The Best Laid Plans

An interesting byproduct of all this blogging has been all the old friends coming forward to tell me how much of my writing they can relate to. Friends who have had their own battles with addiction, especially opiates. These are, for the most part, friends I grew up with and have lost contact with over the past twenty years. A few have been strangers, or near strangers.This has been the best part of all this for me. If someone gets something out of my writing, other than a nauseous feeling, then I have done what I set out to do.

Mission Statement:

My goals for this blog are as follows.

#1 Use it as a training ground, a sort of farm league for my other writing. I can bounce ideas off my adoring fans and see what works and what doesn't. Of course, none of you ever leave comments, but we will work on that later. Some of these ramblings may eventually turn into stories. Some are just me blowing steam.

#2 Educate people. Fortunately, most of you have never gone to the lengths I have to keep the party rolling. Many of you never even entered the party. So, there is a side to life you are not familiar with. It is my job, as someone who writes, to take your hand and guide you through the wasteland. It is a nasty place. Be careful to not step in anything, and make sure you shower with an antibacterial soap afterwards.

#3 Entertain people. This is what many "serious" writers like to deny they are after. The Real Literary Types. I am not one of them. I am egotistical and narcissistic. If no one ever read this, I would go back to my spiral bound journal and old fashioned, writing pen. I would have given up by now. But, a testament to boredom, I think, people are reading this. A lot of people, considering. Much more than my fifty-four Facebook (Ooops. Make that fifty-five. Shout out to Stephanie Iuvino. Her request just lit up my phone.) friends. I could never be like the Existentialist, Camus, and turn down the Pulitzer. Though, The Stranger is one of my favorite books.

These are in no particular order. They are all equally important aspects of the process for me. And writing has become the most important non-sentient thing in my life since I quit heroin. I would probably give up cigarettes before I gave up writing.

I am having success with the blogging format because it suits my style, I think. I am choppy and scattered. I have complete disregard for the rules of grammar. I couldn't spell my way out of the preliminary round of a third grade spelling bee, so I love Spell Check. It comes in handy when your vocabulary exceeds your ability to spell.

On with the usual bullshit.

Today is going fairly satisfactorily. I am sitting at one of the two coffee shops I frequent. The funky, Air Mac, tattoos, and hipster crowd spot, not the slightly more upscale sorority girls and yuppies spot on the East Side. I enjoy them both for different reasons, but I think I fit in better here. I am in the corner, on a comfortable chair, with my laptop on an octagonal table and plugged into the outlet on the wall. There is a beautiful woman--black boots, almost knee high, black stockings (Or pantyhose. Whatever the fuck they are called.), cute green dress, and long, dark hair--sitting at the table next to mine. I have a large glass of Gun Powder tea. I am listening to The Smiths, Rank, on Spotify. (Hmmm..... The Smiths and tea? Somebody must be getting in touch with his feminine side.) The only thing that could make this day better would be a call from my sister telling me that the authorities have come to the conclusion that I have suffered enough and can return home. So far, that call hasn't come, but I check my phone every thirty seconds, just in case.

Story time.

I was in the Multnomah County Jail. I get around. It is a long story of why I was in Portland, Oregon, and how I ended up there, but it basically amounts to the idea that a friend and I had to get ourselves off heroin. We went to the Fucking Heroin Capital of the West Coast to quit using heroin, because, you know, it is much easier to quit using a drug if you go to a place where that drug is available, cheap, and potent. There was heroin on Every Fucking Corner. In retrospect, this was an incredibly unsmart idea. At the time, it was the only one we had.

Did I mention that I was a wanted man at the time? I left the work release facility, went to get high instead of going to work. Then I went to get high again instead of returning to the facility. Three weeks later I had to figure a way out of Indiana, which led to the generating of the Portland idea. Kids, see where good ideas get you?

(For all those doubting my masculinity, I have switched from The Smiths to Mastodon. Still drinking tea.)

Our original plan was to go to Eugene, but we arrived there in the middle of the night and couldn't find a hotel willing to rent to two strung-out, backpack wearing strangers in the middle of the night, without a credit card. Plus, we were out of dope. We decided to go back to the bus station and take the bus back to Portland, where we were sure we could find a room, and, more importantly, some dope, so we could begin quitting dope.

Are you learning anything about the junky thought process here? Good.

We got back to Portland at 9:00am. By 9:15am we had found dope and were high. By 9:45am I was in handcuffs. Life moves so fast!

Burnside Park in Portland is an open air drug market. It is a strip of grass and a bike path along the Columbia River. You can get any form of intoxicant you desire. Not that I am suggesting you go there with the intent to purchase drugs. This is the first and only place I visited in Portland without a police escort. As you know from the previous timeline, I went from tourist to inmate in forty-five minutes.

All the junkies hang out and do their business right out in the open of Burnside Park. Needles and spoons, plastic baggies, pieces of balloons, vomit all litter the ground. People huddle in groups, passing around smoldering escape. Some lay on blankets or pass out behind bushes. It is about as liberal of a place as you can find. Police ride their bikes along the path, but only stop if they see something too blatant to pass by. Junky paradise.

This would be the first place me and my friend found. Dope is an attractant to the junkies inner magnet. William Burroughs used to say that he could find dope in any city, even if he had never been there. He said that the smell of dope infected everything in the neighborhood, and that you could still smell it years after the dope had left. I am not that metaphoric, but I have never had too much trouble finding dope anywhere. If it is there, I will find it. If I am looking.

We found our dope, did our business, and sat around with our new friends. Some guy came and sat by us. He took out his gear and shot up, not paying any attention to the two bicycle cops standing about fifty feet behind us.

The cops can't ignore this brand of complete disregard, so they slowly made their way over to us, and asked us all for identification. I hate situations like this. Especially when I have authorities 1800 miles away waiting for something exactly like this to happen.

The cops started looking through pockets and backpacks. Running names. I stood to the side, waited for the opportunity to ditch my wallet. I saw an opening and seized it. I covertly reached into my back pocket. I tossed my wallet towards the bushes.

When it came time for my name, I told them I was Patrick O'Connor from Buffalo, New York, rearranged my Social Security number before giving it to them. I have this rearrangement memorized for emergencies. Nothing came back from the NCIC search. The cop asked me how there was nothing under that name or Social Security number. Hadn't I ever had a Driver's License? The cops were getting pissed, but there wasn't much they could do, other than take me down and fingerprint me, which they would usually only do in the event of a real crime. I was beginning to think I might get away. I have before.

One of the officers (A woman. Why are women always my downfall?) found my wallet. She asked who the wallet belonged to and no one answered. She took the identification card out and started looking at faces. It didn't take them long to figure out the identification belonged to me. My story fell apart faster than a Yugo.

