IT WAS COLLECTION DAY, and all the aging Chinese men who ran the dozens of low-stakes gambling dens and popular restaurants in Boston's Chinatown were prepared to pay that month's extortion money. The envelopes full of cash were usually transferred with a broad smile that belied each victim's begrudging nature. They no longer felt the fear of what would happen if they didn't pay, because they always paid. So the fear was gone, long since replaced by something far worse — a weekly emasculation at the hands of an abnormally large white guy who had them by the balls.

"I was always polite," John Willis says reassuringly. "My boss, Bai Ming, would send me, and he always said when you go to collect money, make them respect you. Sometimes you'd have a problem. You'd have to, you know, do damage. Whether it's beating people up, or sometimes you might put their hand on the grill; do something to really get the point across."

John began collecting for Bai Ming as a teenager in the late 1980s. The first time he ran into a problem was at a gambling den on Harrison Avenue. He went in and introduced himself to the owner, and told him he was collecting for Ming. The owner was as surprised as he was offended that a round-eyed white kid would enter his place of business and demand money.

"Who does this white boy think he is?" the owner said to another man in Chinese. "He should just leave and go fuck his mother."

The two men continued speaking in Chinese, mocking John and laughing. John stood patiently for a moment before turning around and locking the door. He then proceeded to tear the place apart. He turned over tables, smashed chairs, and pulled the lights down from the ceiling. When he was done and the gambling den looked like a disaster area, John walked up to the owner and spoke softly but firmly to him in perfect Chinese.

"Next time just give me the money. Don't insult me. Don't disrespect me, and don't make me go through this again, or it won't be furniture I break. Understand?"

"Oh, you speak Chinesey," the owner said, managing a smile.

"No, I don't speak Chinesey," John corrected him. "I speak Chinese. Now, go fuck your mother."

* * *

John Willis smiled at the memory and inhaled deeply. Willis is a large, muscular man of English, Portuguese, and Cherokee Indian descent, made even larger by persistent steroid use. He keeps his hair cropped short in a neat and stylish crew cut. His eyes are blue. His face is round and handsome. He is much too serious to allow for a broad, carefree smile. Laughter is a luxury. He is all business all the time.

His moment of fond reminiscing ended abruptly when he heard the distinctive echo that can only be made when metal doors are slammed shut. He listened to the muffled whimpers of strong men crying into their pillows. Moments later the lights were turned out, and he felt the loneliness that darkness brings. He sensed fear all around him, and as he felt it growing inside of himself, he jumped down to the cold cement floor and he prayed.

John forced his large, muscular body into a modified lotus position, closed his eyes, and listened to his own heartbeat. He concentrated solely on its rhythm until the space between beats grew remarkably wide, and his breathing was shallow enough to be imperceptible. He pushed out thoughts of anger and self-pity, and wrestled with the self-awareness that caused him to both love and loathe himself. Finally reaching a more peaceful state, John thought about all the people he loved in his life. There were exactly two — his wife and his daughter. Prior to meeting his wife, Anh Nguyen, he had no familiarity with either love or fear, and the sudden appearance of both disrupted his core beliefs. Love and fear threatened his way of life. They made him vulnerable in ways that could get him killed, and he felt love, in particular, weakening him every day. It must be love, he thought, "because it brings a lot of pain." His mind didn't land on the notion that love brings a lot of happiness. There's far too much conflict and guilt and rising thoughts of violence associated with love for it to ever offer John the false hope of pure joy. Love was far more likely to fuel his rage.

"Somebody hit my wife one time in a nightclub," John recalled. "I was in New York, and somebody called me and told me. They've never seen that guy again. And nobody ever will. He shouldn't have put his hands on her. The fact of the matter is the guy will never, ever do that again. Whoever knew about it, or was involved in it, they were getting whatever he was getting. When it comes to my wife, I'm not arguing. I don't have a problem with taking out five or six guys just to get to the right one. Then it's over. And I sleep a little better."

The memory of having done the right thing helped John relax. He continued rubbing his thumb and forefinger gently, smoothly, and continuously for nearly an hour, and he thought only about his wife and daughter.

"May they be well, happy, and peaceful," he said over and over.

John was so entranced by his meditative state, so singularly focused on his purpose, that he was able to achieve a serenity that stood in stark contrast to his surroundings. John Willis was quietly celebrating his forty-second birthday in jail. He would certainly celebrate his forty-third, and there could be as many as eighteen birthdays after that spent behind bars.

Before rising from the floor, John took a moment to recognize the circuitous nature of his life's journey. Sitting on the cold jail floor, alone and praying, was notably similar to when John was fifteen years old and convinced he would die on his kitchen floor. He was cold, hungry, and alone then, too.

"I wasn't looking to do anything other than survive as a kid," John says. "I went from surviving to basically taking everything I wanted. The way I look at it, there's a lot taken for granted in this country. You go home, you shut your door, you're inside, you have heat, you eat food, and you live there. But what happens when I'm a kid and my mom dies? There's no more food, there's no more heat. Now there's a need to survive. I wanted to actually make something of my life. In the beginning, I was angry at the world, very angry that my mother had passed away and I was in a situation with no money. No nothing. I didn't have family, because my sisters were caught up in drugs. I was basically taken in by a family who was Chinese. I grew up just a whole different species than what was around me. I found myself in a society that didn't trust anybody, never mind somebody white, somebody American. And then to be given duty, honor, and respect — to me that was something I cherished, and to this day I do."

What John offers there is a stripped-down summary of his life that attempts to explain why he chose an amoral, greedy, and violent path, but never broaches why he rejected an infinite number of alternate routes. His circumstances, dire as they were, taught him lessons that some would...