Work Zone

The jobs were for the taking. The problem was that nobody wanted them.

"I referred 60 or so people into the program," Isaac says. "Nobody lasted."

A $10.50-an-hour gig working open-air construction, toting and lifting, sweating and grunting. The odds were 60 to 1 that the ex-con would flame out in a week.

Glover got some boots and gloves and a hard hat. He had to get up by 3 or 4 a.m. to be at work by 7. His mother helped him buy a beat-up 1991 Ford van with 76,000 miles on it to get him back and forth. He made it through one week, then another. Sundays he went to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, a tiny congregation where his cousin was the pastor.

He prayed for strength.

Spring turned to fall, and his pay moved to $13.50 an hour. He worked the custodian job at Isaac's nonprofit on weekends, for which he was paid $350 a month. A good month, he could make $900, maybe $1,000 if he got some overtime.

He stayed sober. He passed up the drug sales in front of his apartment building. He did his clothes at a laundromat, pumping in the quarters, flirting with the women. He had brief relationships but nothing lasted. One woman he liked, they'd go jogging together. Her mother found out Kenny's history. She told her daughter to drop him like a bad habit. She did.

One day last summer, the heat in his apartment was stifling.

It's a living room and a space for a tiny dining table, a slot of a kitchen, a couple of bedrooms and a bathroom. He sleeps in one room; modest weight-lifting equipment is in the other. There is almost nothing on the walls, save for a clock and a sign that says "Bless My Apartment." A ceiling fan beats the air. A small television is turned to face a smoked-glass dining table, the top cluttered with papers and ketchup and mustard and hot sauce bottles. He's a big man, up to 250 pounds, wearing gray sweat pants despite the heat, and he's twitchy.

"I know if I slip, I'm gone for the rest of my life," he is saying, his voice husky. "I got two felonies. Guys out there on the street see me in the van, they ask me for a ride, it's not easy. I got to think if they're clean or not. I got to think if they're gonna leave something in my van. I just can't let them in. They don't like it, but I can't take that chance. I'm a recovering addict. I could be back out there tomorrow."

It's an uncomfortable thought. Temptation is always just outside the door. Guys hang out on the corner, dealing. Prostitutes walk by, day and night. He blinks a couple of times, as if to focus.

He turns his attention to bills -- electric, rent, car insurance, the phone. He has no credit and no checking account. He has to pay most of these in person with money orders. His hands are sweaty.