Another guy had missed a court date, so the two of us were handcuffed. The douchebag who had done his shot without looking around first was given verbal warning and told to leave the park for the rest of the day.

I am booked into the Multnomah County Jail. Sickness is coming. I try to get some sleep, because I know this will be my last opportunity for peace for the next several days. I wake up in the middle of the night with the full-blown sickness upon me. Sweating, restless, shitting, puking. I manage to walk to the door of my cell when the breakfast trays are served, then turn around, drop the tray, and fall on my bunk. I can't move. Fortunately, my bunky knew firsthand what I was going through, and told me he would clean up the mess.

Four days later, when I could get up to do something beside shit or puke, I started walking the floors. I spent most of my time talking with a meth head named Tim. He told me all kinds of stories, which he believed actually happened, but I have my doubts. Someday I will write about him.

I spent three weeks in Portland, waiting to be extradited. I spent another sixteen days on the extradition bus, but that is another story for another day, and I have rambled long enough.

Cigarettes, Red Heads, Synthetic Chinese Drugs, and the Things we Notice

I would like to send a special shout out to whomever is viewing my blog from Thailand. You are my only international viewers thus far. And if you are not in Thailand, but routing through some scandalous server some you can anonymously trade your Silk Road kiddie porn, well....... my daughter is too old for your tastes, and, at this point, a reader is a reader. So, welcome. (Disclaimer: This blog or its author in no way endorses or accepts kiddie porn. Christian cyber-terrorists, please don't send me viruses. I get enough on my own from mature porn sites.)

Must have been some spice in town yesterday. (You know, that fake marijuana, that is made by who knows who, with who knows what.) The shelter looked like an open casting call for extras on The Walking Dead. One guy sat staring at his phone, trying to figure out how to answer it, for five minutes, while his ringtone, Fancy, by Iggy Azalea, disturbed all the other zombies, forcing them to acknowledge the world for a brief moment.

You can tell what types of drugs are around by sitting in the smoking area, and watching the other residents. Some days they are up, some days they are down, and some (As in the case of last night) they don't know where the fuck they are or what they are doing. I know of no better argument for the legalization of marijuana than that walking coma inducing, gray area legal, shit.

Justice continues to move at glacial speeds. But, some progress has been made. The parole officer with the Erie County Parole Department has met with my sister, found out her ninety pound mastiff is a big softy, and is supposed to have some information by this afternoon. Again, if you are one who engages in prayer, put in a word for me.

I wonder if once I move to comfortable surroundings I will be able to write my usual depressing, miserable words? Will I lose touch with the streets? Become an apostate and start writing happy stories about content, stable, basically satisfied, suburban white people? Where's the drama in that? I think Bob Dole had the same internal conflict after he left the hood. I know Charles Bukowski did, because he often wrote about it, though his beef was with people who thought he had sold out after he got a little fame, without ever having the balls to go through what he went through. Maybe I could make a contact with one of the Wu Tang members and get lessons on how to stay raw and grimy.

Digression: Observations while walking to the coffee shop this morning.

One of the benefits of not having anywhere to go, probably the only one, is that you get to observe many of the goings on of your environment. People do some weird shit, not that I don't, but some of them actually make me feel like I am the sane one. This is a common problem with us geniuses.

Observation #1

Walking through the Kroger's parking lot this morning, towards the bus depot. I have seen this dude around plenty of other times. It is not hard to recognize the individual dope fiends and homeless in the area, because most of them, thoughtfully, never change their clothes. Makes your job easier, when you are into watching these things. And no, I don't feel guilty about any of this. I am not a grad student spending a week "On The Streets" to write his or her sociology dissertation. I am in the boat with them. At least those who can stay sober enough to pass a Breathalyzer every night and gain entrance to the shelter. For those who can't, all they need to do is switch from alcohol to drugs like all the other fine residents of the shelter.

Back to this dude. I have never seen him act like this before. I believe he was spun-out on meth or bath salts (more illicit, quasi legal, Chinese drugs). He was in a hurry, walking towards the front door of the grocery store. His head  went back and forth in a 270 degree rotation like an owl. His arms did the tweaker walk, fingers splayed apart, arms rapidly moving front to back. He was yelling, but the only statement I understood was, "Three decades without my dick in it, and now you're telling me something else." That is a direct quote. I have searched my poisoned mind, but can't come up with a guess as to what that means. I think I could make something up, though, and will most likely do that one day.

Observation #2

Two college girls in unhealthily inappropriate clothing. Both wearing short sleeve shirts, one wearing short shorts. The other was about six feet tall, with four foot legs and a six inch skirt. This, I confess, is the main reason I noticed them. College girls usually offer nothing but aesthetic pleasure, but these two were on a mission. Oh, it was about forty degrees at this point in time. Their hair was exploding in every direction, but you could tell it had been made at one not too long ago point. I don't think they had slept. Smeary eye makeup. They were squatting down, searching through the bushes and ornamental foliage that beautifies downtown Bloomington. One of them picked up a block of wood and stared at it like she was trying to count the rings and guess it's age. I didn't stop, and neither did they. I don't know what they were looking for, or if they ever found it. I assumed it was an iPhone, dropped during a drunken misstep a few hours prior when the bars closed. It could have been something more nefarious. Her morning after pills? A gun? Bag of cocaine? I supposed it could have been her keys.

Observation #3

Off the bus, next to the College Mall, going to the coffee shop. An Arab man, smartly dressed, Columbia fleece, jeans with no holes, brown shoes, is walking through the Target parking lot. (What's with parking lots and insanity today?) This man has well groomed hair, and looks like he has been attending to all his hygienic needs on a regular basis. In short, he has none of the usual signs associated with weirdness. However, he is screaming at the top of his lungs in Arabic. Now if you're like me--white, American, given to bouts of paranoia--you're thinking terrorist. I apologize for this. I blame it on the aggressive, quick to sensationalize everything, Western media. It has been beaten into our eyeballs that any Arab displaying any behavior is suspect. This man was obviously not a terrorist. He was probably fighting with his wife. Maybe he lost his job, and was blowing off steam. An infinite number of explanations exist for his behavior.

I don't think I have ever mentioned the single biggest mind-fuck about the shelter. The other side of it houses women. There is a common kitchen and dining area. The cable is out on the women's side, so they are allowed to mingle in the men's television room until it is fixed.

