Читать книгу LIFE AFTER RUSSIAN ROULETTE: REDEMPTION - Michael Kaminski - Страница 2

I believe everyone has a dark side within their being, whether or not they want to acknowledge or admit it. There are two faces that people see when they look at the person they think they know in relationships. Each one of us lives with a secret or hidden part of our personality in which we struggle to understand and want to conceal from other people.

Like the shadows of the dark figures in Plato’s “Allegory of The Cave” in The Republic, our thoughts, ideas, emotions, concepts, actions and behaviors provide us with indirect lighting – a superficial and often inaccurate understanding of our true self. We live with, and try to conceal, these distorted images of our inner personality. We justify our actions and behaviors. We create situations that violate our belief systems, values, morals and ethics.

Many times in the journey we call life we are confronted, either by others or ourselves, to explain our behaviors. Then we are faced with a dilemma, a time of truth. This book is my attempt to confront the shadowy figures of my life.

Just as Roxanne confronted Captain Benjamin Willard in Apocalypse Now, the epic 1979 movie set during the Vietnam War, when she said, “there are two of you, don’t you see. One that kills and one that loves,” I have been confronted by myself.

Apocalypse is defined as “lifting of the veil, a revelation, a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of people.” What you will read inside the chapters of this book is the story of my personal apocalypse.

Life After Russian Roulette: Redemption is a voyage inside the cave of my mind, soul and psyche. It is an exploration into the dark places of a human heart. If you have never met me, you will create a distorted image or false perception of the person I am today. If you have known me in the past or think you know me now, you will have a misunderstanding of my personality as you try to relate or compare me with the character in the story. However, my character was a real person and, at times, is still alive within me.

Primarily, this is a personal story about the truth that many police officers and undercover detectives would prefer not to reveal about themselves. It is an attempt to present one man’s inner struggles – psychological, mental and emotional – as he encounters and confronts moral, ethical and legal challenges in situations, both in uniform and in undercover operations, that affect his belief system, values and loyalties.

Although this book is not intended to be a confession, it is an acknowledgement of the decisions I made, and the actions I chose, in situations where many people in society would consider being contradictory to moral and ethical behavior. However, living and existing in the shadowy world of drug gangs and organized crime associations can become very complex and contradictory. Allies become enemies. Enemies become allies. It all depends on survival, motive and opportunity. When do you decide or make a choice that wrong becomes right and then live with the consequences?

This story is about personal confrontation of death, life and love. It is a glimpse inside the dark cave to confront the shadows of the dark figures that still live within my psyche, in hope of finding enlightenment.

In the writing of this book, I realized I deeply related to the conflicting, challenging and mentally controlling thoughts and fears that Captain Willard wrestled with when he accepted the assignment to kill Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now: “Part of me was afraid of what I would find and what I would do when I got there. I knew the risks – or imagined I knew them. But the one thing I felt the most, much stronger than fear, was the desire to confront him.”

The story begins in a uniquely contrasting and contradicting setting. The opening scene takes place in a lonely seminary dorm room. I had been in seminary for almost two and a half years. As I sit in the silence of the night, there is a gun pointed at my head. How I react to the situation eventually changed my life, again.

The events that follow the long night of confronting the memories that had haunted me will take the reader on a journey of exploration, criticism and potential judgment. The goal is that you will find what I continue to seek and search for in life.

You will follow me through this psychological and emotionally challenging story, which begins on my way to the Baltimore City Police Academy in the fall of 1973. After graduation from the police academy, you begin to walk with me on foot patrol in one of the roughest districts in Baltimore City, Western. You will learn about The Law of the West of Baltimore in the 1970’s.

The hot tension, unrest and division within the police department eventually grew to a boiling point in the summer of 1974. Witness this historic moment in Baltimore City when members of the police department went on strike, chanting: “I will not die for 5.5.”

The Anne Arundel County Police Department becomes a trigger that will eventually change my life again. It will be in this organization that I will meet the person who will have the second most significant impact on my life and future, both personally and professionally.

