Confidence Game

"I'm in the trust business."

by Bruce Schimmel

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Published: Jan 19, 2010

Justina Fox knows ex-cons. It's her job to help ex-prisoners return to society. "Inside of 10 minutes," she claims, she can tell when an ex-offender is ready to "move on." So Fox wants me to meet "Rob," an ex-con in his mid-20s, with a powerful story.

Rob and I meet at McDonald's on North Broad. When I arrive, it's empty, save for a young man, his beard close-trimmed, shaved head covered by a gray beanie. Almost anonymous. Handsome.

From under the beanie peer dark eyes. His hands move like a magician's: slow-quick-slow. From inside his coat, he takes a small notebook, and writes down a single word I can't make out.

At 18, Rob entered prison, convicted of armed robbery and aggravated assault. "I felt so much guilt," he says. "You're by yourself, thinking, 'What the hell am I going to do now?' I felt so stupid."

Rob served six years for smacking a college student in the head with the butt of a shotgun during a robbery gone bad.

Still, Rob's no big bruiser. He's a welterweight, with a boxer's body that he got from his dad, from whom he learned a lot. In prison. His father was an ex-fighter, already a lifer at Graterford when his son arrived. In prison, Big Bob tutored Little Bob in the art of success.

"'Little Bob,' he'd say, 'the sign of a great champion is when he's knocked down, he gets up again. And wins.'

"From my father," says Rob, "I learned to trust myself."

Talking to this young man, I want to believe him. But there's an issue, because Rob is not only an ex-con, he was also a con man. Rob stole, but his weapon was charm, which he used to finagle his way into the homes of goofy college kids. With a crew of six, Rob would travel to Centre County to party with rubes from Penn State. Invited home, they'd take money, jewelry, meth and weed. Violence, generally, wasn't necessary. To Rob, it was foolproof: "I mean, if you're stealing drugs, they're not going to complain."

So, why tell your story now?

"Because many people are going through the same thing that I am."

Indeed. According to a study by the Mayor's Office for the Reentry of Ex-Offenders, some 40,000 ex-prisoners return to Philly every year. The study estimates that at any given time, in this city of 1.5 million, some 200,000 to 400,000 ex-cons live on the edge.

Their success depends on trust. Believing in themselves, others will believe in them. Rob knows this, which is why he volunteers as a peer counselor, works nightly in a homeless shelter. And why, curiously, his livelihood once again depends on talking his way into peoples' homes. This time, to cut their hair. He's a licensed barber, courtesy of training he got in prison.

"I'm in the trust business," Rob says, "where you learn how to care about people. Maybe they don't get the best or sharpest haircut, but I give them honest and good service. When you forget about the money, that's when you'll make it.

"You live with that every moment of your life. There's not a moment that I can slip and lose consciousness of what I need to do. People will trust you if you trust yourself."

As the interview ends, I ask to see what word Rob wrote in his notebook. "Integrity." I want to trust Rob. I want hundreds of thousands of ex-cons to get our trust. Maybe I should invite him home to give me a haircut. I think maybe I'll call, as Rob says goodbye, wrapping his coat around him to fend off the cold.

(bruce@schimmel.com)