science tomes. (Well, I did a great deal of reading, but understanding the partnership between laughter and trust was achieved by on-the-scene experiences). In 1967, when Fortune was founded, I was “the square”—the civilian amidst men and women whose lives were dramatically different than mine. They were my teachers. I listened, watched, and learned. When Fortune grew and moved out of our one-room space into a loft with several room dividers and a community meeting room, someone gave us a ping pong table which provided diversion for the folks hanging around.
start to trust. He began to confront the demons and remove the barriers that caused his pain and his acting out. Toby’s life is just one story – or as one person in academia once charged me, “that’s an anecdote; we have statistics.” I’ve read the statistics, but I’ve lived the anecdotes. At Fortune, trust is a primary issue. It is a starting juncture for change. Health and medical care is an intricate part of re-entry—but it can be difficult for formerly incarcerated people to trust medical professionals, considering their past experiences. Staff persons
I met a 17-year-old who was referred to Fortune by his probation officer. Toby was a big young man and very angry. Very. He only spoke to answer a specific question with as few words as possible. I challenged Toby to a game of ping pong. He played—angrily—but he played. He would look through me as if I didn’t exist. I always chattered and made small jokes. After a bit I became aware of his embarrassed smiles. In time, I earned a few muffled laughs. It took weeks but the laughs prompted some small talk. Toby began to open up. He took classes to earn a G.E.D., hanging out with other motivated young men. He started having a life. A year later, at one of Fortune’s Progress Award ceremonies, Toby received a plaque entitling him “the outstanding teenager.” Toby never looked back. He has had a good career, two daughters, and, he says, a good life. It was playing ping pong, remembering how to laugh, that allowed him to
believing or caring for self. In prison, as men and women mature, they often age out of rebellious feelings that led them into cages. In the past, they managed the pain by escaping to drugs or booze. But even as people mature, trust is difficult to identify because too often in the past, trust was followed by abandonment or betrayal. When men and women come out of prison – and enter a building where there is laughter – it is a new experience. The atmosphere at Fortune allows people to reclaim their lives, and suggests that they are more than the accumulated negative experiences of their pasts. There are a thousand ingredients that make this transformation possible. That path is cluttered with their unchallenged demons. I have come to believe that laughter makes it easier to confront the past and prepare for a meaningful future.
who are sensitive to this assume an important role in helping people with justice involvement access services by identifying and responding to real barriers caused by lack of trust. To create a healing atmosphere, Fortune and similar programs must be cognizant of people’s backgrounds, and the betrayal and abandonment that creates a lack of trust. If you listen carefully, you learn that a lack of trust mostly starts early in life—with abandonment and/or betrayal. When such a child becomes a teen, few societal guidelines are respected. They have stopped VOLUME LII • FEBRUARY 2020
P.S. 40 years after Toby left Fortune, he paid us a visit. I invited him to sit in on a group of teenagers in our Alternatives to Incarceration program. Afterwards, he said it had been like being in a time capsule. “David,” he said, “those young men could have been the guys with me back in the ‘70s. Same anger, same emotions. Only thing different is their music.” Then he asked, “Was I that angry?” I looked at him. “Of course you were,” I said. “I used to call you the angriest kid in New York City.” And then he laughed. He did comment that there was also laughter in the room. That matters. Trust me.
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