don't panic, if the contract is not illegal, then you still have your basic civil rights. one of which is no slavery and being free as well as the freedom to move (no one except the police can detain you unlawfully or abduct you). I am quite certain the US has additional labor as well as civil rights law.

So he can not force you to go anywhere against your will. If you break the contract, he can sue you. Again you did never post your contract, but whatever is in there as a punishment MIGHT apply. So i am ASSUMING, since i did not see the contract, worst case you end up in debt and the court will issue either a monthly payment you have to make or determine that they can not take anything from you and determine that the debt 'needs to be paid as soon as you are able to pay' (this is kind of a bitch though and you might read up on how exactly this works on your own). This obviously means, that if you do not want to, you never need to strip again or worse, if you do not want to.

Either way, if worse comes to worse, you have a legal battle ahead of you and if this goes out worse, you simply have debt paid whenever the the gouverment, not him decides you have to pay it. there might also be something about bancrupcy law stuff you can use for your advantage, but i am not too familiar with this and not a lawyer, which is also why i (last time) said ask legaladvice.

Either way, take a deep breath, calm down and think again clearly, nobody can force you to go anywhere using a piece of paper. (at least if you are willing to take the hit to be sued for breach of contract)

If you think he broke the contract first, then you need a lawyer and this is certainly going to cost you money, like your lawyer said (which is also why i said you might want to save up some money he does not know about first).