Even crazier than that, there are couples who live in the shelter. Each on their own biologically designated side, but together. Active couplings. I can't even fucking imagine. (Note to any ex girlfriends reading this, at least I never brought you to the shelter. You may have been wrong about me. I may construct the second worst example of a relationship.) I assume it comes from a natural longing for intimacy, but I think when it got to the point of coexisting in a shelter it would be time to reevaluate the partnership. Might be time to go our separate ways and seek our fortunes.

And even worse that the previously established couples are the people actively seeking relationships in the shelter. A roommate of mine has been concerning himself, and being led around blindly, by a girl fifteen years younger than himself. I said to him, "I would like to ask you a question. You don't have to answer it, but don't you think you have enough problems of your own right now? If there ever was the time to be selfish, it is when you find yourself living in a homeless shelter, with a drug habit which far exceeds your income." I have known this guy for quite some time. An acquaintance from the Old Days. He came up for some excuses as to why he wasn't doing what I thought he was doing, and then went right along doing what I thought he was doing.

This is where all this is going. People ask me how I can write. They tell me I can, though many are family and friends and suspected of politeness. They ask me how I came up with the things I write about. How do I make it up?

And the answer is: How can you not write? Come up with what? Make up what? There's no need to make up anything. All you have to do is open your eyes and be a reporter. Write down what you see, and try to put your creative influence in it. Which I guess is the part people don't get. They don't think they can be creative. If an idiot with a GED can do it, you can. I luck out and bust out a few good sentences once in awhile, but most of what I put down is my demented view of the world. And not very good. I don't edit this. This is not polished writing.

My sister made the comment to me this morning that she was terrified to have children, because if it comes out a male child she is screwed. She said she looks at me and her boyfriend, and sees that we are both daredevils with no inhibitions. I spent much of my life with inhibitions. It got me into a great deal of trouble, trying to be someone and have people like me (Which is why I have so much sympathy for teenaged homosexuals. Have you seen the suicide rates? It is terrible that people would rather kill themselves than not be accepted by the herd.), and I don't have time for it anymore. I will admit my mistakes. Publicly, no less, and try to repair whatever harm I have done you. If that is not acceptable, then we will go our separate ways. I am getting too old and have wasted too much time to worry about whether you will accept my friend request or not.

So, writing is easy. You watch what goes on, pick up on the things you notice, and report them. For me, it is mainly women and drugs/shady situations that I notice. I see the people at the park huddled up as I walk by, and I know what they are doing, or at least what I think the are doing, which, in a solipsistic way, is the same thing. I walk by the Project School (An alternative to public school in Bloomington)  every morning on my way to the coffee shop. I see the same teacher, scary beautiful, red hair (Red heads and cigarettes are the two addictions I have found no higher power successful against), green sweater smashing against her pale skin and making her blue eyes burst into supernovae. I want to go bicycling through the Hills O' Ireland with her. I imagine her compassionate and loving for teaching where she does. I want to lay my head in her lap and tell her what a terrible person I am, while she rubs my head and says, "Shush. You are beautiful." But that would be creepy, since I don't know her, so I write about it instead.

I'm sure this has helped no one. I have to step outside. There is a red head walking down the street, and I need a cigarette.

Test Wands and Landscaping

A version of this story placed in the PEN America Center 2013-2014 National Prison Writers Contest. I believe it could have done better, but I listened to someone who was supposedly more advanced than myself in a literary sense. Bullshit. Won't fall for that again. But, I am not bitter. As a result of finishing near the top, I gained a professional writing mentor (and a little cash), the wonderful and talented, Katherine Hill. Have you read her? You should. Better than wasting your time reading my bullshit.

Test Wands and Landscaping

Mark stopped for a beer after work. He had three. He buffered himself from the guilt by telling himself he would drink them from a glass so they would go down quicker. He played a game of pool and ate a dozen hot wings. Then he hurried home.

Mark stepped through the front door to find Heidi sitting on the couch. Wads of tissue scattered from the couch to the floor to the coffee table. It looked like someone had mangled a bouquet of carnations. Her legs pressed a throw pillow to her chest, and her arms wrapped around her legs. In her right hand she held a crumpled tissue, and in her left was one of those white, plastic test wands, the kind you see in the television commercials with the happy, love-struck couples. Easy as one two three. “Heidi,” Mark said, and took a seat in the chair next to the door.

Heidi looked at the plastic in her hand, and then she looked at Mark. He bounced his eyes between the gurgling aquarium pump and a Rolling Stone on the coffee table, slipping glances at her face in between.

“Heidi, I'll do whatever you need. Whatever you decide, I'll be here,” he said. “I'll get another job. Whatever it takes.”

She didn't say anything.

“I understand, you know,” he said.

“Understand what?” She reached for the box of tissue. “Tell me what you understand,” she said. Not loudly or angrily, just a question.

“I know things haven't been perfect lately,” he said.

Heidi blew her nose and threw the tissue at the pile on the coffee table. It missed and landed on the floor. She went back to the wand. She stared at it. She used both hands to slowly twist it, face up and then face down.

Mark thought about the bar. He wished he had stayed.

Heidi stood and straightened her sweatshirt. She collected the tissue wads from the table and floor. “Dinner will be late tonight,” she said. “Around seven.”

“I'm not sure if I'll be hungry,” Mark said.

Heidi went down the hall towards the bathroom. Mark waited until he heard the door close and the water turn on, then he went out the backdoor.

Mark sat on the screen porch, smoked what was left of his cigarettes, and stared at the bare spot on the lawn in front of the porch. He had tried everything from seed blends for shade to high traffic blends and several fertilizers. It was the only spot on the lawn where nothing grew, and he eventually gave up. Plumes erupted from chimneys getting their first use of the season. The air left a campfire taste in his mouth. He thought about walks in the woods and fishing, roasting marshmallows on summer nights when the only thing you had to worry about was running out of firewood. He walked to the gas station when his cigarettes were gone. He returned with a fresh pack and six cans of beer. He went back to his chair and sat. He smoked and drank. He watched the sun go down, daydreamed, meditated on the smoke from his cigarette and the sounds of the crickets.

The door slid open and Heidi stepped onto the porch. She carried her purse to the table and sat in the chair across from Mark.

“Hey,” Mark said.

“Hey,” she said. She hugged herself and rubbed her arms. “I didn't realize it was this chilly. I should have kept my sweatshirt on.”

Heidi reached into her purse. She pulled out a small, hand-blown glass pipe and a baby food jar. Mark looked away and lit a cigarette. Heidi lit the citronella candle that sat in the center of the table. “Jesus. Might be time to empty that ashtray, don't you think?” She said.

“I just emptied it.”

“So much for slowing down. I thought you were trying to quit.”

He drained a can of beer, then reached to the floor for another can and popped it open.

“I see you're slowing down your drinking too,” she said. “Are you still going to meetings?”

