A person convicted of a misdemeanour or guilty of misconduct.
I was introduced to a man who had "been away for a while." Ignorant to the meaning of that euphemism I chattily asked the man "So, where’d you go?" He did not respond, looking straight ahead with world-weary placidity. He continued his conversation with our mutual friend who had introduced us, and that ended our only conversation.
Driving around town several minutes later my friend explained that by saying Adam had "been away for a while" he meant that Adam had been in jail for 2 years on (what were by most accounts) trumped up charges involving sale of electronics to the Iraqis during the first Gulf War. Adam owned an electronics shop and, according to him, unwittingly ended up selling crates full of Nintendo video game consoles to the Iraqi military. These consoles were allegedly used not for gaming but for military purposes. Adam claimed his involvement in the shipment’s ultimate destination was several degrees of separation apart from the original sale, and that he knew nothing of the shipment’s final customer. According to him and his circle of friends it was the wartime fear-mongering that led to the arrest of him and no one else.
How true is this story? I do not know. I only repeat what I heard, as exactly as I can remember it, for no distinguishable purpose.
At the time I was a bit embarrassed for having missed the meaning of the expression "been away for a while" and then asking such a seemingly stupid question. This occured in 1994, though, and since then I’ve been introduced to many other people who done jail time, some staying locked up overnight, others for years. I am yet to hear "been away for a while" or "went away for a while" repeated in any form to refer to jail time. In fact most ex-prisoners seem happy to talk about their incarceration, just not in the immediate weeks and months after which it ended.
