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grandmother would learn that he was in jail. He was extremely
fond of his grandmother and he begged his mother not to tell
the old woman what had happened.
It was January when Lonny began serving time at the Cook
Inlet Facility, and until his sentencing he was locked up for
twenty-four hours a day except for commissary trips and twice
weekly gym exercise. He was eventually moved to a minimum
security wing where his cellmate was a smalltime drug offender.
In February his sentencing made Kodiak’s newspaper, the Daily
Mirror. The townspeople who didn’t already know Lonny’s story
now read it in the newspaper. Fortunately his grandmother lived
out of state and his secret was safe from her.
For taking potshots at a sea lion Lonny was sentenced to
eighteen months in prison. He had already served two months;
fifty-four days were suspended; leaving him with fourteen
months to serve on the federal charges.
In March Lonny was transferred to a federal prison outside
of Alaska. This happened abruptly and without any notice to his
family. His sister Janice had sent him a letter with an enclosed
religious pamphlet and a picture of Jesus, and the packet was
returned to her undelivered with a note informing her that the
material she had sent was “contraband.” His family worried
about him until they learned that they could write to him at the
Federal Detention Center in Seattle. “Be sure to use the correct
inmate number,” they were told, “or he won’t get the mail.”
Because the move to Seattle happened so abruptly, only a
day after his girlfriend Florence visited him, Lonny suspected
that the authorities relocated him to deprive him of this last
happiness of receiving visits from his girl. He was alone now to
ponder his transgressions. But not really alone. At the Federal
Detention Center in Seattle, Lonny was surrounded by illegal
immigrants and petty drug users. He wasn’t sure how to interpret
this. Did it say something about the relative gravity of his offense?
Did it speak to the efficiency and appetite of the criminal justice
system? “There are so many innocent people here,” he wrote
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