep south, making the most skeptical prisoners and short term offenders believe, no, fear, them.

Hanging back and watching my Dad talking to other guys he’d meet or be introduced to, while freshly out of prison: I’d see this side of him come out. I watched him hustle two people out of twenty bucks in my Grandfathers kitchen while showing off and talking about his antics in the slammer, and they had no idea he’d made money off of them. It was sort of funny, the money gag. I won’t tell you how he did it, I might need 20 bucks one day.

I figured (and am probably still right about it) that this was a defense mechanism. The man was raised without a father, left to his own devices due to an alcoholic mother who couldn’t oversee her kids, committing petty crimes, got sent away to boarding school once. Molested by clergy, in and out of jail cells, prison, crack houses, and so on. Taking advantage while being taken advantage of, often. I suppose that’s why he had this alter ego he could put on to protect himself. I think The Convict is the side of my Father he wanted the rest of the world to see. Being feared in prison was the same as being respected, but it isn’t that way here in the real world.

What I didn’t count on was him falling to being my Father the Convict more and more at the second he faced hardships. He came up against a living situation early on, about 6 months into his freedom, and he was already working on a con/hustle/scheme while simultaneously being terrified of going back to prison. It was the one time I saw him conflicted about doing something wrong to survive but also hesitant to believe anyone could help him.

Convict Dad and Inmate Dad were butting heads.

I was able to help where I could, both the Murawsky’s and Andy were able to help too. D put him in a hotel for a couple of weeks (I’m still eternally grateful for this) and Andy was able to assist us with getting him furnishings so he had stuff for an apartment he was able to take over. For weeks I’d come down, fill his fridge, help him with tools for his new job I’d picked and fixed second-hand, take him for meals to nice places. I wanted my Father to do well, and in turn, I’d feel like he was doing well for me, his son. My Dad even got himself a girlfriend during this time. The problem was, she fell in love with the Convict. He was also sending my mother money, as he felt he owed her for leaving her alone with me. Once again, borrowing against the kindness of his family (My grandpa, my aunt Toni, my Grandma, and so many others) to try and make something else “right”.

The problem with the new romance was that my Dad was busy all the time. He didn’t have time for me to swing by when I was in Jersey visiting my friends, or take calls. I get it, 23 years or whatever staring at smelly dudes in orange and green and I’d want to spend time around women too. Then I started hearing rumors from people who knew him that he might be with the wrong crowd. Addicts of a feather flock together. I reached out a few times, and when I finally did hear from my Father, he explained he was super tired and groggy from a car accident. A raccoon had ran out in front of his van he’d saved up his money for (spoilers, he did not, it wasn’t his van, and there was no raccoon), and he swerved and hit ten cars. He had to go to the hospital for it, and he was just running home then. He also had cancer at this time, the second time of many. I wasn’t willing to consider the worst. The worst was true however, my father started using again.  Upon arrest, he said he failed his parole drug test due to NyQuil. This was also the cause of the raccoon accident previously mentioned. Speaking with his PO, it was heroin. This was one of his drugs of choice in the 80’s and apparently addiction is a motherfucker and he decided he’d rather chase the dragon again than stay out here with his son, his dad, his nieces, his little brother, freedom be damned. I got the call from the county jail where he got picked up, and my Dad screamed at me after I wouldn’t bail him out. My father, the Convict, was on the line, and he blamed me for everything not limited to, but including, his addiction, and all of his problems since his release. After all of the love and work I’d done for him (and countless loved ones did), to give him every advantage I should have had as a child, for him as an adult, it simply wasn’t enough. The day long conversations with him about finding a therapist for his mental health, finding a cause to volunteer at to help others and help expand his sense of purpose, him promising me he wasn’t using, all of it was for nothing.

Clifford left me in the care of my mother when the police took him away in '89. My mother moved from abusive man to  abusive man. In turn I suffered physical and emotional abuse until the courts and police became involved when I was 13.  He was not around to protect me then, and while he was out, in my mind and heart, I’d failed to protect him in turn. We did not speak for 4 years after this. Radio silence.

These years nagged at me. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to go. I was meant to have a Father, but it wasn’t in the cards. In the meantime, a global pandemic blew through and changed the world. My grandfather, his father, reached out to check on me, and after we spoke, he said my Father wasn’t doing well in his health.  Prognosis was grim. I took a gamble, and I got my Father’s new phone number and gave him a call.

We met in Washington Park on an April day, outside and masked. The pandemic was in full swing and if my dad was ill, I wouldn't let covid add to it.  My Father, now skeletal, appeared at the park and asked me how I’d been. I barely recognized him. We spoke for a few hours. I asked him many questions and laid down how I felt. I let him know my disappointment and heartache for the things he’d said, and the things he’d done. There were explanations but not many apologies.  Off the bat, my Father let me know he had Stage 3 cancer, leading into Stage 4. We talked about mortality and choices. One thing Cliff was proud of was his recent volunteering with the Damien Center and also for Capital City Pride. His most recent girlfriend had gotten him into helping out there, and it gave me a small spark of happiness for him.

We agreed to meet again publicly, and we did twice more. I had questions and he had answers, most of them half truths and stories. Some of them I already knew the answers, I just wanted to hear the answer from him, but they never did match up. After that, I tried calling my Father a few times, a 30 something year old boy trying to connect with a Dad who couldn’t cope. He was always “busy”, or trying to work. Then when my calls stopped being the outgoing ones, he’d start to call me, always in a hurry, always in a rush with wanting something, normally money, or a ride to another state, something unusual like that. I’d explained to him more than once that I’d lost my job during the pandemic and money was absolutely tight, but he’d pivot to asking me to beg off to my grandmother or other people he’d hit up for money in the past, and I simply couldn’t do it. The edge of my Dad the Convict coming out. I knew how it would go. Eventually Clifford stopped calling me. The last time I heard his voice, he was asking me if I could bring him some money for gas because his car had run out of fuel a block from his apartment. I was quite cash poor, but offered to bring a gas can with a gallon and a half. He said he needed the money for the tank of fuel because he had things to do, and he’d have to call me again some time.

His number never appeared on my phone’s screen ever again.

Cliff never called again. My father was in and out of trouble afterwards. Old friends would reach out because they saw his name in the police blotter, or somebody heard from a friend who volunteered at the shelter that he’d been using again. Once and a while my Grandfather would call me up and let me know my Dad was planning to call and ask me for money, or to get him a hotel room so he could take some stuff from the room to sell. Always a hustle, always a con. The phone never did ring.

I didn’t write this to be mean or disparage my Fathers name. He did a lot of that on his own and those were his sins to get square with. Cliff lived a different life than me. At different points in time, we were both scared kids without Fathers who had choices to make. Cliff took paths that were easy sometimes, and other times he took paths without even reading the signs. I was fortunate to have people in my life to support me while my Father was serving his sentence. I’m certain at times, I might have slipped and made similar choices he did. I learned an immeasurable amount of things from Cliff despite him being absent for most of my life. I learned we all have choices we can make, we all have decisions, and we all make mistakes. It’s what you do when you’ve made those choices, how you land on your decisions, and what you DO to correct those mistakes that matter most, and they impact those who love you way more than you might ever know or be willing to accept. I learned addiction and mental health will beat out good intentions no matter how hard you say you’re willing to work on yourself, even if you don't.

We never did get to play basketball, though. 

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