Mark took a drag, exhaled, and watched the smoke filter through the screen. “I see you're slowing down your pot smoking,” he said.

“I'm not the addict.”

He started, then got stuck. All he managed to get out was, “I'm not.” He thought about the syringe and bag of dope he had found in his tool box earlier in the day. He couldn't figure out where it came from. He's not one to misplace things like that. “Yeah, pot isn't addictive,” he said. “Just ask the millions of people who can't get through the day without it.”

Heidi picked her pipe back up. She packed the bowl of the pipe with marijuana from the baby food jar and smoked. Mark smoked his cigarette and drank his beer. It has been this way for months. No love or hate. Mark wanted the extremes back. They both sat, silently hating the other one's habits.

Two big maples sat at the back of the yard. The last bit of daylight hit the nylon clothesline stretched between them, turned it into a glowing beam. Mark could hear it vibrate. “I almost killed myself,” he said.

Heidi exhaled a cloud. “What the hell are you talking about?” She said.

“Three weeks ago. Over there,” Mark said. He pointed to the back of the yard. “That night we were fighting, after we came home from your mother's. I wanted to hang myself. I took the clothesline down and threw it over that big branch.” He took a drag off his cigarette. “I made a noose,” he said.

'Jesus Christ, Mark,” Heidi said. “Why the hell are you telling me this now? Are you serious? We weren't even fighting. Why didn't you come talk to me?”

“We weren't talking. I was sitting out here thinking about killing myself and you were in the bedroom crying. Maybe it wasn't fighting. I don't know what it was.”

“Jesus, Mark.” She stood and walked to the screen, looked out at the sky. “I don't even know how to respond to this. We weren't fighting. Kat had me upset. My daughter thinks she gets a new father every three years and I can't always figure out what to say to her. How do you talk to a three year old about things like that?” She said. “It doesn't mean we were fighting.”

Kat, short for Katherine, is the product of Heidi's previous marriage, a six year on again off again relationship that left behind debts, an apartment to clean up, memories--some good, some bad, all painful-- and a daughter. The physical aspect of the relationship ended with the death of Heidi's husband.

“Well, that's what I called it. Maybe I was wrong.”

“You're the one who always says to take my time working through these things and you would be there for me when I needed you,” she said.

“I was high. I even got the ladder out of the shed,” he said.

“That's great, Mark. I thought you were done with all that shit.”

“I thought I was too.”

“Why are you telling me this? You don't think I have enough guilt to live with?” She said.

He didn't tell her everything. He didn't tell her how he had pictured himself twirling in the morning breeze, shrouded by leaves as they spiraled to the ground. He didn't tell how he had imagined her falling to her knees, crying, asking out loud what she could have done better. In his mind she would be devastated. He didn't tell her that he could hear the people in town talking about how this was the second one.

“I don't know,” he said.

“This isn't all my fault,” she said. “You don't exactly come running to me anymore.”

Heidi sat back down. Mark drained his beer and opened another.

“Why didn't you come talk to me?” She said.

“I don't know,” he said, but he did. He didn't want to tell her because she wouldn't believe him. Because she knows he would never do it. He didn't want go through with it, he wanted to attempt it and have her find out.

“So what stopped you?”

He snubbed his cigarette out and lit another one. He looked at her, expecting the grimace he usually got when he chain smoked, but it wasn't there. “I'm not sure about that either,” he said.

Hey turned inward, back to their vices, sat in silence.

Heidi broke the silence. “Did your friend ever come by? The arborist?” She said.

“Yeah. Saturday, when you were out. That one over there,” Mark said. He pointed to a dying wild cherry by the side of the yard. “That one is close enough to the power lines that they will take it down for free. All you have to do is call the power company. This one,” he said. He pointed to the tree he had debated hanging from. “The big silver maple. See how the trunk looks like it's one and then splits? There's two trunks in there. Two trees that look like one. It's called a codominant trunk. He said there's a membrane and bark growing in there between the two, and that one growing to the side will eventually get pushed out and fall.”

“Jesus, it's right over the bedroom,” she said.

“He said it might not be for another ten years, but it will happen,” Mark said. “He said it should be dealt with in the next year or so to be on the safe side.”

“Christ. How much is that going to cost?”

“Not sure. He said to talk it over with you and give him a call,” Mark said “He'll work something out with us. I can work with him, since he will do it on the weekend, so that will bring the labor down. The wood has a little value too, if we want to deal with splitting it.”

“I don't know. It's a lot to think about,” she said. She stood and collected her paraphernalia into her purse. I'm going to get ready for bed. Don't forget to blow out the candle.” She stopped before entering the the door. “Come talk to me if you need to, okay?” She said. “There's food in the oven.”

“Okay,” he said.

Mark finished his cigarette and walked around the house to the driveway. He opened the trunk of his car and opened his toolbox. He went through the garage into the house. He locked the bathroom door and laid everything on the counter. Water, spoon, needle, cotton, lighter, dope-- all he needed.

It didn't hurt, hadn't since the first time. That's what people always ask. Once your body knows the payoff, it ignores the needle.

He finished and rubbed the blood from his arm, licking where it had already dried. He rinsed the needle out and cleaned up the rest of the evidence.

He sat down on the toilet. The box the pregnancy test came in and the two test wands lay in the wastebasket. She had taken both, hoping for some miracle of a mistake, but she knew. Mark knew. They had had sex on the Fourth of July while they were drunk, and she hadn't had a period during the three and a half months since.

Mark picked up both the test wands. He looked at the result windows. Both were negative. He shook them. He tapped them against each other. They stayed the same. He had been sure they were positive. He dropped them back into the wastebasket.

His eyes sagged. They were getting harder to keep open. His face had the pleasurable itch of heroin. He tried to focus on the the ornamental soaps and bath salts in the caddy next to to the tub. Leaf and flower shapes. Frilly exfoliating sponges. The things women use to keep themselves from smelling like men.

He got up from the toilet, went to the tub and lay down in it. He thought about Heidi, about the time he sat on the ledge of the tub and shaved her legs while she relaxed in the warm, soapy water. About kissing her wrinkly feet. Her nipples popping through the bubbles. The shower head dripped. He wanted to feel like this forever. He wanted to close his eyes and never open them. Just the tub and Nirvana.

His stomach curdled. He stood up, turned, knelt in front of the toilet, and tried to vomit as quietly as possible.

He rinsed his mouth and left the bathroom.

