GARY - Wordless

Excerpts from a Letter:

Glor, Friday- August 21, 2009

Hey. Four & a half days & counting. Last night was a disheartening night for me. I am a prisoner of my own mind, more than anything else, really. I want out.

I want to come up with profound words, revolutionary ways to express the battle raging inside of me. it seems that, between time, the system, and my mind, those words are gone.

A lot of my life I've spent being robbed because so many unfair, unjust things leave me angry & I don't get past them. It makes for a miserable existence.

This state & its 'justice system' is ridiculous to the point of unbelievable. All over the news, every day, they talk of how Cali is broke, in debt, and cuts are being made everywhere, education, medical, social services & 40,000 inmates must be released.

Yet, to be in jail, going through court, you'd never know it. Young men & women being herded through, sent to prison, or out to the streets with no hope, so they can come right back.

Crystal Methamphetamine is an absolute epidemic. It's insane. Where's it all coming from? It's ruined at least a whole generation. Young people have no hopes or dreams beyond those involving the pipe.

America. Land of the slave, home of the hopeless.

There are actually times that I wish you could see me, hear me. My little bud, Anthony, is 21 in October & has a young girl at home, 6 weeks pregnant. They write each other every day. Last night I had to apologize to him for not being the greatest of examples. (another story)

Earlier I went & sat by his bunk & saw he was upset. I asked, & he said "I just want to go home." He has a bunch of photos of her on the bunk over him, & he started crying after I asked if he wanted me to pray with him. I read to him Isaiah Ch. 61 & Psalm 22, & shared with him some personal thoughts on suffering, etc.

Every night I go & talk with him & read/pray as he lies in bed. He's on the bottom, & these triple bunks are 12" off the floor. I sit next to him on the ground. It makes me think of the time I never got with Zach [his nephew; my son; upon his first prison release, Gary saw Zachary around 10-months of age; they are regular pen-pals, telling one another like it is] or any of my own kids.

These are the times I'm good for something. Most people I've dealt with on a regular basis in my life I either can't trust, they don't trust me, try to devalue me as less than a person, lie to me, etc. Anytime I feel a real connection, I value it highly. For there's always ever-present reminders of the judgement of society at large.

Man, I had the worst migraine from Friday all the way to Sunday. It was miserable. . . I still feel like crap. I got some kind of sinus infection, too. My neck gland thingies are all swollen & tender too. My night sweats are back too.

Only one more day, & then court. Hopefully everyone is there. We shall see. They got me stretched pretty tight already. As impossible as it seems, I'm pretty sure I've lost more weight. [Gary has Hep A, B, C -- not uncommon for long-term prison inmates; he also lost his spleen in a hit-and-run accident as a teenager; his immune system is constantly at odds with his body and surroundings; he also contracted Valley Fever in an area where a high incidence of cases occurred in prisons located near newly dug and developed areas; the county jail does not provide medical care for these illnesses; this is probably the main reason for his severe weight loss since October] Haven't been able to eat for a few days. Throat sore & nausea from the headache. I feel like some kind of walking illness/carrier.

But, I'm okay. I love you all, I miss you all, & I pray for you all. Hi to everyone & thanks to all the people praying for/supporting me.

God Bless, Love Me

*********************************************

These last, past, fast 10 months have been an extended gestational period of pains, fears, and worries. The rest of my brother's life being determined by a system which took most of his life from him. He turns 35 this year; roughly 15 of those years saw him behind prison walls or jail doors. Before that, foster homes and juvenile detention centers, the homes of well-meaning family members not capable of actually seeing him for who he was instead of for what he was doing. Years of flying under the psychological radar while existing higher than a kite left him laying in his own mess, undiagnosed, misinterpreted, abused, kicked to the curb by society and the court system.

Now, with this rare development in his case, with a DA and a judge unsure as to how to move forward with paperwork and procedures, we have a chance for reclamation and redemption. I've held onto that boy, my brother, really a man, to keep him from falling into the abyss within. I believed he would one day saunter along the streets of this America, free, unfettered, his long unhurried strides taking him anywhere and nowhere - his only particular destination that of gratitude and appreciation for every small thing.

He will soon leave the CDCR, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Never again must I address an envelope with J-21474 . . . Gary's own mark-of-the-beast. As it has been determined that he was 'not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity' or 'NGRI,' he will be remanded into the custody of the state psychiatric hospital system. Though we are trading one system for another, I believe there will be an enormously vast difference between the two institutions. Gary will have his chance at freedom AFTER receiving the care he needs to adjust to his mental illness. People who look him in the eye will actually teach him the skills he needs to reintegrate with real society so that he is not on sensory overload 24/7

There are no words. No words by Gary. No words by me. Nothing fits. Not even when forced, pushed, poked, prodded, and squeezed. This decision is in a class where it reigns as solo. In a universe where balance meets up with fairness and truth and decides to join the team. My heart sings. My body is tired. My mind is slippery with the prospects yet before him, before each of us. I can not think to use my fine words.

So . . . I won't. The heart song will suffice. "Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, he's free at last."