Because of my unorthodox activities and ways of enforcing the law in uniform in The Beach, I am assigned to the Vice and Narcotics Division and live and learn how to survive within drug organizations and organized crime operations. You will be with me as I develop business associations with a black drug group, local organized crime and the Pagans motorcycle gang, when I trade the vehicle title and my undercover police car for drugs and later, undercover on the docks as I am assigned to Coast Guard Intelligence.

The Block, on historic Baltimore Street, becomes my oasis for periodic escapes. However, this environment of pimps, prostitutes and strip clubs will also be the setting for a shooting.

The turning point of the book will come with the killing of Max Middlebrook. The shooting of Middlebrook by the police will serve as the catalyst for a series of events and changes in my life that will lead me to a deeper understanding of faith, death, love and life.

There are many creative ways to attempt and commit suicide. You can try to run from life but you cannot escape the life or the person within you – your thoughts, feelings, demons, fears, loyalties, morals, values and beliefs. I tried to kill the person within me in several different ways only to find that I could not kill the beast that controlled me.

After I intentionally set myself up to commit professional suicide, I worked as a private investigator for the criminal defense attorneys that had been my enemies in organized crime. In fact, they helped me get my license. I realized that allies and enemies are interchangeable depending on the opportunity of the moment.

My psychological game of Russian roulette eventually led me to being detained in the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. It was the sudden realization that I was trapped on foreign ground that became the second turning point in my life.

After a near fatal, alcohol-driven accident that almost ended my life, I found new life in seminary. However, I still could not escape the ghosts that lived within the abyss of my mind, soul and psyche.

My life was not complete until God finally gave me the one piece of the puzzle that I was searching to find most of my life – LOVE. In Sharon, I found peace. In Sharon, I found the one part of life that I had lost. But eventually I would lose it again.

With Sharon, I discovered the mystery of a higher form and deeper level of love – love that I had never felt or experienced before in my life. My heart opened up in a way that had long been dead within me. I began to feel life rather than think about life.

Then Sharon was taken from me. The life I had known as Sharon was gone and I felt a dark sense of emptiness. Once again, I fell into a deep emotional and mental hole. Nevertheless, eventually her death opened me up again to a new sense of meaning and purpose in life. I understood why I had survived and lived without suicide. The game of Russian roulette was finally finished. The game would be over.

Although in Sharon’s physical death, I experienced a different form of loss as well as a deep anger toward God. However, in a strange and mysterious way, I met myself again and found new life.

As I write this self-discovery of my dark psyche, I hold close to me at times and consider an old friend. As I reflect on the memories of a life that lead me to death, new life, lost love and self-realization through the power of faith, my old friend still reminds me of a life that was very deadly and violent at times. The friend that I hold close, but keep at a distance, is the gun that protected me for many years.

We are who we have become because of the many paths in our life. The experiences, events, challenges, opportunities and survival skills that mold our personality, morals, values and belief systems create and develop our personality, the person we are today.

For many of us, we are not the person people perceive us to be, even those who think they are close to us. We are mere reflections of images people have, view and believe that they see in us. We are distortions of what people think we are. And there are conflicts within every human heart, mind and soul.

I have come to a point in life where I understand and accept life as a continuous educational journey of self-discovery. Life is an on-going process of discovery, uncovering and recovery. We need to uncover our true perception of self, discover who we really are and recover from the life we have lead as the person we created to survive.

I have been called a survivor and an opportunist. Those labels could be true and accurate. But I believe that each one of us develops survival skills and have the potential to take advantage of opportunities to get to the place where we want to be in life.

This book is based on actual events. It is a story about living with life and death. Before I could appreciate life, I had to understand and accept the meaning of death. Before I could learn to walk again, I had to live with the vision and image of my own mortality, death and dying.

In the end, this glance into one person’s psyche and soul is ultimately about LOVE. It is the story about a form of love that many people search for all their lives but never really find.

In the end, this is a story about love that is found in unexpected ways. It is a story about love that is physically taken away but never really lost. The physical relationship can be separated by time and space but the connection of true love will never die. True love is formless and permanent.

In order to feel real true love, you need to understand what it means to know hatred. Before you can really live, you need to experience death.