At the end of the hallway was a picture of Kat and her father. A black and white photograph taken at the playground. Big, happy smiles. Dried roses from the funeral taped to the frame. The bedroom doors sat on either side of the picture, and Mark could see the slight movement of the blankets rising and falling with inhales and exhales. He could hear the contented snores of a worn out toddler. He looked back at the picture. He wanted to talk to the guy, ask him if he knew what was going on. Did he approve or disapprove? Could he help? Would he? Other questions.

Mark took a last look at the picture and went back to the screen porch.

He sat at the table, lit a cigarette, and opened his last beer. The candle had extinguished itself and he couldn't see much beyond the porch. He could hardly hold his eyes open. He thought about waking Heidi to talk to her.

Mark stood, stumbled on opiated legs, and stepped off the porch into the backyard. The absence of a moon and the cloudiness of his head made the short walk difficult. Twice he almost fell before arriving at the shed. He groped for the string that hung from the light, found it, pulled it, and went blind. He blinked until his eyes adjusted and began his search. He moved the lawnmower, some dusty shovels, and a rake. Cobwebs landed on his head. He scratched his hand on a nail and paused to lick the blood. He found what he was looking for.

He lifted the twenty-five pound bag of grass seed out of the shed and dragged it across the lawn to the bare spot. He scattered handfuls of seed. He walked to the side of the house for the hose, stopping by the porch for his beer and cigarettes. He sat next to the bag of seed and lit a cigarette. The moon was coming out now. It was a beautiful night. He raised the hose, held it high above the bare spot. He adjusted the nozzle to a fine mist so he wouldn't wash away any of the seed.

Searching, Temptations, Trying to get back into the Garden.

There comes a time in every life when you stop and ask yourself, Why? What for? Unless you're still under thirty, in which case you don't count. You aren't human yet. You are still immortal. For the rest of us, this time comes, maybe daily. It can come when you decide you hate your career choice, or have been asked to leave your chosen occupation. Maybe yourself or a loved one is sick. Maybe you sit at home all day with four children screaming at you, while their father is out getting drunk and fucking every woman who is kind enough to spread her legs for him. Maybe you are in prison. Maybe you are under a bridge weighing the positives and negatives of suicide. Whatever the circumstances, it eventually happens.

If you're like me, naturally prone to investigation, but lazy, you will look to other people's answers. Or attempted answers. The ancient philosophers and religious thinkers. What did they come up with? Once man discovered fire, caves were safe and dry, and large animals were slow and stupid and easy to kill, he had warmth, shelter, and food. He could now start wondering. For thousands of years we have been going on about the same thoughts. Some of the greatest minds to walk the planet spent their entire lives going over these questions, putting their own spin on the bullshit, and basically coming up with the same conclusions. There is no answer is the answer.

I'm not talking about your kids, job, kitties or puppies. Those may be reasons for your life, but not life in general.

And it occurs to me that it doesn't necessarily have to be a life altering, self-worth shattering event to get you questioning the motives of the universe and all the doom it seems to enjoy bestowing upon you. Lock your keys in the car. Spill coffee on your pants. Kids driving you nuts. That person you slept with in high school won't do the right thing and honor your friend request. Any of these, and even lesser offences, can have your on your knees screaming, "My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?"

Lets say, for the purpose of our discussion, that you are a forty-two year old, Caucasian male who has just been released after serving five years and three months in the Indiana State Prison System. You were a piece of shit for most of those years, did your best to run from every curve ball life threw at you, while managing to alienate yourself form anyone who ever cared from you and anything resembling a normal life. During the eight years before this latest incarceration, you did three other tours of duty in the system, a year here, eighteen months there. You obviously didn't learn you lesson with those short, wino-bits. And now you find yourself released and determined to right the ship. You are living in a shelter, which parole made you go to while they determine if you are worthy of going home to your birth state. The shelter is insane. And you are a pro at insanity, but, for fucks sake, this place is like living in the lockdown ward at The Funny Farm. They piss on the toilet seat, the floor, probably in the sink, and who knows where else. The shower is like bathing in the urinal at the local truck stop. People who spend every dime they can get their dope fiend hands on bum cigarettes from you, and, because you feel guilty, because you know what it is like, you give them. There is a line for the toilet every morning of people waiting to throw up or shoot up. Oh, and lets not forget, finding a spoon is equivalent to winning the Powerball without buying a ticket. You have to leave the shelter each morning at 7:45 AM, and fill your day with mindless activity until 6:15 PM, when you are allowed to return. You can't look for a job or a suitable, less mentally taxing place to live, because you could be leaving the state any day. And you were raised Catholic, so you are well aware of the State of Purgatory, and you know it is not a nice place to be.

There's you motivation. Are you in character?

"That sucks!" You say. "Pass me the quart of bleach. I'm ready to chug."

It does suck, but I can assure that it can be much worse. This is a walk in the park compared to some of the more interesting situations I have managed to get myself into.

So, my immediate paradigm shift has been somewhat traumatic, being released into a world I am scared to death of, living in an asylum, coping with the rusty wheels of justice, wanting to go home, wasting my days away, etc. This would be a natural point for reflection.

Last night I had my first brush with temptation. One of the friendly, generous, local dope fiends offered me some drugs. Suboxone, to be exact, which doesn't show up in the routine urinalysis. For a second I was tempted. I was having an awful day. I deserved a break. Then I thought about my daughter and all the risk and faith my sister has invested in me. I couldn't do it.

Everybody talks about the instant withdrawal from opiates, how miserably, kill-me-now it makes you feel. It is bad, but it isn't the worst part. If that was all there was to it, I could lock myself in a bathroom for three days, with a hot shower to soothe me, and a toilet for shitting and puking my guts out. On the third day, I would arise from the dead, a fully recovered and repentant ex-addict. But it seldom works that way. I have heard rumors, but I don't believe them.

Quitting opiates is a never ending process. The loss shatters you. It is like losing someone dear to you or watching a lover go to the grave at a far too early age. Your physiological make up has been altered. Nothing looks the same. The once beautiful world has hardened and cooled. You have to adjust to the fact that this is the way it will be from now on. Boring. Pandora's Box has been opened and it can't be closed. You have eaten of the Forbidden fruit. Just like Eve, you could not resist. And just like Eve, you have been thrown out of the garden.

Now, I dealt with this first brush of temptation successfully, but there will be more to come. A dear friend of mine suggested to me yesterday that I have not been doing all I can to prepare myself, and give myself the advantage I need in these situations. So, today I will take his advice. Thanks, Chris.

This has wandered and hasn't shown much narrative unity. But what do you expect. You are dealing with a sick mind.

