text: It was Tuesday so, a slow day in the diner. Weekends, everyone is partying. Monday everyone is either hung-over or just sick of starting the same ole shit, new week. Wednesday and Thursday, they begin to look forward to, and make plans for, the weekend. Then Friday begins the cycle again. But Tuesday, Tuesday everyone just “coasts”. They don’t want to go out, so it’s typically our slowest day. &#x200B; A few usual's were in and out. Now we’re almost empty. It’s just after 11 pm and I see Jason finishing up busing tables at the end of his shift. Jason’s an ex-con. I never got in trouble myself. (Who am I kidding . . . I just never got caught.) So I occasionally pick one getting released and try and give them a better start back in the real world. To help move them off the path I know I narrowly avoided. &#x200B; Jason cleans tables, and helps out in the kitchen. Sue, the cook, is teaching him a thing or two. He’s not a half bad cook, I’m just not sure he’ll ever have the gumption to seize control and be an actual “cook in command” alone somewhere. &#x200B; I catch Jason as he’s carrying the last tub of dishes to the back for the night., “Jason, when you get done, if you have a few minutes stop by my office.” &#x200B; “OK”, he says, head down now, continuing on to the back. &#x200B; I amble back to the office and begin going through tonight's inventory counts, getting restock orders ready for tomorrow. Five or so minutes later, I hear a knock on the door, and see Jason crack it open and look in. “Come in Jason, have a seat.” &#x200B; Jason closes the door behind himself, and sits down. Literally “hat in hand”, rolling the rim of the navy blue toboggan around in his hands. “Are you going to fire me?”, he asks. &#x200B; I look over at him, “What? No, no.”, I pause, slower, “No. I’m not firing you. You’re doing a great job. The diner is spotless. Or at least so clean, last month’s health inspector ask if we’d changed ownership.”, I chuckle, “And Sue says you’re picking up a thing or two in the kitchen. You’re doing fine on the work part.” &#x200B; I exhale and lean back in my chair, “You ever have one of those moments, where, you’re not exactly having an original thought, you just hear one thing in one place, read another thing somewhere else, next thing you know, two or three seemingly unrelated things come together and you have a realization?” &#x200B; “I don’t think so.”, Jason looks confused. &#x200B; “Well OK, it’s been happening to me lately. One of the things was a quote, I can’t remember who said it . . . ‘You should only give advice at two times, when someone asks for it, or because someone is about to hurt themselves.’ I’m gonna break that rule and try and pass on some advice. Maybe it’ll help, maybe it’ll just make things worse. I can see that it’s been hard going for you lately. You’re not the first person I’ve hired right out of prison, or the first person in the job you have now. Maybe some of the customers have picked up on that, and some of the ‘less-nice’ ones are giving you a hard time. And if some are giving you a hard time here, then you’re probably getting the same at your apartment and other places.” &#x200B; “Sometimes.”, Jason nods. &#x200B; “There are a lot of bad things about prison. One is that, we (society) take people having a hard time out in the world, and put them in a place that is even harder and more unrelenting. For those not bad to the core, but who just made a few bad choices, we’re not taking the bad and trying to make them good again, we’re instead putting them with even harder, even worse people, and are shocked when they leave prison worse than when they went in.” &#x200B; Jason leans back in his chair, stops fidgeting with his cap and listens as I continue. &#x200B; “This is going to sound strange, but I want you to answer a question. You don’t have to answer it out loud, because the answer isn’t for me, it’s for you alone. And I ask myself this question from time to time. It’s sort of a ‘thought experiment’.” &#x200B; I look down from Jason at my hands on the desk, “Pretend, you know everything you know now. But, the year is 1920, and you are about to be born. With all the understanding you already have, God is asking you . . . ‘Who do you want to be born as?’ Now, most people, knowing what we do about the approaching 1939-1945 years would say, ‘I want to be one of those plucky Americans that sweep the world, leading the charge to halt the forces of evil.’ But, God tells you, ‘Sorry, right now almost everyone wants that. All those positions went fast, and first. There are only two slots open now. You can be a Jew, that will die in Auschwitz at the age of 22, or, you can be an SS officer in charge of exterminating prisoners in the same camp.’ Who do you choose to be?” &#x200B; I lean back in my chair and look at Jason, who understandably seems confused and continue, “I think about the question a lot, during my idle moments. If ‘saving yourself or saving others’ wasn’t an option, would I choose to be ‘Victim’? Or ‘Victimizer’?, if those were my only options. It’s a hard choice. Maybe an impossible one. No one wants to be the lamb, the victim. And (hopefully) only a few want to be the wolf, the victimizer. Many more, wish/hope/pray that they can be the sheep-dog. Someone able to protect themselves, and fend off any foes (wolves), and not be an innocent lamb waiting to be slaughtered. But, we’re not all built to be sheep-dog’s, mentally or physically. And even if we were at one point earlier in our lives, as the years pass, health, reaction times, and muscle strength inevitably declines, even those that were once sheep-dogs, drift towards the lamb end of the spectrum.” &#x200B; Still seated, but leaning a little over the table, hands flat on the desk now as I look directly at Jason, “Prison teaches you to be a wolf. It reinforces the idea that there are no sheep-dog’s. No one is going to save you. And you can either be a wolf or a sheep. You had to be a wolf in there, just to survive. But, now, you’re not in prison any more. You’re back out in the ordinary world where people live their lives, and make most of their decisions out of FEAR. And most likely, the people who treat you badly, are afraid of you. I’ve seen the way some of the people treat you as you clear the tables. If it’s a regular, or someone I know, I try and correct their behavior. But I can’t always catch everyone, some are just strangers passing through, plus I’m not always there, when you have to deal with people other places.” &#x200B; I lean back in my chair again, clasp my hands together, interlacing the fingers on the desk and look up at Jason, “The last five years have reinforced you to be a wolf. And now you’ve back out among the lambs. So, whenever someone raises their voice to you, or demeans you, you instantly flash back to being surrounded by wolves in prison. Your trained instinct is to ‘be a wolf back’, to protect yourself from them. So, I’m going to ask you do the hardest possible thing. I’m going to ask you to ‘Have Mercy On Them.’ Now, understand. It’s not going to ‘get you anything’. Not exactly. People won’t suddenly, or maybe ever, respect you. They won’t turn their personalities around and start treating you better.” &#x200B; I pause, “Like many of us, you’re not really in the position to be the sheep-dog. Fresh out of prison, if you fight, even justifiably so, you’ll take the hit as the ‘wrong party’ no matter who started it. But, I’m not asking you to be the lamb either. I’m asking you to *‘Know you are a wolf, choose to have mercy on them and not strike back.'* Not out of weakness, or fear on your part, but out of the strength of knowing after five hard years of prison, you could probably rip one of their arms off and beat them to death with it. To hold yourself steady in the face of simple verbal abuse, out of the strength of being a wolf who chooses to have mercy on those who, most likely, don’t deserve it.” &#x200B; I shake my head, “I’m probably not making sense.”, I exhale again and stand up from the chair, “It doesn’t matter. Head on home. I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night Jason.”, I stand and extend my hand to shake his, as he rises and returns the handshake. &#x200B; Jason stops on his way out with the door half open, pauses for a moment looking back at me, “Thanks boss. I’ll see you tomorrow.” &#x200B; And I wonder as the door gently closes, if the wolf in Jason has made a decision.