You want to believe Trevor Clough.
Want to believe every word he says.
That he’s ready to change his life once leaving the state prison, perhaps in two months. That he’ll pursue a college degree, leading up to a career helping troubled kids. That he won’t stick a gun in someone’s face again and steal money. That he’s done smoking crack.
“I’m realizing that this just isn’t the way to live,” Clough, who’s 19, tells me from a tiny meeting room in the state prison. “I see people every day in this place who just aren’t going home. They’ve been here 20, 30, 40 years, doing the same thing over and over again. I don’t want to live like that. It scares the crap out of me, and it saddens me.”
Clough robbed the Walgreens on The Heights last May, using a gun to scare the cashier. He got $100 and some cigarettes. He was arrested two weeks later and received a one- to three-year sentence, thanks to a plea deal. He’s eligible for parole in May.
He wrote to the Monitor recently asking for a chance to tell his story. He says he wants to help young people avoid the mistakes he’s made.
“I have a message I want to pass along to New Hampshire’s youth,” Clough said in a three-page letter. “I am asking for your help to spread my message. Help me help others and show them the harsh reality of the prison system.”
His words flowed, as did our in-person conversation. Clough is not stupid. In fact, he’s rather articulate. The choices he’s made in life? That’s another story. That’s why he’s living his life now in an orange jumpsuit.
His family, of course, tells the story about a misunderstood person, desperate to fit in. You want to believe what they say as well.
His mother and sister and aunt and cousin, all of whom live in Concord, see a big-hearted kid, someone with tons of potential, forever seeking acceptance, always standing up for the underdog.
“I never believed in peer pressure, but Trevor was easily influenced by it,” his cousin, Marc Bennett, told me. “He has a lot more good points than bad.”
They say they had no clue Clough had a drug problem. They had no idea Clough had summoned me to the prison, no idea that he wants to create a campaign to help others as he waits for his release.
His aunt, Arline Dlubac, a retired insurance agent, said the news gave her “goosebumps.”
“To contact you was an amazing thing,” Dlubac continued. “He was smart, intelligent, but he had a hard time in public schools.”
Stories like this one forever have a common thread. The person’s behavior says one thing, a bad thing, while the subject and his or her inner circle say something quite different.
Clough mentioned an early diagnosis of autism. He said he was bullied.
“When I was younger I was emotional when overwhelmed, cried when I was overwhelmed, anxious,” Clough said. “They’d pick on me for that. That went on all my middle school career. At first I would ignore them, and they were ass- – – – – and I got fed up and started being violent. I’d punch them in the head. I became known in school for fights.”
Dlubac recalled a little kid who’d fall to the ground and bang his had against the floor when he didn’t get his way.
Clough got into fights at Rundlett Middle School and says he left via “mutual agreement” with the school, after the staff refused to listen to him, refused to believe that he was merely retaliating once the bullies stepped over the line.
He was put on probation for breaking a kid’s nose and jaw. He broke curfew, drank beer, smoked weed and ignored the rules set down by his mother, Heather Gifford, a cashier at Market Basket.
“Public school was a tumultuous time,” Gifford told me by phone. “Police got involved a lot.”
Clough moved through alternative schooling, for students who wanted no part of the mainstream educational system. He earned his high school education at Wediko Children’s Services in Windsor. It was a struggle the whole way through.
“I was supposed to be home at 7 and would come in at 11,” Clough said. “My mom would call the (probation officer) and leave him a message. He would come to talk to me and after a while my mom would stop reporting me but he would find out. I was partying at friends’ houses, in fields, where ever we could find to go.”
Clough said he began smoking crack when he was 17, at which time he lived at his father’s house in Concord. He said the drug would numb his throat and numb his mind.
He loved the high, and described in great detail how the rock would sizzle, meaning he was on the doorstep of a great rush, a cloud of smoke in his lungs that would transfer to his blood stream and help him forget all those fights and rocky times in school.
“You want to inhale and suck it harder,” Clough told me. “And you know that you got a good hit because when you blow out you throw up. It’s called a bell ringer.”
Within two years, Clough said he was addicted to crack cocaine. He needed money to support his habit, so he and two friends drove to the Wallgreens on Loudon Road last May 15, a Sunday night.
Clough, dressed in all black, went inside wearing sunglasses, a bandana across his face and a University of Maine baseball hat. He carried a Glock 9mm handgun. He slammed it down hard on the counter, then pointed it toward the cashier, close to his face, making sure his intention was taken seriously.
Tips led to Clough’s arrest, which was facilitated when his girlfriend’s car broke down on Interstate 393 and a state trooper pulled them over and asked Clough for identification. This is the lone arrest on record for Clough, which helped him receive the lightest sentence possible.
He’s been in the state prison since Jan. 3, after spending more than 200 days at the jail in Boscawen, for which he received time served. He said four or five inmates jumped him soon after he arrived at the state prison, breaking his nose.
He told officials he fell on the ice, mindful what happens to rats inside. He’s been left alone since.
He said the idea to communicate with teens hit him hard, like the power of a cell door locking shut behind him. His mother thinks the letter he sent to his local newspaper means a lot.
“I think for Trevor, to me it’s amazing because he’s taking responsibility for his actions,” Gifford said. “He’s trying to help others, and that’s huge for him.”
Clough has plans. He wants to study social work in college, wants to help troubled kids, wants his family and you to believe that there’s change coming, very soon.
“Some of these dudes here did things years ago, and they’re not bad people,” Clough said. “I’m friends with some of them. If you actually sat down with them and talked to them, they’re actually good dudes.”
That’s what I did with Clough. I sat down with him and I talked to him, and after an hour, I believed him.
I hope I’m right.