Sunday Morning Under A Bridge #drugs #heroin #prison #ex-con

Bruise colored sky, like the bruises on his arms. Purples, yellows, greens. The seventy mile an hour morning rush flies past, separated from his head by eighteen inches of concrete, rebar, and asphalt. It's hot and he's sweating, but he's freezing and shivering. Can't sit still. Can't move. He's lying in a concrete trough, part of a drainage system. Primer-green, rusting I-beams inches from his face. Pebbles and grit, bits of eroded cement stick to the skin of his arms.

He was in third grade, in California. He had just moved from New York, entered in the middle of the school year. He was the Student of the Week, because he was the only student who hadn't held that honor, which meant he had to write an autobiography and read it in front of the class. He stood up. He said that this was the seventh school he had attended, one for only one day. The teacher stopped him. She asked why he had been to so many schools? Was his father in the military? And he shook his head and said, "We just moved a lot. I don't know." The teacher slowed, saddened, politely asked him to continue. The students stared at him. He wanted to run out of the room.

Why was he remembering this now? Weird how the mind works.

It took all his strength, but he managed to sit up. He looked at his clothes. Filthy. How long had they been on? Where did they come from? The Nike running shoes? Where did they come from? He couldn't recall purchasing any of this. Did he steal them? Where they always his? When was the last time he had taken a shower or slept in a bed? Days? Weeks? Months?

In the biography he said he wanted to go into the army, and then be a chef like his father. Why did he say the army? Then, in the seventh grade, career day. He was back in New York now. Someone from the University of Buffalo was there talking to the class. The speaker asked the kids what job they wanted to have. It went around the room. Most of the kids said engineer, so when it came to him he said engineer. He didn't even know what an engineer was or what one did. Did he ever know who he was or what he wanted to do?

He wanted to leave, but where to go? There was nothing to do, nowhere to go. Everything was gone. No family, no friends, no job, no life. Nothing. He had shoved it all away. The only thing that remained was an insatiable hole in the middle of his stomach that said, "There's always something. Get some more. You'll find a way, and everything will be fine." But it never was fine. Maybe for an hour or two, until the next feeding time came around, and the panic came back.

Who makes an eight year old write their life story? What kind of person? They haven't lived enough. They have been acted upon by life. It's not like they are the masters of their destiny. They plod along, doing what they are told. They are products of their circumstances.

He starts to sneeze, can't stop, feels the tickle in the back of his throat. His gag reflex triggers and he leans over and vomits. The only thing that comes up is sour, green-yellow bile. Nothing else in his stomach. He watches it roll down the cement embankment. A river of pain. He wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt.

He wants to do something, anything, else. He wants to be a writer, not a chef or a soldier. He had the idea of being a writer since the sixth grade, actually wrote a story. He wrote another story when he was twenty. He didn't write again until he was thirty-four, when he tried to start a real autobiography. He got the opening paragraph down. It went something like this:

I was born on the West Side of Buffalo, New York to two seventeen year old kids. My father left when I was four. That made me a three time loser before kindergarten. So much disillusion at such an early age primes you for death or the arts. You are destine to become a statistic. You are likely to die violently, at your own hand or someone else's. You will live in poverty, no direction, on government assistance. Drugs and alcohol will be your coping skills, the respite from your miserable existence. Unless you find a creative outlet for all that pain.

And then he stopped.

He looked around. Concrete, metal, rust, nothing soft or kind. Nothing warm. He shivered as sweat poured down his back. His bowels could give loose at any moment, and he wouldn't be able to stop them. Not the first time he shit himself.

He could die, he thought. But where? How? The idea comforted him. There is a solution, like they say at the meetings. Get out of this. Leave all this suffering and misery for someone else. How long had this been going on? Eight years? Ten? Time to move on, one way or the other. Can't take it. The lies, the cheating, the alienation from everything and everyone he had ever loved. His daughter. Where was she? Would she be glad to be rid of him, or would she miss him? Is it too late? Could it be turned around?

His father used to tell him he was going to wake up under a bridge if he didn't change his ways. And then one morning he did.

First Days and Missing Spoons Continued

"I didn't even have to use my AK, today was a good day."     Ice Cube


I found a spoon. I know you are all as excited for me as I am for myself. It had only the slightest amount of charring on the bottom, and, with a little elbow grease and a green, scratchy-pad, it was practically out-of-the-box new. I hid it in the cabinet. I can't wait to buy some ice cream and take that baby for a test drive.

Things continue to be exciting at the shelter. The guy who thinks he is better than everyone else because he has a job, might not have a job. Last night, at midnight, I'm sleeping, one of the staff members comes in and wakes him up for work, waking myself and the two other guys in the room in the process. Dude says, "Oh midnight? Yeah. I have to be at work at one." The staff member says okay and walks out, confident he has done his duty. Dude starts talking to himself. He is obviously still high from whatever it was he took at 10:00PM, before getting his two hours of sleep for the day. I fall back to sleep. At 5:00AM, I hear dude cursing. He is screaming to the staff member on duty now that the guy last night didn't wake him and that he was going to lose his job as a result. I can barely keeps myself from:

A) Telling him to shut his fucking dope fiend ass up at five in the fucking morning.

And B)  Laughing hysterically.

I decide I have to piss, and might as well smoke while I'm at it. I go piss, then head outside to the smoking area. Dude comes out. Of course he bums a smoke. He only has twenties, he says. What the fuck does that mean? Take one of your twenties and spend $6.00 of it on a goddamn pack of cigarettes. I'm sure one of the gas stations in town must have change for such a troublingly large denomination of currency. So, I give him a cigarette. He says, "Hey, did you hear them wake me up last night?" I said, "Do you want my honest answer?" And he says, "He woke me up, didn't he?" I say, "Yep." Because the thing is this. This guy is a royal pain in the ass. He is a complete fuck up. But if he wants to say the staff member didn't wake him up, then I will ride with him. I am still a convict. I don't have it in my make up to go with the staff against "One of us". Call it institutionalized, or whatever, but there it is.

The day got better. I lay back down for an hour, after finishing my smoke. At 7:30 put the crispy new Dickies on, put Tool on the headphones, and headed out. Went to Bloomingfood's for some organic, free trade, French roast and some Greek style yogurt. Remember when we just drank coffee and ate Yoplait? Me too. Went to a meditation meeting. Breathe in, breathe out. Just focus on the breath. Don't fight it. If you get distracted, that's okay, just watch the image float away and refocus. It was actually pretty cool. I used to meditate for an hour everyday, and I was a more reasonable person when I did. Then had a good breakfast with my daughter, and went for a hike.

Enough joy. I can only handle so much. Back to day one. For anyone who didn't read my first post, you will have some catching up to do.

Put "Sea Change" by Beck on to get in the right mood. Such a beautifully depressing album.

I didn't want to walk to the car. I wanted to stand there in the rain. I should have been thrilled to see my sister, but I kept thinking about the time I stole her CD's, the time she wired me $450 while some West Side of Chicago Vice Lord with gold teeth, a Mac-10 pistol, and a rumored liberal trigger finger was looking for me, and all the other times she had bailed me out and I had let her down. And here she was bailing me out again. I travelled slowly, nervously, until she saw me and got out of her car. She came over and hugged me. I don't have the words to describe how wonderful it felt.

I was a nervous wreck. I felt like I was going to pass out. I felt like I was going to jump out of the car. We stopped at a diner, and I couldn't figure out what to order. The choices overwhelmed me. I couldn't sit still. I didn't know how to talk to the waitress, and she scared the shit out of me. The old woman at the counter was like a demon from hell. All the customers were staring at me. In fact, I have been out of prison for two and a half weeks and up until two days ago I was convinced that everyone everywhere was staring at me. I don't understand how you can live packed in under Third World conditions for five and a half years and be terrified of people. I had to eat, sleep, shit, shower, and anything else in front of 240 people. I was constantly around people. And now I am terrified of them. Go figure. I don't know how it is different, but it is. Free World people are different from incarcerated people. After a few years of being in, I stopped talking to any new people because they were all weird to me.

Cue to "Institutionalized" by Suicidal Tendencies now.

We stopped at Walmart. I know what you're thinking, "Jay, a revolutionary like you shopping at Walmart? Say it isn't so." Yes, it's true. They are evil and I am sorry. But they are also cheap, and I am on a budget. Don't worry, I paid dearly for it. I got so confused. Everyone stared at me. It smelled funny. The automatic faucet in the bathroom blew my mind. My sister wandered off and I got scared. I couldn't remember why I was in the store to begin with. I thought, "Boxers. That's easy enough. Go get some boxers." It wasn't easy. The shelves contained so many brands, styles, colors, that I became more confused than ever. Socks. Easy. Black. Grab some. Here's another tidbit for all you non-institutionalized people. I refuse to wear white. White socks, underwear, t-shirts---NO! White or khaki. They are prison colors. I'll go commando before I put on a pair of white boxers. Somehow, with my sister's assistance, I managed to get some of the things I needed. I gave up on the rest of it. I wanted to get the fuck out of there before my head exploded.

We got through the shopping. We made it back to the hotel and I started to calm. A little. I needed more items, and there would be more excursions into society before the day was over. First I had to call my parole officer, always a treat, check in and make sure I was allowed to stay at the hotel for the next four days. Got the okay. Things were looking up. But then they would get worse.

No Spoons at the Shelter. (This is what you get.)

Today's post will be not as depressing as yesterday's. The story will continue, but it is a beautiful day and I am feeling good, almost chipper, under the circumstances I have created for myself. But it is good to get the depressing stuff out, and I have plenty in store. It is good to post your worst moments in a public forum, so all you friends, family members, and complete strangers can know just what a sick individual they are dealing with. I hope.

This site has a handy page with statistical graphs that monitor your audience. A whopping 65% of my page views come from iPhones. So, in order to make myself more Mac friendly, I will grow a beard and cover my arms with colorful tattoos of lotus flowers, the Buddha, Hindu gods, and other ancient symbols I neither understand nor stand for. I will wear Western style shirts two sizes too small and black jeans that are too short and tight. I will purchase a pair of black "working man's" shoes that are comfortable and durable, and, of course, unaffordable for a real working man who can either feed his children or ruin a pair of $170 shoes. I will be anti-corporation, while vehemently defending and supporting the single largest corporation ever known to man. Bigger than the Catholic Church.

This post has been interrupted by one of my oldest, dearest friends giving me some devastating news. I hate this. I wish I could do more for her than the old, "I'm here for you when you need to talk" standby. She doesn't need to listen to my bullshit. She needs her mother to get better and her life to get back to normalcy. But I can't accomplish that. And I feel useless.

Back to the program.

Kids, this is what happens when you do drugs. Forget the egg in the frying pan, or even the modernized, updated version, where the pretty, healthy looking, obviously not a dope-fiend young lady aggressively destroys her expensive looking kitchen (probably paid for by her parents, anyways) with our old pal, "your brain", the frying pan. What  really happens is you end up living in densely packed quarters with people you have no desire what so ever to have even the most minute interactions with.

I am on parole. I was released after serving five years and three months of a sentence of twelve and a half years. I was released early because I am a good boy now. I am reformed. To aid me in my new life as a Fine Upstanding Citizen is the Department of Parole and the threat that the slightest infraction committed before my discharge date of 10/22/2015 will give me the pleasure of finishing those twelve and a half years. If you are one who is taken to prayer, now would be a good time to put a word in for me with your god of choice.

Where do you go on parole? If you're like me and your nearest suitable residence is three states away, you go to whatever shelter they tell you to go to. It makes no difference that you have a loving family member who is waiting to welcome you. You will sit where they tell you to sit until they tell you otherwise. One of the best pieces of advice I can give to the budding, young criminal is to not commit your crimes in a foreign state. They will have you by the balls.

The shelter is one of the oddest, at times humorous, environments a human being can find himself residing in. The best thing I can say about it is that it is not prison. It is the second rung on your ladder to Fine Upstanding Citizen. There are showers, laundry facilities, a kitchen, an eating area, and a warm, usually infestation-free bed to sleep in.

The shelter also holds some of the finest examples of perfectly twisted minds observable outside of a mental institution. A few notables. No names.

Probably the weirdest in an arena full of weirdness. This man is crazy and has Tourette's. I know some otherwise sane people who have this disease, so that alone does not explain this man's bizarre behaviors. He walks around screaming profanities and talking to himself. He has a habit of accosting women. There is something called the B-Line Trail that runs through downtown Bloomington. Every city has something similar. A walking path with sculptures and historical facts next to benches no one ever sits on. The type of place would be rapists and purse snatchers hang out (though, after the first few assaults, the presence of bicycle riding police was stepped up. They even have a few of those Back to the Future looking Segway machines), waiting for unsuspecting soccer moms and college students. This man hangs out there, screaming at women. The shelter is in a residential neighborhood, and he also does this to the women living in the area. The police are often called. I don't know if this man already has a prestigious spot on the Sexual and Violent Offender website, but I'm sure it won't be long if he doesn't. He also likes to torment the dog that lives at the shelter. A sweetheart of a chubby pit bull named Patches. He barks in her face and scares the shit out of her. This dog could rip his arm off if she chose to, and I am silently wishing for the day when she does.

One of my roommates. This man takes every drug known to man. One day he is running around at warp speed, the next he is nodding out and drooling on himself. When he gets ahold of some spice, he walks around staring at everyday household items with a look of complete confusion on his face. He likes to brag about being better than most of the other people in the shelter because  he has a job. He is on such thin ice at his job for oversleeping and being late that it is just a matter of when, and not if, he will get fired. He never has any money. He spends it all on drugs. He bums cigarettes from me while bragging about his job. The shelter gives you four months to get your life together, before they send you back out into the real world. This guy has a few weeks left, and has exactly zero dollars saved up for an apartment.

There are other examples, like my bunk mate who is strung out on Suboxone, and I call Han Sobo, but we will save some for later.

I will admit, I have it easier that most of these people. I don't have to live their lives. I have a little money in my pocket and I am not currently addicted to any form of intoxicant. Which is probably why I have a little money. I hate when I hear people say, "I'm not going to give that bum any money, he'll just spend it to get drunk or high." Of course he will. Being homeless sucks. It is a miserable experience to have to fill your day when you have nothing to fill it with. Until you can find a more creative solution you will numb the pain. Take it easy on these poor folks. Some of them have had
a much worse time of things than you can even imagine. Get all republican on me if you want, and tell me how they should get a job, but the fact remains that this is a wealthy nation, poorly distributed wealth, but wealthy. Kim Kardashian makes millions of dollars a year for contributing absolutely nothing worthwhile to society. (Her porn wasn't even that good. Note to celebrities: leave the porn to the pros. No more of your "accidentally leaked" videos.) Meanwhile, some poor girl who has been abused all her life, can't even get a job as a stripper because of the scars on her face, lives under a bridge when not involved in some terrible relationship with some terrible man, gets told to  "just get a job". I don't know if you have ever had to plug an alarm clock in under a bridge, but there are no outlets.

And then you find yourself in the shelter, eating your ice cream with a fork because the junkies stole all the spoons.

Day One. Free, But Not Happy.

I know what you’re thinking. I should feel elated, or at the least some mild joy. The air should be cleaner or taste better, something like that. I should feel different. But I don’t. It shouldn’t bother me that it is the coldest day in weeks and raining. I should want to run carefree, maybe naked, through the forest. My sister has driven from Buffalo, New York to East Bumblefuck Carlisle, Indiana to pick me up. She has left her boyfriend and beloved dogs behind, and, through the miracle of modern transportation, arrived in under ten hours. I’m still not happy. Nothing looks any different. I don’t feel different, not that I have any recollection of how I used to feel. Was it really any different? And if being incarcerated changed me, it stands to reason that I should revert back now that I am leaving prison. Or maybe it was a gradual thing that will reverse itself in increments as the days of freedom go by. I don’t know. I know that at this point I am a nervous wreck, not a Super Happy Fun Ball.

I stood in the sally-port. Me and the sergeant who was escorting me out. Both getting rained on. The prison buildings were in the process of being fitted with new roofs, and the sally-port spent several hours a day backed up with construction vehicles entering and leaving. Each vehicle going in or coming out of the facility has to be vacated, searched, and scanned with a heartbeat detector. The longer we stood there, the more pissed off the sergeant became, and the more nervous I became. It started to rain with greater intensity. The sky darkened. Omen? I hope not. We made small talk, the weather, how long I had been down, would I stay out this time, shit like that. I felt like throwing up. My stomach had been a bubbling cauldron for a month. My tolerance for Tums was so high that I could no longer confine my habit to the one package a week you are allowed to order through the prison’s commissary.

The other side of the sally-port cleared and the officer who was in control of the gate (and my leaving) entered the guard shack. The officer slid the window open. The sergeant told him my name and that I was a release, which was fairly obvious by the Buffalo Sabres t-shirt and Columbia pants my sister had dropped off, and I was wearing in place of the khaki jumpsuit I would have had on if I was an inmate who was staying. The officer asked y Department of Corrections number. I was insulted. I was a free man. Why the fuck was I still a number? I didn’t want to rock the boat. I told him 133667, a number I will never forget. He asked for my photo identification and I gave it to him. A little less insulting. Everything checked out.

The gate started to roll. About twenty feet of fence topped with several rolls of razor wire. Water dripped from the sharp coils. The stadium lights around the prison were on and flashed off the deadly surface if the wire making it look benign, almost beautiful. This is where I thought the big moment would come. I had played this exact second over in my mind hundreds of times on sleepless nights. This must be the point where it hits you. This is when you cross the threshold from convict to free man, number to name. I imagined the weight lifting from me, the sadness evaporating, my shoulders rising to greet my destiny. Of course, none of this happened. I can’t even tell you what I was thinking at moment my feet crossed the invisible boundary underneath the spot the rolling gate had just occupied. I wish I could, if not for your entertainment, for my own enlightenment. I want to remember it. I should remember it. Night after night I had told myself to stop and look around at that junction of space and time, to savor it, to commit it to memory. Such an important juncture in an endless stream of mostly repetitious life. I had told myself this was it for me, a new life would begin. Happiness. Sunshine. I had paid my debt and could move on. What I got instead of happiness and sunshine was rain, coldness, guilt, sadness, and shame. So much for my big moment.

The problem was reality, and reality was on the other side of that invisible line. For five years and three months I had been in the unreality of the prison system. I had spent nine months in the Monroe County Jail waiting for my sentence, two weeks at the Reception and Diagnostics Center in Plainfield, Indiana, over four years at the Branchville Correctional Facility in Tell City, Indiana, and the last three months of my sentence at a minimum security camp outside the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Carlisle, Indiana. I can tell you first hand that reality resides in none of those places. Prison life if more surreal than pictures of fish floating through the air or melting clocks. Prison convinces you that all this fucked up shit going on around you is acceptable. Someone is getting the life beat out of them in the dinning hall with a padlock on a sting, just keep eating until the pepper spray becomes unbearable. A semi-illiterate guard is explaining his backwoods, bigoted, rightwing worldview to you, just nod and smile. People hide smuggled cellphones in their assholes, no biggie. A guy is jacking off in the shower across from you, rinse off and leave. You see and hear things on a daily basis that would make any normal person question their sanity. And, after all the insanity of prison life, I now had reality to face.

My sister was across that line. She would be my first encounter with anything not institutionalized in years. Most people who work in the prison system are institutionalized in their own ways. Most of them just deny it.

My sister. I have done many awful things to her over the years. I have lied to her, stole from her, broke her heart on several occasions. This a pattern many of the people in my life know well. A person will do things for drugs, with complete disregard for anything else, that they wouldn’t do to achieve any rational goal. And I have done all of them. And now I had to face them, starting with my sister, without the numbing aid of heroin.